Monsignor Delgard Is Killed by the Exploding Statue

Monsignor Delgard’s death in St. Joseph’s Church turns his fear of an unseen power into an immediate and irreversible catastrophe. As he prays before the altar, the damaged statue of the Virgin Mary changes before his eyes, then explodes. Gerry Fenn arrives in time to witness the final moments: he sees Delgard facing the statue and a hooded figure in the pews, but after the blast only Fenn and the dead priest remain in the church.

Foreboding and Prayer

In the moments leading up to the death, Delgard has been considering whether the terrors around Alice might involve Einor’s spirit. He wonders whether death has strengthened the nun’s powers and whether those powers are acting through Alice. These are Delgard’s fears and hypotheses, not a settled explanation of what follows; their importance is that he already feels unable to confront the threat by himself. He intends to seek help through his bishop, including from people skilled in such matters, while placing his greatest hope in God.

The church offers no reassurance. A sharp sound interrupts Delgard’s prayer, and he finds no one else in the dim interior. He returns his attention to the crucifix, but his age and weariness remain present: his joints feel brittle, and the strain of recent weeks has taken its toll. When another sharp crack comes from his right, he turns toward the disfigured statue. The scene shifts from solitary prayer to direct attention to an object that seems to be changing on its own.

The Statue Changes

Delgard approaches the statue and looks up at its cracked face. Its hands remain slightly outstretched, but the damage has distorted the expression that once suggested maternal tenderness. As he watches, the fissures deepen and lengthen; pieces of stone fall away and crumble on the floor. The face appears to change further, its smile widening as the lower lip drops, while the plaster surface seems to move. Dust spills from the statue’s eyes, leaving them hollow.

The progression is gradual enough for Delgard to witness, but it gives him no means of escape. He tries to back away and instead becomes fixed in place, staring upward. By the time he recognizes that something is about to happen, he can only begin to raise a trembling hand. The statue, ordinarily a devotional image within the church, has become the focus of a violent and incomprehensible threat; the scene provides no definite account of the force behind its destruction.

The Explosion

Gerry Fenn stumbles into the church and sees Delgard near the altar, looking up at the Madonna with one hand partly raised. A few rows behind the priest sits a small, hooded figure. Fenn recognizes the cold, dark sensation surrounding the scene from earlier experiences, and his physical response leaves him unable to call out effectively: only a hiss escapes. He starts forward, but the moment has already passed beyond his control.

The statue explodes, and the blast reverberates through the church. Stone fragments strike Delgard across his exposed body and throw him backward over the first bench into the next row. The narration makes clear that the injuries are fatal, but their duration is brief: fragments entering through his eyes have caused catastrophic damage, and his body soon no longer responds to pain. Twisted between the benches, he grips the wood with one torn hand. That last grasp leaves him physically attached to the church’s ordinary furnishings even as the event has made the familiar interior a place of sudden death.

Aftermath and Significance

Fenn runs toward Delgard, then stops in the aisle with his hands on the benches and looks down at the priest’s body. He calls Delgard’s name although he knows the priest cannot hear him. His attention turns in anger toward the black-garbed figure, but it is gone. The church is empty apart from Fenn and Delgard’s body. The disappearance leaves Fenn with no visible attacker to pursue and no explanation he can verify in the scene itself.

The death abruptly ends Delgard’s effort to seek help and pray for protection. Its sequence binds together the doubts that troubled him, the statue’s visible deterioration, Fenn’s arrival, and the unexplained figure, without confirming precisely how those elements are connected. The devotional image’s destruction also reverses the church’s expected refuge: Delgard is killed while facing the Virgin Mary statue, and Fenn’s arrival can do nothing to prevent it. The event removes a priest who had been trying to understand and resist the surrounding evil, while leaving the threat itself unresolved.