“Yeah, but … you don’t understand. These … people … really, really creep me out. I don’t want to be stuck here alone with them, especially after it gets dark. They scare me, Urszula. And I’m … surrounded!”
Indignance flashed into her face. She took a stance, legs apart, hands on her hips, elbows akimbo that had me prepare for a barrage of derision and ridicule. But as she studied me, her posture softened. Her aggression dissipated.
“Give me one night,” she said. “And then I will fetch you. I promise you will find it peaceful. I come here myself when I need to get away from Yaqob.”
“Night?” I began to hyperventilate at the prospect of spending a night here alone. It would be like being in that hollow again, only worse.
Out of the blue, my heart started thumping at maximum velocity. What was going on with me?
“I will send Seraf to fetch you tomorrow. Climb into her saddle and she will carry you to me.”
“Yeah, if she doesn’t eat me first.”
“Seraf will not eat you. Seraf is a good mantid. Seraf obeys me.”
My head swam and swooned. I had to sit down or I would pass out. I collapsed onto a stone.
She cocked her head at me and scrunched her eyes, quizzically. “What is wrong with you?”
“I don’t know. I think … I think I must be having a panic attack.”
She came over and took me into her arms. She pulled my head against her boyish bosom and stroked my hair.
“Oh, James, James, James. How does such a frail soul end up in a place like this? You really are just a boy. A little boy. Unfit for this world. Even I was tougher and I was much younger than you when I went straight to the Deeps.”
“Were you … scared?” I said, already soothed by her touch.
“Of course. Who wouldn’t be? The Deeps are not a nice place. Vast nothingness. Souls tormented and driven insane by the unending dust and light. The monstrous Horus, traveling the skies, devouring all.” She sighed, impatiently. “Though, unlike me, you asked to leave your life behind. You summoned the Liminality. You should think twice about opening doors when you do not know what horror lies beyond.”
“Yeah, well. It wasn’t like I thought the grass would be greener over here. I didn’t even expect there would be anything more. I just wanted my life to stop. I wanted off the train.”
“You can’t leave existence,” she said. “A soul, once created, never ends. But I can tell you from experience, this existence is better than some.”
Lalibela came fluttering back, a plant hopper in her grasp. She crash landed on the base of a ruined tower, knocking over a stack of loose stone.
Urszula pulled away from me and climbed the rubble up to her mount. “I will send Seraf to fetch you tomorrow. Don’t worry. There is plenty of prey here for a mantis. She will not be tempted to eat you.”
“I will see you again, won’t I?” I didn’t know why I felt so compelled to ask right then.
“Of course,” she said, squinting with puzzlement.
If only I could be as certain. But I could sense the Deeps lurking like an ant lion in its trap, and me an ant perched on its crumbling brink.
Chapter 39: Thwarted
The instant Karla’s chin struck the cold, hard concrete the last vestiges of her spirit snapped out of the Liminality. She had rolled off the long crate onto the floor. The horror of that giant insect plucking James from her side remained fresh in her retinas.
A steadier rain now pelted the casement window, the droplets refracting the glow of a lone street lamp. She got up, legs all shaky, and wobbled over to the staircase, feeling her way along the walls.
Upstairs, the rumble of Renfrew’s baritone alternated with Jessica’s liquid laughter. Their voices fell silent when she made the first tread creak. Feet thudded against the hardwood. A door flew open, blasting her with light. She squinted against it, her eyes tearing up.
Jessica stood wielding a mop like a halberd. Renfrew peered over her shoulder, pistol in hand, his face contorted in puzzlement.
“Don’t tell me you spent the whole night down there, love.”
“It’s still night,” said Karla.
“You did that thing you do, didn’t you?” said Jessica. “You went to that place you go. So did you see him? How is he?”
“Not good,” said Karla, topping the stairs and entering the kitchen.
“See who?” said Sturgie, from atop a stack of moving boxes in the parlor. “Who’s down there?”
“James,” said Jessica.
“He’s here?”
“Karla gets these visions,” said Jessica. “It’s a sort of telepathy.”
“Not quite,” said Karla, horrified by the sight of herself in the mirror across the hall, hair all askew, cobwebs dangling from one ear. She raked her fingers through her hair to at least get the strands all flowing in the same direction. “But we need to reach him as soon as possible. His condition is worsening. But the good news is, he thinks Izzie is in the same church as him, one floor above. So they must be in Inverness. Mr. Joshua could not have gotten her to Edinburgh or Aberdeen so quickly.”
“We’re ready whenever you are, darlin,’” said Renfrew. “I’ve been raring to go all night.”
Karla saw that he had changed into another set of what he considered his Sunday best, complete with a tie the color of spoiled mackerel over a brown shirt and natty woolen trousers a bit frayed at the cuffs.
Jessica wore a flowery print skirt of a weight and cut inappropriate for the weather. She pulled a white cotton sweater over her shoulders. They were clearly eager to begin the rescue.
Both looked far more presentable than Sturgie with his un-tucked flannel shirt and shredded jeans. He kept to the shadows, avoiding all eye contact with his Uncle.
“Do you all manage to get some rest?” said Karla.
“I had a catnap here and there,” said Jessica. “Would have gotten more if Renfrew hadn’t stormed to the window every time a car door slammed.”
Karla rinsed her face in the bathroom sink and wet down her fly-aways. What she needed was a nice, hot shower, but the bathroom was devoid of soap or towels. Papa had even packed up the toilet paper. She wondered where he intended to move.
She shook her hands dry and went box to box in the front hall searching for some clean clothes. They contained nothing but books and kitchen utensils.
“Mind if I check the ones you’re sitting on?” she said to Sturgie, who popped to his feet and went off to lurk in another corner.
The topmost box was stuffed with Papa’s winter coats. She closed the flaps as soon as she realized it, almost expecting something mangy and toothed to leap at her throat. Too many bad memories were attached to those coats.
She struck gold with the one underneath. Half the contents of her bedroom drawers were crammed into it. She pulled out one of her old Oxford cloth blouses and a long, jean dress to go with some clean underwear and socks. In lieu of a shower, some clean clothes would go a long way toward making her feel human again.
“You’re awfully mopey,” she said to Sturgie. “Are you feeling okay?”
“I’m fine,” said Sturgie.
“It’s because Renfrew’s in the room,” said Jessica. “They’re not speaking to each other.”
“Why not?” said Karla.
“Don’t ask,” said Jessica. “Just leave them be.”
“Oh come on. We have bigger things to worry about. You two should let bygones be bygones.”
“We’ll sooner be a hail storm in hell,” said Jessica, smirking.
“What could Sturgie have possibly done that was so horrible?”
“Me?” said Sturgie, his pitch rising to a whine. “It was his doing.”
“Oh?”
Renfrew gazed at his shoes.
“Sturgie received top notch grades in his A levels,” said Jessica. “He was a cinch to get into Leeds. But then Ren sabotaged his application.”
“How?”
“That’s enoug
h!” said Renfrew.
“He forged a scathing letter from Sturgie’s headmaster,” said Jessica. “The same one who had already written Sturgie a glowing letter of referral. But by the time the admissions committee sorted things out, they had already made their selections.”
“Renfrew! How could you do such a thing?”
Renfrew shrugged, his eyes wandering, lost. “I didn’t want him to leave the farm.”
“A lot of good that did,” said Sturgie. “You forced me twice as far from Brynmawr.”
“There were plenty of fine colleges in Wales.”
“Not for the kind of business degree I want.”
“Music,” sneered Renfrew. “Now what kind of career is that? You’ll end up like Linval, booking bands at pubs and living off the scrapings.”
“There are bigger opportunities as well,” said Sturgie.
“What a bunch of bollocks! We had an agreement. You were to take over the farm when I retire.”
“I was twelve for Chrissakes. You can’t expect a binding commitment from a child. You know how important music is to me.”
“I promised my dying brother I’d take care of you.”
“By keeping me out of college?” Sturgie’s face was slowly turning a shade of red just south of purple.
“Alright you two, break it off!” said Jessica. “We don’t need this to devolve into fisticuffs. Keep your attention on the task at hand. We have friends who need saving.”
Karla sighed and gathered up her fresh clothes. “Let me change and I’ll take us all for coffee. Near the train station, there’s a shop that opens at five for travelers. We need our heads calm and clear.”
***
The car idled curbside, facing the train station where Karla had last laid eyes on James on this side of existence. What a fool she had been to force him away. How she wished she could have a do-over.
None of these current troubles had to happen. They could all be in Rome right now, eking out a meager but sane life together. The Liminality need only be a disturbance in their wake, ripples smoothing in their memories.
Jessica returned to the car with a tray of coffees all steaming in their Styrofoam cups. The rain drummed a grim tattoo on the roof.
Sturgie, at the wheel, looked to her for instructions.
“Hang a left on Friar’s Lane and then left again onto Bank Street. We’ll drive along the river and catch a glimpse of the church. Left again just past the Salvation Army store and we can catch another peek from the side. Do not slow down. We don’t want to make it too obvious that we’re casing the place.”
Sturgie nodded and pulled out of the space, heading for the road along the estuary that drained Loch Ness. Every sopping surface glistened in their headlights. There was no hint yet of dawn.
As they made the turn onto Bank, Karla sank her nails into her cup and inhaled deeply. This was closer than she had ever desired to come to the place that had been the center of her torments.
The squat, gothic redoubt of St. Aynsley’s sat directly across the estuary from St. Mary’s, the more elegant gathering place of Inverness’ mainstream Catholics. It hunkered on a tiny lane, one layer back from the water’s edge, just past the footbridge that in theory might have connected the two parishes. But there may as well have been a universe between them and their Papist brethren.
St. Aynsley’s had had a long, sorry history. Named after one of Scotland’s first evangelists, it had been gutted and burned to a shell by a mob after the defeat of the Jacobite rebellion. Rebuilt, it was quickly superseded by St. Mary’s but was retained to serve the poorer, immigrant half of Inverness, limping along until the archdiocese shut it down as part of a consolidation.
It was built like a fortress, with wings arranged in a stout cross. Its thick, stone-block walls and beveled faces could probably withstand an artillery barrage. It was too small to sustain a viable congregation without extreme tithing, which was exactly how the Sedevacantists managed in lieu of Vatican support.
“Guys, it’s coming up on the left,” said Karla. And there it was, awash in light from a row of streetlamps and gone again in a flash. That mere glimpse sufficed to quicken her heartbeat and set her palms perspiring. She had never expected to see the place again. Ever.
“Left! Here!”
Sturgie yanked the wheel and the car shimmied into the turn, but the wheels managed to catch on the slick stone before they fishtailed into a lamp post.
“Stop right here!” said Karla as they came to the alley that offered a side view of St. Aynsley’s front entry.
Sturgie stomped on the brakes.
“Jesus, Karla! You need to give me a little more warning with these maneuvers.”
Karla was too absorbed in the scene to comment. The pavements surrounding the church were abandoned, not unusual for such a dreary Wednesday morning, though; she had expected at least some of Papa’s minions to be lurking about. Apparently, they were not expecting any rescue attempts, which was a very good development if true.
An old man with an unruly comb-over rounded the corner and made his way up the stone steps with the assistance of a multi-footed cane. Struggling against the wind to keep control of his tattered umbrella, he moved with the deliberation of a mountaineer ascending K2’s final pitch. When he finally reached the top, he paused, all out of breath and studied a notice posted on the door. He made the sign of a cross and re-gathered himself with a sober determination. Step by step, he descended back to street level and hobbled off from whence he had come.
“We need to go see what that says,” said Sturgie.
“I’ll go,” said Renfrew, clicking open his door. “You all stay in the car.”
“Let me come with,” said Jessica. “It’ll look less threatening, more … domestic. You swagger like a bleeding commando when you’re by yourself.”
The two of them bustled over to the church arm in arm, their eyes wandering like shoplifters in a swanky boutique. They returned at an even brisker pace and rejoined them, dripping, in the car.
“What did it say?” said Sturgie.
“There will be no vespers this morning due to circumstances within our control,” said Jessica.
“Within? Don’t you mean beyond?” said Sturgie.
“Freudian slip,” said Renfrew.
“So what do we do now?” said Jessica.
“How about we bust our way in?” said Renfrew.
“Impossible,” said Karla. “This place is as solid as a bunker.”
“There’s got to be a weak point,” said Renfrew, tapping on the stained glass.
“The point is, we can’t break in without causing a scene,” said Karla. “We need to be discreet.”
Renfrew sighed. “Listen, I know you have your reservations about getting the law involved, but maybe it’s time we called the constabulary.”
“We’ve been over this,” said Karla, rolling her eyes.
“Sometimes you need to trust the system to do its job.”
“The system is rigged. It failed us before and it will fail us again.”
“Then what do you suggest we do?” said Renfrew. “I’m all ears.”
“They have got to open their doors some time,” said Karla. “This is the only Sedevacantist chapel within a hundred miles. You need to understand, these people need to have their Latin mass. They’re like junkies.”
“Doesn’t sound like you’ve thought this out very well,” said Renfrew, sighing.
No one said a word. They all sat and stared as the rain pattered on the roof of the car.
“How about we go get some breakfast, then?” said Sturgie. “That way, we can talk … and think about this some more.”
“Aye,” said Renfrew. “Let’s eat.”
***
Karla directed them to an old stevedore and seaman’s club on the waterfront that also served the general public. This minimized their chances of running into Papa’s friends, who preferred their eateries devoid of immigrant laborers.
Renfre
w ordered full Scottish breakfasts all around, though Karla could barely touch her plate, her stomach knotted with worry over Isobel, James and Linval.
Renfrew tried again to convince her to contact the constabulary, but backed off when Jessica and Sturgie took her side on the matter. Karla could tell from the look in his eye that he was one crisis short of dialing 999.
She knew exactly what would happen if he called. Isobel would remain under Papa’s custody, while she would be detained and charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, perhaps even kidnapping.
Karla was forced to concede that freeing Izzie would be a heck of a lot simpler than going after James. Having suffered through deprogramming sessions of her own at St. Aynsley’s, she was fairly certain they were keeping her in a basement room reserved for exorcisms and other arcane ceremonies. While the basement had direct access to the street, the sub-basement was a dead-end, with no exits or windows.
She couldn’t bear the thought of abandoning James in his cell, but maybe once Izzie was free and secure with the others, she had decided to go after James on her own. She knew Renfrew wouldn’t approve, but he didn’t have to know just yet.
After breakfast, they filed back to the car. The rain was letting up, but a fog settled in over the water and began to creep ashore. Jessica took the wheel and they drove up the estuary for another pass by the church. As before, they found it locked up tight.
“Pull up here and let me out,” said Sturgie. “I want to case this place on foot. Get a better feel for what we’re up against.”
“Too risky, Sturg,” said Karla. “They’ll take you if they realize what you’re up to. These people don’t fool around. They certainly didn’t with James or Linval.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be cool,” said Sturgie. “These guys have no idea what I look like. To them, I’m just a name in Linval’s address book. I’ll act like I’m waiting for a ride or something.”
“Make one pass,” said Karla. “Don’t linger.”
They dropped Sturgie off beside a wide puddle among the cobbles. As they drove away, the pit of Karla’s stomach collapsed. The last thing they needed was for Sturgie to be taken as well.
Jessica orbited the church in crude circuits, varying her course with each pass without drifting too far away. Though they passed many a familiar landmark, Karla felt none of the warmth she supposed most people felt when they came home after a long absence.