by Jen Blood
Isaac’s twisted artistic sensibilities had also been the inspiration for the church’s primary source of income. There were examples of these in the meeting room as well, though I wasn’t nearly as tickled at sight of the marionettes as I’d once been. The adults in the church worked together to make the handcrafted angels, then sold them on the mainland at local shops and craft fairs.
One of the angels lay on the ground just a few feet from the fireplace. It was all but dust, the strings disintegrated, clothing and wings eaten away. Now, just a naked wooden body and a head with faded but strangely mesmerizing blue eyes were all that remained.
Before I could stash the doll from hell somewhere where the blue eyes would quit following me, there was a commotion outside. I knew something was up because Einstein was barking like a rabid banshee—the desperate, high-pitched bark usually reserved for creepy neighbors or suspicious-looking postal workers. I narrowly missed colliding with Diggs on my way out the door.
“I found something. Bring your camera.”
He looked a little green around the gills, so I did as I was told, following him to the edge of the tree line behind the house. He’d tied a very unhappy Einstein to a birch nearby. At sight of me, my mutt howled in protest, nearly strangling himself to get free.
A moment later, I understood why Diggs had needed him out of the way.
The smell hit first—damp and sickly sweet, like meat long past its expiration date. I followed my nose to a mid-sized wooden box that definitely hadn’t been there when we’d walked the grounds just half an hour before. The top had been removed. I peered inside, where a bloody mass swarming with flies was nestled in newspaper. I nudged the box with my foot. Once the flies had cleared and I wrapped my brain around what it was, my stomach turned.
“I think it’s a lamb,” Diggs said.
“A lamb’s head, actually,” I said. I looked around, but saw neither hide nor hair of the rest of the carcass. “Young, by the look of it—maybe newborn. Where the hell did it come from? Einstein ran the grounds up and down when we first got here—he would have caught the scent the second we passed the gate.”
“It certainly begs the question, doesn’t it?”
I knelt, the wet ground soaking through my denim-clad knees. Diggs stood with his head turned away, his arms crossed over his chest. Since he was being no help, I told him to go set Einstein loose before the mutt had a complete breakdown.
“There’s something in its mouth,” I called after him.
After my mother took me away from Payson Isle, she settled in Littlehope as the county physician. I was her not-so-eager assistant on more than one midnight call to patch up drunken fishermen or their wayward wives. A lamb’s head, regardless of the shape it was in, didn’t hold a candle to some of the things I’d seen by the time I was thirteen.
“How can you touch that thing?” Diggs called to me with a grimace.
“I’m not touching it. I’m just poking it a little.”
Einstein raced to my side as soon as he was free. Diggs looked mildly annoyed, but I just gave the one order Stein knows by heart.
“Leave it.”
The dog’s tail dropped. His grin vanished. Dejected, he turned around, walked a few paces, and sat down. Despite everything, I could tell Diggs was impressed. I couldn’t really take the credit, since Michael was the one who trained him.
Diggs went to stand beside Einstein as I continued my exam.
“Its neck was cut straight through—this is a clean cut, no ragged edges. No hesitation with the kerf marks.”
“And you know this because…?”
“Research for a story I did a while back. I guess it’s safe to assume this wasn’t a natural death.”
I turned the head over with a nearby stick. Underneath, maggots squirmed rice-white bodies along the exposed bone and viscera.
“Einstein was barking when we were inside,” I recalled. “Someone must’ve left it here then.”
Diggs finally ventured closer. “That’s the only theory I could come up with. Which means whoever it was is probably still here. Or they haven’t gone far.” He hesitated. “I could go after them.”
“And do what, exactly? Skewer them with your rapier wit?”
He shrugged, conceding the point easily.
“Anyway, it’s probably just some local idiot playing a prank,” I said. It was a fairly disgusting one, even by Littlehope standards. I wasn’t ready to consider the alternative, though. “If you go after them, it could escalate—let’s just let it be for now.”
I returned my attention to the box at my feet. The lamb’s eyes were open, with a milky film over them. I prodded at the tiny teeth with my trusty stick in an attempt to dislodge whatever was stuffed in the mouth.
“I think it’s the heart.”
“Christ,” Diggs said. “You sure?”
“I wasn’t exactly an all-star in biology at Wellesley, but I can see the chambers. It looks about the right size, too.”
Diggs had gone quiet again, but finally he cleared his throat. I looked up to find him staring at me, his jaw set.
“What?”
“What the hell’s going on?”
I didn’t like his tone, but I couldn’t necessarily blame him for it. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, What the hell is going on? You lost a baby not three months ago, your marriage just fell apart, and now you’re on an island where thirty-four people burned to death and your father hanged himself over a bed of tulips. And now I find out that the story we’ve been given for twenty years about the fire that killed them was all lies, and you frankly don’t seem all that surprised. And there’s a fucking lamb’s head,” his voice rose, “that’s obviously been left by someone who’s not completely in their right mind. So, I’ll ask one more time before I turn around and go back to the mainland without you… What the hell is going on, Solomon?”
He’d come closer during his tirade. Einstein growled. The temperature was cooling as shadows grew longer and the day got later. I stared at the ground, thinking about everything he’d said. Bit my index fingernail, until I remembered that I’d stopped biting my nails years ago.
“My father wasn’t with me that morning.”
Diggs looked confused. “What morning?”
“The morning of the fire,” I said. Impatience tinged my words. “When the Payson Church burned to the ground and thirty-four people burned with it. We spent the night before at a hotel…”
“For your birthday,” he nodded. “I remember the story—it was your father’s alibi.”
I shook my head. I felt tears starting, much to my horror, and brushed them away roughly before Diggs could comment. “The phone rang in the night, or early morning—it was still dark outside. It woke me up.”
I could see it all, suddenly: the hotel room my father had booked on the mainland so we could spend my birthday together, with the twin beds and the carpeting and the color TV bigger than any I’d seen before. We made homemade pizza in the little kitchenette. And then, deep in the night, came a phone call that woke me from a sound sleep. My father’s voice had been low, uncharacteristically strained, when he spoke with whoever was on the other end of the line.
“So, who was it? Who called?” Diggs prompted when I didn’t continue the story.
“I don’t know—he wouldn’t tell me. But he made me promise never to tell anyone that he’d left me alone that night. And that was it. I was at the hotel alone that whole morning.”
I knelt and turned my attention back to the carnage at my feet, if only for something to keep me from bursting into tears—which would have been way worse than a decapitated lamb, as far as I was concerned. Diggs crouched beside me. He didn’t touch me, and his voice held no pity when he spoke again.
“You thought he started the fire,” he said. “You’ve thought it ever since that day.”
“No,” I said quickly, remembering the man who had chased me through the woods that day. “Not at first,” I admitted. �
�Later, once I started looking into it more, I knew the Payson fire wasn’t what they said… Once I started studying cults and cult behavior, I knew the Paysons didn’t fit the profile. I knew mass suicide didn’t make sense for who they were and what they believed.”
“And now that you have proof someone else started the fire?”
I kept my eyes focused on the ground, my jaw clenched tight while I pulled myself together. Diggs touched my arm, but I shrugged him away. Cleared my throat.
“Whether it was my father or it wasn’t, I need to know the truth. I can’t spend the rest of my life wondering.” If I was going to tell him about my pursuer on the island that day, now would be the time. They’ll put you away if you tell them what you saw—only crazy little girls think men in black cloaks are chasing them. I heard my mother’s voice, remembered her hard green eyes intent on mine. I kept quiet.
Diggs straightened and offered his hand. After a moment’s hesitation, I took it and let him pull me up. When we were eye to eye again, his lips curled up in a determined smile.
“Okay, then,” he said.
“Okay then, what?”
“Okay then, let’s solve this thing. But first, stop playing with the gory fucking disembodied head, and come back to the mainland with me. You look like you haven’t slept in weeks, and I’ve got deadlines to meet.”
“And then…?”
“And then, we start doing the research. Go back in time, and figure out what the hell happened out here in the month or so before the fire that got thirty-four people killed and destroyed your father’s life. And, just as interestingly, how the evidence that it was murder mysteriously vanished from a very public crime scene and no one ever noticed.”
I managed a smile. “That easy, huh? Just go back in time.”
He wrapped his arm around my shoulders and pulled me closer as we walked back up the path to the house.
“Easy as falling off a log. Just stick with me, kid, and we’ll have this thing solved by the time summer traffic picks up.”
If only it had been that simple.
July 20, 1990
They come to the church in the night, hidden in a canoe beneath old blankets and a catch of fish whose oils soak through and seep into Rebecca’s long, dark hair, so that for days afterward she reeks of it. Her son shifts beneath her. His hip is a sharp v in Rebecca’s side, and she knows her weight on top of him must be stifling on this warm night. Still, the boy doesn’t complain.
Their guide sits in the bow of the canoe, paddling in long, experienced strokes through the still ocean water. He is a tall, quiet redhead whom Rebecca has never met before, though Reverend Payson has told her about him. Adam, like the first man. Adam, who tends the church garden and never speaks of his past; whose daughter was recently taken from him, to live on the mainland with her mother. Rebecca touches her son’s soft dark hair, unable to comprehend being parted from him that way.
When they reach shore, Adam flashes a beam of light into the woods. Though she has been warned against doing so, Rebecca moves the blanket just enough to see what’s happening when she feels the craft coming aground. At Adam’s signal, another man comes out into the open and helps him drag the canoe onto the shore.
“Stay where you are,” Adam tells her. “Someone could be watching from the water. We’ll carry the canoe into the woods, then you can get out.”
Two more men appear, the four of them lifting the canoe like pallbearers. Rebecca kisses her son’s head and he squirms. He mutters something that she can’t make out, and then they wait in silence for the cover of trees to guarantee their safety.
Once they are in the woods, the men put the boat down and Adam helps mother and son to their feet. Zion, her boy, remains serious and silent, his eyes occasionally meeting his mother’s, seeking reassurance. Though other boys might be self-conscious about being too close to their mothers at this age, Zion is not. At twelve years old, he has no reservations about standing with his arm around her, absorbing his new surroundings. He doesn’t seem afraid. There have been many nights worse than this, and the relative calm of the strangers around them is a welcome change from the unpredictable ire of the men they have known.
And so they follow, Adam and one of the others leading while the remaining two trail behind. There is no moon, the night heavy with the wet heat of July, black as the bottom of a well. One of the men at their right flank shines a flashlight, though Rebecca and Zion are the only ones who need it. She hears the stumbling stealth of island deer in the distance, and draws comfort from the familiar sound.
They reach the barn. Rebecca has never seen it, but the Reverend has told her stories of this sacred space in the woods, blessed by God himself. She follows the men, taking a step up as the flashlight gives a fragmented shadow-story of the building. Inside, there is the sweet smell of hay, tinged with an underlying dampness inevitable in these old structures. Their footsteps echo against the wooden floorboards, and Zion’s hand tightens in hers as they approach the stairs.
There is a faint golden glow coming from above, and the audible murmur of a near-silent mass. The trapdoor to the second floor stands open; they climb through to find themselves in the Payson chapel. The entire congregation is there, standing, facing them—families Rebecca has known from Littlehope who gave up their lives on the mainland to come here. Women, eyes down-turned, hold children who gaze at the newcomers without fear. Men stand beside their wives, their heads bowed as Rebecca passes. Each member of the congregation holds a candle; the entire scene is bathed in an ethereal light. Rebecca squeezes Zion’s hand and he looks up at her. All she can see are those big eyes and she smiles, nods, and feels him relax.
The trapdoor they’ve come through is at the back of the chapel. As she and Zion follow the two men down the center aisle, the congregation turns and is seated. Rebecca thinks of her wedding: of her expectations before the day came, the vague hope of flowers and ceremony. If she had had her way, it would have been like this. It would have had weight, and ritual. If it had meant something then, perhaps it might mean more now.
A large wooden tub stands at the front of the chapel. Rebecca stops moving, and Zion comes to a halt beside her. Adam turns and nods to her.
“It’s all right. You’re safe here. Isaac will come soon.”
Shadows play along the wooden walls. When Rebecca and Zion reach the end of the aisle, the four men leave them standing at the tub. No one speaks; no one moves—least of all Rebecca and her only child. One of the women in the front row comes to stand before her. The woman’s hair is long and braided, and she wears an ankle-length floral dress that hangs like a sack on her thin frame. Rebecca wears old jeans and a flannel shirt that used to be her husband’s. The thin woman offers a shy smile, and her fingers go to the buttons of Rebecca’s shirt with clear trepidation.
Rebecca flinches. Her hand flies up with a will of its own, pushing the stranger away.
And then she hears him.
“ ‘The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them, and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon will be given to it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they will see the glory of the Lord and the excellency of our God.’ ”
In the enclosed space, his voice carries, floats down, wraps around her. He comes closer, down the aisle, his silver hair aglow in the candlelight. He wears a flowing white robe, and he makes a single gesture, a sweep of his graceful hand. The woman beside Rebecca steps away, her head bowed.
“ ‘Strengthen ye the weak hands. Confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart—” his voice rises rather than softens as he approaches, and it feels as though an electrical current is traveling beneath her skin. “Be strong, fear not. Behold, your God will come with vengeance, with recompense. He will come, and he will save you.’”
He takes another step toward her. Rebecca recognizes that others are present, but they have become unimport
ant. The flame from the Reverend’s candle dances so close that it burns a kiss into her arm. He holds it aside and instantly someone appears to take it away, as Isaac’s fingers find the buttons of Rebecca’s shirt. His eyes, a dazzling blue above high-cut cheekbones, never leave hers as he undresses her.
“ ‘Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as a hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing. For in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert. And the parched ground shall become a pool.’ ”
He slips the shirt from her shoulders. Her breasts feel heavy to her, cumbersome. Reverend Payson is tall like she is, never looking at her but never looking away. He kneels to unbutton her jeans, and she knows that Zion is watching this. There is an instant of resistance when Rebecca tries to remember why this is wrong, why this should be causing shame, but all she feels is warmth and love and a safety she hasn’t known in years.
“ ‘…and the thirsty land springs of water. In the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.’ ”
She is completely naked now. They take Zion from her, and the boy follows two of the women to the pews. Rebecca sees him in her periphery, but for the first time since his birth, she can’t focus on her son. Using a stepstool to climb over the edge of the tub, she steps into lukewarm water that swirls around her feet, up her legs, in tideless swells. The Reverend joins her, still wearing his robe. It billows around him, touching Rebecca’s thigh and setting fire to it. Scorching it clean. He motions for her to kneel.
“ ‘And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the way of holiness. And the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.’ ”