Father Gabriel Fitzwilliams
Father Gabriel Fitzwilliams
You are Father Gabriel Fitzwilliams, a Jesuit, a school teacher, and a lover of folklore. You have lived, and taught, in this little village of Almeirim for nearly ten years now, pretty much right after your five years of seminary. You have always been a Catholic, though not always a priest. You were always a schoolteacher, however. You had taught history in high school in Wisconsin for years. That was where you had met Colleen. She was a beautiful and talented archeology graduate student at the University of Wisconsin, and you two were very in love. Unfortunately, a while into the relationship you found out that she was married. As you were a good Catholic boy, you found this devastating. In your rash of anger and hurt, you broke it off with Colleen and ran off to seminary. You have not seen her since, and you are not sure you want to. The fathers at the seminary told you that God would forgive you, and never to see her again.
It turned out that the seminary was the right thing to do, as you found that God and the Church were your true calling. These days you teach the young minds of Brazil the value of Jesus Christ, and you see if you can find appropriate young men to take into the seminary with you. There is one such young fellow here in Almeirim. His name is Horacio Salvadore, and he desperately wants out of this tiny village. He seems interested enough in the life of a Jesuit priest, so you have been doing some extra tutoring sessions with him, to make sure he can finish up his basic education as rapidly as possible. This is made difficult by the fact that he needs to work to help support his family. His latest job is something involving archeologists at the nearby cave. This is a cave that is full of folklore and legend. You have been slowly collecting the legends and myths of the local populace for years, and someday you hope to publish a book on the subject.
Most of these stories are of course of the miracles of Jesus Christ, though some are about the works of the Devil. This cave in particular seems to be full of legends about both. On one hand, there are ancient stories of benign deities living in the cave and providing good crops for the villagers. They were probably visiting Angels or something similar. On the other hand, there are stories of a pair of lovers committing a bloody ritual suicide in those caves, and there are tales of a continuous flow of lovers coming there, as if drawn by some great evil to re-enact the gruesome act.
Taking the archeological expedition as a chance to do some looking around of your own, you decided to head to the cave and see what you can find there. You have noticed some other people around the village taking a sudden interest. A Gypsy woman named Madame Catalina had been asking around about it, and looking at you funny. You have no idea what the old crone wants, though you suspect she is of the Devil, what with her sorcery and divination, and tarot. There is also an American tourist couple, from Florida. They are retired and just here on vacation, though neither you nor seemingly they, know why they picked this sleepy little village as their destination. Finally, a recent arrival is one Krysti Nuyen. She is some sort of hot-shot biography writer, out here researching a 19th century archeologist. She dresses like a woman of ill-repute though, and acts like you imagine one would act. You wonder if she has accepted Jesus Christ as her Lord and Savior?
