The Blessed

3 “Line one,” the secretary said. “It’s Captain Murphy.”

Dr. Frey closed his office door and sat forward in his chair. He took a deep breath and picked up the phone.

“Yes, Officer.”

“Captain,” he corrected.

“My mistake. What can I do for you?”

The relationship between the doctor and the captain was contentious at best, Frey having successfully testified as an expert witness on behalf of defendants to the chagrin of the NYPD and prosecutors on many occasions. It was superficially cordial, but neither was inclined to help the other much beyond what was required professionally.

“I’m surprised to find you at the hospital, Doctor.”

“We are on lockdown and running on generators, and I am needed.”

“I’m practically the only one at the precinct house.”

“I’m quite short-staffed today myself, as you can imagine, and very busy. Are you calling with news?”

“Not the news you are waiting for. I’m calling about another patient of yours who’s been reported missing.”

“Who is that?”

“Agnes Fremont. Her mother walked into an empty bedroom this morning after an argument the night before.”

“I see,” Dr. Frey said, fingering his files.

“I understand that she was recently admitted to the emergency room there after a possible suicide attempt and was kept overnight under observation, under your care?”

“Yes, that’s right. She was released to her mother’s custody the next day, and that’s the last I’ve seen or heard from her, I’m afraid.”

“So that was November first?”

Frey hesitated and checked his desk calendar as he pondered the date.

“Doctor? Are you there?”

“Yes,” he replied, uncharacteristically bemused. “She was admitted on the night of October thirty-first, Halloween, and discharged on November first.”

“All Saints Day,” Murphy observed.

“What?” Frey asked, still distracted. “Ah, yes, it appears so.”

“In a sinner and out a saint, huh?” the cop joked.

“Are you trying to be clever?”

“Hey, Doctor, if a person with multiple personalities attempts suicide, would you consider that a hostage situation? Now, that’s clever.”

“Like I said, I’m very busy.” Frey’s reputation for humorlessness was well known. “Especially so now.”

“Okay, any indications she might take off? The mother is beside herself. You know, with this weather and with all that, you know, happened.”

“None.”

“Anything unusual that you noticed or may have discussed with her in your evaluation?”

“No, but I couldn’t tell you even if there were. Patient confidentiality, Captain. I presume you know the law.”

The line went silent for a few seconds while the captain pondered how offended he should be by the doctor’s comments.

“This is a young girl out on the street, for all we know. If someone out there doesn’t get her, the storm will.”

“The relationship with the mother seemed frayed, as I recall. Couldn’t she be with a friend? She didn’t present to me as a flight risk.”

“Did she have any awareness of what transpired the other night?”

“Not that she discussed with me. Why?”

“She was in the emergency room when that boy, your patient, escaped.”

“So?”

“The video cameras in the building were tampered with so we can’t be sure, but our best guess is that he came out of the hospital through the emergency room.”

“And you think they might have had some contact?”

“It’s a long shot, but we have to track down every lead. We’re getting a lot of pressure to find this girl. I don’t want this leaking out and the papers making a connection before we do.”

“I wouldn’t be too concerned yet,” Frey said, playing it off somewhat dismissively. “What is the status of the investigation into Sebastian’s disappearance?”

“The status? Ongoing. I assigned a few men to the case who’ve been pulled off on storm duty.”

Frey wasn’t pleased. “Have you checked the churches yet?”

“First place we looked. Nothing.”

“This is an urgent matter. A public-safety issue. Is your department in the habit of letting killers run wild? New York’s Finest, indeed.”

“What is it with you and this kid?”

“I know him, Captain. That’s all. Without proper care, he could be a danger to himself and others.”

“With all due respect, Doctor, your lack of cooperation hasn’t exactly helped move the investigation forward. He isn’t the only suspect.”

“If you want to speak to other patients under my care, in this ward, you will have to follow procedure. I have a job to do and patient rights to protect.”

“One of your orderlies is found at the bottom of the elevator shaft, and you are making me get a court order to talk to that bunch of lunatics?”

“These lunatics are human beings.”

“I arrested one of your current patients, Sicarius, myself. He’s a soulless, bloodthirsty bastard. What he’s doing up there with you in a minimum-security ward instead of in solitary is a travesty of justice.”

“I don’t make the laws. Besides, he is medicated, controlled. Hardly any trouble at all.”

“He is a sick f*ck. What he did to those little girls. His own goddamn kids. If you want me to guess who tossed your orderly down the chute, I’d put my money on him.”

“I don’t want you to guess. I want you to find Sebastian.”

“The kid has no history of violence.”

“The fact that he just happened to disappear the night before the orderly was found notwithstanding?”

“You don’t need to tell me my job, Doctor.”

“I wouldn’t presume, Captain,” said Dr. Frey, condescension dripping from his voice.

“For now, the orderly’s death has been reported as accidental. We don’t want to panic the city with wild headlines about escaped mental patients and kidnapped teenagers. Especially not with this weather insanity going on. You understand? We’ll find him.”

“The sooner the better.”

“I’ll be by to interview Sicarius and a few of the others as soon as this blows over.”

“You’ll bring the court order, of course?”

“Thanks for your time, Doctor. If anything occurs to you on the Fremont girl, give me a call.”

“Good-bye, Captain.”

Dr. Frey lingered over the calendar and Agnes’s file, reviewing his notes, reconstructing his impressions of her and of their meeting. Of the unstable patients he’d seen recently, she was the most stable, her wounds more a mission statement than mental imbalance. Not being one to take unnecessary chances, he decided to take a closer look.

“Nurse,” he called. “Get the patient log for the ER from last weekend.”

“I don’t think anyone is down in records, Doctor,” the nurse advised. “Is it urgent?”

“Now!”



13 Cecilia found it difficult to shake off her dream and began to recover only when the sounds of the street began to make their way through the church walls. Agnes was seated nearby, but not too close. She noticed Cecilia’s agitation.

“Can I get you some water?” Agnes offered, ignoring her own distress.

“I’m okay,” she snapped. “I just need to be by myself for a minute.”

CeCe got up and walked toward the back of the church and into the vestibule and paused, looking back at Agnes.

Sorry, she mouthed to Agnes. Thank you.

Sebastian, Lucy, and Agnes watched and waited for her to approach the front doors of the church, but she disappeared from their sight before she did. They did hear a door open, however, and the scrape of Cecilia’s boot soles along a staircase. She reappeared above them, in the balcony in front of a massive pipe organ, like some waifish phantom of the rock opera. She looked down at them as if scanning an audience from the stage, then turned her back and sat on the bench before the keyboard.

She swayed as she touched the keys, which produced a faint sound muted by dust and age, but loud enough for each in the tiny audience below to hear her music. Cecilia broke out into song and a cold sweat. She seemed overtaken, dazed. It was a minor-chord plainsong, mournful and bittersweet. A chant, almost, with a lilting, ethereal melody.

It was easy for Cecilia to lose herself, but never more than in this place. Empty and in partial disrepair, it resembled nothing so much as a theater set in the process of being built, or maybe taken down—she couldn’t be sure which—but there was so much more embedded in it.

Lean out your window, golden hair

I heard you singing in the midnight air

My book is closed, I read no more

Watching the fire dance, on the floor

It was a musical arrangement of a James Joyce poem that she loved. It was like nothing she’d ever played in public before or for anyone but herself. Her own music was aggressive, confrontational, but these were the sounds of acquiescence, of resignation.

Full of grace.

“Auditions for choir are next week,” Lucy groused.

The tinge of jealousy in Lucy’s tone was obvious, as she eyed Sebastian and Agnes enthralled with Cecilia’s performance.

“Let’s just listen, okay?” Agnes shot back, irritated by Lucy’s pettiness.

I’ve left my book, I’ve left my room

For I heard you singing through the gloom

Singing and singing, a merry air

Lean out the window, golden hair

Her voice echoed through the chamber, reverberating through the wooden and metal fixtures placed, stacked, and hung throughout the church.

When she finished, Cecilia stood quietly and made her way back downstairs to the others.

“That was beautiful,” Sebastian said. “Spiritual.”

“Thanks,” she said shyly.

“Syd Barrett,” he said.

“Yeah,” Cecilia acknowledged. “A real hero of mine. How did you know?”

All the strongest connections she’d ever made were through music. Who you listened to, what moved you, told her everything about who you were. It was like a secret language. One she felt she now shared with him.

“A legend in his own time,” Sebastian added. “And a troubled soul.”

CeCe nodded.

“I don’t know where that came from,” Cecilia said, examining her hands in wonder. “I’ve never played anything like that before.”

“Maybe you’re just . . . inspired,” he said, smiling, grabbing her arms tight.

Cecilia’s faced flushed and she looked away. She wasn’t easily embarrassed or moved by a guy’s touch, but this felt different. Especially now. Her dream had frightened her, but it also thrilled her in a way she had never been. She only barely knew him, but she felt herself falling for Sebastian.

Cecilia looked up at him and smiled a little, crossed her arms, which were bare and had turned to gooseflesh from him and the damp interior. She walked over to Lucy and Agnes, where she was greeted with a gentle hug from Agnes and grudging compliments from Lucy.

They were all moved, whether they wanted to admit it or not. They each felt like she was singing directly to them and about them. For them.

“Nice, but it didn’t sound like a hit to me,” Lucy said defensively.

“What is your obsession with being the biggest and the best?” Agnes asked.

“I wasn’t completely serious, but think about it, why bother pursuing anything unless you shoot for the top?” Lucy spat.

“What about really moving just a few people?” Cecilia said, joining the fray in her own defense. “I’d rather just reach a few people who really get it.”

“How arrogant,” Lucy chided. “People who get it? It’s your job to make them get it.”

“A little sensitive about the whole selling-out thing, aren’t we?” CeCe pushed back. “Art is not a job, or shouldn’t be.”

“Please,” Lucy countered. “If you wanted to be musician, you can do that in your parents’ basement or in front of your bedroom mirror. The minute you put your music out there, charge for a download or a ticket at some old-man bar, you are in the music business. You are asking people to make a purchasing decision, to choose.”

“And what are you selling?” Cecilia asked.

“A fantasy.” Lucy said. “Me.”

“You’d rather be a fantasy?” Agnes asked.

“It’s all about the numbers, about outreach. There is only one of me,” Lucy said, “but everybody has a fantasy.”

“Well, before you hit send, it might be a good idea to think about what you are putting out there first,” Cecilia said.

“Womp. Resentful much?” Lucy scoffed. “Maybe I’d feel the same if I was playing those toilet bowls you headline.”

“I’m trying to reach people,” CeCe said. “Not rape people or whore myself out to the highest bidder.”

“Whoring? You must have us confused.”

“Not really. I guess I just prefer to bare my soul than sell it.”

“Well, I say go big, or don’t go. Anything else is a bust.”

“She reached me,” Agnes said quietly. “She played how I’ve always felt inside.”

Sebastian watched the argument go down and listened carefully to each girl make her case. What they were saying and what they meant to say.

“You need both,” Sebastian said, ending the quarrel by splitting the difference and their differences. “A message and a messenger.”



3 The upper-right corners of the hospital files were dog-eared and yellowed from use, the faintest outline of a fingerprint—Dr. Frey’s—beginning to appear there. Pinching the edges, he had been intently alternating between one page and then the other, searching for some sort of connection, some common thread, a person, place, or thing, in their backgrounds. It was far too coincidental for this girl, he thought, to just up and disappear so soon after Sebastian.

Sebastian. Agnes. Sebastian. Agnes. Sebastian. Agnes.

A quick review and comparison of their report cards and teacher’s evaluations didn’t reveal anything extraordinary that might attract them; all things considered, they were total opposites. Both young, both smart. And hardheaded. He had firsthand knowledge of that. Similarities ended there, however. Where she was dedicated, hardworking, ambitious, fastidious, he was indifferent, rebellious, self-assured, and disconnected from the world around him, and becoming increasingly so. Manic behavior had become the norm, along with the delusions and ego inflation often associated with it. If anything, Agnes’s self-esteem could use some pumping up.

As he scanned the emergency room admissions, a more important connection suggested itself. Two other teenage girls, about the same age, admitted about the same time.



13 Cecilia Trent. Age: 18. Height: 5' 9”. Weight: 115 lbs. Hair: Br. Eyes: Gr.

No insurance, no personal physician, no next of kin, no phone number. Williamsburg address. Arrived unconscious. Possible drowning. Resuscitated on scene and transported by EMT.

Diagnosis: Acute Intoxication.

He found it peculiar as he perused her blood work results, that he had so much information about this person and yet almost none at all. He had just literally seen inside her without ever laying eyes on her. “Technology.”

Treatment: Fluids, bed rest.

Discharged: November 1.

“November 1.”

Unlike the ER docs who’d treated her, he was interested in her mind as much as her body. Putting together a profile from an incomplete bunch of disparate facts was not just a skill he’d developed with years of experience, it was his job. And he was very good at his job. He googled her and quickly found Web links to online flyers for her gigs at local bars and clubs around Brooklyn, Queens, and the Lower East Side. Dives, he figured, given the lack of info on the spaces. The cell-phone video clips he streamed from her performances were choppy and dark, not just thematically, but literally dark. She was like an antenna broadcasting her rage out into the ether, a No Wave warrior—not just ready for a fight but looking for one.

Searching for upcoming live dates posted on her fan pages, he noticed that last night’s show, which she cut short, was already a subject of controversy. He scrolled down to the comments and read through a string of vicious complaints and put-downs:

Rat In A Cage says:

No show ho! I’m so tired of these arrogant up-and-comers shitting all over their fans. We won’t get fooled again, Bitch! I have comps for next week. Who’s comin’ wit?

H8ter88 says:

I hope she dies a slow, painful death for punking out mid-show on her fans. Probably had an early date with one of those fat ass promoters she’s always sleeping with for Jack money. Just kidding. Love her soooooo much!

FandemoniumGrrl says:

Who wants to bet she plays the stalker-in-the-crowd card on her soon-to-be posted Web apology? Wait, it’s not me!

MusicKilledMe666:

Two Words People: The. Shitz.

AdultBaby7 says:

My sister’s boyfriend’s third cousin went to high school with her in Pittsburgh before she dropped out and she says something terrible must have happened for her to cut a show short. Pray for her everybody and check out my new vlog!

With fans like these, he thought, who needs enemies, but maybe that was the whole point. Without a volatile mix of love and hate, there can be no passion. And if nothing else, he could see that these people cared. A lot. They were invested in her. There was no medical term for charisma, but wherever it came from, this girl had it by the truckload.

On the last video clip posted of the previous night’s performance, he noticed something he hadn’t expected to see. Something alarming. A beaded band she wore around her bicep. He recognized it.



7 He turned his attention to the other “red flag,” on the ER roll. Her name was vaguely familiar to him.

Lucy Ambrose. Age: 17. Height: 5' 6”. Weight: 119 lbs. Address: 7 Bridge Street.

“The more adventurous side of DUMBO,” he noted.

Contact name and number: Jesse Arens and a 718 number.

Not exactly a poor girl. New building. He imagined her looking out from the back window of her apartment toward the East River at the empty space once occupied by the World Trade Center towers. The tall buildings of Wall Street, buzz of Tribeca, SoHo, and the Lower East Side, and the bridges, like lifelines, beckoning her.

A quick search turned up several pages of photos and gossip items from the downtown fashion and nightlife sites. One source, more than any other, seemed to be the generator of these cyber file cabinets of coverage, documenting her every move from would-be junior leaguer to A-List party girl.

Trawling through an endless series of gallery openings, charity galas, and afterparties, he found the sheer volume of the coverage was stunning and mainly mind-numbing non sequiturs. Rumors of drinking and drug problems followed reports of endorsement deals with energy-drink manufacturers, downtown designers, and cosmetic surgery practices, until they each seemed to disappear, like puzzle pieces into a bigger picture. Lots of seductive candids and flirtatious dressing, but precious few mentions of one-night stands or real boyfriends or any real friends, for that matter, completed the profile of a girl in a love affair primarily with herself. A narcissist definitely, borderline histrionic personality disorder, probably. Not uncommon, he considered, but unusually fine-tuned for such a young person.

Fame in the ADD Age, he thought. As fine an example of time-lapse digital careerism and social climbing as could be imagined or even wished for. A girl immortalized in pixels for no other purpose than her own glorification. Fame as endgame. The sheer intangibility of it all was breathtaking. But of all the images that assaulted his senses, it was the most recent posting that caught his attention. The image of Lucy picking herself off of the nightlife canvas. But it was not her bravery he admired, but rather the accessory he noticed around her wrist. Nearly identical to the beaded bauble also adorning the musician’s arm.

He hadn’t actually seen Agnes with one, but she did seem fidgety during her appointment, as if she was hiding something. His scientist’s mind led him to only one conclusion.

“It’s happening.”





7 “Hey, altar boy?” Lucy whispered, waking Sebastian up from a dead sleep. “I’m ready.”

“Ready?”

“To change.”

They both got up and headed to the back of the church, away from the other two. Neither spoke, but both knew where they were going, guided only by the candle each was carrying. Words were unnecessary.

They stopped in front of the confessional.

“The scene of the crime,” Lucy joked about the spot of their first meeting.

“Not guilty,” he said, raising his arms in surrender.

She reached for the penitent’s door and opened it. He reached for the clergy’s. They were both careful to close them slowly and quietly. Lucy and Sebastian got comfortable in their respective compartments, unable to see each other until Sebastian slid the wooden door open. Even then, all they could see were silhouettes through the dark metal screen that separated them. It was like a Hitchcockian peep show of the soul. She knelt and moved her face closer to the grille.

“This is kind of hot,” she let slip.

“I’m not sure that is the way this is supposed to start.”

“Why not? It’s honest.”

“True. But . . . ”

“Okay. Confession do-over?” Lucy took a deep breath. And the mood within the cabinet changed. He leaned in closer to the screen and pressed his ear against it. “I don’t want this to come out the wrong way, but is there something wrong with me?”

“I’m not getting you.”

Sebastian barely got his thought out before she steamrolled over it, her frustration, barely kept in check until now, boiling over.

“You’re always siding with them. I don’t know if it’s some kind of passive-aggressive thing to punish me for being ambitious or if you just hate me.”

“I don’t hate you, Lucy.”

“People have all these false preconceptions about me. I’m not what they think.”

She was overwhelmed. The bruises, the storm. The tears, like her feelings, began to flow, slowly at first and then in torrents as she hunched over, heaved, and covered her mouth to keep the others from hearing.

“You don’t have to change a thing for me or anyone.”

“I mean, we have much more in common. Don’t tell them I said that, but it’s so obvious, don’t you think? I feel like we connected immediately. That never happens to me.”

Sebastian couldn’t get a word out but thought it wouldn’t matter even if he had. This was a one-way conversation for the moment.

“Besides,” she sobbed. “I was here first!”

It was a childish rant but winning and heartfelt in its petulance.

“I’m not choosing anyone over you.”

She cleared her throat, a wild mood swing suddenly overtook her. She straightened her back. “Good, because I still have my pride. I’m not here to play sister wives.”

The ultimatum hit Sebastian hard and hit him the wrong way.

“And this is not the Chicken Ranch,” he said adamantly. “Look into my eyes.”

She lifted her bloodshot orbs and matted lashes and connected with his through the small opening, like two lonely prisoners in adjoining cells.

“You are here for a reason.”

“I know I am. I’m here for you.”

He didn’t answer.

It was not the validating response she was hoping for. She felt herself in competition now, in this place of all places, just like she was out there, in her everyday life. Lucy had hoped to hide out from the drama, to leave the game for a while, but it seemed to have followed her inside. As in her everyday life, she was determined not to lose.

“I’m putting myself out there for you. I need to know where I stand.”

“I couldn’t choose among you. I won’t.”

Rejection was foreign to Lucy. She hadn’t been with many guys, but it was pretty much assumed that she could have her pick. And not just by her. Jesse would kill to see me like this, she thought, but it was a state that no man besides her dad had ever been able to put her in. Sebastian was making her work. Making her think. Making her feel.

“What are you doing to me? I’m not like this.”

“Like what?”

“Needy,” she leaned in and whispered.

“I need you, too.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“Never.”

“I’m confused. I want to trust you.”

“Then trust me.”

She picked up her votive, puckered her lips, and softly blew it out. And relaxed.

“When I was small, my grandmother would light a candle by my bed at night. After she was done tucking me in, she would let me blow it out. If the stream of smoke went down, it meant I was going to hell. If it went up, it meant that I was going to heaven. She made sure that it always went up by secretly blowing, steering it with her breath. I went to bed every night with a smile on my face. I believed her. Just like I believe you.”

Lucy looked down at the extinguished wick and noticed the smoke from it was rising. She could feel his breath blowing it. She moved in and brought her mouth to the screen. Loose and relaxed. She opened it slightly, seductively, pressing her lips against the grid.

He leaned forward.

Lucy shut her eyes.

He took his fingers and traced her lips through the screen.

Her tears fell onto the screen, forming tiny square prisms in their path.

“I’m just so tired of putting on a show.”

“Never apologize for who you are.”

“I hate hiding who I really am,” she said. “I feel like you know what I mean.”

“I do.”