“Thank you.”
“I mean, it’s not normal to have sex with your big brother who also happens to be a monk, but who wants to be normal? I don’t.”
“You were almost helpful. Almost. So close and yet so far...”
Deacon laughed and it was a lovely laugh.
“I know he’s not your big brother,” Deacon said. “I tease because I love. Glad you’re back. Are you?”
“I was until the wildly inappropriate questions about last night.”
“You can ask me some wildly inappropriate questions if it’ll make you feel better,” he said. “Hit me. I have no secrets.”
“Why is the attic locked?”
“Except that.”
She glared at him again.
“What do you want in the attic?” he asked.
“Roland said he found one of my old books in the attic. I thought more of my stuff might be up there,” she said, and hoped he bought it.
“Dad keeps some medical equipment and files up there now. If you want to see it, I’ll show you. You’ll regret it, though.”
“I’ll regret it?”
“Damn skippy, you’ll regret it. Not even joking, sis. You still want to go?”
“More now than ever.”
“You’re my kind of girl,” Deacon said. He stood up and she found he’d grown nearly as tall as Roland. She experienced a moment’s vertigo when she realized the last time she’d seen him they’d been the same height.
She followed him into the house and up the first and second flights of stairs.
“So,” he said, “I have to tell you the truth.”
“About what?” Allison asked. They went into Dr. Capello’s office where Deacon dug around the desk drawers until he found a key on a plastic tag.
“The reason I came to see you.”
“Which is...?” She already regretted asking.
“Roland. You. You and Roland.”
“There really is no me and Roland. We spent one night together. We’re not planning the wedding yet.”
“Thora and I don’t want to see him get hurt. I love the man,” Deacon said. “I can’t help but be protective of him. He’s...a little out of practice with women.”
“I didn’t plan last night.”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” he said as he unlocked the attic door. “I mean, if you were going to plan on sleeping with one of your former siblings, it would have been me, wouldn’t it?”
“Not Thora?”
“Oh...” he said. “I like the way you think.”
He opened the door and reached way up to pull the cord on the light. Deacon immediately headed up but Allison stayed at the foot of the steps.
“Are you coming up or are you going to stand there checking out my ass all day?” Deacon asked, looking over his shoulder and down at her. He stood at the top of the steps, holding on to the railing on either side. Twelve hardwood steps between them. She’d counted. Enough of a push and anyone could break their neck on these steep narrow stairs.
“I was trying to remember something,” she said. “And check out your ass.”
She’d made the joke to cover her nervousness, but Deacon noticed.
Deacon turned around, faced her. “It wasn’t me,” he said.
“What?”
“Whoever pushed you down the stairs, it wasn’t me. And you didn’t fall down the attic steps, anyway,” Deacon said. “It was the third-floor stairs you fell down. I know because Thora and I ran into the house and saw you on the second-floor landing with Dad kneeling over you. You don’t forget a day like that. You don’t forget the day you saw your father scared shitless for the first time.”
Allison couldn’t speak. Deacon spoke for her.
“Roland told us you thought someone might have pushed you on purpose and that’s why your aunt came and took you from us,” Deacon said. “If you think that’s what happened, I believe you. But it wasn’t me or Thora.”
“You would say that, wouldn’t you?” she said. “I mean, if you did do it.” Roland was the only Capello she felt completely comfortable around. He wasn’t home the day of her fall. No way he had anything to do with it.
“Good point,” Deacon said.
“That doesn’t comfort me,” she said.
“Sorry. I’m too honest, I guess.”
“Can I trust you?” Allison asked.
“I hope so. But in case you don’t...”
Deacon stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled something out. He tossed it down to her. She caught it, poorly, but still caught it.
“Mace? You carry mace with you?” Allison asked.
He shrugged. “Pepper spray. It’s for you. Lot of psychos out there, you know. Now are you coming up?”
She did go up the stairs.
But she kept the pepper spray in her hand.
The attic smelled of years and dust and must, but it was a pleasant sort of smell, comforting, like old books. Everywhere she saw boxes, many of them with RC written on them. Roland must have stored all his things up here when he went to the monastery. There were also old wooden filing cabinets, steamer trunks and unmarked boxes sealed with layers of tape.
“See?” he said. “You’re safe with me. Come on. I’ll show you the freak show.”
“The freak show?” Allison asked as she tucked the pepper spray into her pocket.
Deacon pointed at something. All Allison saw was a large white sheet draped over what she assumed was a huge stack of boxes.
“We cleaned out Dad’s office after he retired and put everything up here. Including his ‘collection.’” Deacon pushed the curtain aside and Allison stared, wide-eyed, at three dark wood glass-front cabinets. She looked at Deacon, who said nothing but waved his hand as if to say “you asked for it, here it is.” She leaned in and peered through the glass. Inside on beds of midnight blue velvet lay various metal objects in strange, fascinating and grotesque shapes. They were not shiny, not polished, not gleaming. These were old things, tarnished things, some with rust on them that on second look revealed it was not rust at all.
“What the hell is all this stuff?” Allison asked, intrigued and horrified by the macabre display in front of her.
“What do you do when you have too much money, too much free time and not enough good sense?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
“That’s a bone wrench,” Deacon said, pointing at an F-shaped steel object about ten inches long. “Don’t ask me why you’d need to wrench a bone, but that’s what it is. And that thing next to it that looks like a wine bottle corkscrew is, in fact, a trephine.”
“A what?”
“A trephine? It’s, um, for drilling holes in the skull.”
“Oh, gross,” she said, wincing.
“I know, right? This is the best one, though,” Deacon said as he pointed out an object that looked something like a wooden rolling pin with a rounded tip and split down the center.
“What is that thing?”
“You can’t guess?” he asked.
“Please tell me that’s not a wooden dildo.”
“Close. It’s a speculum,” he said, grinning.
“Made of wood?”
“It’s been sanded and shellacked.”
“You’re kidding me, right?”
Deacon grinned maniacally. “It’s got a leech applicator, too.”
“Oh, my God.” Allison covered her mouth with her hands and laughed in disgust and horror.
“I wasn’t kidding about the freak show,” Deacon said.
“Dr. Capello collects this stuff? By choice? On purpose? No one is making him?”
“This is medical history right here.” Deacon waved his hand, indicating the cabinets. “Insanely gross and fucked-up medical history. We’ve got a tonsil guillotine here. A set of forceps as big as your arms here. And, oh, this little guy is a gold-plated eyelid retractor. Are you ready to puke yet?”
“A tonsil guillotine?”
“Chop, chop,” Deacon said.
“Yes, I’m ready to puke.”
“I told you you’d regret it,” Deacon said.
“I need to sit down,” Allison said, mostly kidding. Deacon had warned her, after all. As gross as the stuff was, she found it pretty fascinating. Fascinating and gross.
Deacon threw open a large steamer trunk and pulled an old quilt out of it, tossed it on the floor and sat down cross-legged. Allison sunk down next to him.
“Dad is weird,” Deacon said.
“I had no idea.”
Deacon laughed. “Blame his grandparents,” he said.