"Aaron!" I managed, my voice a bit high, feeling completely off balance. I had never seen any of the children around the town before, unless they were following their parents.
I put my own shoulders back and tucked my hair behind my ears, giving myself time to assume the authority of the principal. My voice back to normal, I asked as pleasantly as possible, "What are you doing out here?"
"Same thing as you, I guess," he answered. "Just enjoying the sunshine."
It was a polite, even amiable thing to say, but his voice was flat and monotone. He was making it clear that this was not the real reason he had appeared on the bridge. Yet I would have no cause to throw his words back to him. He had replied with just the right phrases.
So I returned the favour, keeping the conversation inane. "Yes, isn't the beginning of spring one of the most pleasant times of the year? Are you looking forward to the end of school?"
"Not really." He paused for a moment, still facing me, his hands in his pockets, a smile pasted on his lips.
I wondered how I had never noticed his coldness. No emotion reached deep enough inside to flow from his eyes. Had his father so abused him that all feeling had been completely suppressed?
"I'm actually very excited about my new volunteer position," he said. "Can't wait to spend more time around the office. I know my mom enjoyed it."
"Well, that's great, Aaron. I enjoyed working with her too."
"I'll just bet you did."
He kept up the phony smile and then he did something completely unexpected. He reached his hand up toward my face.
When I flinched, he laughed aloud as he touched my hair, coming back with a small piece of fluff in his fingers.
Then he fairly danced back over the bridge, disappearing quickly into the downtown area. I hurried the rest of the way home, trying not to think. I wanted to wait until I was in my husband's arms.
Langford Taylor, my best friend, my lover, had been my husband for thirty-two years. For nearly twenty of that time, we were separated by a terrible miscarriage of justice, which I had only recently been able to put behind me.
I rarely thought of those dark years now. I had, at this 'advanced' age, finally learned peace. Burchill, the Shaman Agnes Lake, and May all helped me find my way.
But it was Langford, whose real name of William I used only in the privacy of our home, who filled my life. Tall, lanky and serious with brown eyes that still held the sadness of his lost youth, he instinctively listened closely, made friends slowly but steadfastly, and was able to read people extremely well. He was generous and witty and kind.
I knew that our love was probably strengthened and intensified by our past, but I would gladly have traded the force of the passion for those lost years. I would've happily been somewhat ignored and taken for granted if that could have erased the pain of his incarceration and humiliation.
Despite some of the problems here, Burchill was our sanctuary. Our friendship with May and Alain brought us closer to regaining our trust and faith in people and life. In fact, over the last four years, I had never been happier.
Langford Taylor was now a very well known painter. From some rather 'ordinary' landscapes, he had branched out into interpretive art, integrating nature with dreams and conjecture. He took what he saw and mixed it with possibility, imagination, futuristic projections. People lingered over his art, posed questions, discussed answers, made projections and conjectures of their own.
Langford loved the conversation generated by each of his paintings. He listened to the opinions avidly and never made judgments or ridiculed or refuted what the art lovers had to say. He allowed each of his fans to believe that their interpretation was the correct one, the most insightful.
Lately, Langford had been showered with awards throughout Ontario, which he shied away from accepting in person. We hadn't yet addressed the issue of what steps to follow if his fame spread across the country. What would happen if someone in Vancouver, British Columbia, wanted his work, his picture, his presence?
We had left the west coast behind, avoided notoriety by assuming a different name and never speaking of our past. Would another kind of fame draw us back into that nightmare? It was a dilemma we'd been avoiding, but as the demand for Langford's paintings grew dramatically, I did wonder where his prominence would lead us.
That afternoon, I found Langford, as usual, in his studio. Prefabricated material had been designed so the little addition to our property looked just like our century frame home.
Natural light flooded through the large windows on all four sides. The sophisticated track lighting allowed Langford to paint in all weather and at all times of the day or night. Lately, I had noticed an empty bed in the early mornings, a result of his increased inspiration and the new techniques he had discovered.
Langford was cleaning his brushes at the sink when I entered the studio. He turned swiftly and when he saw who it was, he grinned widely.
At his feet, our little brown and white dog, Angel, lay in a patch of sun. She jumped up and landed in my arms, licking my face with delight. I patted her, hugged her and then set her down. Angel returned contentedly to the little spot of sunshine and sighed as she resettled into her nap.
Wiping his hands on a clean cloth, my husband covered the short distance in three strides of his long legs, wrapping me in his arms.
"Hey, baby, my turn," he whispered in my ear. "How was your day?"
Before answering, I kissed him deeply for a few minutes, our tongues soft and welcoming, the electricity shooting through my body to my toes.
"Much better now," I said breathlessly, shaking off my jacket and sitting in the nearest chair.
Langford went back to the sink and scrubbed another brush, as he looked sideways at me. "What happened?"
First I told him about Renae's report. Then I described meeting Aaron Sanderson on the bridge.
"Maybe because I'd been so immersed in talking about the family, he caught me totally off balance. Oh, and I forgot to mention, this morning he came into my office and asked if he could take his mother's place as a volunteer. He's just so different from what I have always thought about him. He's not at all meek or self-conscious or shy. He's completely the opposite."
I turned and looked out of the south window. The early spring wind lifted the lake water and sprayed it on shore. Trying to put my reaction into words, I continued.
"To discover that the boy I've seen and monitored in the school for eight years is actually someone totally different has really shaken me. He's even a bit scary, he's so assertive."
"Would you say he's aggressive?"
Langford turned and placed the brushes in their appropriate slots to dry. He poured the sour-smelling turpentine and leftover paint into a large jar. The paint would eventually sink to the bottom and I knew his next steps by heart. Reuse the turpentine on top. Keep the leftover oils to create an abstract someday.
He began to wash his hands thoroughly.
"I'm not really sure I'd use that description," I said slowly. "But I'm wondering how I could have been so wrong. I might be making a mountain out of a molehill, I suppose. I can't wait until he starts volunteering. Maybe I'll find out who this boy really is. And I have to talk to Kristen too."
"Kristen George is his teacher? Lucky kid!"
"Hey," I laughed back at him. "I thought you didn't notice other beautiful women."
Kristen George was living proof that mixing the races was a good idea. Her mother was white, but her father was the descendent of an American slave who married a Native. She was not thin, more Marilyn Monroe than Angelina Jolie, but her huge brown eyes, luxurious hair and soft brown skin combined to make her a strikingly beautiful, voluptuous woman. No wonder the intermediate boys were always so well behaved in her class.
Langford came toward me and lifted me out of the chair.
"Other beautiful women, eh? Developed some confidence finally, Mrs. Taylor? Recognize just how gorgeous you are? You've still got that blond, blue-e
yed, slim foxy thing going on."
I giggled like a schoolgirl as he twirled me around. Angel looked up and appeared to grin at us.
"Let me show you how much I appreciate you and how little I noticed that Kristen George is extremely attractive in a dark, sultry kind of way…"
"So you did notice, you bugger," I laughed again, regaining my dignity as he set me back on my feet.
"Old bugger," Langford said. "I'd better watch I don't get accused of being a dirty old man. I'm getting on, my dear. You better take advantage of me while you still can—or rather, while I still can."
We both laughed heartily. As we headed for the door with Angel at our side, I noticed the painting that he was working on was covered with a sheet. Unusual for Langford.
"What's the painting, hon? Is it going to be a surprise?"
A small frown creased his face as he continued to switch off the lights.
"No, but it's another sort of turn for me. My subjects and techniques are really morphing. I don't know what to think of this one and I want to wait awhile before I show it, even to you. I hope you don't mind."
"Of course not, my love," I replied, completely confident in his motives.
If only I'd insisted on seeing that painting, that afternoon, perhaps I would have been more prepared for what would happen next. Then again, perhaps nothing could have equipped me for such traumatic change.
Chapter 38: Brimstone
The reverend lay lengthwise across the steps below the altar, his hair plastered with dried blood. Ugly purple welts rose on the skin of his bare arms. Above him, the man continued to lecture, the words echoing and reverberating from the walls of the empty room.
"But she trusted in her beauty, and played the whore because of your fame, and lavished her whoring on any passerby," he quoted and misquoted, twisting the words from the Bible to become his. "She took some of your garments, and made for herself colourful shrines, and on them played the whore. Nothing like this has ever been or ever shall be."
His voice became a howl. He drew the words in and gargled with them. "She also took your beautiful jewels of my gold and my silver that I had given you, and made for herself male images, and with them played the whore. And she took your embroidered garments to cover them, and set your oil and your incense before them. Also your bread that you gave her. You fed her with choice flour and oil and honey. You set it before her as a pleasing odour. And so it was, says the Lord God."
The lecturer came down the steps, black robes flowing around him. He lifted the vicar up by the hair to look at him.
"You must take your offspring, whom she has borne, and these you must sacrifice to be devoured. The child not of your loins has already been swallowed by the waters of evil. Now you must slaughter your children and deliver them up as an offering. How sick is her heart, says the Lord God, that she did all these things, the deeds of a brazen whore!"
The man got down on his knees in front of the reverend, raising both his arms toward the back of the church, where a silent woman stood. Arms at her sides, eyes blank and expressionless, her head remained lowered.
"Yet you, Pastor, you were not like a whore, because you scorned payment. You are the victim of this adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her husband! Gifts are given to all whores. But she gave your gifts to all her lovers, bribing them to come to her from all around."
This time, he stepped around the prone figure and advanced toward the woman, who did not move. He pointed a long, shaking finger close to her face, almost scratching her with his tapered nails.
"Madam, you were different from other women in your whoring. No one solicited you to play the whore. You gave payment, while no payment was given to you. You were different. You are the daughter of Molech, who is the supreme life form of evil. Have you not committed lewdness beyond all abominations?"
"See, everyone who uses proverbs will use this proverb about you, 'Like mother, like daughter.' You are the daughter of your mother, who loathed her husband and her child. And you are the mother of your daughters and sons, who are the spawn of the devil. They are more corrupt than you in all your ways. They are haughty and do abominable things before me. Therefore they must be removed."
He went back to the other man, whose body was now inert, unmoving, unhearing. The speaker appeared not to notice.
"You have allowed your seed to pass through the fire to Molech. You have defiled yourself with her. You have profaned the name of your God. Remember what the Lord says: 'And if the people of the land hide their eyes from the man, when he giveth of his seed unto Molech, and kill him not. Then I will set My Face against that man, and against his family, and will cut him off, and all that go whoring after him, to commit whoredom with Molech, from among their people.' You must do God's Will, Pastor Rob. You must kill the spawn of Molech."
The voice reverberated in waves down the emptiness of the room, filling it with the horror of a murderous scream followed by laughter.
The woman turned her head slightly, barely registering her son standing in the doorway. His face was pale and puffed with sleeplessness. If she could have seen clearly, she would have noticed that his visage was suffused with a look that was beyond fear. It was the look of desperation, hopelessness and loss.
Chapter 39: Jacob
The odd drought of March continued into April, making everyone feel unnatural and unhealthy. Both children had been through the flu and Helen had suffered from a bitter cold for weeks. They were all better now, but the weather continued to be a source of conversation for the whole town.
Yet as Jacob sat in his office, he felt a shudder of joy. Lately, he grinned at himself, everything made him feel positive, light and happy, even strange weather. That's what love was supposed to do, he thought.
Helen and Jordan had gone for a midmorning nap, Adrienne was at school and Jacob had delved into Alain's case. He was excited by the news that Doc Murphy had been able to unearth some information through hypnosis. They knew three things for certain.
First, if he were correct in believing that his sister was here in Burchill, Alain's memories hinted strongly that his past centered in this locality.
Secondly, from the description in his nightmares, the location of the baby's burial could very well be Bahswaway Pond, a small body of water that had formed over an ancient well just outside town.
Third, Alain had just barely escaped from death in a house fire.
Jacob now knew far more about Alain's past than he had yet disclosed to his client. When he began the search, he filed for a birth certificate on Alain's behalf, only to discover that there was nothing for Alain Reneaux. However, with a little digging and some granted favours from an acquaintance in the office of the Registrar General in Sudbury, Jacob discovered that an application for a name change had resulted in Alain Reneaux's appearing to be 'born' at the age of thirteen.
The application had been made by the Children's Aid Society, of which Alain had become a ward that year. He was listed as an 'orphan' and 'in need of protection.' The CAS applied for the court order to change his identity to protect him from 'possible harassment and/or harm.'
Next to assist Jacob with his search was Renae Ogemah. She had been spending a day every week at Burchill School, thus Jacob had come to know her quite well. He loved her spunk and her deep commitment to the children.
Renae had been able to pull more strings than Jacob had. Since Alain was an orphan and no one had ever filed for adoption, he had every right to the information. The difficulty was that no one had ever told Alain about his real identity. And of course, Alain had run away to begin his own life at a very young age. In the tangle of red tape and overloaded caseworkers, Alain had slipped under the radar for all these years. No one had attempted to find him and until now, he'd not asked about his background.
A few piles of paperwork later, the proper applications had been filed. Now the long form of Alain's birth certificate lay on Jacob's desk. Both May and Alain had requested that Jacob handle
the gathering of any information and that he be the one to open the envelopes and lay it out before them. They didn't think they could handle more than they were dealing with right now.
Jacob sliced open the envelope and pulled out the birth certificate. It had been neatly typed on an eleven-by-seventeen piece of cream-colored paper. It took a few moments for Jacob to adjust to the small print. The certificate confirmed that Alain's real name was Ithamar Alain Janot.
Chapter 40: Alain
Alain, May, Doc Murphy and Jacob sat in the lawyer's office. Everyone sipped glasses of a dark red wine that left a light peppery taste on their tongues, while Alain stuck to soda water.
Helen, Kristen and Maire were in the main house, preparing the first big dinner party that Jacob had hosted in Burchill. Every once in a while, they could hear singing and laughter from the kitchen.
Emily and Langford Taylor, as well as Frances and Edgar Brennan, were expected later. The couples had decided to celebrate Alain's discoveries, focusing on the positive, reminding him that his real life was here and now.
The small group in the office was determined to be buoyant, but smiles were forced through nervous cheeks and conversation was strained. Finally, Jacob opened the file and began to reveal the information that he had gleaned. He knew the revelations would be difficult for Alain, so he went slowly, careful to remain completely objective and nonjudgmental.
Doc Murphy sat on one side of Alain, while May sat on the other. Jacob took the more distant, professional role, sitting facing them.
Jacob's tone was interesting and calm, creating a perfect combination of lecture and story.
"Once I found out your real name, Alain, it wasn't difficult to trace your roots. First, your full name is Ithamar Alain Janot. Your father was Robert Janot and your mother was Cécile Meloche. You had an older brother, Elias, and two younger sisters, Dorothée and Faith. Your name and those of your siblings, as you can well guess, have religious significance."
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