December had them on their knees. They had never brought the boy to mass. Never taught him of the body and the blood. He knew nothing of the candles held up against the darkness. The candles flickering a tenuous path home. Crawling up the cathedral stones. Voices, light, enlightened. Whispering, they spoke of midnight before the shepherds, when the animals opened their mouths and assumed a human tongue. The animals spoke, they knew this to be true, but no one knew what it was they said.