The Blessed (13 page)

“Anybody home?”

She wasn’t hoping just
anyone
was.

She was hoping
he
was.

A spark in the distance surprised her. She wasn’t alone. She thought about removing her Fender from its case for protection. On stage it was an affectation but now it might be a matter of life and death. She fumbled for the latches on the case, eyes on her shadowy target.

Sebastian raised a woodstick he’d lit from the first votive head high, silently revealing himself to her. She could barely make him out in the dim light from that distance, but she felt his presence, just as she had in the hospital room, and relaxed just a little. Her disappointment from earlier in the night was totally gone. Replaced by disbelief of the best possible kind.
It’s magic,
she thought.
Answered prayers.

As she approached him, she could see that he was bare from the waist up and everything she’d imagined.

He lit a second votive off the flame from the first.

“This is a surprise,” she said.

“Is it?”

“Well, I was hoping, I thought, I might see you.”

“You hoped.”

“Sort of.”

Sebastian chuckled. “How did you find me?”

“I remembered the smell of frankincense from some gigs I played here. I’ll never forget ’em. Best gigs I ever did. You smell exactly like this place. That and the charm on the bracelet you gave me. The exact sword that’s etched above the door. A sign, I guess.”

“A good one or a bad one?”

“We’ll see.”

“I’m glad you’re here.” He couldn’t help but notice that she looked like a supermodel who had just been hosed down for a high-fashion shoot. Whether in a sickbed or soaked to the bone, he thought, Cecilia had undeniable natural beauty and edge. “How are you feeling?”

“Wet. Unemployed. Homeless . . . you know, better. So, this is what you were in a massive rush to get back to the other night?” she asked.

“No, I haven’t been here long,” he said. “But it’s safe. Mostly. I come here sometimes.” Sebastian walked toward her, with only his jeans on. His long, muscled arms accentuated by the candlelight, keeping his eyes fixed on hers all the while.

“Slow down, sailor,” Cecilia said worriedly, but only half-joking.

He smiled, balled up an altar cloth, and tossed it to her.

“Dry off,” he said.

“Tease,” she jibed, turning away and wiping the droplets of cloudburst from her face, neck, and arms.

Cecilia stood there for a moment, gathered herself, and pulled a Clove cigarette out of her wet bag and tried to light it with her soaking-wet matches. Sebastian took it away from her, put it in his mouth, leaned over the candle, and lit it for her. He slowly took a drag, inhaled it, closed his eyes, took the cigarette from his lips, and held it to her lips, gently rubbing it from side to side until she relaxed and let it in. He tilted his head upward and exhaled. He wore the satisfied look, she observed, of a man who’d been trapped on a desert island or a maximum-security inmate with his hour outside.

“Amazing how quiet it is in here,” Cecilia said, straining to see as much of the space as she could. “You can barely hear that insanity outside.”

“Yeah, it’s peaceful,” Sebastian agreed, looking completely at ease to her.

“So now we know why
I’m
here, but what about you?”

She stepped in closer to him, removed the cigarette from her mouth, and brought it to his lips, waiting for his answer.

Lucy was taken aback at the sound of chatter outside the confessional booth and cracked the door. She peeked out and saw Sebastian with a stranger and watched for a while. She was curious at first, then jealous, and suddenly furious.

Lucy charged out of the confessional loudly, holding Sebastian’s sweater, drawing as much attention to herself as she could. Cecilia barely knew this guy, but her face flushed as if she’d been caught cheating, or had caught him.

“Oh, so
this
is what you’re doing here,” Cecilia said.

“What’s going on here?” Lucy huffed as she sidled in closer to them.

“It’s not how it looks,” Sebastian tried to explain to both of them before CeCe cut him off.

“Sloppy seconds taste terrible, don’t they?” Lucy snarked.

“Only on a cheap date,” Cecilia replied.

“Honey, there’s nothing cheap about me.”

Sebastian didn’t say a word.

“So, not only do you cruise hospitals, but you cruise churches, too?” Cecilia said, stomping out her cigarette and gathering her things to leave. “Classy.”

Sebastian moved toward her, but Cecilia backed away. He couldn’t get a word in edgewise as Cecilia rambled on angrily, dropping her matches and then her cigarettes in her haste.

“The confessional?” Cecilia sniped. “Definitely rock-star points for creativity, though—baring your body and soul. Screams ‘hot and steamy’ to me.”

“Who the hell do you think you are?” Lucy snapped.

“I didn’t know you went trends gender,” CeCe said with a laugh. “And just out of the closet, too. I bet you don’t even know her name. Oh, but then maybe you got it off the clipboard on the edge of her hospital bed. Like mine.”

“Hospital bed?” Lucy asked. “Wait, what’s going on here?”

Coming closer, Lucy got a better look and was surprised. This girl didn’t look like the jealous type to her. She was cool and gorgeous and, judging from her outfit, tough.

“You know each other?” Lucy asked, her heels clicking louder against the marble floor the closer she got.

“From Perpetual Help,” CeCe explained. “I was there last weekend. No big deal.”

“So was I,” Lucy chimed in.

Lucy rolled up her cardigan sleeves and Cecilia spied her chaplet.

Cecilia shot Sebastian an angry, disgusted look.

“You got one too?”

“Found it on my nightstand in the ER,” Lucy admitted.

“I really thought I’d seen it all,” CeCe huffed. “This guy was fishing. In the ER, no less! Spread a few lovely little parting gifts to see who he could reel in. I mean, I was only kidding when I asked if you had a thing for sick girls.”

The girls looked at each other, feeling humiliated, shaking their heads in unison, as if to acknowledge their astoundingly bad judgment when it came to guys. They made a good team, he thought, even if they had suddenly turned on him.

“I didn’t drag you here,” Sebastian said, pushing back. “Either of you.”

“No, you just planted a few seeds,” Lucy said, feeling deceived as well.

“Don’t turn this around,” Cecilia interjected.

“You came of your own free will, didn’t you?” Sebastian said. “And you can leave of your own free will.”

“Good idea. There are other Dumpsters to crash in. With smaller rats.”

Cecilia was hurt. Lucy was crushed.

“I thought this was special!” Lucy shouted while removing the chaplet, and then threw it back at him.

Cecilia followed, taking off her chaplet and tossing it casually to Sebastian. “This was a big mistake. Let’s go.”

Lucy paused, giving him one last chance to explain, but he didn’t. She joined Cecilia, reluctantly.

“They are special,” he called after them in the darkness. “You are special. It wasn’t a mistake.”

They stopped and turned.

“They brought you here. Both of you. Here,” he said. “To me.”

“What are they, freakin’ homing devices?” CeCe remarked.

“The charms, they’re called milagros. That means miracles,” he said, handing them back to their respective owners. “They are used to ground you. Heal you. Lead you home.”

“Well, fail!” Cecilia said, throwing up her arms. “I’m not home. I don’t have a home!”

“Why don’t you just listen for a second,” Lucy snapped at Cecilia.

“I ain’t into threesomes,” Cecilia said, pissed at Lucy’s indecisiveness. “Have fun.”

Lucy grabbed her arm. “It’s going to get really bad out there. Let it pass.”

Cecilia felt a bit of reverse psychology at play in Lucy’s tone. Like she didn’t really mean it. Lucy wanted her out of there. She wanted Sebastian to herself.

“Pass? You mean like a kidney stone? No, thanks.” Cecilia huffed, breaking Lucy’s grip and eyeing Sebastian. “I didn’t come here to play
Bachelor
. Besides, it couldn’t be any worse out there than it is in here.”

Cecilia grabbed her guitar and her heavy coat and made her way through the darkness to the door. She opened it and was almost immediately blown backward by an angry gust that nearly blasted the enormous wooden door from its hinges. She could barely see, but what she could make out was horrific. The sheet metal and scaffolding rattled and groaned in the wind and large branches snapped from tree trunks, littering the street, crushing parked cars beneath them, blocking the sidewalk below the stone staircase and down the brownstoned block farther than she could see. The downpour had already overwhelmed the sewers, flooding over curbs and into cellars. Plastic supermarket bags, wrappers, and rubbers clogged sewer drains as the smelly contents of overturned trash cans floated by under the straining street lamps. To CeCe, the entire area had the noxious odor of a backed-up dive-bar bathroom.

She held tightly on to the side of the large arched doorway and braced herself; the brutal wind pushed against her cheeks, turning her face into a virtual skull mask and her
arms and legs into reddened ripples of wet, quivering flesh. The decision about whether to stay or go was moot.

“Shut the door!” Lucy shouted. “You’re letting it in.”

The door that had proven so difficult to open when they first arrived was now proving equally challenging to close. Lucy rushed to the entrance and got her back into it as well, the sudden pressure drop of the thickening storm spiking the pain in her head.

Cecilia and Lucy pushed against the gusts, but not before a high-pitched whimper found its way through the ungodly din and reached their ears.

“There’s something out there,” Cecilia said.

It was coming from right near the doorstep, as far as CeCe could tell. A stray cat trying to survive the storm on the steps? she wondered. She braved the impossible wind and poked her head outside and around the door and cried out in shock.

“Son of a bitch!” CeCe yelled.

“What?” Lucy screamed. “What is it?”

Cecilia was dumbfounded.

It was a girl, barefoot, weeping, face buried in her hands, her long auburn hair barely contained inside the lambswool-lined cowl of her poncho. Both were drenched. She was curled up in a ball, shivering from cold and from fear. Crashed and washed-up, like debris from a shipwreck, in the doorway.

Cecilia stepped out and was instantly blown back against
the church door. She knelt and reached for the girl, who tightened her pose, making her difficult to move. She was nearly catatonic but still resisting, immovable, as if she were nailed to the spot.

“C’mon,” Cecilia begged. “You will catch your death out here.”

Lucy stood unsteadily in the vestibule, frustrated, watching the one-sided negotiation.

“Hurry up!” she screamed. “If she wants to be stubborn, let her. I’m closing the door.”

Cecilia turned back, looking to Lucy for help, nodding her over.

“Weren’t you just leaving?” Lucy reminded her.

“I can’t do this alone! . . . ” Cecilia yelled, realizing she didn’t have a name to go along with the urgent request.

“Lucy. My name is Lucy.”

“Cecilia,” she replied warily. “Please, Lucy. Help me.”

Lucy reluctantly complied, edging over with her back to the door as the two girls fought the elements and the girl, standing her up, and dragging her into the partially open doorway, where they huddled.

“You’d better be appreciating this,” Lucy raged at the stranger, holding both girls tightly. “This outfit cost more than your house.”

As Cecilia and Lucy tugged at the girl, her sleeves rode up, revealing bandaged wrists and a bracelet. A bracelet almost identical to theirs. The two of them stared at each other in disbelief.

“It’s okay,” Lucy said to the girl, showing her own chaplet.

The sight of it seemed to calm the girl.

“I saw it,” she said quietly, “outside.”

“I know,” Lucy replied.

An unexpected flash of lightning, an earsplitting crack of thunder, a torrential downpour and explosion of darkness suddenly assaulted them.

“Blackout!” Cecilia shouted.

“I can’t see a thing!” Lucy screamed.

The three girls teetered at the edge of the staircase, completely disoriented by the fast-changing conditions, and nearly carried one another over the railing. Cecilia was losing her grip and Lucy her balance. A second before they tumbled, Sebastian reached out for them with both hands, steadying them, and dragged them inside. He looked up at the greenish black sky showing through the rent overhang and kicked the door closed.

Sebastian ran to them and immediately attended to the stranger, walking her gently to the votive stand where the flames of the other two red glass candles were still flickering.

“You’re okay,” he said, taking her hand in his.

He lit the third votive.

“Thank you,” she whispered to him.

“What’s your name?” Cecilia asked.

Sebastian pulled the girl’s cowl back and brushed the long, wet hair from her pale, luminous face. Her skin almost gave the appearance of being lit from within.