by Tonya Hurley
“You have no idea.”
“Is there something you want to tell me Agnes?”
“Ever since Precious Blood, I feel different inside. It’s more than just a change of heart,” Agnes confessed. “Sometimes when I sleep, or dream, I feel myself slipping away. Separating in two.”
“These things happen when we are troubled or anxious. Our mind’s way of helping us make sense of things. You have been through incredible trauma.”
“That’s not what I mean, but you know that, don’t you?”
The nun returned to her desk and sat, searching for words. “Such phenomena are noted in the biographies of the saints and martyrs. We call them hagiographies. And in tales of their suffering called Passionaries.”
“What phenomena?”
“Many regarded as saints are believed to have displayed supernatural abilities. In fact, these have been both signs of their sainthood in life and a verification of it after death.”
“Superpowers? I’m sorry, Sister, but I’m about the furthest from the X-Men a girl can get.”
Sister Dorothea laughed and continued. “What you are experiencing is called bilocation. The sensation of being in two places at the same time.”
“It’s more than a sensation. I am in two places at once.”
“You are in good company. Saint Anthony, Saint Martin, Saint Ambrose, Maria de Leon Bello y Delgado, all recounted similar experiences.”
Agnes opened up, hoping for answers. “Lucy and Cecilia, the two girls who were with me at Precious Blood, are also different. Lucy can see things before they happen and Cecilia has marks on her hands that hurt her whenever danger is near.”
“Bilocation, levitation, stigmata, telepathy, clairvoyance . . . these are all gifts so that others may know you for your true self. Gifts not always used peacefully. Joan of Arc was a warrior. Saint Margaret was a dragon slayer, for goodness sake.”
That last fearsome image reminded Agnes of Cecilia and her fierceness and fighting skills.
“And Jude?”
“He is an ecstatic.”
“But he is classified as autistic, nonverbal?”
“His outbursts are diagnosed as seizures, his behavior as ADHD, oppositional defiance disorder, or whatever the clinical flavor of the moment may be,” the sister explained. “This is how Dr. Frey is able to keep him in his care.”
“Jude is so good. So innocent.”
“And so dangerous to Dr. Frey,” the nun informed. “As are you all.”
“He seems to have it all figured out.”
“Not all of it,” Sister Dorothea proposed. “But he is very good at recognizing certain qualities in his patients.”
“Like Sebastian?”
Sister Dorothea smiled. “This is all for a reason. Only God knows what that is,” she said. “Have faith and put it in his hands.”
“I don’t seem to have a choice, Sister.”
“God be with your soul, Agnes.”
3 Cecilia jaywalked across busy Hamilton Parkway against the light, dodging cars and trucks and the occasional curiosity seeker, on her way to the Carroll Gardens library. She dodged the omnipresent puddles of dog piss as she made her way along the uneven slate slabs that doubled as Clinton Street’s sidewalk, arriving after a while at the imposing late nineteenth-century red brick building ensconced in the tree-lined neighborhood. The wrought-iron gate and arched windows brought to mind Precious Blood, which she took as a good omen. For her, both were places of learning.
She hadn’t seen the inside of a library since she dropped out of high school, but they had computers there and archived stacks of books and periodicals, and she needed some information. She flashed her ID, signed up for a desktop, and waited her turn. CeCe noticed a plaque above the unused fireplace mantel. DONATED BY ANDREW CARNEGIE. 1897. As a native of Steel Town, his name carried particular weight with her. The wealthy, the powerful, had always tried to soften their image with gestures of largesse, she mused. In that sense, Frey was no different. Though in the doctor’s case it was more smokescreen than publicity ploy.
The library was a public place but quiet, especially during midday, except for some crying toddlers, so Cecilia wasn’t particularly worried about her privacy or safety. She took a seat as soon as a desktop became available, settled in, and did as Frey suggested. She googled him. The search results were impressive, which she expected. Page after page of citations. Studies, lectures, news reports, op-eds, press releases, photos, videos. His every promotion, award, charitable donation, every move chronicled in the greatest detail. A digital avalanche of praise and admiration.
Headlines screamed his importance:
DOCTOR KNOW!
PSYCH BARD!
PERPETUAL HELP’S FREY:
FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES.
A SHRINK GROWS IN BROOKLYN
MAYOR “COMMITTED” TO ALAN FREY’S
OUTPATIENT REHAB CENTER
From his reputation as a world class physician and hospital administrator; to his earliest humanitarian efforts, focused mainly on substance abusers; appointments to positions as head of psychiatry at hospitals around the city; and finally his elevation to head of psychiatry at Perpetual Help, transforming the most cash-strapped hospital in the city into its finest. The record was one of undeniable achievement. Many claim to stride the halls of power, Cecilia thought, but in Frey’s case, the halls only became powerful if he strode them.
Archival newspaper editorial pages she clicked on lauded his courage, his willingness to take on the hard cases. Single-handedly credited with keeping the institution going in the midst of the worst financial crisis in New York City’s history, earning him the respect of city hall and the archbishop himself. The goodwill for which made it easier to get the controversial Born Again facility approved on the outskirts of gentrifying brownstone Brooklyn. As a physician, his patient list was second to none, an enviable roster of corporate, political, and financial A-listers. The authoritative image he presented was beyond reproach.
For someone with more intimate knowledge of the doctor, like Cecilia, however, another thread appeared to present itself. This was a man with a plan, tirelessly working his way into a position of control, climbing the ladder both professionally and socially. Rubbing elbows with other masters of the universe for nefarious purposes. And as the psychiatrist of choice for the city’s rich and famous, he was also the keeper of their secrets—owed an unspoken debt, lest certain embarrassing morsels mysteriously find their way into the columns or court filings.
Cecilia knew the type from the local dog-eat-dog music scene. Chameleons, showing a different face as situations dictated, relentless, duplicitous, competitive, mercenary. His reach seemed to extend to every corner of the city, to every big shot—corporate, financial, political, municipal, even the clergy. His power and influence becoming more concentrated and simultaneously more widespread, like the radioactive fallout from a nuclear core.
The search engine answered the how of Frey, but not the why. Even if a man could consolidate such power and hide his true self behind such a pristine image, why would he? Frey was nothing if not rational, but reason seemed to have nothing to do with any of this. Why the animus toward Sebastian, toward them? He was a psychiatrist after all. Why wouldn’t he just dismiss their “sainthood” as the delusion of lunatics and wait for it to go away? Even Sebastian said the Ciphers had been winning for years, gradually turning people away from faith and from their best selves. Instead, he was on some mission—self-appointed or otherwise—to medicate them, commit them, silence them, and destroy them.
She searched the printed archives for everything she could find, thumbing through study after study, lecture after lecture. Until at last she found what she was looking for. An answer. A transcript of his “job” interview with the board of Perpetual Help. She speed read through the introductions and niceties, the résumé and the recommendations from former patients and colleagues, and got right to the heart of the matter. The former Archbishop Jensen
, near the end of his life, blamed for the hospital’s pitiful financial straits at the time, but still active on the board and reluctant to cede control to the ambitious physician. His questions were surprisingly antagonistic toward an applicant clearly regarded as a shoe in.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Frey.”
“Your Eminence,” he replied.
“We are honored to have such an esteemed candidate for this most important position, but we are also most curious.”
“How so?”
“Why would a man with such a clear antipathy toward traditional religion want to practice in a hospital such as ours?
“I don’t understand?”
“Didn’t you leave the seminary as a young man?”
“Seminary?” Cecilia gasped, loudly enough to disturb the person in the cubicle next to her.
“I did. I preferred to heal sick brains.”
“Instead of sick souls?” the archbishop countered.
Frey responded tersely. “I didn’t realize there was a litmus test for this position, your Eminence?”
“We are not here to judge, Doctor, simply to inquire.”
“There is no great mystery in it. Dealing with clergy and seminarians experiencing deep crises of faith was both disheartening and enlightening.”
“How so?”
“It gave me permission to question my own views, my own beliefs.”
“And so you fell away?”
“That is your analysis, Archbishop.”
“Don’t let me put words in your mouth, Doctor.”
Even on paper Cecilia could feel the session getting testy.
“As I pursued my career in psychiatry, I met others who thought as I did. Who found other ways to help the troubled, the addicted.”
“The sinful?” the archbishop posited. “Some people see these problems as a moral failing.”
“Some do,” Frey acknowledged.
“But not you?”
“No.”
“So I return to my original question,” Archbishop Jensen said. “Perpetual Help is on the verge of bankruptcy, funded primarily by an institution whose values you disregard and yourself discarded. Why would a person with such a promising future want to buy a ticket on a sinking ship, so to speak?”
“With the right guidance, I believe Perpetual Help will be the center for a great change.”
“Your guidance.”
“Yes,” Frey proposed. “In order for minds to be healed, minds must be changed. From the inside. Old thoughts, old ways replaced. It is the same for institutions.”
“Then it all depends on the kind of change one brings or one finds?”
“Some change must be facilitated, some must be stopped.”
“That’s it,” Cecilia murmured. “Kill the baby in the crib.”
“You see this neighborhood as an epicenter of such change?”
“Not just in the neighborhood, but in the city and the world beyond.”
Cecilia closed the document, still reeling from its contents.
“If they only knew.”
Agnes left the room in silence. Through the doorway at the end of the long walk, she spied a girl facing the doors, waiting. “Lucy.”
Agnes hurried to her. “Are you okay?” she said, embracing her. “I’ve been texting you!”
“I know, I’m sorry. I needed to talk to you face to face. I have something to tell you.”
“And I have something to tell you,” Agnes said.
“You go first. I’m going to take a while.”
Agnes smiled. “I met this guy.”
“Oh,” Lucy interjected.
“No, not like that,” Agnes replied. “A boy in my class who recently came out of Frey’s ward at the hospital.”
“Another one?”
“He’s nothing like Sebastian,” Agnes said.
“No one will ever be.”
“He said that there’s some crazy stuff going on up there. Real hard cases Frey is getting released into halfway houses and then out to the streets. One after another. It’s like an assembly line of wackos.”
“Did your friend have any idea why?”
“No, but I’m pretty sure I do.”
“Vandals?”
“Vandals,” Agnes replied. “Looking for us.”
Lucy shook her head and looked over both shoulders, fearful they might be being watched.
“It all makes a sadistic kind of sense,” Lucy said. “Especially with what I have to tell you.”
“What is it?” Agnes said with a lump in her throat.
“Let’s find Cecilia.”
Jesse scrolled through his phone’s photo app, studying the pictures he’d taken at Perpetua’s house. Creepy didn’t begin to describe it. Sebastian’s heart. Sitting there on display. It hadn’t decomposed so far as he could see. But then again, that didn’t prove anything. He’d gotten press releases about fast food burgers with cheese that hadn’t grown mold and didn’t even smell after a year on a windowsill.
Still, he had to admit, there was something incredibly powerful about it. And undignified. He could see both sides of it. To the faithful, it was a material, anatomical, actual symbol of courage, of strength, of faith. A holy relic. To the skeptics, perverse at least, a horrible crime at worst, evidence of organ piracy. Grave robbing.
On trips to Europe he’d seen such things visiting churches and cathedrals. Hair, teeth, bone, extremities, all manner of body parts enshrined. A constant reminder of mortality and immortality. The fact that these items were now more interesting to tourists than pilgrims was not lost on him. He wished that the “Saints of Sackett Street,” as he’d coined them, would become such a novelty as well, its fifteen minute shelf life nearly spent, but the fascination with Lucy, Cecilia, and Agnes was growing more intense, not less, and becoming increasingly disconcerting to him. And terrifying.
He scrolled through file after file of photos and videos chronicling Lucy’s transformation from high school hellcat to table-dancing party princess extraordinaire. He reached for a cigarette and a beer, toasting her success. Their success.
“To the bad old days,” he mumbled, cracking a sinister smile.
Reminiscing, however, only led him back to a less celebratory place. The present.
What has she gotten herself into? The girls had been lucky to escape Precious Blood and Frey with their lives. Jesse, too. Frey’s invitation left a sulfurous taste in his mouth and in his conscience that he had yet to shake.
“Coming with me?” Frey had asked. With or against? Frey’s intentions were clear as a bell and so were Jesse’s. He was against. He’d been offered a deal with a devil and managed to resist. One of the few things he could be proud of in this whole chaotic, murderous mess. But it was a certain, if unspoken, truth that Frey’s was a one-time offer. Jesse had seen and heard too much, no matter what the investigators and the DA chose to believe. He was no better off than Lucy, Cecilia, and Agnes. Seeing the end result of Sebastian’s confrontation with the doctor at Perpetua’s home, no matter how noble, was a sobering reminder of the real reason for his anxiety. There were people out to kill them. And him. Which led Jesse to wonder.
Why weren’t they dead already?
It wasn’t like Frey to get cold feet, so there had to be another reason. The easy answer was that there were too many people watching. Shrines popping up in front of Agnes’s home, sell-outs at Cecilia’s concerts, crowds trailing Lucy wherever she went. Not to mention the media attention which had barely waned in the months since Sebastian’s death. Apparently, living saints were good copy. Ratings winners. He reached for a thumb drive on his desk and fitted it in the USB port of his desktop. Scan after scan of newspaper and magazine stories popped up as he scrolled through the folders.
The mastheads shouted:
SAINTS’ ALIVE!
CULT TEENS SURVIVE CULTISH MURDER/SUICIDE.
HOLY HAUTE HORROR!
PSYCH WARD ESCAPEE SUFFERS DEATH BY COP.
INQUISITION!
CONSTRUCTION HALTED AT BROOKLYN CHURCH.
TOP DOC CLEARED IN
PRECIOUS BLOOD INCIDENT.
BISHOP DECLINES TO COMMENT
ON BLASPHEMY CHARGES!
HOLY SEE MUM ON HOLY THREE
VATICAN’T CONFIRM AUTHENTICITY
OF SEBASTIAN SIGHTINGS
As an eyewitness, Jesse had been advised not to comment publicly on anything he’d seen and heard inside the church, so BYTE was unusually silent on Lucy and the others. Whether it was to cover his own ass or out of respect for Sebastian and the girls, he didn’t really know. He’d reached the point where the whole thing felt like a terrible nightmare. Lucy and Agnes seemed to have the easiest time dealing. They just went about their lives, ignored the haters and the inconveniences as best they could and tried like hell to figure out what it was they were supposed to be doing. Cecilia took a different path and hid away. He was somewhere in between.
In many ways, all the publicity generated from the reporting, the rumors and gossip about Sebastian’s death and about the girls, was good for him. How ironic, he thought, for him to be a beneficiary. People flocked to BYTE and to him like never before, either as “content providers” offering exclusive inside tips, or as end users, or subscribers, relying on him to tell them what was really happening in the world. He was an influencer now, starting to make real money. His reputation for credibility and authenticity overshadowed the weasely ways he had been known for just a few months earlier. Funny how a few murders and a few headlines could change public perception.
Jesse plugged in his phone and downloaded the most recent jpegs and mov files to his laptop, including the images and video he’d shot of Perpetua and Lucy talking at the end of the visit. He put the phone down and went to his refrigerator for something to eat. The video finally uploaded and began to play automatically. He rummaged through the slim pickin’s in his freezer, not really listening, and then he heard it. He slammed the door and ran back to his laptop and replayed the clip. And replayed it. And replayed it again, just to be sure of what he’d just heard.
Perpetua saying nobody knew.
But that wasn’t true. Mayfield knew. And it was a good bet there were others who knew that he knew. Who had their eye on Mayfield.