Reborn, page 19
Suddenly he stumbled over a word and stopped. He stood at the lectern and stared. For an awful moment, Grace thought he was staring at her, then realized that his gaze was directed past her. She turned and saw a gray-haired stranger standing at the rear of the room.
Martin immediately rose from his chair near the front and approached the man.
“This is not a public meeting,” he said indignantly.
The stranger seemed a bit confused, a little unsure of himself.
“I will go if you wish,” he said. “But surely you would allow me to listen.”
Grace suddenly recognized him. He was the man who had been standing across the street from this old brownstone last Sunday, watching them. What did he want?
She watched Martin. He seemed undecided as to what to do. They both turned and looked at Brother Robert.
Grace remembered how on Sunday the monk had inferred that the man was some sort of enemy, even though he obviously didn’t know him.
“Martin,” Brother Robert said, “we cannot deny someone the word of God. Please be seated, friend.”
Grace stiffened as the man seated himself at the end of the last row, her row, not two chairs to her right. She kept her eyes straight ahead and listened to Brother Robert as he resumed his homily. But the monk was clearly distracted. He stumbled over some sentences, rushed through others, and was not nearly as effective as he’d been before he was interrupted.
She risked a glance at the newcomer.
Close up like this, she realized how big a man he was, with a large frame made bulky by a heavy tan double-breasted raincoat. She detected a hint of swarthiness in his complexion and the faintest of red highlights in his silvery hair. High cheekbones, a long straight nose, and no hint of jowls despite his years. He sat straight and tall with his big, scarred hands resting in fists on his thighs. A gold band encircled his left ring finger. And all about him, an aura of faded power.
He must have sensed her scrutiny, for he turned her way and gave her a faint smile that narrowed his blue eyes. Then he returned his attention to Brother Robert.
Grace felt the tension ease out of her. That smile…it had been as much to reassure her as himself. This was not a man to fear.
The service ended with Brother Robert’s plea:
“Give us a sign, Lord. Reveal the Antichrist to us so that we may confront him with Your holy power.”
Then all twenty or so of the gathered Chosen stood and said the Apostles’ Creed and a Hail Mary as they held hands. The newcomer neither stood nor prayed. As before, Grace kept her hands to herself while she prayed with them.
Suddenly she felt a tingling in her face. She turned toward the stranger and began to speak to him. To her horror, the words were not her own. The language was alien to her.
The stranger started in his seat, his eyes wide as he stared at her. She tried to stop herself, but her voice went on, uttering those strange, incomprehensible syllables.
“Stop that,” he said. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”
Members of the Chosen were turning to look at her. Brother Robert hurried up, beaming.
“The Spirit is with you, Grace. Don’t fight it. Give praise to the Lord.”
“She’s not praising anything,” the stranger said.
“You understand the Tongue she’s speaking?” Brother Robert said, his eyes wide.
Before he could answer, the words stopped and Grace’s voice was once more her own. The stranger remained seated as the worshippers drifted out, staring at him as they passed. Soon only Grace, Brother Robert, Martin, and the newcomer remained in the room. Brother Robert approached his chair and stood over him.
“Who are you?”
“My name is Veilleur. And you?”
“Brother Robert from the Monastery at Aiguebelle.” Neither offered to shake hands. “You understand the Tongue? What was she saying?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Don’t be so sure of that,” Brother Robert said.
Martin stepped forward. “Why did you come here? Why have you been lurking outside, watching us?”
Veilleur’s face was troubled. “I don’t know. I sense something here. I seemed to be drawn to this group.”
Grace tried to place his faint accent. It sounded vaguely British, and yet not like any she had ever heard.
“You are not one of us,” Martin said with a certainty that brooked no argument.
“Quite true. But who is this ‘us’ you refer to? Why do you come together here?”
Brother Robert said, “We come to praise the Lord and to prepare ourselves to do battle with His enemy. The Antichrist is amongst us. We await a sign.”
“The Antichrist?”
“Yes. The Evil One has taken on flesh.”
Mr. Veilleur stared at Brother Robert, then at Grace who felt the weight of his gaze like a blow.
“So. You know.”
Brother Robert nodded. “Satan has come to try to claim this world for his own.”
“I don’t know about Satan. But something is coming. What I don’t understand is why you people have been touched.”
Martin stiffened. “What do you mean, ‘touched’? We are as sane as anyone else—saner in fact.”
“I meant sensitized, alerted, made aware. Why you people in particular?”
“Why not?”
“Because you make a pitiful defense force.”
“And I suppose you think you should lead us?” Martin said.
Mr. Veilleur’s smile was sour as he shook his head. “No, I want no part of this. I’m out of it. In fact, I thought it was all over.”
“It’s never over,” said Brother Robert.
“Perhaps you’re right. I suppose I should have known that. But I’d hoped it might be.”
“What are you talking about?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
Brother Robert’s eyes narrowed as he spoke in a low voice. “I have traveled far. I have looked into places good men were never meant to see. I have read the forbidden books—”
“Is that proper for a man of the cloth?” Veilleur said.
“‘Know thine enemy’ is a wise saying. God may work in the world in many guises, but so does the devil. I have exposed myself to hideous evils and have turned away from them, never having the slightest temptation to release myself to what they offered.”
Veilleur appeared to be studying Brother Robert. He nodded respectfully. “But one cannot tread those coals and emerge unscorched.”
“True. The experiences have left me…sensitized, as you say. It is as if I’ve developed an extra sense, something like a sense of smell for the devil’s work. And the stench of him is heavy here.”
“Not here, exactly,” Mr. Veilleur said. “Further to the east.”
Brother Robert stared at him. “You, too?”
“As your friend here said—” he nodded toward Martin—“I am not one of you.”
“I know that,” Brother Robert said. “And yet…you are.”
“Was. I was, but no longer.”
As Mr. Veilleur stood, Grace stepped back. He seemed to tower over the three of them.
“Please tell me,” Grace said. “What language was I speaking?”
“The Old Tongue.”
“I’ve never heard of such a thing,” Martin said.
“No one has spoken it for thousands of years.”
Martin shook his head. “I don’t believe you.”
“Hush, Martin,” Brother Robert said gently. “I believe him.”
Grace looked into Brother Robert’s eyes and for the first time sensed the enormity of the events shaping around them. It made her weak. She turned to Mr. Veilleur. His eyes had a faraway look. He spoke, but more to himself than to them.
“I don’t know where he’s been hiding these years, but now it seems he’s found a way back.”
“Satan has never been away,” Brother Robert said. “But now he has taken human form for an all-out assault on humanity.”
“Satan?” the man said. “Did I mention Satan?” He shrugged. “Never mind. The fact remains that you’re going to need help.”
“What kind of help?” Grace said.
“I don’t know. Once there was someone, but he’s gone. Now…” He paused and looked from Grace to Brother Robert to Martin. “Perhaps someone in your group is the key.”
“Who?” Brother Robert said. “How can we tell?”
Mr. Veilleur turned and headed for the door. “I haven’t the foggiest. But he’ll have to be someone special. Someone very special.”
And then he was gone, leaving Grace staring at Brother Robert and wondering who it might be.
FOURTEEN
Friday
March 8
Manhattan
1
“What’s that song you’re whistling, Father?”
Bill looked up and saw Nicky standing on the far side of his desk, all dressed and ready to spend the weekend with the Calders.
“A real oldie called ‘It’s a Great Day.’”
“What’s so great about it?”
“Everything, Nicko. Everything. The sun’s out, the workweek is almost over, spring is less than three weeks away. A great day from morning till night.”
He felt almost giddy and had to rein in his feelings before they ran away with him. He couldn’t share the details with Nicky just yet, but he had a feeling that come Sunday night, they’d both have reason to celebrate.
Bill reached over his desk and straightened Nicky’s tie. It was too red and too narrow for the times, and it dangled below his tightly cinched belt, but it was the cleanest of the three red ties available. The collar of the white shirt was too big for his scrawny neck, and the sleeves of the blue blazer were too short for his gangling arms. The same was true of the gray slacks which showed too much white sock below the cuffs.
All in all, a sight to give a Brooks Brothers salesman a case of the vapors, but it was the best they could do out of that motley collection of hand-me-downs and better-quality donated clothing they called the dress-up closet. But then again, Bill didn’t want the kids going out on their home visits looking too well-dressed. Nicky’s attire screamed, Give this boy a home. And that was probably all to the good.
He was clean, that was the important thing. His dark hair had been washed and combed up in the front, which was a mixed blessing in a way: Although it camouflaged some of the more misshapen aspects of his skull, it exposed more blackheads on his forehead. He had play clothes and some clean underwear in the battered canvas satchel on the floor beside him.
“Nervous?” Bill said.
“Nah. I’ve been to lots of these.”
“No sweat, eh? Just a cool cat taking off for the weekend.”
“Okay.” Nicky’s smile was slow and shy. “Maybe a little nervous.”
“Just be yourself.”
His eyes lit. “Really?”
“On second thought…”
They both smiled at their private joke.
The intercom buzzed: “The Calders are here,” said Sister Miriam’s voice from the front office.
“We’re on our way.”
He took Nicky’s satchel and placed an arm on his shoulder as he led him down to the first floor.
“This is it, kid. Strut your best stuff for these people and you’ll be in Fat City.”
Bill felt Nicky’s arm go around his back and hug him.
2
Bill waved goodbye to Nicky as the Calders drove away with him in the back seat of their new Dodge, then he hurried back to his office and pulled the letter from under the desk blotter. It had arrived this morning from the Mary land Provincial and he must have read it and reread it a dozen times since then. Loyola High School in Baltimore had a spot for him. He would have preferred Loyola College, but at least this was a step in the right direction. He could report there June first and, come September, he could begin as an instructor in the religion department…if he still wished to trade his current post for that of high school teacher.
Wished? He was dying to get out of his current post.
And what a great location they were offering him. Just forty-five minutes down the Baltimore-Washington Expressway and he’d be in the capital, right in the heart of the action. Never a shortage of important happenings in D.C.—like the new civil rights bill before the Senate right now.
And it would put him far away from Carol. A few hundred miles would serve to cool his night thoughts. Maybe then he could get some sleep.
He kissed the letter and slipped it back under the blotter.
Nicky’s going to find himself a home and I’m going to rejoin the human race.
He began humming the melody to “Everything’s Coming Up Roses.”
Monroe
3
The ground was thawing and the weekend promised to be a warm one, so Jonah decided to get an early start on the garden. Come Friday afternoon most weeks he was bushed by the time he got home from the plant. But lately he’d been full of life, bursting with energy, and the vegetable garden was as good a place as any to work some of it off. Maybe he’d be able to bring in some lettuce this year.
The first thing he had to do, though, was set up a decent perimeter fence to keep the rabbits out. He would have loved to set up coils of razor wire to shred the greedy little rodents as they hopped into the garden, but the neighbors would raise a fuss when the same thing happened to their wild little bastards as they took their usual headlong shortcut through his backyard.
So he’d have to settle for chicken wire.
He planned to set up a two-by-four post at each corner of the garden, then string the mesh between it. Three feet would be more than high enough.
He began digging the hole for the first corner post. About eighteen inches would do it. Jonah liked the slicing sound the spade made as he jammed it into the soft earth, loved to feel the countless rootlets part beneath the blade as he drove it deeper into the ground with his foot. He found something delicious in disrupting the delicate balance below. Years of interplay, of give and take between the soil, the nutrients, the bacteria, the insects, and the vegetation, all altered forever with the thrust of a shovel.
When he reached the one-foot level, the dirt began to turn red.
Strange. He hadn’t known there was any clay around here. And then he saw that it wasn’t clay, but a red liquid seeping up through the soil. He lowered himself to his hands and knees for a closer look. He sniffed.
Blood.
Jonah’s pulse suddenly picked up as a shudder of elation raced through him. This wasn’t a hallucination. This was the real thing. Another in a long line of signs he had been gifted with throughout his life.
Breathless, he watched the thick red fluid well up in the hole until it reached the rim, then ooze off into the garden in a thin, slow rivulet. Jonah would have liked to have let it fill the garden, to watch it cool and clot as dusk fell, but there were no secrets in these tiny, crowded backyards around here. It wouldn’t do at all to have the neighbors wondering what had happened in the Stevenses’ yard.
Reluctantly, he began shoveling the earth back into the hole, stoppering the crimson flow. When the sod was back in place, he stepped back, reined in his excitement, and stood thinking.
Blood flowing in his backyard. How else could he interpret that but as a harbinger of death, the death of someone close to his home? It was also a sign that events were gathering speed, and that he should not waste his time tilling the earth.
FIFTEEN
Saturday
March 9
Manhattan
Bill was reading his daily office in his room when the phone rang, startling him. Only a handful of people had his private number, and when they called it was usually with bad news. So he was especially worried when he recognized Jim’s voice.
“Jim? Is something wrong?” he said in a rush, remembering Carol’s anxious call on Tuesday and Jim’s vaguely hostile reception of his offer of help.
Is Carol all right?
“No-no. Everything’s fine, Bill. Really fine. I just wanted to apologize for acting so weird when you called me the other day.”
Bill felt his muscles uncoiling. “It’s okay. We all get uptight now and again.”
It was good to hear Jim sounding like his old self.
“Yeah, well, the will, the inheritance, the mansion, everything sort of combined to do a number on my head. Got me all bent out of shape. But I’ve got everything back in perspective now and I feel a whole lot better.”
During the small talk that followed, Bill noticed that Jim danced away from anything that had to do with Hanley or the inheritance or who his mother might be. He gathered from Jim’s too-casual air and uncharacteristic use of jargon that he hadn’t climbed completely out of the pressure cooker yet. He was dying to ask if he’d learned anything about his mother, but remembered how coolly that subject had been received on Tuesday. So he kept mum.
After hanging up, Bill sat by the window thinking how sad and ironic it was that just as he was reestablishing contact with an old friend, he was preparing to move a couple of hundred miles away.
And he was moving away. Old friend or not, Bill wasn’t going to let anyone keep him here at St. F’s. Nothing was going to delay his departure now that the Provincial had found a teaching spot for him.
He sat awhile longer at the window, feeling unaccountably blue. What was wrong? Certainly he wasn’t going to miss this place.
Then he realized that this was the time he usually played chess with Nicky. It seemed empty without him here scratching his misshapen head and picking his blackheads. But that was soon to be part of the past. Nicky would be adopted by the Calders and Bill would be on his way to Baltimore.
He was about to return to his breviary when he noticed a late-model blue Dodge pull up to the curb in front of St. F’s. It looked familiar. Just like—
