Chance Damnation

by DeAnna Knippling

  Aloysius said, “Well, I have some news.” His normally glib tongue abandoned him, so he just blurted it out: “I’ve asked Honey to marry me. Finally.”

  Peggy burst into tears, Theodore kicked him under the table, and Liam beamed. Maeve giggled and said, “I hope you told him no! I mean, have you seen him? Whew!”

  Honey said, with a queenly dignity, “I have deigned to accept, as long as he takes out a life insurance policy on himself. I don’t expect to be married to him long; I’m sure he’ll put himself out of my misery within a month or two.”

  Aloysius was grinning.

  “Bravo,” Maeve said. “That’s all right, then.”

  Theodore was grinning, too.

  Maeve turned to him and said, “Wipe that grin off your face. Like you’re any better.” Then she leaned over and licked his nose, her gigantic muzzle moist and glistening.

  Aloysius couldn’t help making a face, so he said, “Ugh. Not at the table!” Then he slipped an arm around Honey and squeezed her.

  Peggy wiped her face with her sleeve, leaving a shining trail. She sighed and used her napkin to wipe her sleeve. “When are you getting married?”

  “No idea,” Aloysius said. “Whenever Honey tells me to.”

  They all laughed. But it was true: he had no idea when anybody else was getting married, let alone who. And planning a wedding, in spite of one’s mother and mother-in-law, seemed to be a test of authority for any wife.

  Maeve—the original woman—had planned her and Theodore’s wedding with relentless efficiency. At least, it had looked that way from Aloysius’s part in it. He hadn’t followed along with the plan, exactly, and the explosion that had followed had scared him off from his sister-in-law a little, he had to admit.

  He wasn’t sure what the revised Maeve had done. Would have done. Would have had done. He didn’t know how to say it.

  He pulled over beside the road on the way to take Honey back home and kissed her until he was hard.

  “Scared?” she asked.

  “Of you? Of being married to you? Sometimes,” he said. “But it’ll probably be my fault, no matter what happens.”

  “Just keep that in mind, and we’ll do fine.”

  He snorted. “Promise not to stay mad at me?”

  “You want me to promise something like that, you better have Sebastian sneak it into the vows.”

  “Hm. Not sure if I want him to marry us.”

  “He’s your brother.”

  “It just doesn’t seem proper. He’s…” He didn’t know what he wanted to say.

  “He needs your support.”

  Aloysius sighed. “That he does. I’ll talk to him tomorrow, when it’s light enough to start searching again.”

  Honey turned and looked out the window. “It’s that girl, isn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “That little Blackthorn girl. That’s why Jerome ran away.”

  “I think so, yes,” Aloysius admitted, even if the reason they’d run away had changed.

  “There’s something going on.”

  “I don’t know what it is, but I see what you mean.”

  “Do you?”

  “Getting defrocked for being a drunk?”

  “Exactly.”

  “You’re not saying that Sebastian did anything to her, are you?” He dreaded the answer. He put no trust in a miracle that could destroy his father and replace him with a kinder, gentler, more good-humored demon. It could just as easily turn his brother into someone who hurt kids.

  Honey took a long time to answer. “You’re hardly one to fail to see a flaw in your brother.”

  “Well, doesn’t that makes me sound noble,” he muttered.

  “Do you think your brother did anything to her? Try to consider it.”

  It made his stomach turn, but he tried. Then he laughed. “No. I can’t. I can see him sweet-talking a nun into bed with him with a few high-sounding nothings, but a little girl? And Celeste Marie, I’ve heard him lecture her about eating too many sweets. She just nodded at him, went over to a candy dish, picked out all the black jelly beans, and ate them while he finished talking to her.”

  “Exactly.” Honey waited until he caught up with her.

  “The Bishop? Or the priest? They went to school together. It’s the priest, isn’t it? That’s interesting.” Aloysius leaned back in his seat. “I wonder what Sebastian could possibly have on him. Because I can’t imagine anyone wanting to be assigned out here.”

  “Something to think about,” Honey said.

  He managed to catch a few hours’ sleep in his very own bed before dawn, but only because he was so tired he couldn’t stay awake any longer. Then he begged forgiveness of his hired hands and drove back out to the Duncan church to join the search.

  The row of trucks beside the church looked familiar, just like when they’d prepared for the demon attack. But this time the demons were working beside them, helping search for Jerome. Or were they?

  Aloysius got his assignment from Theodore—start three miles from the Blackthorn place along the northward fence and head due west on foot. If he saw the kids, he was to shoot a rifle into the ground twice; if he lost sight of the man walking to the north or south of him, he was to shoot the rifle once. He drove out and parked the truck at the fence line. He couldn’t drive to look for them; if they were lying in the grass, he might crush them.

  He had crossed the crest of the hill and lost sight of the house and the church. Watching a demon cry over his supposed daughter had turned his stomach, so he’d left as quickly as possible. He couldn’t see either of the other two men who were supposed to be walking a half-mile beside him, so he waited.

  Soon enough, Theodore drove past him, parking about half a mile northwards, and another man waited on Aloysius’s left.

  Someone fired a rifle, and Theodore waved the three of them forward.

  Aloysius walked through the wheat field, appalled. Half a mile? The kids could be lying on the ground ten feet away from him, and he’d never know. The sun was still low in the sky behind him, and he could barely see for the golden glow coming from behind him and reflecting into his eyes off the golden wheat. The wind rustled the wheat stalks. It was like looking into a campfire. After a few seconds, he couldn’t see the wheat for the images that came up to him, like daydreams.

  He walked until the sun was directly overhead and he was out of water. He heard a gunshot and stopped.

  Theodore was waving him over, and he had a second of hope, but then he remembered the signal for the kids was two shots, not one.

  Theodore met him halfway. “You look peaked.”

  “I feel peaked.”

  Theodore handed over his water jug, and Aloysius guzzled at it, then dumped a cupful or so over his head and put his hat back on.

  “They ain’t out here,” Theodore said.

  “I know that,” Aloysius said. “But what else can we do? We can’t drill a hole in Blackthorn’s basement. I’m not convinced we’d hit a tunnel, even if we did.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “What are you asking me for?” Aloysius shoved the water jug back at Theodore.

  “When you figure it out, just let me know.”

  “I tell you I don’t know!”

  “Better keep walking, then.” Theodore turned and walked back to his original position.

  Aloysius turned and walked south. He was thinking. He still hadn’t cornered Sebastian and asked him what the hell was going on; maybe that would produce something.

  But what? And why should it? What could Sebastian possibly have to do with this?

  Aloysius closed his eyes. Of course Sebastian had something to do with it. It was just like him, to have an idea so appalling that anyone else would knock themselves upside the head rather than think it, then find a way to make it even worse.

  There was another gunshot, and Aloysius opened his eyes. It had come from the south, and the man searching in that direction was waving to him.

>   Aloysius started walking. The man yelled something that sounded like, “Off!” Aloysius held his hand up to his ear, and the man yelled it again.

  A truck drove up the hill through the wheat. Aloysius clucked his tongue. The truck collected the man and drove toward him.

  Don leaned over. “The search has been called off, son. Jump in the back so we can collect Theodore.”

  “Called off?”

  “Father Dennis called it off. Get in.”

  Aloysius climbed into the back of the truck. Don picked up Theodore, who said nothing when he found out about the search. Don swung around and dropped them off at their respective vehicles.

  Aloysius climbed into his truck, drank some water from the jug he’d left behind, and stared at the wheat. Should he be outraged and head back into the field, insisting on searching for Jerome?

  He couldn’t do it.

  Chapter 26

  He stopped at the house. Peggy was in tears, of course. She was sitting on the couch until she saw Aloysius, and then she jumped up. Liam was sitting—the demon was sitting in Liam’s chair, staring into space. Aloysius wished he were better at reading expressions on the demons’ faces. Liam’s eyes looked glassy, like he’d been drinking.

  Peggy grabbed onto him and shrieked, “How can that man say that Jerome is dead? How does he know? God didn’t tell him. I’d know if Jerome were dead. I’d know.”

  “I know, I know,” Aloysius said. His leg hadn’t bothered him all day, but suddenly it did.

  “I’ll kill him!” Peggy shouted.

  “Yes, you will,” Aloysius said. “And then you’ll go to jail.”

  “What right does a priest have to call off a search? What right? Who gave him the authority?”

  “I don’t think that’s the problem, Peggy,” Aloysius said. “It’s that Don agrees with him. I’m pretty sure it was Don who called off the search. He’s just blaming it on something the priest said.”

  Peggy buried her head in his shoulder. “Damn him!”

  “He didn’t mean to break our hearts. He’s just doing what he think is his duty.”

  “Don’t you dare forgive him! He’s going to Hell! I’m going to pray that he goes to Hell!”

  “Pray for Jerome, sweetie,” he told her, which would make her feel even worse, he knew. She broke down totally, and he put his arms around her, led her to the couch, and sat with her.

  If only he could cry with her.

  Theodore stopped in shortly afterward. “Talked to him.”

  Peggy quieted, but didn’t stop crying.

  “Who, the priest from the Bishop?” Aloysius asked.

  Theodore paused. “Yeah. Father Dennis.”

  “What did he call off the search for?”

  Theodore shook his head. “He lied to me. I don’t know.”

  “What did he say he called it off for?”

  “Said it was clear the kids had taken supplies, they’d turn up when they wanted to.”

  “I knew they weren’t dead,” Peggy said.

  Aloysius said, “You didn’t tell him about the backpack, did you?”

  Theodore shook his head.

  “What backpack?” Peggy murmured.

  “That backpack he was always dragging around,” Aloysius said. “To go exploring. It’s missing. He does have supplies.”

  “What on earth could he have run away for?”

  “We’ll find out when he comes back,” Aloysius said. He wasn’t too sure that he didn’t mean if, but he wasn’t about to say it in front of Peggy. He sighed. “I have to get back to the farm. I’ve been gone too long.”

  Peggy sobbed under her breath for a few seconds, then leaned back from him. “You’ll find him, won’t you?”

  “Not until he wants to be found,” Aloysius said. “You know Jerome.”

  She wiped her eyes. “I used to think I did.”

  It wasn’t until after he extricated himself from the house that he realized that the demon that was supposed to be Liam hadn’t said a thing the whole time he’d been there. The more Peggy cried, the more upset it had looked, its cheeks looking hollow, its eyes sunken, its hands clenched on the chair arms.

  He wondered if it knew what was going on, really. If anything, it had looked torn.

  Aloysius drove to his farm.

  Well, his ranch, anyway. He didn’t have much for crops, just hay, alfalfa, and oats to feed the stock and horses, come winter. Right now they were all out to pasture, just walking over the land and eating grass.

  He had a hundred things to check up on, and then a list as long as his arm of things to do after that.

  He took the last bend of the gravel road slowly—the left side of the road washed out if a cloud looked at it funny and was always loose—and looked down at the used trailer parked by the barn. He shared it with five hired hands for room, board, and a percentage from the next sale. It was dirty, and it stank.

  Was this really what Honey wanted? He’d have to get another trailer, at least.

  He drove down the hill and parked beside the barn. The head of the hired men, Billy, walked out of the barn, brushing something off his hands and grinning. Aloysius couldn’t help but like a man who grinned like a fool all the time. Yet he had some sense.

  “They called off the search,” Aloysius said.

  Billy’s face fell, the laugh lines dropping down into jowls. Billy was fifty if he was a day, had lost his wife years ago (to death or abandonment, Aloysius had never asked). “Poor kids.”

  “How’s everything going?”

  “Not bad. You’ll have to see for yourself, of course.”

  Aloysius said, “I asked Honey to marry me.”

  Billy laughed under his breath. “Holy hell, things are bound to change around here. Women.”

  “You leaving?”

  “Not ‘till she pisses me off.”

  “Fair enough.”

  Billy’s eyes shifted, and Aloysius looked behind him. A car was driving down the hill. It looked like Sebastian’s car, but the engine sounded like hell.

  Billy said, “I don’t have time listen to his excuses, boss.”

  Aloysius was startled. Why would Billy have anything to say about his brother? He was Lutheran and had to drive up to Highmore every Sunday to hear services or whatever they did.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Aloysius said.

  Apparently, that was the right thing to say, or close enough. Billy headed off to the barn without another look.

  Sebastian screeched to a stop beside Aloysius’s truck.

  “What’s the bee in your bonnet?”Aloysius asked.

  “Don’t start with me,” Sebastian said as he got out of the car.

  He wasn’t wearing black. Or his collar. He was wearing a red and yellow plaid shirt and blue jeans, with cowboy boots. No hat.

  “What happened to your…”

  “Goddamned demons,” Sebastian said. “I thought I’d got around them. They don’t have the Bishop yet, right? Well, they don’t. They just rewrote the world around me until I’m somebody that I’m not. Did you know I’m your hired hand now? And that demon calling itself Father Dennis has been the priest here the whole time?”

  His voice got louder and louder.

  “Keep it down,” Aloysius said. “They’re all listening to you in the barn.”

  Sebastian lowered his voice, barely. “So you know what I did? I attacked him.”

  Aloysius closed his eyes. “The priest. Goddamn it, Sebastian. That’s just what he wants. Now he can send the cops after you.”

  “I had to get things out of the rectory. Help me get them out of the trunk.”

  “No. You’re not leaving them here.”

  “I see how it is.”

  “No, you don’t.” Aloysius put his arms around Sebastian’s shoulders. “Think, Sebastian. The way things are now, you haven’t been a priest, ever. You used to be a real pain in the ass, pulling jokes on people.”

  “I fail to see the humor in this situation.”


  Aloysius walked him in a circle around the two vehicles. “You need to hide stuff from a cop and a priest. Where would a cop and a priest never think to look? Not here. This is the first place they’ll look.”

  “Is this some kind of test? What’s the answer?”

  “I don’t know, Sebastian. I just know you worked it out for yourself often enough when we were kids.”

  Sebastian glared at him, then glared right through him, then looked up at the sky. Then he looked at the barn. “I better get moving, unless I want to be boxed in on your road.”

  “You better,” Aloysius said.

  “You know where I’m going?”

  “I can guess.”

  “Bring me some supper.”

  “Breakfast.”

  “Damn it, Aloysius.”

  He walked Sebastian back to his car. Sebastian got in and drove off.

  He walked into the barn. Billy was cleaning out stalls. “He’s in trouble again,” Aloysius said.

  “Don’t tell me.”

  “All right,” Aloysius said. “If Sheriff Don shows up, go ahead and tell him what you saw. Hear anything?”

  “I was trying not to. He yelled something about demons when he first got out of the car.”

  “He’s got demons all right,” Aloysius muttered. When Billy didn’t answer, he went inside the trailer. It was hot and full of garbage that needed to be cleaned up. He opened a window.

  He’d get another trailer and park it under the trees next to the creek and leave this one for the men. He’d have to borrow money from his father, or rather, the demon who had taken his place. It should be easier to get money out of the demon than it had been to get it out of his father.

  A short while later, a truck drove down the hill.

  Aloysius was finishing up cleaning out the manure from the barn with Billy when he stepped out to greet the Sheriff and Father Dennis, the demon.

  Chapter 27

  Jerome looked for a way down into the pit until he fell asleep in a storeroom full of broken buckets. He was starting to think that the corridors he searched had been abandoned, as if once there had been more demons living and working and storing things. Lots of things. Now that he know how to open doors, he found abandoned living areas, with cushioned wallows in the floor that stank of demons. He felt like Goldilocks in the story; everything was too big, from the bowls to the toilet pits that absorbed his pee with a shifting buzz of clay.