Nagasaki, 1640
The silence was the loudest sound Enki had ever heard. The priests were gone, martyred on the bluffs. The public symbols of the faith were erased. The shogunate's control was absolute.
He met the fisherman, Ishimura, in a cave by the sea, the roar of the waves masking their words. Ishimura held a small, crudely carved statue, a "Maria-sama" hidden from the world.
He began to sing. It was a Pater Noster, but the Latin was garbled, twisted by generations of oral tradition into a new, secret language. "Tenjiku no Jōō, Santa Maria..." It was the song of the "Kakure Kirishitan," the Hidden Christians. They had no church, no priest, no bible. Only this whispered, imperfect melody passed from parent to child.
"The great lords control the land and the sea," Ishimura murmured. "They can control the words we speak in the light. But they cannot control the silence in here." He tapped his chest. "The song is safest when it is not sung aloud."
Scrapbook Entry: "Control could not reach into the heart's secret choir. For 250 years, they will keep the song without the sheet music. The key was never in Rome. It was in them, a hidden seed waiting for the spring."