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The doors to Shanille’s church are always open, which is kinda neat in this day and age of the ubiquitous burglar or thieving scoundrel. Then again, who would steal from a church? Instant karma probably hits you with a lightning bolt the moment you try. Or is it the god of the humans who takes care of that? As you can tell I’m a little fuzzy on the details.

I had to push hard to gain entrance to the church, but Dooley and Brutus were there to give me a helping paw. Together we managed, the door slowly easing closed again behind us. The church was pretty dark, but I didn’t mind. I could see plenty. The ceiling was high above us, and tall pillars stood in support of the large structure. Rows of wooden pews had been placed facing an altar, and everywhere I looked I could see statues of humans dressed in some pretty funky outfits. My best guess was that they were either hippies or that they’d lived a really long time ago. At some point I thought I saw a statue of a sheep, but my eyes were probably deceiving me. No human would worship a sheep. Now if it had been a cat…

“Over here,” suddenly a voice rang out. It sounded hollow and echoed through the large cavernous structure. I recognized it as belonging to Shanille so we trotted thither.

“This place is seriously spooky,” I ventured.

“This is a holy place, Max,” Brutus said. “It can’t be spooky.”

Yes, it could, and it was.

We padded across the granite floor, pews to the left of us and pews to the right, until we reached the front—or was it the back? There Shanille awaited us, looking solemn.

“I thought you wouldn’t show,” she said.

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world,” I muttered.

“My spots have become worse,” Brutus revealed, and thrust out his chest, parting his perm with his paws. I looked and he was right. More spots. Yikes. Involuntarily I took a step back, and so did Dooley. Shanille, the only professional healer present, took a step closer and put her paw on Brutus’s shoulder, fixing him with a kindly gaze.

“Before the night is through, you will be healed, Brutus,” she announced.

“Gee, thanks,” said Brutus. “That’s exactly what I needed to hear.” He then gave me and Dooley a dirty look. “You two knuckleheads said you were going to hold my paw.”

“Yeah, well, maybe Shanille should do the honors,” I said. “She’s done this before, after all.” When Shanille looked away, I added, “Youhave done this before, right?”

“Um… not technically,” she admitted. And when I rolled my eyes, she said, “I’ve done it to myself.”

“You baptized yourself.”

“Well, I had to. It’s not as if I could ask my human. ‘Please, Francis, could you baptize me?’ That would have gone over well. Besides, unlike Odelia he doesn’t speak feline so my paws were tied.”

“Wait, Father Reilly’s name is Francis?” I asked.

But she was already walking away towards a large stone basin located behind the altar to the right. This was where humans baptized their babies. They pour water over their little heads and that’s it. No idea why but then who knows why humans do anything.

“Come,” ordered Shanille.

Brutus took a deep breath.“This is it, Max,” he said.

“This is it, buddy,” I agreed.

And then he took the plunge. Not literally. But he set one paw in front of the other and pretty soon we were all staring at Shanille, hoping she knew what she was doing. The thing is, cats don’t like water. At least not in general. So us willingly and consciously having water splashed on top of our heads was kind of a crazy thing to do. Then again, if I had to choose between horrible spots and a bath, I’d choose the bath. Lesser of two evils, right?

“Hop up,” instructed Shanille, and in an effort to lead by example, she hopped up onto the baptismal font herself, followed by Dooley, Brutus and, finally, yours truly.

The inside of the font was dark, the stone having turned black over the years. We stared into the water, and for a moment I imagined staring into an abyss. Creepy!

“Who wants to go first?” asked Shanille.

“Me, me, me!” said Dooley, holding up his paw.

“Very well,” said Shanille. “Um…” She hesitated.

“What’s wrong?” asked Dooley.

“The thing is, Father Reilly always says a lot of stuff at this point, but I’m always too far away to hear a word he says. Plus, he kinda mumbles a lot, so there’s that, too.”

“He does mumble,” I agreed.

“So I have no idea what he says but he looks very serious and solemn while he says it. And I’m pretty sure it’s something to do with Jesus, the Holy Ghost, and the Father.”

“Whose father?” asked Dooley, interested.

“Father Reilly’s father,” I said. “Duh.”

“Pretty sure he means God,” said Shanille.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

“So what I propose is that I say a few words of my own creation and then proceed like I’ve seen Father Reilly do. Which basically is to splash some water on y’all.”

I grimaced.“Sounds like a plan,” I said.

“Let’s get on with it,” Brutus growled. “I can feel my spots getting bigger by the second.”

“Fine,” said Shanille. “Dooley, in the name of the—”