Chapelwood (The Borden Dispatches #2)(52)

I could not conclude that I was the one in danger, because the numbers cared nothing about me, personally. The numbers were only a guide to a greater good, whether or not that was their original intent. This unexplainable cosmology sought to explain itself, and I struggled to understand why a powerful friend could do anything but help my world-saving enterprise. I would be overjoyed to find my load lightened, after all.

Unless . . .

. . . I squinted at the chalk, and with the tip of my finger I tapped one corner of the message—collecting a bit of white dust that smelled like school. Unless the dark thing (which surely is not God) is interested in the powerful, more than it is interested in me (for I am powerless, except for my axe). Unless the dark thing will prey upon it, before it can assist me.

Should the darkness consume me, what would it gain? Nothing, really. One lone mortal who bends his brain around the exponential zeroes of the galaxy in order to hear a voice from the other end of it. But what if some more useful party should topple into its hunting gaze?

What then?

? ? ?

I stood from my chair and finished the last of my coffee. It was bitter and lukewarm, but it sharpened my brain. I pushed the chair aside and pushed the reading glasses up onto my forehead. I was still missing something. (Missing quite a lot, no doubt, but that was always the way of things.)

I carried my cup to the sink and deposited it there, washing it with a little soap and setting it aside to dry.

Over my shoulder I glanced again at the blackboard, its lure impossible to ignore.

It was still trying to tell me something. It was drawn from my own hand, unspooled from my own mind, and still it could not make itself understood.

Or could it?

I turned around, leaning backward against the sink. I was as far away from the blackboard as I could get without opening a door and letting myself into the hallway. And maybe, if I relaxed my eyes . . . if I let them unfocus until the numbers were so much chalk dust, smeared across the slate . . . I saw something other than the mutilated web of formulas.

I could swear I almost saw the face of a woman. A face I almost knew—for I’d seen a sketch of it once before, in the city newspaper.

Last year there was an Italian man, and I almost killed him with my axe . . . only because he fought to protect his wife, not because he was of any interest to Chapelwood or its gods. He survived, because I had no real interest in killing him, only removing him as an obstacle; and when he awoke he spoke of the stars, and of miracles and Milky Ways.

And he drew a picture of a woman no one knew.

Lorino, that was his name. (I don’t remember the names of all of them. There are too many now—but he was an unfortunate bystander, so his name is lodged in my head.) He’s at the hospital downtown, I think. Or he was, anyway, and I never heard that he left it.

If I were to visit him, would he know me?

We met in the dark, and our meeting was swift and violent. I don’t know if he ever saw my face, but then, I don’t know if he ever saw that woman’s face, either. It wasn’t his wife or his sister, and no one ever stepped forward to identify her. Who was she?

Would he tell me?

It was a preposterous thing to wonder, and to halfway plan . . . a dangerous thing, more dangerous than the murders themselves. But as I stared at the blackboard and, yes, the face I could now see quite plainly that had formed upon it, at a distance . . . I was wondering and halfway planning how I might go about visiting Mr. Lorino, so that we might exchange a word or two.

I might need to. It might matter.





Ruth Stephenson Gussman




SEPTEMBER 29, 1921


They finally called my name.

I don’t know why I jumped; I knew they were going to ask for me, and I knew good and well what I had to do. I don’t know why my whole body acted like it was a big shock when they said, “The prosecution calls Ruth Stephenson Gussman to the stand.” I’d rehearsed it a million times, over supper and in my dreams. I’m sure Pedro was sick of hearing about it, but that was fine, because I was sick of thinking about it. It was time to talk about it.

My face got real hot, and my hands started to shake. I was half afraid I was about to have one of those spells, because what a god-awful time for it, you know? But this was only the ordinary kind of scared, and I could still see fine. Nothing was crawling around my ankles, and no darkness descended, bringing ghosts down with it.

I rose to my feet, gripping the back of the bench in front of me.

Chief Eagan stayed seated beside me. He patted the back of my hand and whispered, “Go on, girl. Say your piece, and don’t let them rattle you.”

I nodded, swallowed, adjusted my hat and my sweater, and stepped out into the aisle—thinking of you, Father Coyle. And I’m telling you this because I haven’t found any other spirits to chat with, and I miss you, and I trust you. Maybe if I keep talking, you’ll answer me again.

It felt more than a little like going to church at Chapelwood, its pews lined up just like these benches with an aisle in the middle.

(Is that on purpose, do you think? Are courtrooms supposed to look like churches, with the judge up front just like a preacher, and the lawyers and everybody on either side like deacons? What’s that supposed to tell us, exactly? The more I think about it, the less I like it.)

? ? ?

On either side of me, people watched me go up there. It was like being a bride, or going down front to kneel for an altar call, or something like that—except a million times worse. I was afraid I was going to trip and fall; I was afraid I was going to pass out cold. The aisle felt way too long, or maybe I was walking way too slow. My footsteps were the only sound at all, and they were cheap little secondhand heels echoing on the floor—but I couldn’t hear anything else, not even anybody breathing, or sneezing, or waving paper fans against how warm it was getting indoors. It sounded like I was walking down a tunnel, all alone, and at the end of the tunnel, God only knew what I’d find.