OCTOBER 4, 1921
By dinnertime, Leonard Kincaid’s self-portraits were dry and much easier to inspect. Our initial impressions held true—there was something hovering at his waist, or just below it . . . and this fuzzy black mass rose up higher and higher in each subsequent image. In the final frame, it had reached his neck; and though Simon insisted he could detect a swirling pattern of fingers, or tentacles, or some similar shape, I was not so confident. The lines were too grainy. I refused to see things that weren’t there, purely because they fit the shape of a pattern I liked.
(If that isn’t too ungenerous of me to think.)
We left them all in a row on the inspector’s chest of drawers and headed down to the dining hall for the afternoon meal. The proprietress served it up a bit earlier than I’m accustomed to taking it, and she called it “supper” instead of “dinner,” but the spread was outstanding. Simon positively beamed at the offerings, and if he’d been wearing a belt, he would’ve loosened it upon sight of the veritable bucket of mashed potatoes, accompanied by corn bread, biscuits, beans with bacon fat, buttered corn on the cob, rice with sugar or gravy, baked apples, plus two pitchers of sweet tea and the three different pies on the sideboard.
But our feast was interrupted before we reached that sideboard, when Pedro Gussman arrived—as breathless and frantic as ever I saw a man. (I had not yet laid eyes upon Mr. Gussman, though I’d heard about him and assumed the best of him, courtesy of his wife and Simon—who spoke well of him. But his identity was confirmed almost immediately.)
He burst into the hall in his work clothes, still splattered with paint. He launched immediately into his plea: “Inspector, you have to help me! It’s Ruth—she’s gone!”
Simon whisked his napkin from his lap and flung it onto the table. “Missing? We only just saw her a few hours ago. I believe she was headed home.”
“She never came home.” He pulled his hat off his head and wrung it like a rag. “Or if she did, she turned around and left again.”
“Any sign of a burglary?”
“No, everything was in its place. Nothing was broken. No one had forced a way inside—but that’s not where she was taken. She went to Cowan’s down in Five Points, the drugstore where she used to get soda pop and sweets. She told me about it one night. I remember . . . ,” he said faintly. And then, as if also remembering that we were there, he added, “She didn’t often talk about good things, good times. So I thought . . . maybe I thought I’d go down there and see. It’s been a hard month, and a hard week for her especially. Maybe she wanted to take a walk, treat herself a tiny bit. That’s where she always went.”
I removed my own napkin and stood. “Mr. Gussman, my name is Lizbeth Andrew. I’m a friend of your wife’s.”
He nodded vigorously, and then apologetically. “Yes, yes. She told me . . . I’m so sorry. I don’t mean to be rude, but she’s gone, you understand?”
“Gone where?”
“To Chapelwood,” he said, like the word was sick in his mouth. “He was there—her father. He took her right off the street. She had some kind of fit, that’s what the shopgirl said. She fainted outside by the icebox, and when people saw her, they tried to help. Then her father came. He put her in a car, and drove away with her!”
Simon adjusted his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. “Oh God . . .”
“We have to go to Chapelwood. We have to get her back!”
“But you don’t know for certain that’s where she’s gone,” he protested. “Let’s take a moment and be calm about this.”
I hated to do it, but I had to point it out. “But, Simon, her parents went to live there, after he was acquitted. It’s the only logical destination.”
Pedro held out one hand, gesturing toward me. “She’s right—Ruth would not go anywhere with her father, not willingly . . . and she’d never go to Chapelwood again, not if her life or soul depended on it. I came here because I did not want to go there alone, because I think they’d shoot me, too, just like Father Coyle. I do not have a gun, but I thought you might. And you’re a big man, with a badge from a big city. They’ll listen to you . . . or . . . at least they’ll listen to you before they’ll listen to me.”
He wasn’t wrong, but I shook my head anyway, and I told him, “You can’t go there. Stephenson would take any flimsy excuse to murder you on sight, and if he does it out there, no one will ever find your body.” He began to protest, but I cut him off. “It’s true, and you know it as well as we do.”
“But she is my wife, whether they like it or not! I can’t stand here and let them have her.”
“And you won’t,” I promised him. “But if you insist upon visiting that enclave, then let the inspector and me go first. We’ll drive out to Chapelwood immediately, and you will go to Chief Eagan’s home and tell him what’s happened. He’s a good man, and though he’s no longer the chief in a proper sense, there are other good men who will answer his call. If you must storm the place, storm it with them. Please? Will you promise me that? Don’t leave us at the reverend’s mercy, but follow us with reinforcements.”
He was warming to the idea, but not committed to it yet. He wanted to rush in where angels fear to tread—but that was our job. Even if it was his job, too, from a certain angle, we were better equipped to handle whatever we might find there . . . or that’s what I told myself. I’d faced worse before. Simon had faced worse before.
We’d surely faced its equal, at any rate.
Pedro had never met anything of the kind—not directly, I supposed, and though he was stout of heart and pure of spirit, those fine traits and a sense of fair play might only hinder him in the battle to come.
• • •
I was already thinking about it that way, Emma. Can you imagine? What ought, under any sane circumstances, amount to a knock on a church door and a request to speak with a young woman . . . already I knew, and believed, and feared, that we were in for something terrible.
I’d certainly had enough warning. So far, everyone we’d met who was worth a damn in Alabama had told us to stay away from Chapelwood. Bad as things had become in town, somehow it was so much worse out there at the reverend’s compound, worse than anyone could know. Worse than bigots, and worse than robes or maybe even axe murders—of which the congregation played some terrible part. Oh yes, I knew that now. So did Simon. I saw it in his eyes, when he made his promises to Pedro, and gave his instructions, and jotted down a message for Chief Eagan on a piece of the hotel’s stationery.
The chief would come. That’s one more thing I was sure of.
But was that a good thing or a bad thing? Good for us, I believed. Bad for him, I feared.
There’s always the chance that it won’t matter anyway. We’re miles and miles from the ocean here, my sister, but I can hear it calling all the same—ringing in my ears, calling like it once did, all those years and years ago. Years and years, miles and miles. A different way of saying the same thing: that I am so far away from you, farther than I’ve ever been in my whole life. I’m now a whole generation away from our nights reading in your room, and from my nights not-reading-at-all in my own room, with Nance.
I know, I know. You don’t want to hear about that. You don’t want to hear about her. Well, too bad. You were the two people I loved most in all the world, and in that way, you are stuck with each other. Like it or not. Even if you’re only dead, and she’s only lost.
• • •
Simon asked me, “Do you have a gun?”
“No, I’m afraid I don’t. My father’s old service revolver is all I ever kept—and I left it at home, like a fool.”
“How about an axe?”
“I didn’t think to pack that, either. But between a gun and an axe, I’m more comfortable with the latter than the former. My aim is nothing to praise, but my swing is a thing to behold, or so I was told once or twice.”
• • •
> It was Seabury who told me that, after the battle. He said I looked like Joan of Arc headed off to war, with a more useful tool than a sword. More graceful, anyway. He said I looked like Joan if she had been a dancer. I don’t know if she ever danced. I wonder.
“Then again . . .” I changed my mind, because that’s a woman’s prerogative. “I’m older now. I might destroy my shoulders if I tried to strike anything, or even swing something so heavy as an axe. A gun would be better, if you have a spare . . . and for that matter, were you being funny? When you asked if I’d like an axe?” He’d never known, had he? He’d never seen me swinging that weapon at the creatures, spinning and cutting like Joan of Arc dancing across the lawn.
“It was a joke in poor taste, but you seized on it so happily . . . I admit, I’m confused.”
“Don’t be confused, and I don’t mind the poor taste.” I picked up my purse and tucked it under my arm. “I must change clothes, though—and you should probably do likewise. The sun will set in an hour or less, and we may find ourselves wanting to hide.”
“You’re sure I haven’t caused offense?” he asked, trailing behind me as I led the way down the corridor to the stairs and then up to our rooms, which faced each other across a hall.
I was a little charmed that he was so concerned, but I was likewise well beyond such delicate worries. By way of explanation, I said, over my shoulder, “Zollicoffer didn’t come alone to Maplecroft, and before he arrived, there were . . . minions. Monstrous things, smaller than a man but stronger, and more dangerous. I couldn’t very well let them inside, now could I? No,” I answered my own question, and shook my head as I climbed the steps. “They would have killed me, and killed Emma . . . or worse. So I killed them all first, and disposed of them in the very machine that eventually claimed the mad professor. In fact, I bought it for them—and not for him.”
“You did?”
“Of course. We knew about the creatures long before we knew of the unfortunate doctor, or his impending visit. That’s why—” I stopped in front of my room and held my key before the lock. I faced him as I finished: “That’s why I went to the trouble. We knew something awful was happening, but there was no one we could approach for help. Who would have believed us—much less sent us aid?”
“I would have,” he insisted. “The Boston office would have . . .”
I believed the first part, but not the second. He didn’t, either, if the waver in his voice was any indication. I reminded him, “But we knew nothing of you until you arrived. Even then, we didn’t know enough to trust you with the truth. And even when this fabled Boston office of yours was aware of the horror, you told me yourself: It sent no one. It did nothing.”
He paused, his own key in hand. He gave me the look of a kicked puppy. “I cannot apologize enough. I can try—I can apologize until the end of days, and I will happily do just that, if you’ll let me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous—I don’t need your apologies. Whether or not your office might have been some service to us . . . no one will ever know, and it scarcely matters now. Now, I need your assistance to retrieve Ruth Gussman from the hands of murderers, who will surely add us to their tally of corpses and mayhem without a second thought, if they are given the opportunity. So we must be subtle, insofar as we are able. I have a navy blue travel dress, which is close enough to black—and if you have anything more funereal than the cream-colored linen you’ve preferred thus far, you’d be well advised to try it out.”
“You want me to attempt stealth?” He looked well and truly astonished at the thought.
“In the dark, all men look the same,” I reminded him. “Don’t sell yourself short.”
“I’ve never been accused of any such thing.”
“Excellent.” I unlocked my door and said, in parting, “Give me five minutes, and I’ll meet you downstairs. Bring an extra gun if you have one, or don’t, if that’s not an option.”
“But I have no other gun. So what will you carry when we storm this bastille?”
“My wits, and my experience. And we’ll see what else the Good Lord sees fit to provide.”
Reverend Adam James Davis, Minister, the Disciples of Heaven
CHAPELWOOD ESTATE, ALABAMA OCTOBER 4, 1921
I might have spoken too soon, with regards to Edwin Stephenson.
On the one hand, he did us a service by removing James Coyle from the equation. On the other, I was told to wait, and that Ruth would come to us, of her own free will—and now this is simply not an option. No amount of faith or patience could ever bring the young woman back here again, as it’s only pure brute force that’s brought her around today. Even if we set her loose, and wished her well, and reimbursed her for her time and trouble . . . she’d only take the opportunity to flee us for good.
This is entirely the fault of her father. He’s the idiot who dragged her here. Not kicking and screaming, but unconscious in the back of a car he’d “borrowed” for the purpose.
The car belonged to Ned Wilson, who would not have loaned it to Edwin in a thousand years. Ned says it was stolen. Edwin took a different view, for the vehicle has since been returned undamaged, and besides, he was doing Heaven’s work. Or so he claims, though I wonder if he honestly believes it.
I mediated the dispute, and all is resolved between them to my satisfaction, if not (entirely) theirs.
The woman, though . . . she’s not here of her own accord, and that was part of the bargain as I understood it. I thought I’d made this clear to her father, the aforementioned idiot, but there’s always the chance I failed in that regard.
For the sake of peace, I resolve to assume that the failing is mine. I am content to be the recipient of my own anger. Edwin wouldn’t survive it.
(So we make these deals, with ourselves and with others. Lies we agree to. Compromises we pretend are victories. But so long as they serve the greater purpose, I’ll make no apologies for my concessions, my behavior, or my bargains.)
The question now, of course, is what do we do with Ruth? Is she still the preferred key for our cosmic lock? The patterns are precise, and they are happiest when they’re followed to the letter, as if they were instructions for the assembly of a great machine. So what will it matter if we have slipped and improvised with regards to one small directive? Doesn’t everyone, when a thousand nuts and bolts must be accounted for? Surely there is room to adjust, in a universe so chaotic as this one.
I hope. I pray. I ponder, consider, and fret.
This isn’t how I wanted it to be.
I wanted to open my arms and wait, and see the young fledgling approach tentatively, but earnestly, into the arms of love—into the arms of infinity, the likes of which she never would have considered in that bizarre papist compound she frequented . . . long ago, in another life.
But now the situation has been forced to a crisis. There is no going back, no hope to reinstate the conditions of a week ago. There is only this woman, unhappily caged (and groggy, and confused, and angry), and there is only the plan, set into motion a billion years ago, or more.
When I think of it that way, I am reassured. For in a billion years, or more than that—how many small variables might slip, slide, or adjust themselves outside of the plan’s original scope? Surely not the deviation of a single number, in a single table, can upend the universe?
Leonard Kincaid would have argued with me.
But if Leonard knew everything, he’d still be alive. He’d still be here, at Chapelwood. A brother, instead of a martyr.
I’m the one who made him a martyr. Not when I killed him, though that was simple enough—but by virtue of the story I fed the congregation. Some of the members here knew him. A few of them respected him, even after his fall from grace. And when I told them about his demise, I reminded them that this was the man who had given us the keys to the kingdom. Even if it’s true that he’d fallen in his final days, it was
still his work that brought us to the place where we are today: the very threshold of God’s Kingdom. We stand at the door and wait, because he was able to bring us here.
He is a saint, of a kind. I’ll hear nothing to the contrary.
Edwin Stephenson, on the other hand . . .
. . . I’m not so sure. I am reminded of the Catholic saint Peter, a rough-hewn man who lied (thrice, as I recall, before the cock would crow), was blunt, and was not entirely personable to those he sought to teach . . . and I wonder if there isn’t some lesson here to be retrieved from the old and false doctrine.
Then again, I rather hate the little Stephenson fellow, and I wish I’d never met him.
• • •
I should erase that. It isn’t fair. I dislike him, I do not hate him—and my preferences are no fault of his. It’s not his fault that he’s uneducated and brash, or that he’s thick-skulled and thin-skinned—an unfortunate combination in anyone, anywhere, however common it may be. It isn’t his fault that I find him abrasive.
Yet it can’t be entirely random, given that no one else particularly cares for him, either. We can’t all be mad or delusional. There must actually be something intensely and innately unlikable about him, something universally perceived and abhorred.
But he is true to the cause, even in his errors. There is a place for him here, I must remember that, even if I must drill it into my own damn head a dozen times a day. If nothing else, he might one day prove a fine scapegoat—should one be required, for something. Should our plans be delayed yet again, and yet more steps need to be taken before we can bring ourselves home.
But I don’t think it will come to that.
• • •
It’s too bad the police are closing in on Leonard as the axe murderer. If they haven’t figured it out yet, they will soon. They can’t possibly be stupid enough to miss the clues he left behind in his home, and Tom Shirley ought to know already, because I took a chance and told him of my “suspicions.” Though I do wish I’d had more time to comb through Leonard’s belongings before the landlady came knocking. I would be more comfortable if I were absolutely confident there was nothing to tie him to Chapelwood; but I’m only somewhat confident, and Shirley says that a portion of the evidence he collected has gone missing—an entire box, vanished into the ether.