Even with Carol’s help, Harper’s ankle was twanging painfully by the time they mounted the steps into the night. The temperature had dropped. The air had texture now, a thousand fine quivering grains of almost-rain blowing in off the ocean.
They stood alone, at the rear northeastern corner of the chapel. Carol pointed over the soccer field, the pines, and the boathouse below. Out in the surging blackness of the water was a darker blackness, a small island.
“He’s out there,” she said. “John Rookwood. He doesn’t come to church. He doesn’t eat with us. He keeps to himself.”
“What’s he doing there?”
“I don’t know. It’s a secret. It’s his secret. He never leaves the island for long and no one knows why. You hear different stories. She died out there, you know. My sister. She burned to death and almost took Nick with her. Maybe John is out there mourning her. Maybe he’s doing penance. Maybe he just likes being mysterious.”
“Penance? Does he blame himself somehow?”
“I’m sure,” Carol said, and although her face was carefully composed, Harper once again heard an edge, a razor wire of emotion. “Not that it’s his fault. He wasn’t on the island when it happened. No. My sister didn’t need any help to kill herself. She managed that just fine on her own.” Carol gave Harper a sidelong look and said, “But I’ll tell you what. I won’t let the kids go out there anymore: Nick and Allie. I think John understands. You might not want to make a habit of dropping in for social visits yourself. People who get too close to John have a way of going down in flames.”
6
After a breakfast of soft, milky oatmeal and bitter coffee, it was time for services.
Ben Patchett was her crutch again and helped her along, out into the unseasonably warm October night. Dragonflies whisked through the perfumed dark. The buzz of excitement and pleasure, rising from the crowd around her, brought to mind small country carnivals, Ferris wheels, and fried dough.
They filed into the narrow, high-ceilinged chapel, beneath splintery exposed rafters. The nave was a long cabinet of shadows, windows boarded up against the night, the enormous space lit by just a few candles. Giant shadows twitched restlessly against the walls, more distinct than the people that threw them.
Harper had an arm across Ben Patchett’s shoulder as he led her to a pew midway up the aisle. Another man squeezed in on her right side, a small, tubby fellow, a little older than Ben, with pink cheeks and the smooth complexion of an infant. Ben introduced him as Nelson Heinrich, who in a former life had owned a shop called Christmas-Mart, which perhaps explained why he was wearing a sweater with reindeer on it when it was just turning Halloween.
The merry chatter died as Father Storey stepped to the podium. He moved his spectacles up his nose and peered owlishly at his own songbook, then announced: “If you’ll open to page 332, we begin tonight with a plain but honorable hymn, beloved by the Pilgrims in the early days of America.”
This was met by a smattering of laughs, although Harper didn’t understand why until Nelson opened the songbook to the right place. It was a camp songbook, for little boys and girls, not a true hymnal, and the song on page 332 turned out to be “Holly Holy” by Neil Diamond. Harper approved. If anyone could save her soul, it was probably him.
Carol rose from the bench behind the organ and came to the front of the stage. She lifted her ukulele to acknowledge a little flurry of applause.
Nelson bent toward Harper’s ear and, rather loudly, said, “It’s easy, you’ll see! Nothing to it! Just lay back and enjoy it!” An unfortunate statement with unfortunate connotations, Harper thought.
Ben winced, then added, “It doesn’t always come right away. Don’t worry if nothing happens to you tonight. It would be amazing if anything did! Like bowling a strike the first time you pick up a—”
But he didn’t have a chance to finish. Carol began to play, belting out that melody that sounded as much like a marching song as a gospel. When they all began to sing—over a hundred voices resonating in the gloom—a pigeon was startled off one of the rafters above.
Allie and Nick were in the row directly ahead of her and the first Harper knew anything was happening was when the boy turned his head and smiled at her and his normally aquamarine eyes were rings of gold light.
Wires of Dragonscale on the back of Ben Patchett’s hand lit up, like fiber-optic threads filling with brightness.
A glow built from all directions, overpowering the dim red illumination of the candles. Harper thought of an atomic flash rising in a desert. The sound of the song mounted along with the light, until Harper could hear all those voices in her chest.
Onstage, Carol’s belted white gown was rendered diaphanous, the body beneath painted with light. She didn’t seem to mind or notice. Harper thought, helplessly, of the hallucinatory nudes who pirouetted through the credits of the James Bond movies.
Harper felt she was being swallowed by all their noise. The brightness was not beautiful but awful, like being caught in headlights hurtling madly toward her.
Ben had an arm around her waist and was unconsciously kneading her hip, a gesture she found revolting but could not seem to break away from. She glanced at Nelson and found him wearing a choker of light. When he opened his mouth to bellow out the next line, Harper saw his tongue glowing a toxic shade of green.
She wondered whether, if she began to scream, anyone would hear her over all the other voices. Not that she was going to scream—she had lost her breath, could not even sing. If not for her fractured ankle, she might’ve run.
The only thing that got her to the end of the song was Renée and Don Lewiston. They were across the aisle and a little closer to the stage, but Harper could see them through a gap in the crowd. Renée’s head was turned to look back at her and she smiled sympathetically. The loops of ’scale around her neck shone, but it was a faded sort of glow, and the light had not reached her kind, clear eyes. More important, she was still there, still present, paying attention. And that was when Harper understood what so unnerved her about the others.
In some way Ben and Nelson, Allie and Nick, and all the rest of them had left the room, leaving behind lamps made of human skin. Thought had been replaced by light, and personality by harmony, but Renée at least was still there . . . and so was Don Lewiston, who sang dutifully, but did not glow at all. Later, Harper learned that Don was only sometimes able to shine with the others. When he turned on, he turned on intensely, but more often he was completely untouched by their song. Don said it was because he had a tin ear, but Harper was unconvinced. His rumbling, rough bass was perfectly in tune, and he sang with a casual, disinterested confidence.
Harper smiled weakly for Renée, but felt unsteady and sick. She had to close her eyes to withstand the assault of the last thunderous verse—her Dragonscale crawled unpleasantly, and the only thought she could manage was, Stop, stop, stop—and when it was over, and the room erupted into stamping feet and whistles and applause, it was all she could do not to cry.
Ben absently stroked her hip. She was sure he didn’t know he was doing it. The threads of light on his exposed ’scale were fading, but a brassy sheen remained in his eyes. He regarded her with affection, but not much recognition.
“Mmnothing?” he asked. His voice had a drifting, musical quality, as if he had just woken from a restorative nap. “No luck? I wasn’t paying attention. Kind of lost myself for a minute there.”
“No luck,” Harper said. “It might be my ankle. It’s been achy all morning and it’s a little distracting. Maybe I’ll just sit for the next song and rest it.”
And she did sit the next time. She sat and closed her eyes to shut out the bright glare that so felt like oncoming headlights.
She sat and waited to be run down.
NOVEMBER
7