The Sin Eater(20)

Declan said, ‘I have an apple. And a wedge of soda bread.’

‘Apples have juice. And bread is the staff of life. Do it, Declan.’

‘Me?’

‘Colm’s already half tainted with murder. The sin-eater has to be as innocent as possible. But oh God, hurry,’ said Sheehan. ‘I’ll be beyond sanity very soon.’

‘Declan, you can’t,’ said Colm in an urgent whisper. ‘This is wrong.’

‘But he’s going to die. He’s facing screaming agony. He knows he is. So if this makes him feel better, it can’t be so wrong. And he’s a priest, or he was once. Wouldn’t that mean he knows what he’s talking about?’

‘Wouldn’t the devil quote Scriptures for his own ends?’ retorted Colm. ‘Declan, this isn’t a Catholic ritual – it might not even be Christian. And supposing it – um – works? You don’t know what his sins are. You don’t know what you’d be taking on your soul.’

‘I’ll confess tomorrow. My sins and his.’

‘Do it!’ screamed Sheehan. ‘At least let me know I won’t die in mortal sin! Oh God, I’m burning! My stomach . . . My guts are on fire . . .’

In a strained, helpless voice, Declan said, ‘Tell me what to do.’

In the end it was simple enough.

Declan and Colm managed to slice a small piece of the apple, and to crumble the soda bread which they passed through the bars. Sheehan grabbed the fragments of food and in a struggling, dried-out voice, sobbed out his sins. He spoke half in English, half in Latin, but his words were so blurred with agony and terror that the boys could not hear many of them.

Then Sheehan began to chant the Act of Contrition.

‘Confiteor Deo omnipotenti, istis Sanctis et omnibus Sanctis et tibi frater, quia peccavi in cogitatione, in locutione, in opere, in pollutione mentis et corporis. Ideo precor te, ora pro me.’

The familiar Latin fell raggedly on the fire-streaked darkness, and for a moment it almost seemed as if the shrieking wind seized the words and tore them mockingly to shreds.

‘The food,’ gasped Sheehan. ‘Take it from me. The sins will go from me with it.’

Declan hesitated, but when Sheehan thrust the already-discolouring sliver of apple and the drying bread back through the bars, he took them, although he was uneasily aware of the dark echoes of the Mass, and he knew Colm was, too. The iron staves were so intensely hot by this time that he burned his hand, and cried out from the pain. But it would be a pinprick compared to what Nicholas Sheehan was already suffering.

‘Eat!’ cried Sheehan. ‘You must eat it!’ and Declan, shivering despite the glowing heat from the tower, nodded and crammed the food into his mouth. He gagged a couple of times and for a dreadful moment thought he would actually be sick, but he managed to swallow most of it. Then he half fell against the cliff face, gasping.

Colm said urgently, ‘We have to go back now.’

‘We can’t leave him.’

‘Declan, this cliff face is so hot we’ll soon roast to death ourselves,’ said Colm, but he said it in a low voice so Sheehan would not hear.

Declan looked back into the room. Sheehan was no longer standing near the window; they could just see him lying in a dreadful huddle on the ground at the room’s centre. His hair was dried and most of it had fallen out, and he seemed to be curling in on himself.

‘Look at his hands,’ said Colm. ‘D’you see his fingernails?’

Sheehan’s hands were curled into claws, the nails blackened. Mercifully they could not see his face, but they could see the skin of his neck was dark and leathery-looking, and the image of a piece of pork roasting in an oven came sickeningly to them. This time it was Colm who turned away, retching. When the spasm passed, he turned back, and his face looked suddenly old, as if the flesh had shrunk from the bones. He said, ‘Declan, we have to go now,’ and this time Declan nodded.

They began a cautious journey back around the rock spur and across the cliff face. They had reached the path when, from within the glowing watchtower, they heard Sheehan begin to scream.

They sat together, huddled on the ground, knowing they would be missed at their homes, but unable to leave. The tower was still burning, but the stones were too thick and too stubborn to actually crumble. The fire would burn itself out, and the watchtower, rumoured to have been built by the ancient Kings of Ireland, would go on standing, a blackened ruin.

Presently, Declan said, ‘He’s not screaming now, is he?’

‘No.’

‘He’ll be dead.’

‘Yes. Will we say a prayer for him?’

‘All right.’

Self-consciously they chanted the paternoster, and then began to make their way home.

‘Did you throw away that chess figure?’ said Declan suddenly.

‘I’ll do it later. When no one’s around.’ Colm’s voice sounded distant, but Declan was relieved that his face no longer had the dry, shrunken look. He was still staring at the tower. ‘There was a strange thing,’ he said. ‘When Sheehan passed the figure through the bars, I thought his hand closed round mine.’

‘Did it?’

‘No,’ said Colm. ‘For when I looked at him, I saw both his hands were wrapped around his body – like you do when you’re in bad pain.’ He looked at Declan from the corners of his eyes. ‘But something reached out from that room and clasped my hand,’ he said. ‘Something very small – nearly as small as a baby’s hand would be. But leathery feeling. Dry. As dry as old parchment.’