Sacrament

  Happy with his prize, he slipped out of the study and, collecting his leather jacket from the hook by the door, left the house, while Mr. Shilling waxed lyrical about the comfort of a well-pillowed coffin.

  ii

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of,” Frannie had been told by Rosa when she went back in with the bandages. Her instincts had told her otherwise. The cloying heat, the prickly air, the way the sound of Rosa’s pain drummed upon the boards: They conspired to give the impression that an invisible thunderhead hung about the woman, and no words from Rosa were going to reassure Frannie that she was safe in its proximity. Fear made her swift.

  Instructing Rosa to clamp her fingers around the wound to close it, she pressed a wad of gauze against it as though it were a perfectly natural wound, and then taped the gauze down with a half dozen foot-long pieces of tape. To finish the job off she wrapped a length of bandage around the woman’s body, though this was, she knew even as she was doing it, absurdly overzealous. As she was finishing the work, however, Rosa lay her hand on Frannie’s shoulder and murmured the one word Frannie had feared hearing, “Steep.”

  “Oh Lord,” Frannie said, looking up at her patient.

  “Where?”

  Rosa had her eyes closed, her gaze roving behind her lids.

  “He’s not here,” she said. “Not yet. But he’s coming back. I can feel it.”

  “Then we should get going.”

  “Don’t be afraid of him,” Rosa said, her eyes flickering open. “Why give him the pleasure?”

  “Because I am afraid,” Frannie said. Her mouth was suddenly arid, her heart noisy.

  “But he’s such a pathetic thing,” Rosa said. “He always was.

  There were times when he was gallant, you know, and honorable. Even loving, sometimes. But mostly he was petty and dull.” Despite her newfound urgency, Frannie could not help but ask the begged question, “Why did you stay with him so long if he was such a waste of time?”

  “Because it hurts me to be separated from him,” Rosa said.

  “It’s always been less painful to stay than to go.” Not such a strange answer, Frannie thought; she’d heard it from a lot of women over the years. “Well this time you go,” she said. “We go. And to hell with him.”

  “He’ll follow,” Rosa replied.

  “If he follows, he follows,” Frannie said, crossing to the door. “I just don’t want to face him right now.”

  “You want Will here.”

  “Yes, I—”

  “You think he can save you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “He can’t. Believe me. He can’t. He’s closer to Jacob than he realizes.”

  Frannie turned from the door. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean they’re a part of one another. He can’t save you from Jacob, because he can’t save himself.” This was too big a notion for Frannie to chew on right now, but it was certainly something to be filed away for later consumption. “I’m not going to abandon Will, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”

  “Just don’t depend on him,” Rosa said. “That’s all.”

  “I won’t.”

  She opened the door and looked for Sherwood. He was sitting on the front step, stripping bark off a twig. Rather than call to him—who knew how near Steep was?—she went to the step to rouse him from his thoughts. When she reached him she saw that his eyes were red-rimmed. “Whatever’s wrong?” she said.

  “Rosa’s dying, isn’t she?” he said, wiping snot from his nose with the back of his hand.

  “She’ll be fine,” Frannie replied.

  “No, she won’t,” Sherwood said. “I feel it in my stomach. I’m going to lose her.”

  “Now stop that,” Frannie gently chided him. She took the stripped stick out of his hands and tossed it away, then caught his arm and pulled him to his feet. “Rosa thinks Steep’s in the vicinity.”

  “Oh, Lord.” He glanced out toward the street. Frannie had already looked that way. It was empty, as yet.

  “Maybe we should go out the back,” Sherwood suggested.

  “There’s a garden and a gate that takes us out onto Capper’s Lane.”

  “That’s not a bad idea,” Frannie said, and together they made their way back down the hall to where Rosa was standing.

  “We’re going out the—”

  “I heard you,” Rosa said.

  Sherwood had already made his way through the kitchen to the back door and was now attempting to haul it open. It was stuck. He cursed it ripely, kicked it, and tried again. Either the kicks or the curses did the trick. With the hinges objecting noisily and the rotted wood around the handle threatening to splinter, it opened up. What lay beyond was a wall of green, the bushes, plants, and trees that had once been the Donnelly’s little Eden now a jungle. Frannie didn’t hesitate. She plunged into the thicket and plowed through it, raising lazy swarms of seeds as she went. Rosa plunged after her, stumbling a little, her breath raw.

  “I see the gate!” Frannie called back to Sherwood and was within half a dozen strides of it when Rosa said, “My bags! I left my bags.”

  “Forget them!” Frannie said.

  “I can’t,” Rosa said, turning around to head back to the house. “My life’s in there.”

  “I’ll fetch them!” Sherwood said, sweetly delighted to be of service, and darted back toward the house, with Frannie telling him to be quick about it.

  There was a time of curious calm when he’d gone. The two women standing in the bower, dwarfed by sunflowers and banks of hydrangeas, bees in the rampant roses, and blackbirds in the sycamore. It was, for a moment, a haven, and they felt quite safe from harm.

  “I wonder . . .” Rosa said.

  Frannie looked round at her. She was staring at the sun, unblinking. “What?”

  “If it wouldn’t be better to just lie down here and die.” There was a smile on her face. “Better not to know, better not to ask even . . .” Her hands had gone to the bandages, and were pulling at them. “Better to flow . . .” She said.

  “Don’t!” Frannie said. “For goodness’ sake!” She pulled Rosa’s hands away from the bandaging. “You mustn’t do that.” Rosa kept staring at the sun. “No?” she said.

  “No,” Frannie replied.

  Rosa shrugged, as though the notion had merely been a passing fancy, and let the bandaging alone.

  “Promise me you won’t do that again,” Frannie said.

  Rosa nodded, the directness of her stare almost childlike.

  Lord, but she was a strange creature, Frannie thought. One moment something to be feared, wrapped in thunder, then a bitter woman talking of the brotherhood of Jacob and Will, now this wide-eyed innocent, gently compliant when chastised. All of these were true Rosas, she suspected, in their way: All part of who the woman had been down the years, though perhaps the truest self lay under the bandages, aching to flow—

  Only now, with this minor crisis managed, did Frannie’s thoughts return to Sherwood. What the hell was he doing in there? Telling Rosa to stay put she went back into the house, calling for Sherwood as she went. There was no reply. She crossed the kitchen and stepped into the hallway. The front door was still open. There was no sound from either above or below.

  And then he was there, in front of her, reeling out of Rosa’s room with his eyes wide and his mouth wide, a low moan escaping him. And right behind him came Steep, his hand clasped to the nape of Sherwood’s neck. They appeared so quickly Frannie stumbled backward in shock

  “Let him go!” she screamed at Steep.

  At the shrill din she uttered, Jacob’s glacial expression broke and, much to her astonishment, he did as she’d demanded.

  Sherwood’s moan stopped and he fell forward, unable to hear himself up. She couldn’t support him either. Down he went, sprawling, carrying her down to her knees beside him.

  Only now did Steep speak. “This isn’t him,” he said quietly.

  Frannie looked up at him, guiltily thinking—even in the terr
or and confusion of this moment—that she’d misremembered him. He wasn’t the forbidding fiend she’d pictured whenever she recalled handing over the journal. He was beautiful.

  “Who are you?” he said, staring down at brother and sister.

  “Will isn’t here,” Frannie said. “He’s gone.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” Steep murmured, retreating down the hall.

  He’d got maybe three yards when Rosa said, “Another mistake?” Frannie didn’t look around. She turned her attention to Sherwood, who was still gasping on the ground. Sliding her hand beneath his head, she lifted him up a little way. “How are you doing?” she said.

  He stared up at her, his mouth working to make a reply, but failing. He licked his lips, over and over, then tried again; still no sound emerged.

  “It’s all right,” she said. “You’re going to be all right. We’ll get you out into the fresh air.”

  Even now she assumed he’d been saved by her intervention.

  There was no blood on him; no sign of assault. He simply needed to be taken out of this awful place, out among the sunflowers and the roses. Steep wouldn’t stop them. He’d made an error in the shadowy room, thinking he’d caught Will. Now he’d realized his mistake, he’d let them go.

  “Come on,” she told Sherwood, “let’s get you up.” She unknitted her hand from her brother’s and put both her hands beneath him to help hoist him into a sitting position. But he just lay there, staring up at her face, licking his lips, licking his lips.

  “Sherwood,” she said, trying again.

  This time she felt a tremor pass through his body, nothing significant. But at the same moment he simply stopped breathing.

  “Sherwood,” she began to shake him. “Don’t do this.” She pulled her hands out from under his body and head and opened his mouth to apply the kiss of life. Rosa was saying something behind her, but she didn’t hear what and didn’t care right now.

  She breathed into his mouth. Inflated his lungs. Put pressure on his chest to expel the air, then breathed into him again. Repeated the procedure; and again; and again. But there was no sign of life.

  Not even a flicker. His poor body had simply ceased.

  “This can’t be happening,” she said, raising her head. Her eyes were stinging but her tears weren’t coming yet. She could see Sherwood’s killer perfectly clearly, standing in the hail on the spot to which he had retreated. If she’d had a gun in her hand she would have shot him through the heart right there and then. “You bastard,” she said, her voice coming out like a growl.

  “You killed him. You killed him.”

  Steep didn’t respond. He simply stared at her, blank-eyed, which only enraged her more. She started to step over Sherwood’s body toward him, but before she could do so Rosa caught hold of her arm.

  “Don’t,” she said, pulling her back toward the kitchen.

  “He killed him—”

  “And he’ll kill you,” Rosa said. “Then you’ll both be dead, and what will that prove?”

  Frannie didn’t want to hear reason right now. She tried to wrench herself free of Rosa’s grip, but despite the woman’s wound she remained strong, and would not let Frannie go. There was a moment of uncanny silence when nobody moved. Then came the sound of footsteps on the gravel path, and a moment later Will was at the doorstep. Steep looked round at him, his motion lazy.

  “Stay away,” Frannie yelled to Will. “He’s,” she could hardly get the words out, “killed Sherwood.” Will’s gaze went from Steep’s face down to Sherwood’s body, then back up to Steep again. As he did so he reached into his jacket and pulled the knife into view.

  “We’re leaving,” Rosa said to Frannie, very quietly. “We can’t do anything here. Let’s just . . . leave it to the boys, shall we?”

  Frannie didn’t want to leave. Not with Sherwood lying there on the dusty ground, glassy-eyed. She wanted to close his lids and put him somewhere comfortable, at very least cover him up.

  But she knew in her gut Rosa was right: She had no place in what was unfolding down the hall. Will had already made it plain to her how private his business with Steep was, even if it was fatal business. Reluctantly, she allowed Rosa to take her arm and coax her to the back door and out into the lush green.

  Of course the bees were still droning in the overgrown flower beds. Of course the blackbirds were still raising a sweet chorus in the sycamore. And of course nothing was as it had been three minutes before, nor could ever be again.

  XV

  It was very simple. Sherwood, poor Sherwood, was dead, sprawled there on the floor, and his murderer was standing here right in front of Will, and there was a knife in Will’s hand, trembling to be put to its purpose. It didn’t care that Steep had once been its owner; it only wanted to be used. Now, quickly! Never mind that the flesh it would be butchering belonged to the man who’d treated it like a holy relic. All that mattered was to glint and glitter in the deed, to rise and fall and rise again red.

  “Have you come to give that back to me?” Steep said.

  Will could barely mumble a reply, his mind was so filled with the knife’s advertisements for its skills. How it would lop off Steep’s ears and nose, reduce his beauty to a wound. He sees you still? Scoop out his eyes! His screams distress you? Cut out his tongue!

  They were terrible thoughts, sickening thoughts. Will didn’t want them. But they kept coming.

  Steep on his back now, naked. And the knife opening his chest—one, two!—exposing his beating heart. You want his nipples for souvenirs? Here! Here! Something more intimate perhaps? Meat for the fox—

  And before Will knew what he was doing; his hand was up, the knife exalting. It would have opened Steep’s face to the bone a moment later had Steep not reached up and caught the blade in his fist. Oh, it stung him, even him. His perfect lips curled in pain and a hiss came between his perfect teeth, a soft hiss that died into a sigh, as he expelled every vestige of air.

  Will attempted to pull the knife out of his grip. Surely it would slice the sheath of Steep’s palm and free itself; its edges were too keen to be contained. But it didn’t move. He tugged again, harder. Still it didn’t move. And again he pulled, but still Steep held it fast.

  Will’s eyes flickered from the knife to his enemy’s face.

  Steep had not drawn breath since he’d exhaled his sigh; he was staring at Will, his mouth open a little way, as though he were about to speak

  Then, of course, he inhaled. It was no common breath, no simple summoning of air. It was Steep’s reprise of what had happened on the hill, thirty years before, except that this time he was the one commanding the moment, unknitting the world around them. It flickered out on the instant, the floor seeming to fall away beneath their feet, so that Will and Steep seemed to hang above velvet immensity, connected only by the blade.

  “I want you to share this with me,” Steep said softly, as though he had found a fine wine and was inviting Will to drink from the same cup. The darkness was solidifying beneath their feet: a roiling dust, ebbing, and flowing. But all around them otherwise, darkness. And above, darkness. No clouds, nor stars, nor moon.

  “Where are we?” Will breathed, looking back at Steep.

  Jacob’s face was not as solid as it had been. The once smooth skin of his brow and cheek had become grainy, and the murk behind him seemed to be leaking through his eye. “Can you hear me?” Will wanted to know. But the face before him continued to lose coherence. And now, though Will knew this was just a vision, panic began to grow in him. Suppose Steep deserted him here, in this emptiness?

  “Stay,” he found himself saying, like a child afraid to be left alone in the dark. “Please stay—”

  “What are you frightened of?” Steep said. The darkness had almost claimed his face entirely. “You can tell me.”

  “I don’t want to get lost,” Will replied.

  “There’s no help for that,” Steep said. “Not unless we know our way to God. And that’s hard in this confusion. This sick
ening confusion.” Though his image had almost disappeared completely now, his voice remained, soft and solicitous. “Listen to that din—”

  “Don’t go.”

  “Listen,” Steep told him.

  Will could hear the noise Steep was referring to. It wasn’t a single sound; it was a thousand, a thousand thousands, coming at him from every direction at once. It wasn’t strident, nor was it sweet or musical. It was simply insistent. And its source? That was coming too, from all directions. Tidal multitudes of pale, indistinguishable forms, crawling toward him. No, not crawling: being born. Creatures spreading their limbs and purging themselves of infants that, even in the moment of their birth, were ungluing their legs to be fertilized and, before their partners had rolled off them, were spreading their limbs to expel another generation. And on and on, in sickening multitudes, their mingled mewlings and sighings and sobs the din that Steep had said drowned out God.

  It wasn’t hard for Will to fathom what he was witnessing.

  This was what Steep saw when he looked at living things. Not their beauty, not their particularity, just their smothering, deafening fecundity. Flesh begetting flesh, din begetting din. It wasn’t hard to fathom, because he’d thought it himself, in his darkest times. Seen the human tide advancing on species he’d loved—beasts too wild or too wise to compromise with the invader—and wished for a plague to wither every human womb. Heard the din and longed for a gentle death to silence every throat.

  Sometimes not even gentle. He understood. Oh Lord, he understood.

  “Are you still there?” he said to Steep.

  “Still here,” the man replied.

  “Make it go away.”

  “That’s what I’ve been trying to do all these years,” Steep replied.

  The rising tide of life was almost upon them, forms being born and being born, spilling around Will’s feet.

  “Enough,” Will said.

  “You understand my point of view?”