The Presence (7 page)

I stopped again. I was in the shadow of St. Matthew's now. Still time to turn around and run back to Grandma's. But then ... but then I'd never have another chance to maybe get beyond this awful happening. I'd live always wondering if Kirsty had absolved me. Wasn't "absolved" the word they used in church? And what bad thing could happen anyway? I would be in St. Matthew's, in the middle of a city, with someone I'd met in this church, this morning, someone who was almost certainly one of the congregation.

I stared up at the massive stone building. Birds circled its turrets.

Two small boys holding skateboards rested against the front wall, watching me curiously.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi."

The church looked closed and empty. Weren't the doors always kept locked? Suppose when I went up the steps and tried the doors, they were locked and I couldn't get in? That would make the decision for me. Except there was still that back door that was supposed to be kept closed but might be open. My feet felt weighed down as I climbed, every step an effort.

I turned the handle, and the heavy carved door creaked wide. And there—in the vestibule—was Noah, smiling that luminous smile, making that little old-fashioned bow.

"You did come," he said.

"You thought I wouldn't?"

"I thought you would. Let's go in the sanctuary. You need to catch your breath. I watched you running and then slowing after you came to the corner. I decided you were tired."

"Not really." There was nothing wrong with him watching me, out in the open, on a public sidewalk. So why did I feel a little squeamish, as if he were a Peeping Tom? Ridiculous of me.

Oh, it was cold in the sanctuary. This must be the coldest church in the whole world. My running sweat was turning to icicles on my body. The air smelled of pine, of Christmas trees, of chill, of Christmas. The thirty' seven poinsettias glowed fiery red in the light from the stained-glass windows.

We sat in the back pew. "Here." Noah took a knitted blue comforter from the seat and draped it around me. "I was ready for you. This is Rita's. She won't mind."

I snuggled into it. "Do you work in the church?"

"As little as possible," he said and smiled.

I listened to the absolute stillness. It was frightening somehow, ominous. "Should we sit outside instead?" I suggested. "It would be warmer."

Noah frowned. "No. I can only make contact inside the church."

"You're going to ... make contact with Kirsty today?" I was stammering.

"Catherine..." Noah reached out and put his hands over mine where they clutched the blanket, and I felt raw glacial cold shoot from my fingertips to my shoulders.

I yelped and jerked away, the comforter dropping in a pile at my feet. "Oh, oh, sorry," I whispered. "How rude." I rubbed my arms to try to get some feeling back into them. "It was just—I was so startled. My goodness, you should have a jacket or a sweater...." My words trailed away as I retrieved the comforter.

Something had come over his face, some dark displeasure, a shadow that disappeared when he saw me looking at him.

"Don't be embarrassed," he said. "I have a circulation problem. But you know what they say—cold hands, warm heart."

I wanted to reach out and take them in mine again, to make amends for hurting his feelings, but there was something repulsive in the touch of them, and I couldn't make myself do it.

"About Kirsty," I said quickly. "I've thought of nothing else since this morning." I felt my eyes well up. "I'm scared, you know. And excited. And..." I swallowed back the tears. "And just hoping."

"Poor Catherine." Such softness in his voice. "I talked with Kirsty this morning. I told her you were coming."

I squeezed myself small in the comforter. Security blanket, I told myself stupidly. "What ... what did she say?"

"She said she wanted to talk to you about the party. The one you were coming home from when she was killed."

Killed! The awful baldness of the word.

I felt dizzy. "Oh, God," I moaned. All of it, the awfulness of that night, rushed back to swallow me, and now these words from a dead girl, my dead friend.

"Are you all right?" Noah reached out for me, but I shrank away, not meaning to, just sick and frightened. I stared up at the stained-glass window, Christ surrounded by the little children.
FOR OF SUCH IS THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN
.

"It's all just such a shock," I whispered.

"I know. It will be easier in the lounge."

I stared. "Where?"

"Oh, the Cambria Lounge, downstairs. It's half-sitting room, half—rec room. But it's not used much anymore." He smiled that dazzling smile. "It's quiet. We won't be disturbed. I told Kirsty that's where we'd meet."

"It's quiet
here,
" I said quickly. Here I knew. From here I could run if I had to. I could get to the door that led to the street.

What was the matter with me? Why did I think of running? This was what I wanted, this chance. To come today was my own choice. "Did she say anything else?"

"She said, as soon as I call her, she'll come. She said you're still her wee banty hen."

My mouth felt numb, as if I'd had a shot of Novocain. "Banty hen," I whispered. "That's what she used to call me." And nobody else knew that name, not Noah, for sure. Maybe I'd told my mom. Maybe.

He spread his hands, those frozen hands. "Shall we go down to Cambria?"

He held my arm and helped me up, helped me to walk. I stumbled up the side aisle beside him, tripping on the comforter, my legs like wood, cold radiating up my arm from his touch, numbing my shoulder. Banty hen! Wee banty hen!

"Catherine? Is that you?"

I hadn't heard the swing doors from the foyer open behind us. But Noah must have heard, because when I turned to look at him he'd disappeared, hidden himself maybe behind one of the stone pillars.

I swung around. "Dr. Miller?"

He was standing just inside the doors, the pastor, Collin's father.

"Are you all right, my dear?" I sank into one of the pews, the comforter bunched in front of me, watching him walk toward me. "Is your grandmother with you?"

I shook my head.

"Ah." He smiled. "You came back to church this afternoon to just sit and think about things. Is that it?"

"Yes." Where was Noah? Panic filled me. What would happen now? Would Kirsty think I wasn't coming? Would she leave and never give me another chance?

I rose, swaying a little, and Dr. Miller put an arm around my shoulders, so warm, so soothing. "Don't let me chase you away, Catherine. I came back this afternoon myself for almost the same reason. Sometimes I need to have quiet and the comfort of the church. But there's enough room in God's house for both of us. You take your time."

He smiled at me, then walked slowly toward the altar.

How long would he stay? Would Noah come back? I slid forward onto the kneeling stool and put my head down on my folded hands. It wasn't so cold now. Not nearly so cold.

If Noah didn't come back, how could I get in touch with him? Could I call the church number? Would he be here? Did he stay here? I knew so little about him.

I pulled one of the little registration envelopes from the pew in front and took the stub of pencil from its holder. "
I have to see Kirsty
," I wrote. "
Tomorrow. Here
." I slid it back among the other envelopes so that it stuck up, then closed my eyes and talked to God about Kirsty. "I don't know if what I'm doing is right or wrong. But you are an understanding God, and if it's wrong, I know you will forgive me."

Dr. Miller was still kneeling at the altar, the row of poinsettias scarlet in front of him. I stood quietly, but he heard and turned around. "Are you ready to leave, Catherine?"

"Yes." I folded the comforter and left it on the pew.

"I'll walk out with you and lock up," he said. "I'm glad you were able to get in when you needed to. But the building is supposed to be kept locked when no one is inside. I don't know why it was open."

Because Noah opened it for me, I almost said. But clearly Noah didn't want the pastor to know he was here.

Dr. Miller and I stood together in the foyer.

"Do you believe people who are dead can come back and speak to you?" I blurted out the words, aghast when I realized what I'd said.

He touched my cheek with gentle fingers. "I believe, if you open your heart, anything is possible," he said.

He stood at the top of the steps, and when I was ak most at the corner, I turned and he was still there, watching over me.

The Presence hummed as he walked along his wall of ladies. Every now and then he'd stop to talk to one of them and share his good fortune.

"
At first I was furious that the pastor came and spoiled it all," he told Florence. "I was just about to get Catherine down here." He paused. "You haven't met Catherine yet, but you'll like her.
"

Florence looked back at him with her dark, indifferent, dead eyes.

"
I almost had you, my lovely Florence. We went together to the brink, but you pulled back." He noticed a speck of dirt on her painted skirt and bent to rub it away. "You were foolish. We could have had a good afterlife together here in St. Matthew's. I find I have just about all I need here. Except ... I don't have the one thing I want more than anything. A soul mate to truly love and cherish me. Do I have the right to a soul mate when I don't have a soul?
"

He moved along to talk with Eliza May. "Today worked well for me. Lovely Catherine wrote a note." He took it from his pocket, carefully unfolded it. "See?" He held it up in front of Eliza May's vacant eyes. I have to see Kirsty. Tomorrow. Here.

"
Like the rest of you, my loves," he said pityingly, "poor Catherine is a bit unbalanced. Her parents know, her doctors know, her grandmother knows, and the good pastor knows. None of them will be too surprised at what
happens. Shocked, devastated, hut not surprised." He looked back along the line of paintings. "Your own disappearances were not unexpected. You were despondent and depressed, poor darlings. I was sorry for all of you. With me, each of you could have had a better life. But not one of you loved me enough. Always frightened. Always trying to escape. I couldn't let that happen. Someone might have believed your incredible stories. And then what?
"

He lay down on his folding cot, the one Manuel had once slept on in the old unused rec room where he stayed for a while to save on rent. It always made the Presence laugh to remember how terrified Manuel had been when he heard the organ playing itself in the middle of the night. "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.
"

The Presence often played in the night hours, pulling out the stops and banging discordant chords that thundered around the church. "Magnificent!" he'd shout. "Catatonic!" He loved words, even ones that made no sense.

That night was the end of Manuel sleeping here to save money. After that he became a caretaker.

The Presence picked up the book that waited for him at the side of the cot.
The Secret Garden.
He loved that
book. He'd read it and reread it. The little girl, lonely as he was, who'd found a secret garden filled with flowers. He missed gardens. The only flowers he saw were through a window or in the stilted arrangements that adorned the altar on Sundays. Sometimes he took one or two of those and brought them down here. It was so cold in his den that they lasted for a long time, but not forever. Nothing lasted forever—except himself. Catherine wouldn't, either. Time wouldn't stop for her the way it had for him. She would always be human. She'd get old and die. That seemed so sad and unfair. But they'd have many years together before that, wonderful, loving years. And perhaps, perhaps, she would become a ghost, too. Perhaps their great love would keep them together after her death. He'd read a book by Charlotte Bronte called
Wuthering Heights.
In it, the love of Heathcliff had brought his beloved Cathy's ghost to him after she died. Cathy! Catherine! It would happen. Wasn't his love for his Catherine as strong as Heathcliff's?

He opened her note again. The "wee banty hen" was what had convinced her. The pet name was one of the things her grandmother had revealed privately to the pastor, kneeling at the altar rail, seeking comfort. The Presence had knelt beside her, listening intently.

"
They'd been to a party," the grandmother had said. "Her best friend, Kirsty, was visiting from Scotland. She was driving. Kirsty was killed. Catherine lived. For some reason, she blames herself.
"

The grandmother had started sobbing, and the Presence had felt like putting an arm around the old lady's shoulders and consoling her himself. "The girl, Kirsty, used to call Catherine her 'wee banty hen,'" the grandmother said. "I think it's a Scottish endearment. Catherine's mother told me that Catherine often wakes in the night saying she's heard Kirsty asking her, 'Why did you make me do it?
'"

"
Do what?" Dr. Miller asked in his gentle soothing voice. "Do you know what Catherine made her friend do, Eunice?" And the grandmother had wiped her eyes. "No, we just don't know.
"

The Presence touched the folded note to his lips. "Soon, my wee banty hen," he whispered. "You will tell me, and I will comfort you.
"

There was an e-mail from Mom and Dad. It was raining in Paris, but they said it was wonderful anyway. They'd spent the day at the Louvre and would probably spend part of tomorrow there, too. There was so much to see. Mom's biggest surprise was that the
Mona Lisa
was so small. She'd expected it to be bigger. But it was truly exquisite. They hoped Grandma and I were both well. They missed me so much, and although they were loving their trip, they were longing to get home and see me. Only four more days. They were already counting.

"We'll send an e-mail right back to the hotel," Grandma said. "And you can tell them about your date tonight. They'll be pleased that you're going out and having fun."

"It's not really a date, you know," I told her. "It's just that Collin's being polite. He got those two tickets from his dad, and he's treating your granddaughter."