Chapelwood (The Borden Dispatches #2)(91)

Nothing really vanishes. It’s gone someplace, at the hands of someone.

Honestly, I’m not that worried. But it’s a loose end, something unfinished that lingers in the back of my mind. This should have been tidier. This should have been entirely cut-and-dried, but . . . and here is the confession that I hate the most to make, and would not whisper aloud if my life depended upon it: I do not know the numbers like Leonard did.

They don’t speak to me the way they spoke to him, and they never have—it’s always been a terrible difficulty for me, though I hate with all my soul to admit it (even here, where no one sees it). In school, my hands were routinely rapped with rulers, and I was often sent to the corner in a dunce cap for some error or another. At least once per week through my entire education, a teacher was likely to bemoan the fact that for someone with such apparent intelligence, I was nonetheless dreadfully stupid.

All because I couldn’t divide or multiply, either in my head or on the blackboard. I could add well enough, but scarcely subtract, and even though rationally I knew that the larger number must go on top, in a subtraction formula, somehow I kept reversing it with the smaller one . . . leading to tears and trouble, and constant recriminations.

Even now, I must use my fingers when I count, though I don’t do it in front of others. It would not do to appear weak before my flock.

Mind you, I’d argue it’s no weakness at all. My expertise lies elsewhere, that’s all, and a solid understanding of my own limitations is no failing. Instead, I surround myself with men who have the expertise I lack—and the end result is a stronger team all around. Woe to us all, if I were the sort of figurehead who must shoulder the whole weight of an operation.

Woe enough that I’ve done the bulk of it since Leonard fled us.

? ? ?

So I’ve done my best with the equations the little accountant left behind, but my best has never been very good when it comes to this sort of thing, and that’s only an acknowledgment of fact—not flaw. I did attempt to find another accountant, but had no luck; all potential candidates were either inferior or not entirely trustworthy with information so delicate and powerful in nature.

For those first few months, I was furious with Leonard. If I could have found him, I would have murdered him on the spot—or hauled him back here, chained him securely, and compelled him to continue his work by force. But then, as my wrath burned low, I began to feel something more akin to sorrow at his leaving us.

He could have been so great. He could’ve stood at my right hand, but he abandoned us instead. He abandoned me, and I found no substitute for his numerical proficiency.

I thought he was my friend.

? ? ?

I often wondered if I should ask someone else in the congregation . . . we have no other mathematicians, but there are engineers and architects among us. Surely their training and know-how exceeds my own when it comes to sums and figures . . . ? But to do that, to invite someone into these sacred formulas, these holy rituals of columns and tables and graphs . . . it would have revealed me as lacking some necessary skill, for one thing. And for another, we couldn’t afford to create another infidel, should a new fellow prove turncoat.

So I did it all myself.

I watched Leonard perform the calculations a thousand times, and although it’s not my favorite task or my greatest talent, I am muddling through all the same. I have gotten results that have proven correct—not least of all Leonard’s location, that awful flophouse where he lived under a new name, spelled out in a code so simple even I could understand it. It also gave me reassurance that Ruth would return to us, and reminded me of her importance in this process.

If I am to be generous, I could say it’s one more way that Edwin was useful: He produced this daughter upon whom hangs so much promise and potential. Yet he’s also the impetuous dolt who brought her here against her will, when I specifically told him not to.

He only wants to further our agenda, he says. He only wanted to help, he swears. He felt in his heart that the time was now, he confesses, and that much may well prove correct. But a man who will go against orders for his own satisfaction will lie just as easily, and I do not trust him. And if I can’t control him, I will not be held responsible for his behavior.

? ? ?

None of this changes anything about the present problem, which is named Ruth, and is sequestered in one of the basement worship rooms—where she sleeps off the chloroform that rendered her easy to transport.

I hate doing things by force. I’d much rather do them by conversion, but here we are, and if my math can be trusted (can it be trusted?) there’s truly no time like the present. Even if I’ve missed a little something, somewhere, the numbers—which once gave us months, or even a full year’s worth of calendar to work with—now stop at dawn tomorrow. I’ve run them all a dozen times, and occasionally I get a slightly different result with the minor bits of revelation, but that major one remains consistent: We make our move tonight, or we never make it at all.

Ruth is here, and the numbers know it. God knows it. And as far as I can tell, the woman’s unapproved arrival does nothing except shorten our time on this earth.

Very well, then. Even if my math cannot be wholly trusted (and it can’t), Our Lord and Savior has seen fit to guide us, regardless. He says that the time is nigh, and I believe Him. He says to prepare ourselves, and so we shall.

I’ve sent out word to the congregation. We assemble in the true sanctuary in an hour.