Chapelwood (The Borden Dispatches #2)(4)
Someone took me and my momma to one of the pews and had us sit down, so we did. I was shivering, partly because I was scared, and partly because it was hardly any warmer inside than it was outside—and it felt real damp. It felt like the inside of an icebox with a block that’s mostly melted, so it’s all cool and wet inside.
I held my momma’s hand tight, and she held it back, but she didn’t really strike me as being too worried. I don’t know if Daddy had a word with her beforehand and told her what to expect, or if she’s just so used to being scared of things that this wasn’t any big deal to her.
Anyway, the reverend started his sermon, if that’s what it was.
Mostly he talked about how our idea of heaven isn’t right, because most people think of heaven as being some pretend place, or something that happens to us when we die—but he says it’s not. He says it’s a real place, and it’s out beyond the stars . . . so far away that if we looked up with the biggest telescope in the whole world, we wouldn’t be able to see it. He says the constellations are a map, and that there’s a God, yes, and there are other things that aren’t exactly angels, or not angels how we’ve always thought about them. He says that a whole lot of years ago, these other kinds of angels lived here on earth. They lived in our oceans, and they ruled everything, and people served them. Eventually, they left us and went back to the stars, and someday, they’re coming back. The reverend knows this, because he says they talk to him. He says he’s found more maps, not just the constellations, and not just the things buried in rocks that are a million years old.
I don’t know, Father Coyle. It all sounded like craziness to me—and if that’s the kind of god who’s coming back to call us all home, I don’t think I want to go with him.
(But while he was talking, I got the weirdest feeling that the windows up above, near the ceiling, were moving around somehow. Maybe not the windows themselves, but the patterns—like they were swirling or spinning, I’m not sure. Maybe there were clouds overhead, and the light was doing funny things. Maybe my eyes were just playing tricks because it was so dark in there, and I’d been there for so long.)
Finally, the reverend was finished and I thought it was time for us to go. I said a little prayer to the regular God, telling Him thanks for letting me out of there because, I’m telling you, it was so dark I could hardly breathe. Does that make sense? Well, maybe it don’t. But that’s how it felt.
We stood up to go, me and Momma, and something touched my arm. I want to say somebody touched my arm, but it didn’t feel like a hand grabbing me—it felt like a snake, wrapping around my wrist. Cold and smooth, all muscles and no bones, like the reverend’s fingers inside his gloves (but much bigger). It was real strong, and it squeezed me real tight, so I let out a little yell and jumped back, and it let go of me.
The church door was open, and a little bit of light came inside so I ran toward it, and I practically threw myself out onto the stairs. I stumbled down them and I was breathing heavy, trying to catch my breath even though I hadn’t run very far.
I’m telling you, I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.
But I couldn’t get as far as I wanted. I felt dizzy and tired, even as scared as I was. I didn’t know where they’d taken the horse or the cart, so I didn’t know which way to go in order to get myself home. I wasn’t thinking so clearly. I was almost dizzy from all that darkness, all that being inside someplace so closed up and crowded. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I stopped at the bottom of the steps.
That’s when I heard them talking, my daddy and the reverend—or I guess it could’ve been someone else. Everyone had those robes on, and they still had their hoods up, so it was hard to tell who was who (but I knew Daddy’s voice when I heard it). They weren’t quite whispering but they were chatting all quiet-like, just inside the church. I couldn’t see them, but their voices came floating down in bits and pieces, and mostly what I gathered was that they were talking about me.
I don’t like that place, Father Coyle. I don’t want to go back there, and I don’t want to see the reverend again—but Daddy’s already talking about heading there next Sunday and I don’t think I can stand it. Please, sir, if there’s anything you can do, anybody you can talk to . . . I need a friend.
I need help.
Lizbeth Andrew (Borden)
FALL RIVER, MASSACHUSETTS SEPTEMBER 4, 1921
I was making tea when the newspaper arrived this morning, hitting the porch steps with the usual graceless ruckus and startling the cats who gather there waiting to be fed. Sometimes I think the paperboy aims for them, and it’s some stupid, childish sport; but if that’s the case, then his aim is worse than his manners when he comes to collect his fee on Tuesdays. Thus far, no cats have been struck, and they are content to sit in a row and watch him ride past on the new red bicycle his parents bought him last month. They stare at him with lazy, narrowed eyes, but ears and whiskers on high alert.
They know a brat when they see one.
I finished the tea and poured myself a cup with just a dusting of sugar, and gathered the scraps and kibbles the cats have come to expect. Then I made my donation to the feline breakfast fund, and took a seat in my rocking chair to watch while they politely cleaned their plates and licked their little chops.