When I Am Laid in Earth (Damnatio Memoriae Book 3)

by Laura Giebfried

  “I'll be praying for him,” the priest said, bowing his head slightly as he frowned.

  “Right.”

  “Mrs. Perenna has offered to put me up at her home,” he continued. “I've asked her to make a place for you and Jack there, as well.”

  I shifted uncomfortably.

  “I'm not so sure that that's a good idea, Father,” I said. I glanced around the empty yard, wondering how much I should say. “I – I mean, I could just pay for a room for me and Jack at the inn.”

  The priest looked at me fixedly.

  “Someone is offering to help you, Enim,” he said. “They're offering you kindness. It would seem a shame to reject that.”

  I wrapped my arms over one another as the cold became more apparent, realizing that my jacket had been destroyed along with the rest of the contents of the church. My cell phone, at least, was still in my pocket. As I stood looking at the ruins, I considered whether or not I should tell Father Taggart who Jack and I suspected had started the fire. Though he trusted the priest, though, I was still rather unsure.

  “Right,” I said. “It's just … I don't exactly want to be around the Perennas.”

  Father Taggart furrowed his brow at me.

  “And why is that, might I ask?”

  “I … just don't trust them very much, I guess.”

  The priest's arms had dropped to his sides, though I rather thought that he was fighting the urge to cross them.

  “Then I'm afraid that you don't know enough about trust, Enim,” he said. “I wonder, have you ever heard the account of Abraham sacrificing his son, Isaac?”

  I shifted.

  “Can't say I have.”

  “I'll give you the abbreviated version,” he said. “God asked Abraham to sacrifice his only son in order to prove his devotion to Him, and although Abraham had hoped that his son would be his successor, and although he loved him very much, he obeyed and the boy upon the altar to slay him. But before he killed him, God spoke to him again and told him not to, because he had proved that he would do anything for Him, and so God rewarded him duly.”

  The priest gazed at me.

  “We have to trust others, Enim, especially those who watch over us. Do you understand what I'm trying to tell you?”

  I blinked.

  “No,” I said, “and I think that if God told me to murder my kid, I'd rethink my religion.”

  The priest shook his head.

  “You seem … very lost, Enim.”

  The words struck me oddly, and I was reminded of what Mr. Perenna had said about his own daughter after her death: she was lost, and so it was neither a surprise nor tragedy that she had died. And though I didn't know which one had done it or the reason why, I was more confident than ever that one of the Perennas had killed both Tommy and Anna, and I was more determined than ever to find out which one it was.

  I turned back to the priest.

  “Right. Actually, Father Taggart, I changed my mind: I would like to stay at the Perennas'.”

  We walked through the town and up the hill to their residence together, neither speaking as the cold hit from all sides around us. When we reached the front door of the dollhouse-like home, Mrs. Perenna beckoned us into the front hallway and greeted the priest warmly; she scowled at me in return.

  “Thank you for having us, Isadora,” Father Taggart said kindly.

  She took his arm to lead him to the living room, patting it as she went.

  “It's an honor, Father, and after all that you've been through ... Jim and I were devastated to hear the news – just devastated.”

  I paused in my place in the hallway, both knowing that I was neither invited to follow them nor allowed to roam freely around the house, but was saved from guessing what I should do when she turned back to me.

  “My husband wants to speak with you when he gets back,” she said coldly. “You can wait up in Eliot's room – but don't touch anything.”

  I nodded and did as she said, ascending the stairs in exhaustion at both the sleepless night and the thought of waiting for several days for Jack to return to the town. As I approached the room reeking with paint fumes, I vaguely wondered why she would tell me to wait in his room when there were two others that were not being used; perhaps she preferred the risk of me touching her living child's belongings more than those of her dead ones.

  Gathering my sweater around my face, I suppressed a cough as I entered the bedroom. Just as it had been on my first day in Kipling, it was messy and strewn with paintings and art projects both completed and half-done. Eyes watering slightly, I stepped over to the bed and looked down to where a mostly finished painting of the town was propped up on the easel. It was done in harsh, chalky colors that washed it out in a series of unnatural hues, and every bit of charm or elegance of the place was lost behind the messy brush strokes and violent angles of the buildings and skyline. As I ran my eyes over the baker's shop and bookstore, I frowned ever so slightly. Even without knowing the town very well, something seemed to be missing.

  “Made yourself at home, I see.”

  I turned around at the voice, which was only slightly familiar from the brief encounter that we had had before. Eliot was standing in the doorway, leaning up against the frame with crossed, thin arms, and he was neither glaring nor looking at me with any hint of regard.

  “Your mother told me to.”

  “I know.” He shrugged and came into the room, shutting his box of oil paints as he went. “I know everything.”

  “Lucky you,” I said, unable to mask the disdain in my voice nor seeing fit to try. “That must make schoolwork so much easier.”

  “Don't be smart,” Eliot replied, looking over at me coldly. “It'll only make you look more foolish in the end.”

  I rolled my eyes when he had turned away again, not liking the idea of being told off by a fourteen-year-old. It made me feel as though I was getting snubbed by Oliver back at my father's house, or worse, manipulated by Cabail Ibbot.

  “I was admiring your paintings,” I said in a lackluster attempt at being polite. “They're … nice. A bit like van Gogh.”

  Eliot scoffed. He knew as well as I did that my knowledge of art was severely limited.

  “Hoping that I'll cut off my ear and send it to you if you butter me up?” he asked, giving me a pointed look.

  “Not in the least, actually.”

  “You know, van Gogh's an interesting comparison,” he continued, not bothering to acknowledge that I had spoken at all. “He was a bit disturbed, so to speak. They think he might've been bipolar – or schizophrenic, even.”

  Something cold came over my skin, and Eliot smirked in response.

  “You're the talk of the town, did you know?” he said. “We don't get many nut-cases up here.”

  “Somehow I find that hard to believe,” I replied dryly, looking again at his cruel interpretation of art.

  “Not that I'm worried, mind you. People like you have never frightened me.”

  “People like me?” I asked. “I thought you hadn't come across many schizophrenics.”

  He smiled more widely.

  “Can't say that I have,” he agreed. “But you crazies are all the same.”

  “Are we? I'll inform the system. They'll be glad to regulate the medication so that it's all the same – it'll save loads on paperwork, I'm sure.”

  “Do you know what Vincent van Gogh said before he shot himself through the heart?” Eliot asked, eyeing me with interest. “He wrote a letter to his brother – in French, even though they were Dutch – people were more educated back then. He said, la tristesse durera toujours. Know what that means?”

  “No.”

  “It means, 'the sadness will last forever.' I've thought a lot about that quote – and that idea, for that matter. My sister killed herself, you know.”

  “I do.”

  “Do you?” he said, cocking his head at me. “Funny, I thought maybe you had another idea. Your friend said something to my father about her
being murdered. Changed your mind, have you?”

  “You ask a lot of questions for someone who supposedly knows everything.”

  “I'm just giving you the chance to come clean,” he responded. “You know, before things get out of hand.”

  “What's that supposed to mean?”

  “I won't spoil it for you – or for my father, I should say. He's going to discuss it with you.”

  “Discuss what?”

  Eliot didn't respond. Striding over to where I stood, he placed himself in front of his easel and put his hands on either side of the painting to gaze down at it.

  “You know, I think I'll give this one to you, seeing as you like it so much,” he told me. “It's not dry yet – oils take forever. You'll be long gone by then, of course, but I could mail it to you, I suppose.”

  “I'll pass.”

  “Will you?” He turned around to face me. The hint of black and blue paint had smeared onto his fingertips. “Don't you want to remember Kipling when you're gone?”

  “I'm not going anywhere,” I replied. “Not yet, anyhow.”

  “Too bad,” he said, clicking his tongue. “You should have left when I told you to, you know. You and Jack. Your type doesn't belong here, and everyone realizes it now.”

  I stared at him for a long moment, trying to see past his pointed features to tell if the statement had been an admission of guilt or not. He seemed the most likely of the three to have killed his siblings – he would get his father's inheritance solely to himself, after all – and yet it was still too difficult to decide. If anything, he appeared to be more of a puppet than anything else, as though there were thin, undetectable strings attached to each of his limbs that were being tugged and pulled by one of his parents.

  “Go fuck yourself, Eliot,” I said blandly. “And get a new hobby while you're at it. Something less disturbing, like taxidermy.”

  He only smiled in response.

  Mr. Perenna returned home shortly after noon and wasted no time in calling me down to his office. His clothing was soot-covered and the hems of his pants were soaked from the thick snow, though I somehow doubted that he had spent the morning doing more than ordering everyone else on what to do about the church.

  “Enim, take a seat.”

  I lowered myself into the chair opposite his, the familiar sense of being in Barker's office coming over me.

  “Do you know why you're here?” he asked.

  “I was invited,” I said, the feigned ignorance overridden by my unmistakable insolence.

  “Father Taggart was invited,” he countered. “You were summoned.”

  “Well, in that case, I suddenly feel less welcome.”

  Mr. Perenna leaned closer to me.

  “My boy, if I was in a situation anywhere near as severe as yours, then I don't think that I'd be making jokes.”

  I locked eyes with him, still trying to discern which of his family members had killed Anna and Tommy by the sheer sound of their voices alone, but they were each as likely as the next. Perhaps they really were all in on it together.

  “And what situation is that, Mr. Perenna?”

  He cleared a pile of papers from his desk, shuffling them into a stack and clipping them together with a metal fastening, before looking back at me.

  “The church has been burned to the ground.”

  “I'm aware,” I said coldly, “seeing as I was in it at the time that it happened.”

  “Then perhaps you could give me some insight as to what went on,” Mr. Perenna said harshly. “Because as far as I know, it didn't burn down on its own accord, and there were no faulty wires that might have caused a weak circuit.”

  He glared at me openly.

  “Did you act alone, or did Jack Hadler help you?”

  “Excuse me?” I said, turning my head as though I hadn't heard him. “I didn't burn it down, Mr. Perenna – I don't have a death wish.”

  “Then how do you suggest it went from being perfectly fine to being engulfed by flames?”

  “Maybe God decided to smite it,” I suggested impudently. “Have you been putting enough money in the collection box?”

  Mr. Perenna slammed his hand down on the desk and then pointed a long, quivering finger at me.

  “I know you did this,” he said. “We never had trouble in this town before you got here.”

  “I'm not sure your two dead children would agree,” I said, “though I suppose they can't speak for themselves, now more than ever.”

  “You're a sick, sick boy,” Mr. Perenna said in a low, dangerous voice. “We don't have people in this town like you, and this is exactly the reason why: deranged people do deranged things!”

  “I'm schizophrenic, not deranged,” I informed him coolly. “And I didn't set fire to the church.”

  “This whole town knows what you are,” the older man continued in a shaking voice. “We know what you've done, and we know what you're capable of, and I'm going to see to it that you're locked up for the rest of your pitiful, worthless life.”

  He sounded so certain that I sat back in my seat a bit to observe him, wondering if there was any way that it could be so. And while there was reason enough to think that his wife had killed Tommy and Anna and was somehow planning to do away with him next, and that Eliot might have consented to aid her with both the hopes of getting the inheritance and her apparent, long strived for approval and love, it was too difficult to believe. Mr. Perenna had a line of ledgers filled with notes and details about everyone in the town, including me, and it seemed remarkable that he could know so much about everyone except for the two people who resided under his roof.

  And yet, as I sat staring at him, it seemed both impossible that there could be any trick of the light that was rendering him so sure that I had been the one to burn the church down and that his wife could have possibly killed her own children just for his money alone. I had seen her fixing her hair in the mirror in the hallway outside, and while I believed as much as anyone that she hated the small town and the unfulfillment that her life had become, there was a sorrowfulness about her that seemed just as unlikely to have been feigned as her husband's determination to get an admission of guilt out of me. And I knew all too well what it was like to feel stuck in a spot that I couldn't move from, and I remembered the feeling of wanting something – no matter how devastating – to happen that would have allowed me to move on from where I was when my mother had been trapped in the room at the end of the hallway at my grandmother's, and though it had never occurred to me to pull the plug from the wall so that her mechanical breathing halted once and for all, I felt that I could finally understand how it was possible for her to do something similar, yet for no better reason than wanting to get away.

  I folded my hands in my lap, wondering if I could bait him enough to let me see any hint of what I hoped that he was hiding. Because it had to be one of them, I knew – or all of them – but as I continued to cycle through each in an attempt to finally decide which it was, my thoughts whirred and refused to untangle enough to give me an answer. And all at once I wondered if I would ever know the answer, or even if I wanted to know the answer anymore, because the family itself seemed to be a model of something eerily familiar that was made of glass that had long ago been shattered from its original form, and it occurred to me that maybe Jack and I didn't have a place there to be trying to put it all back together, and that we should have simply gotten out before things got out of hand.

  I looked at the older man slowly, cocking my head to the side as I debated how to proceed, and tried to imagine that I was to reach forward and dig my nails into either side of his face, pulling upwards until the flesh gave way and peeled off from the skull, if it would reveal another face that had been masked underneath, or if it would simply show the blood and bone of an ordinary man.

  “You come in here, to the place that I live, and play with my daughter's death as though it was a game,” he said. “Going about the town asking questions about her, and my family, w
ith no sense of how it is for us – for her memory – to suggest that she wasn't in pain, and that that pain wasn't what led to her death!”

  “You have no idea what you're talking about,” I said lowly, shaking my head.

  “I do,” he countered sharply. “And I'll tell you one more thing: if you and Jack had died in that fire, no one would have cared or so much as blinked an eye.”

  He leaned forward again and, before I could register what he was doing, he spat in my face.

  “Get yourself a lawyer,” he said. “You're going to need one.”

  Ch. 15

  I sat out on the porch sometime later, blatantly aware that no amount of insistence from Father Taggart would garner me being welcomed back into the house, and pulled my cell phone from my pocket to call Karl. Between the weather and the spot on the hill, though, there was no chance of getting any cell reception, and I snapped the phone shut soon after.

  Though I knew that I would have to call him soon enough to ward off any legal trouble that Jack and I might have inadvertently gotten ourselves into, it wasn't Karl that I wanted to speak to. The dollhouse-like home was still and silent from the outside, and as l looked down at the floorboards that had been scraped clear of snow and ice, I wondered what sort of horrors and secrets were hiding beneath them that Jack and I had yet to uncover. The entirety of the Perennas' existence seemed shrouded behind the rose-colored walls, and the knowledge that they were hiding something about their children's deaths was too apparent to ignore regardless of the fact that they were willing to go to any lengths to ensure that we didn't discover it.

  And I knew that it was just a riddle, and I knew that I wasn't trying to find the answer out of a concern for anyone in the town's well-being or any hint of compassion for the dead girl whose room was still untouched. I wanted to know purely because I hated not knowing, and because finding the answer smoothed over some of the unsettled remains that my mother had left sitting in my chest where my heart ought to have been, and I wanted to calm the unsteadiness of my mind just a bit in the way that solving Miss Mercier's death had done, even though I knew that it would be only the briefest of reprieves and that, just as he was doing now, Jack would never stop looking for way to do the same.