Oblivion (19 page)

They wouldn’t feel that way, if they’d stood witness to the man beneath the alb.

I walk the length of the balcony, toward the reverend’s quarters, and find the door slightly ajar. I sneak inside the rectory, and tiptoe to the far side of the room, toward the room my father called the confessional.

Now that I’ve been to confession at Carmel—reconciliation is a requirement in religion class—I know that Palmer’s confessional was anything but a safe place to reconcile sins with God. His calling this small room of terror a confessional is further proof of his twisted mind, if you ask me. I very nearly hear my mother’s screams as I approach.

My gut churns. My fingertips buzz with warning, although logically, I know I won’t find my father behind that door, but his replacement, preparing for this morning’s sermon. I draw in a long breath, searching for any hint of Palmer’s aftershave—piney, like something reminiscent of an evergreen forest.

When I don’t catch the scent, I trudge on.

I meet with subtle differences instantly. The draperies are no longer a navy-and-forest stripe, tied back with gold ropes; rather, they’re airier, beige corduroy tab tops. Evidence that the world has continued to turn without Palmer’s pushing it. Evidence that all the things around me have progressed, and my life can’t continue in the past. Hopefully, all that will change soon, if not today.

A quick peek into the confessional, the door to which is propped open with a wedge of wood, confirms my assumptions: Andrew Drake is bent over the writing desk. I enter and close the confessional door behind me with a loud clap.

Andrew Drake looks up from whatever’s busying him on my father’s—now his—tabletop. His mouth forms a small
o
. He’s an attractive man, but I’m not attracted to him. Never have been. My history with him embarrasses me, and judging by the flush crawling up his neck, he’s none too proud, either. The girl I am today would never have done what I did with him, but the girl I used to be didn’t care about right and wrong as much as she craved security and understanding. At least that’s what Dr. Ewing says.

“Morning,” I say.

His mouth clamps shut, and he watches as I steadily approach.

It’s a closet of a room, about nine by nine, but it feels larger, due to a stunning leaded glass window directly behind the desk—the desk over which Palmer once bent me to whip my rear raw, over which Palmer bent my mother for purposes much more demeaning than corporal punishment.

Drake scoots back on his chair to gain some breathing room.

“I’m not here to start any trouble,” I tell him.

He opens his mouth, as if to speak, but no words come out.

Antique choir stalls line the left wall perpendicular to the window, but barring them and the desk, no furniture occupies the floor space. I take a seat in the stall closest to Drake. “I want the keys to the garden house.”

“Why?”

“Does it matter why? I just do.”

He persists: “It matters.”

“You know what else matters? The statute of limitations on contact of a sexual nature with a minor child.”

Trumped, Drake slides open the wide center drawer of the desk, produces a single key on an oversized ring.

While I desperately want to grasp the key and bolt out of here to meet John, I force myself to stay seated. My gaze wanders to the leaded glass. The morning sun filters through the divided shapes and casts shadows on the walls around us.

He drums his fingers against the desktop. “What do you want, Callie, in the garden? What do you expect to find out there?”

Nothing tangible. I’m certain everything there is to have and to hold in that outbuilding was whisked away a year ago … along with Hannah’s twelve-year-old body.

I shrug. “Just a safe place to be alone with a certain someone.”

His eyes narrow, even as he slides the key toward me.

I eye the key, which is still held against the tabletop with the power of his index and middle fingers.

“You can’t expect me to believe you have nowhere else to go.”

“Well, I don’t think you want me on the altar right about now, do you?” Despite my weariness, I smile. “Or maybe you do.”

Slowly, he presses his lips into a thin line.

I challenge him with a raised brow. “You were here that day, the day he sent my mother away.”

“Yes.”

“You were here the day Hannah disappeared.”

“Earlier that day, yes.”

“Knowing what you know now … about my father, about the likelihood he kidnapped Hannah … do you think my mother is crazy?”

“First of all, no one knows for sure what happened to your father and Hannah, and second—”

“Do you honestly believe it’s coincidence that—”

“Second … yes. Your mother needs help. Severe psychological disorders.”

“Is that what my father told you?”

“She’s still there, isn’t she? Regardless of what Palmer said, regardless of whether he is what we thought he was, she’s not well enough to be discharged. Look, haven’t you been through enough? Leave well enough alone.”

“Not until it’s done, and I need to comb over everything—including that garden house—to put it all to rest.”

“Your best interest—”

“Give me the key, or I’ll talk. Maybe we didn’t do the deed, Drake, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t want to.”

If I decide to tell the world about my brief connection with Drake, life as he knows it is over. He was twenty-two. A consenting adult—and engaged to Nini. I was too young to be doing what I did with him.

“The Lord’s forgiven me,” he says. “It would be nice if you did, too.”

“You didn’t do it alone.”

“What I did with you was wrong,” he says.

“It’s all right.” I rise from the choir stall and reach for the key, which he reluctantly releases. “My best to Nini and the baby bump,” I say. “How far along is she?”

“Six …” He wets his lips. “Six months.”

“Boy or girl?”

He raises his chin. “Girl.”

“Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

“In fifteen years, some altar-boy-cum-reverend-in-training is going to love the hell out of her.”

He winces.

I offer a wave.

“Callie?”

“Yeah.”

“Be sure to bring that key back. It’s the only one I have.”

I nod. “Okay.”

The Holy Promise choir, armed with tambourines, begins their set of welcome hymns, accompanied by an electric guitar and timpani. “Holy, holy, holy!” rises up from the apse below.

The song moves in my nerves. When I close my eyes, I see my mother’s smile, hear her voice. I grasp the ruby ring on my chain and concentrate on the energy it holds.

“The Bible estimates the age of Mary of Galilee around
fourteen when she conceived Jesus,” Drake says. “Maybe younger, but not older than sixteen. By present-day standards, you were a child, but when paralleled …”

When he trails off, I look over my shoulder at him, if only to encourage him to finish speaking.

“I blamed you for luring me.” He shakes his head. “Your father was incensed with your wanting me, you know that?”

Yes, I know. The scar on my shoulder burns to prove it.

“I was wrong, Callie.”

Through tears, I regard the man who’d sinned with me. “I have to go.”

“What I did with you was wrong.”

His admission sends a ripple of relief through my system. Maybe I’m not crazy after all. I wipe away a tear—“I agree”—and retrace my footsteps.

By the time I reach the nave, I’m singing along with the choir, if only to distract myself from the tears.

It’s funny how a place can hold such horrific memories, yet still feel like home. The words belt out from deep in my lungs: “Bring me home, bring me home to holy, holy, holy.”

I feel a hand on my shoulder.

John’s.

“Your mother was right. You sing like a seraph.”

Thankful for his support, I lean into his embrace.

“Did you get it?” he whispers.

I place the key in his hand.

Someone’s following us into the labyrinth. I’m certain.

More than once, I glance over my shoulder, yet everyone’s inside the church. This isn’t your average Christian institution, and it holds meetings nothing like the Catholic Masses I attend at Carmel. This is more like a Sunday matinee performance than the simple relaying of God’s message. Attendees are passionate about the word spoken inside. There’s no need to excuse someone to quiet a child outside because children don’t act up at Holy Promise. They’re too busy dancing in the aisles, sitting on the altar, or exploring crafts in the children’s chapel, which means that while service is in session, John and I are alone in the labyrinth. My gaze lifts to the heavens and settles on the belfry.

Someone was ringing the bells that day. She kept ringing them, long after Palmer tossed me into the fountain. It had to have been Hannah; no one else has come forward to testify about what she saw that day, and the police have done the due diligence to know for sure.

Tears blur my vision.

“Callie?” John’s voice sounds far away.

“Pen.” I feel him slipping away, as a black halo closes in on my peripheral vision. “I need a pen!”

I’m worn thin, and suddenly I feel very alone. The labyrinth morphs in my mind to a barren and cold place, covered with a dusting of leaves. I hear the shovel, feel the
ache in my back and shoulders, shiver with the onset of cold rain.

Honor thy father
.

Honor thy father
.

Honor thy father
.

My tears meld with the raindrops on my cheeks. I hurt. Everywhere. My muscles strain, as if walking might be impossible. My head pounds. My extremities feel numb, as if at the onset of a flu bug.

I want my mother, want to feel her arms close around me, want to fall asleep to the jingle of her bangles or the serenity of one of her lullabies.

I let out a sob, mourning what is lost. I keep digging.

“Callie.”

Suddenly my fingers begin to warm. I concentrate on the feeling; it slowly brings me back to the here and now. Slowly, the labyrinth bleeds into view. I focus on John’s hands wrapped around mine. The red felt-tip pen rests at my feet.

“What happened in here?” John persists. He’s crouched before me, presumably to retrieve my pen, holding both my hands, capturing my gaze with his own concerned stare. “You can tell me.”

I shake my head.

“I won’t judge you. You can trust me.”

I glance down at the back of his hand, on which I had written:

Hold no judgment like the moon. The witnesses are speaking soon
.

“I … I can’t.” My fists close into tight balls.

“Callie—”

The tiniest of stones at my feet scatter with my frustrated stomp. “I can’t tell you what I don’t remember!”

“Okay.”

I shake my head and I walk farther into the labyrinth at a clipped pace. John follows closely behind.

When I arrive at the center of the maze, I climb into the fountain, and brush my fingers against the border of sparkling glass mosaic tiles lining the sides as I walk the circumference.

Memories flash in my mind—water entering my lungs, my hair knotting in Palmer’s fist as he pulls me up for a quick breath, only to shove me back under the surface. The rush of water fills my ears, marble braises my knuckles as I fight for purchase, church bells peal out as if in lost hope.

I survived it all, but … at what cost?

I glance up at John. “I might’ve killed my father.”

“I’ve read up on that, too. There’s no evidence that says Palmer Prescott’s dead, let alone that you’re responsible.”

Except that I confessed to his murder on the bathroom wall.

My gaze trails to where the path disappears into a wall of juniper. I know from the days I’d spent wasting time in this maze that beyond the hedge, off the path, is an iron
gate. This is the route, I’m convinced, I took to escape that day. I would have needed the key to the gate, of course, or someone would have had to open it for me. But if I’d traversed the same, laborious path out as I had on the way in that day, someone would’ve eventually seen me. Stories are consistent: no one saw me leave, and no one mentioned seeing my father or Hannah again, which suggests Palmer and I left the grounds together—likely through that gate.

Why can’t I remember?

Maybe the answers lay behind that gate, where a structure is hidden amongst the brush—the garden house—a one-room building used for garden supply storage. I used to play in that place when I was small, but never do I remember accessing it from the center of the labyrinth. Elijah and I made out behind it once, but only after traipsing around the perimeter of the gardens.

I reach for John’s hand and climb over the white stone, out of the fountain.

He grasps my fingers. With trepidation, I lead him to the hidden gate. The juniper branches scratch me as I duck between them. My heartbeat kicks up again, as if I’ve been running, and chill bumps rise on my flesh. “Someone’s watching us,” I whisper.

On pure reflex, he flinches, looks over his shoulder, but soon, he’s shaking his head. “No. No, we’re all right.”

“Just open the gate before someone catches on.”

“Who’s going to—”

“Please!”

His tongue touches his lower lip, and his brow creases in concern. I must sound crazy. But he diverts his glance and inserts the key with ease. “I thought it opened a garden house.”

It does. It should.

The key won’t turn the lock. John’s fingers tense with another attempt. “Doesn’t work.”

It has to. “Let me.”

Our bodies are so close, imprisoned between juniper and iron, that I feel his breath ruffle my hair.

“It’s a finicky lock.” But I don’t know how I know this. With trembling fingers, I pull the key toward me a millimeter, turn it to the left. The lock gives way half a second before the gate swings out. I stumble through the opening and meet with a cobblestone walk, which surrounds the garden building.

“Cobblestone,” John says. “You wrote about cobblestone.”

I remember a few references. John would know, as he spent a good hour reading my musings last night.

“The first time I saw you write, it was about cobblestone. At the Vagabond that day. With Lindsey and Elijah.” He approaches the door to the outbuilding. This time, the key turns effortlessly in the lock. The door clicks open.