Embracing Darkness (59 page)

“You’re in love, Jess! With none other than… .” Swell took a dramatic breath, arched her back, and put the back of her hand over her forehead. “BILLY NORWIN!”

“You’re crazy!” Jessie said angrily.

“It’s true. I see the way you are around Billy. Honestly, you can tell me. I mean, come on! I’ve already told you that Billy and I do it strictly as business, nothing more. So you can take him, girl. He’s yours. And to show you what a good friend I am, I won’t even accept his business anymore. Anyway I’ve been giving him a discount since we’ve been doing it so much. I charge him a flat rate of two dollars per week, no matter how many times we do it.”

“How does he get that much money every week?” Jessie asked.

“I’m not supposed to tell,” replied Swell, “but you and I tell each other
everything.
He’s been stealing it from Father Fin. The old fool’s been keeping money, a whole bunch in fact, in his office desk. All the boys know about it. That’s where they get their dollars from! Thanks to Father Fin my business is thriving!”

Jessie jumped up onto her knees. “THAT’S THE CHURCH’S MONEY! HOW COULD YOU?”

“
I’m
not the one stealing it!” Swell said defensively. “If you wanna blame anybody, blame the boys. After all,
they’re
the ones stealing, not me.”

“Yes, but you know where they’re getting the money from, and you still take it.”

Swell gathered her thoughts and sat back down on the bed next to Jessie. “Come on, Jess,” she coaxed. “Don’t be like that.”

“Like what?” Jessie shot back.

“Look at this!” Swell said, lifting up her dress. Just below her navel was written, “OPEN FOR BUSINESS
.
”

A few minutes later Jessie walked Swell to the front door. Jack White heard the front door open. He smiled at Swell as she flirtatiously passed him. He even nodded his head once as he greeted her. “Hello there, Sue Ellen. Fine day, isn’t it?”

Swell nearly swooned, becoming giggly and batting her eyelids. “Yes it is, Mr. White.”

The stranger’s eyes followed the imprints of Sue Ellen’s shoes in the grass up to the bottom step of the Benson porch, where Jessie was still standing with General Lee next to her. The dog was staring at the man intently.

“Hello to you too, Miss Jessica,” said Jack White.

“My name is Jessie,” she retorted. “I like people calling me Jessie or Jess.”

“My apologies,” the man said, and raised his eyebrows at Sue Ellen. “My, my, she has a temper, doesn’t she?” he said to Sue Ellen.

Swell turned and called out, “Jess, you be sweet. Mr. White is only being friendly.”

Taking hold of the doorknob and slowly closing the door, Jessie said, “Just you remember not to be too friendly to
him
.”

Jessie watched from her bedroom window how the two of them were getting on below. Swell was swaying her hips back and forth, and the stranger gawked at them, paying the rest of Sue Ellen no mind.

Jessie had a bad feeling about Swell’s infatuation with Jack White. Since neither she nor the boys trusted him after he’d threatened to slit everyone’s throats, kicked General Lee, booted Charlie Ryder in the balls, busted Gabe Sparks’s lip wide open, subjected Ziggy to humiliation, knocked down Mrs. Keats, and nearly broken Billy Norwin’s neck, Jessie knew that the stranger was dangerous and that Father Poole was absolutely oblivious to the lurking menace.

The priest chose not to recognize the fear in our eyes every time Jack White was nearby. He chose to ignore the signs of abuse such as Gabe’s split lip, the bruises on Billy’s neck, and Ziggy’s hiding whenever he saw the stranger. There were so many clues, yet Father Poole did nothing, and for our own safety, we were not about to vex White by ratting to Father Fin about all the things the impostor had done.

Just then Jessie heard a knock at her door. It was Father Poole, who said that he was going to make arrangements to take Sister Ignatius off the hill. After talking on the phone, he and the doctor had decided that she was in serious need of medical attention.

“Stay here and keep an eye on her, Jess,” said the priest. “I need to go back to my office and collect some mon… . Collect some things,” he corrected himself. “Please stay up here and listen for Sister if she happens to wake up.”

She turned away from Father Poole without saying a word and returned to gawking out the window. As worried as she was about Sister Ignatius, her gut told her that Swell might be in bigger danger at that very moment. Jessie knew she was utterly powerless to help Sis, but she could still intervene in some way or another on Sue Ellen’s behalf.

She watched Father Poole walk past Jack White and Swell, greeting them as he did so, and return to the rectory. The stranger and Sue Ellen had already begun strolling away from the Benson house. The thin lace shawl that Swell had been wearing around her shoulders fell to the ground, and Jessie saw the man bend down, pick it up, and place it back on Swell’s shoulders. Jessie reflected that this was surely the only act of kindness she’d seen on Jack White’s part. She wondered why he was so polite to Sue Ellen, but then again she
did
shower him with attention. For a split second Jessie thought that that’s what the man responded to in order to show a more human side of himself. Perhaps his rough exterior was just the façade of someone who had his own set of vulnerabilities.

Jessie later would admit that this was not only a gross misconception of the stranger but also the biggest underestimation of a monster that anyone had ever made.

That Saturday afternoon was a wondrous moment for all on the hill. For the first time ever an automobile made its way up to the summit. The car, a 1940 Ford Fordor Deluxe, was driven by none other than Walt Hartley, who shouted, “YOU SEE, FATHER? I TOLD YOU I’D BE ABLE TO GET ONE OF THESE UP HERE!
”
Mr. Hartley had borrowed the car from a client of his, Nigel Westwood, who had offered the car to Hartley any time he needed it.

We boys crowded around the car in amazement that there was actually one on the hill. We acted as though we’d never seen an automobile before.

We were too busy gawking at the Ford’s cabin to notice Father Poole carrying Sister Ignatius out of the house. He sat her in a borrowed wheelchair at the foot of the porch steps. The priest started to push the wheelchair toward the car, but Sister grabbed his sleeve and motioned for him to draw closer to her. She whispered into his ear. Father Fin nodded slightly to her and changed the wheelchair’s course, pushing it toward the maple.

They went around to the south side of the tree, disappearing almost completely behind it. We waited for them to reemerge. It took almost three minutes for them to come back into view and make their way back toward us. Jessie saw Father Poole fold up his knife and put it back in his pocket.

They
wrote
something
on
the
tree
, Jessie thought to herself.

Walt Hartley got out of the car and helped Father Poole to get Sister Ignatius inside. They sat her in the back seat so that she could lie down. She was wearing a light blue robe, and her blonde hair, which was beginning to show signs of turning white, was pulled back tightly in a bun. Father Poole, Jessie, and the rest of us couldn’t believe how pallid Sister’s color was when the sun shone on her. It was as if someone had covered her face with talcum.

Sister Ignatius stumbled from the moment she got out of the wheelchair to when she finally sat down in the back seat. She appeared ever so frail, so much so that we thought a slight gust of wind would knock her down. With Father on her left and Hartley on her right, Sister’s feet dragged along the ground. She hadn’t even the strength to stand.

When the car doors slammed shut, Sister stuck her head out the window and extended a frail hand to Jessie, who was crying. “Be a brave girl,” Sis said, and taking Jessie’s hand in her own squeezed it as tightly as she could. “And we’ll all be together again soon.” Jessie tried her best to smile. She nodded to Sister and bit her lower lip.

The three of them started down the hill, but not before Hartley turned around in a circle in the middle of the grass in front of the Benson porch. They then drove back toward “The Path to Salvation” before beginning the descent, which was the side of the hill with the gentlest slope.

All of us stood there solemnly as we watched the Ford Fordor leave. We waved goodbye despite knowing that no one in the car was waving back at us. We now were alone on the hill under the relaxed supervision of Mrs. Keats, who had miraculously come out of the rectory for the first time in years to say goodbye to Sister Ignatius, whom she’d miss dearly, but who never showed the slightest emotion on her round, flour-stained face.

Jessie wondered if that would be the last time she’d ever see Sister Ignatius again. She didn’t want to think about it. She went to grab Billy’s hand, but he was staring at Swell, who smiled and pointed to the rectory stairs with her chin. Jessie saw Billy nod and grin as everyone in the group began to disperse.

Suddenly Jessie felt a sense of betrayal by both Billy and Sue Ellen. She was immediately consumed by the feeling of wanting to be alone. A few minutes earlier, just after the car rolled down the hill, Jessie had the urge to go over to the south side of the maple. She thought that perhaps Father Fin and Sis had carved something on the bark like GOODBYE, DEAR MAPLE or SISTER IGNATIUS WAS HERE IN ‘42
.
In Jessie’s preoccupation with Billy’s attention being all on Sue Ellen, however, she let the maple drift out of her mind.

Swell and Billy waited for Mrs. Keats and Ziggy to go inside while the rest of us, including Jessie, went up the maple to cool off, since its branches offered not only a refuge from the August afternoon’s sweltering heat but also a guaranteed breeze.

Meanwhile Sue Ellen told Billy to go over to her house to get the large comforter that was lying across her bed. “One blanket’s just not enough, Billy. My clothes are getting all dirty from that old crawlspace,” she complained.

“I don’t know why,” he said. “We don’t do anything in our clothes down there anyway.”

She giggled and said, “I’m serious, Billy. I’ll open the hole and get myself ready for you. We only have until my father gets back. He’s been getting worried about my being out so much with so many of you boys all about.”

Jessie, already up in the tree, turned away from her view of Billy and Swell. Although she hadn’t previously been jealous of their sexual activity, she
was
now and didn’t know why. She had a right to be angry with Sue Ellen for going back on her promise to stay away from Billy, but why be angry at
him
?

Perhaps it was because his hand wasn’t holding hers at that saddest of moments when she watched Sister being driven off the hill. It was a lonely time for Jessie, and the thought of Billy’s not being there for her when she needed him made it all the more difficult to accept his relationship with her best friend.

Jessie watched Billy run to the Hartley house. She then observed Swell turn her head from side to side and scurry toward the rectory stairs. As Sue Ellen began to run, a figure emerged from the side of the building. It was Zachary Black, and he had heard Swell say where she was going.

With Father Poole, Sister Ignatius, and Mr. Hartley gone, leaving only crippled Mrs. Keats to watch us, we should have felt as though we were in peril. The only remaining adult, after all, was the one who terrified us. As afraid as we were of him, however, none of us attempted to see where he was or what he was doing as we waved goodbye to the Ford Fordor.

Theo, Charlie, Gabe, Dylan, Lou, Jordan, Jessie, and I sat atop the maple on that hot first day of August. We lay back on our thick branches and enjoyed the refreshing breeze that the maple always afforded us. Ziggy, meanwhile, was still inside the rectory with Mrs. Keats. Jessie then climbed down from the tree after a few minutes and went into the Benson house to lie on her bed and cry into her pillow over her newfound distrust of Billy and Sue Ellen.

Billy, on the other hand, was walking into the Hartley residence to retrieve the comforter for his rendezvous with Swell, who had just crept into the crawlspace below the rectory.

While he was on this errand, Sue Ellen spread out the blanket she always kept there in a tightly tied bag to keep out the bugs, dust, and squirrels. She sat on top of it and began to undo the buttons on her dress. Soon she was completely naked. Swell then lay down with her back to the crawlspace’s entranceway. She pulled the cover back just in case Mrs. Keats or Ziggy came by, although while doing so she thought to herself that she wouldn’t mind if Mr. White walked by and happened to peek in.

After several more minutes Swell began to ask herself, “What is taking that boy so long?” The air was hot and still, making her very drowsy. By the time the hole to the crawlspace reopened, she had already fallen fast asleep.

A few minutes before Swell dozed off, Billy had reached Swell’s bedroom, grabbed the comforter, and started for the door. Then he noticed something hanging there. It was a lifeless chipmunk. Billy took the string from which it had been suspended and examined it more closely, frowning as he did so.

Billy then heard the front door open and slam shut. Dropping both the mummified remains and the comforter on the floor, he listened intently.
Perhaps
it’s
Swell’s
old
man
, he thought before realizing that it couldn’t be because he, Father Fin, and Sis had only been gone a few minutes and, besides, he’d have heard the car coming back up the hill.

Billy began walking slowly through the hallway toward the stairs. Just then he heard someone run across the downstairs floor, open a door, and slam it shut.

Billy reacted on impulse and ran downstairs. He saw a door that he hadn’t noticed before. He wasn’t quite sure what it might be, but he believed that somebody was hiding behind it. He took a deep breath and swung the door open. It was an empty closet. Just then the light that had been shining into it from outside was eclipsed by a shadow. That was the last thing Billy Norwin remembered.