The Seeker A Novel (R. B. Chesterton) (35 page)

I was mildly surprised when a woman came out of the confessional. My watch showed only 6:30. As she hurried past me, wiping at her face, I recognized Mrs. Leahy, Patrick’s mother. She did a double-take when she saw me, but instead of stopping to speak, she rushed by. Whatever burden she carried, Father O’Rourk had been willing to hear her confession at an early hour.

He exited the confessional, a tall man with a perpetual five o’clock shadow. I wondered idly if he fit the phrase black Irish. His green gaze found me, and he came forward.

“Miss Cahill, I haven’t seen you in the congregation before.” I must have appeared startled because he smiled. “We’re a small church. I know all the parishioners. With a name like Cahill, I figured you were Catholic, but non-practicing.”

“You have it right.”

“And yet you’re here.” He waited.

“Yes, to see you.” I spoke slowly, thoughtfully. He was used to grieving and hysterical women. I doubted he was prepared for one asking for an exorcism.

He carried the weight of his parishioner’s secrets with grace. What would it be like to know the sins of a multitude of people? I could barely manage my own.

“Have you come to confess?” he asked.

“In a manner of speaking.” I’d not intended to use the confessional, but it occurred to me that anything I divulged would be protected if I did. “Yes, a confession.”

His robes rustled as he allowed me to precede him to the booth. Once inside the polished conf ines with the grate separating us, I lost my confidence. Father O’Rourk went through the prayers. I half-listened, trying to find a way to launch into what I needed to say.

When the silence grew between us, I finally spoke. “There’s evil in the woods, Father. An ancient evil. I’m haunted, and I need an exorcism.”

Father O’Rourk cleared his throat, a ploy to gain time before he responded. “What form does this evil take, Aine Cahill?” he asked.

It was the perfect question. The one I could answer clearly and begin the story of my relationship with the demon I called Mischa.

By the time I finished, it was 7:30. Father O’Rourk gave me a penance to do and told me he would take my request for an exorcism to his superiors. He met me outside the confessional, an older man than he’d been an hour before.

“Aine, have you talked with anyone else about this?”

“Joe Sinclair. I’ve tried to tell him, but he won’t listen. Not really.” I tried to smile but produced only a twitch. “He thinks I’m mad. ”

“I see.” He touched my shoulder, a gesture of compassion. “Will you be safe to go home?”

“You’ll take it to the higher church authorities? And quickly?”

“I promise.”

“What are my chances?”

His expression showed concern. “I don’t know. This is new to me. Not to the church,” he hastened to add. “But to me. I’ve never petitioned for an exorcism. And I’m not clear. Do you honestly feel that you’re possessed?”

I’d been rather vague on that point, because I wasn’t certain. “I’m the only one who sees her. She seems attached to me, as she was to my aunt Bonnie. Does that make me possessed? I don’t know. But if it is me, I want her gone.”

“Is there any evidence she killed Joe’s former girlfriend and Patrick?”

“Yes.” The wine glass with the poison. The glasses also implicated me, but if the priest believed me, and they were necessary to gain an exorcism, then I would tell.

“What evidence?”

I had to be certain of the exorcism before I told him. “When the Holy See agrees to exorcise me, I’ll tell you.”

“You can’t bargain with God.” He tried to be stern, but he was clearly worried.

“I’m not. I’m bargaining with you and the Church.”

“Be careful, Aine. I wish you’d let me call a relative. You shouldn’t be alone now.”

“They’re the last people who could help me. The church believes in evil. You preach that the sins of the father visit the son. Believe me, my family doesn’t need to be here.”

“I have your cell phone number. I’ll put in a call to Rome and let you know the minute I hear.”

“Thank you, Father.”

I left the church and emerged into a bright day. The town was bustling, and I decided on a coffee at the Honey Bea. Before another hour got away from me, though, I had to find Bonnie’s journal and haul my computer to an expert. If he could resurrect my dissertation, I would find bits and pieces of the journal in the text. My aspirations for a doctorate were destroyed, but if I could prove there had been a journal, maybe Joe would believe me about Mischa. My work had to be on the hard drive somewhere. I wouldn’t give up without a fight.

But first I had to go to Walden Pond.

47

I knew Mischa would hide pages of the journal at Walden. It made perfect sense. It was where I first saw her, and where it would all end. The path home. If the church granted an exorcism, I would have it here beside the pond where Bonnie’s life ended. Where Karla was murdered. Where I met Joe.

Birdsong trilled at Walden, though spring was still a long distance away. I settled onto a fallen log on the edge of the woods. The sun warmed my face, and I basked in pleasure. I was toasty even when the wind kicked up and blew across the pond.

Back in the 1800s, the 61-acre lake had provided ice for Southern cities as well as the Caribbean, Europe, and India. Frederic Tudor, Boston’s Ice King, cut ice from the lake and shipped it in huge blocks to the warmer climates, but that was before electricity put a Frigidaire in every home.

Thoreau had written about the ice harvesters. I’d read it somewhere. Funny, but so much of the information I’d reaped had begun to jumble in my head. For an English doctoral student, I was becoming careless of my sources. But what did it matter. I could no longer remember why I’d wanted a Ph.D. Now, I wanted to save myself. And Bonnie. I wanted to confront Mischa and send her back to the hell Jonah Cahill had pulled her from.

I had to find the journal. I’d delayed enough. The confrontation with Mischa was something I dreaded. I knew her tactics, and I wondered if she was aware of my visit to the priest. She spied on me all the time. She probably knew. But was she worried? It might be leverage to get the journal back.

I didn’t know where Bonnie had died, but I did know where Karla’s body had been found in a shallow depression. I’d find the first page there. Bread crumbs. Mischa had used the journal to manipulate my ego. She wanted me at the pond, and she knew me well. She’d been one step ahead of me since I was born. Unless I figured out a way to destroy her, she’d take my soul.

Passing the model of the cabin where Thoreau lived, I peeped in at the wood-burning stove and the narrow bed. There was hardly room to turn around. “Intimate” didn’t begin to describe the arrangement. I could have lived like that with Joe. It would have been joyful. Still, Dorothea’s cabin was much more spacious, perfect for the two of us—if Mischa hadn’t interfered.

I hiked down the trail wondering if she
could
be killed. If she could be exorcised or banned or sent back to hell where she belonged, would I be free of her?

I chose the trail into the deep woods. Behind me, I heard the crackle of a dry stick. Mischa. Or Bonnie. I prayed my aunt would come to help me. I doubted she was able to do so.

I continued. Behind me branches swished and snapped, and in front of me the birds fell silent. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a splinter of red floating through the trees about fifty yards to my left. When I looked full on, I saw nothing except the black trunks. She was following me, shadowing each action I took.

The sun slid behind a thick gray cloud, and unease settled over me. Mischa had almost killed me the day she’d lured me to Yerby Lane on a false journey. If her intention was to kill me now, she might succeed if I wasn’t smarter and more cunning than she was.

When I came to the small glade beside the two oaks, I stopped. Turning slowly in a circle, I looked for the journal page. This was the place. It was logical. Mischa was a very practical girl.

But all I saw were woods and leaves and tree trunks and the tatter of crime-scene tape that remained tied around the trunk of one of the oaks. The impression where Karla had been discovered was between two oaks. Stones and tree roots made digging next to impossible. I knew that from burying the wine glasses.

When no journal pages were in evidence, I wondered what Mischa had in store for me. My inclination to come to Walden was correct, I just knew it. She wanted me here, but not, it seemed, for the reason I assumed.

She was here. Watching me. Hiding in the woods and darting out. A game. Everything was a game with her. If I called her, she would giggle and come to me, as docile as a lamb. But she was no innocent.

I entered the trees’ shadows. “Come out, you murdering bitch. I’m not afraid of you.”

She sped through the trees, a blur here and there, childish laughter trailing behind as she ran. This was fun for her.

I took the pepper spray but left my bulky purse in the clearing and gave chase, knowing she was preternaturally fast. I’d never catch her, but the fantasy of my hands choking her slender throat was satisfying. I pursued her. And she ran me in a circle. Ten minutes later, I ended up where I’d begun. She was gone.

The wind kicked up, and a page from the journal blew against my leg. The wind crumbled it to dust before I could save it.

Another page tangled in a dead tree limb as it broke into bits and disintegrated. I ran to snatch it and caught a fragment of the crumbling old page.
She hides in the edge of the trees
was written in fading brown ink.

I slid it into the pocket of my jacket. I could show McKinney this. It was evidence, if not a lot.

I saw her ten feet from the edge of the trees. She held the journal in both hands. She set free another page that fluttered among the branches of an elm and then burst into shreds.

“Your aunt and Thoreau. You’d be laughable if you weren’t so pathetic. How you wanted to believe. A true believer, Aine. So desperate in your need to be somebody. Even when you couldn’t find proof that Bonnie existed, let alone shared years with a famous man, you still clung to the belief.”

None of it had been real. For the past four years, my life had been Bonnie’s journal. It had dictated all of my decisions, my sacrifices, my dreams. I felt empty of all emotion or hope. All of it had been Mischa. With her powers she’d created the one fantasy she knew I couldn’t resist. I was no match for her.

“Now you understand. You’re here, exactly where I want you. Just as Bonnie came here. She almost escaped me. She almost figured it out and broke the curse. But in the end, she couldn’t. Her gift, her ability to see the dead, owned her. And then she was mine. Like you, Aine, she couldn’t shoulder the burden.”

Mischa tossed the journal down, and it exploded in a cloud of dust.

When I looked for her, she was gone. But someone was in the woods. Not Mischa or Bonnie. She came slowly forward.

“Aine, it’s me, your mother.” She stood at the edge of the woods. She wore denim shorts and a red-checked shirt. Her tennis shoes had once been white, but now they were covered with bloody gore and a multitude of flies. They buzzed and swarmed about her feet.

She held up her hands and blood dripped off her elbows. “Look what you made me do, Aine. You were so bad. So naughty. I couldn’t live with the things you did. You sentenced me to eternal hell.”

I put my hands over my ears. Mischa meant to punish me. This was not my mother. This was not the woman who’d held me against her pregnant belly while we lay on a checked picnic cloth in the Kentucky sunshine.

“There’s a devil in you, Aine.” Mother was closer. Her dark hair curled around her face and her red lips moved, but I blocked her cruel words. I couldn’t listen.

“Your baby brother, Aine. Little William. He laughed when you tickled him. Your innocent little brother. You suffocated him. Do you remember? I left you alone with him for five minutes, and you put a pillow over his face and smothered him. It was my fault. I knew you were bad. I knew you were filled with evil. But you were my child and I loved you. I thought my love could heal you, but I was wrong.”

She was close enough to touch. Blood soaked the ground around her and the buzzing of the flies was a deep whisper.

“You’re a liar. You aren’t my mother. The dead lie.” I didn’t run. Couldn’t. I was mesmerized by the sight of her. I hadn’t seen my mother in twenty years, but this apparition looked exactly as I remembered her.

“You belong to her, Aine. You always did. I tried to block it. But you were bartered to her the day Jonah Cahill turned to serve the darkness.”

“No.” It was a trick. I knew it, but her words still hammered me. “That was hundreds of years ago. It had nothing to do with me.”

“Bryson Cappett. Dead these ten years, moldering in a grave. Because of you.”

“No.” Bryson had fallen during a hike. He’d been supremely athletic. “No.” I repeated the word because I knew now for sure that Mischa had pushed him. “I’m not to blame for what she does.”

“Your father, dead from drink. He knew what you were and he couldn’t live with it. He’s waiting for you, too.”

She battered me with the past. “I was a child. I couldn’t help him.”

“You destroyed him. And your granny, too. Caleb couldn’t look at you without knowing what you were. And Granny Siobhan, once she knew you had the journal, she realized you were lost. Doomed. She tried to tell you, but the truth stopped her heart. It always goes back to you, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t believe you.” But I did. I did believe her. The things she said were all true. While I hadn’t raised a hand to do any of the acts she recounted, they happened because of me. “I was a child.”

“I should have slit your throat the minute I knew what you were.”

“Mama… .” I only wanted her love. “I didn’t mean to be bad.”

“Stop it here and now. Stop it before more innocent people are harmed. It’s the only way, Aine. Bonnie realized this. She did what had to be done.”

“What should I do?”

She stepped closer. “Come to me. I’ll take care of you.”

I wanted nothing more than to rush to her, to bury my face in her stomach the way I’d done as a child. Behind her, I saw my father, a glimmer of substance in the trees. There were others. Some I knew, some I didn’t. They waited for me. If I stepped beyond the veil, I could leave behind all the worry and fear.