Harmony House

  “I need a lot of it.”

  He shakes his head.

  “No, you don’t. You don’t need help. But until you believe that for yourself, I’ll be here.”

  I laugh again. “That’s kind of cheesy, isn’t it?”

  “Maybe it is,” he says, shrugging. “But it’s true.”

  “You’re sweet,” I tell him.

  And then, before I can stop myself, I lean forward and I kiss his soft mouth and he kisses me and I feel weightless—almost lifted off the ground. But then I remember the pregnancy tests hidden in the back garage. The shame cuts down along the curve of my belly, spilling out my insides. I pull away from him.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I want this. I do. But everything is way too fucked up right now.”

  Colin smiles warmly—with complete patience and understanding.

  “I’m here for you,” he says.

  And it almost makes me want to cry.

  I kiss him again, but quickly now, on the cheek.

  “Thank you,” I say again.

  He nods and smiles.

  And then I step out onto the wet grass behind the big, looming house. I make a wide semicircle first to the driveway and then double back to the stone garage. I get the plastic bag full of the many pregnancy tests and hide them under my jacket. Then, picking up the rake I hid, I walk around to the front of the house.

  My dad is there unloading boxes from the back of his station wagon. Next to him, Sheriff Jarrett stands talking. When they see me, though, they both stop what they’re doing.

  “Where were you?” my dad asks. “I went into town to get some supplies, but I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

  I come up a little closer and Sheriff Jarrett smiles real wide at me. He has a plug of chewing tobacco in his lip and is spitting into an empty soda can.

  “I was raking leaves in the back,” I say. “Just like you told me to.”

  The sheriff laughs pleasantly.

  “Not a lot of point in raking leaves now,” he says. “This storm’s about to make a real mess ’a this whole town.”

  Turning to my dad, I say, “I thought you were going to wait and get supplies when we went to visit Christy in the hospital.”

  My dad shrugs.

  “Yeah, well, I had some things I need to take care of.”

  “She’s okay,” the sheriff says. “They set her legs and her wrist. She’s in and out of consciousness.”

  “What’d she say about what happened?” I ask.

  The sheriff spits and shakes his head.

  “Damnedest thing. She says she don’t remember any of it.”

  “What do you mean?” I ask.

  “She don’t remember any of it. She didn’t even remember coming over here last night.”

  I make a face.

  “She doesn’t remember anything?”

  Again, he shakes his head.

  “What about Candace and Mercedes?”

  He leans back against the cruiser and scratches at the stubble on his chin.

  “They’re okay. Shaken up a little. That’s all.”

  My dad hoists another box down out of the trunk of his car.

  “I really do want to go see her,” I say. “I feel awful about it.”

  The sheriff shakes his head.

  “Now, now. It wasn’t your fault.”

  My dad turns to him now.

  “Well, then, Sheriff,” he says. “It was very nice of you to check in on us. But, as you can see, we’re doing just fine. I got all the supplies here for the storm. And if Jen does her work today, I wouldn’t be opposed to her borrowing the car to go visit her friend.”

  Sheriff Jarrett smiles at him.

  “Good, that’s good. That’s a good idea.”

  He looks at me and nods his head.

  “It’s real easy to get there,” he says. “You just go straight on down that main road about twenty miles and it’s right at the junction of Highway 17.”

  “Thank you,” I say.

  He tells me, “Don’t mention it.”

  He gets into his cruiser and waves at both of us.

  I go over to where my dad is standing and take up one of the boxes full of bottled water, canned goods, flashlights, and batteries. I struggle against its weight but manage to get it up the stairs and into the front hallway. I check to make sure my dad isn’t following behind me. Then I go up to my room. And I get myself ready to go pee on some goddamn pregnancy tests.

  CHAPTER 13

  Locked in the upstairs bathroom staring at all five pregnancy tests with the two pink lines clearly visible meaning I am, in fact, FUCKING PREGNANT, my first thought is to go call Stephanie and ask for her help. But how can I even begin to explain all this to her? Alex breaking in, the voices, the dreams or visions or whatever they are, Christy jumping off the balcony, my dad wearing the monsignor’s gold ring, him walking around with glass and rocks in his shoes—and maybe barbwire tied around his chest? It’s all too much. Being here, living through it, I still can barely believe half of what’s happened so far. Stephanie seems as far away from me as if I left Johnstown a hundred years ago.

  I’m alone with this just like I’m alone with everything else.

  I find myself wishing that my mom could be here. She’d understand, I think. I’d be able to talk to her. At least I wouldn’t be so all alone.

  As it is, I don’t know what the hell to do.

  All I can think of is that I need to get some money somehow and find a doctor. Looking back on all of this—how I got myself in this situation—none of it makes any sense. Before I came to Harmony House, the things I thought and cared about were so simple. Now nothing is.

  So I find a spot under the sink, back behind some old cleaning products and rags, to hide the used tests. Then I wash my hands in burning-hot water—forcing myself not to pull away as the skin turns red and the pain shoots up and down my arm. Steam rises up out of the washbasin, clouding the mirror, filling the tiny bathroom. Through the steam a vision comes to me. As the water runs, I close my eyes and through the scalding pain, I see this same bathroom half a century ago.

  I see the showerhead spraying water down into the claw-foot tub.

  Sunlight shines in through the window.

  Birds sing in the surrounding treetops. The morning dew on a spiderweb catches the light and reflects like a cluster of burning stars.

  An infant cries from somewhere not far off.

  Beneath the steady stream of water steaming in the small white-painted bathroom Sister Margaret stands—her long, beautiful hair wet down her back.

  She scrubs with a cloth at the skin of her thighs and belly. She lathers the soap and washes beneath her arms. Her skin is the palest, most delicate, perfect, unblemished white. Or it would be, if not for the raised, blistering, crisscross of welts along her calves and up the backs of her legs.

  As she cleans herself, her hand carefully avoids these tender places. She shies away from them as though they were hot to the touch, like an open flame.

  But still, she soaks up the water and feels the pleasure and warmth of it. She even sings to herself, though this is strictly forbidden. So she sings softly—a song she heard on the radio once and she has kept as a secret for herself to be sung only in these private moments, away from spying ears.

  She mouths the words quietly.

  “I . . . fall . . . to pieces . . . each time someone speaks . . . your name. I . . . fall . . . to pieces . . . time only adds to the flame.”

  She smiles as she sings and, for now, she is happy here—safe and alone.

  Except that she is not alone.

  The steam filling the bathroom escapes from the tiniest crack in the bathroom door.

  Out in the hall, the little boy—the quiet, shy little boy—crouches with his eye to the keyhole. He watches with the most painful, aching longing. Guilt and desire wrack his young body. He trembles, just wanting to take her away from all this—to free her—to run far away and never look back.

>   And then, from behind him, a voice calls out. It is the hoarse, ugly, vile croaking of the older nun—Sister Angelica.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she shouts, grabbing him by the shoulder and wrenching him around.

  She stares down at him, looking his whole body over.

  “Aw, Lord protect us,” she says. “You are disgusting.”

  The boy’s body vibrates with terror. His hands shake. His mouth quivers.

  “Just look at yourself,” she says, almost smiling now—showing off her brown-stained, yellow teeth.

  The boy tries to speak, but no words come out.

  “Sick,” she says. “Sick. You wait ’til Father Meyers hears about this.”

  Sound comes from the boy’s mouth now.

  “P-please,” he says. “No.”

  “Well, then how about I tell Sister Margaret? I’m sure she’d love to know how her star pupil lusts of the flesh after her.”

  “No, please,” he cries again, his voice even more tremulous with panic. “It’s not like that. She’s pure and holy. She’s more pure than anything.”

  The old nun laughs cruelly.

  “Get up against the wall,” she says.

  “What?” the boy asks, with tears coming down now.

  “Do as I say,” the old woman sneers. “Up against the wall. Face away from me.”

  The boy does as he’s told. He presses his face and body up against the wall.

  The old nun takes a steel ruler from behind her back, the edge sharpened to make almost a knife’s point.

  “For every lash,” she tells him, her voice calmer now, “you will say one Hail Mary and one Our Father. Is that understood?”

  The boy cries, pressing himself in against the cold wall.

  “I said, is that understood?”

  The boy nods, snot running down his nose.

  “Then we shall begin,” the nun says.

  She draws back her hand and, with a quick flick of her wrist, flays the skin of the boy’s legs and buttocks.

  “Hail Mary, full of grace,” he starts to say.

  But through the wall he can still hear Sister Margaret. She’s still singing that same song.

  “I . . . fall . . . to pieces.”

  Her voice is quiet—almost inaudible—but somehow more beautiful than anything the boy’s ever heard in his whole life. The sound of her voice seems to call to him. He feels it stirring him—giving him strength.

  The old nun whips the ruler against his backside again and he cries.

  “Hail Mary, full of grace.”

  She hits him again.

  And then again.

  And again.

  But he doesn’t feel the pain of it.

  He listens to Sister Margaret’s voice.

  The steel ruler tears the flesh from his bones.

  Sister Margaret sings like a whispered dream of ecstasy.

  The ruler draws blood, dripping in strange and delicate patterns down his legs.

  Sister Margaret sings.

  And the skin is ripped away.

  Until his body can take no more.

  And he collapses on the ground.

  As I come out of the dream, the water has gone cold from the faucet and is spilling out onto the cracked tile. I turn it off quickly and cover my face with my hands. I have to get these images out of my head, I think. I have to blot it all out.

  Going back to my room, I take two more of the pills I think are Xanax. My supply is getting pretty low, which is the last thing I need, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Stephanie and her mom are supposed to be coming for Thanksgiving. But already something tells me that’s not going to happen. I’m so disconnected from the world here. I don’t feel like I could ever be part of it again.

  Of course, I could try to convince my dad to pack up and leave, but he seems like he’s as much a part of this house now as all the rest of it.

  “Well,” I say out loud to myself. “At least I can get out of here for a little while.”

  Something slams into the window then, and I jump back, putting my hand to my chest.

  There’s a crack splintering across the glass.

  I swallow down the panic and walk, carefully, over to the broken window.

  On the ground in a clearing of tall grass, a grotesquely fat black crow lies with its neck broken.

  I turn, sickened.

  I drop down on the ground, the air all knocked out of my lungs.

  “Why is all this happening to me?” I ask no one.

  And no one answers.

  I walk down the stairs to my dad’s room, hoping to ask him for the keys to his car so I can go visit Christy in the hospital.

  As I get closer, though, I hear what sounds like a low, sorrowful moan from behind his door, which has been left slightly ajar.

  Trying to be quiet now, I look into the dark room, lit only with the flickering, warm glow of candles. A sickness crawls down my throat and into my stomach and I feel cold and like my heart’s beating way too fucking loud.

  My dad sits on a stool facing the wall.

  I make out the bright shock of blood crisscrossing the pale white of his back. He holds a braided leather whip in his thick hands. He lashes at his back—over and over, again and again. The whip tears through his skin and raises wide, purple welts in lined patterns.

  He winces from the pain and cries out, almost dropping the whip but recovering.

  Around his torso and then again, diagonally, around his shoulder, the twisting strands of barbwire are tied tightly—cutting into his flesh.

  On his hand the red ruby at the center of the monsignor’s ring catches the flickering candlelight.

  “Mea culpa,” he whispers. “Mea culpa, mea culpa.”

  I take a step back from the door.

  The whip lashes.

  His voice echoes: “Mea culpa, mea culpa.”

  I back up against the banister.

  My dad cries out.

  And I don’t say anything at all.

  I turn and run.

  I get the keys from out of the bowl on the table in the front entranceway.

  I go out into the storm winds—big droplets of rain now fall sporadically.

  I turn the key in the ignition of the station wagon and switch the windshield wipers on.

  I don’t drive off right away.

  I sit there breathing and feeling sick.

  Please, I think, please, someone, I need some help.

  But no help comes.

  I am still alone.

  And so I start to drive.

  Because I don’t know what else to do.

  CHAPTER 14

  When I pull up to the Staffordshire Township Hospital, a shiver runs through me—I remember now that this is where they brought Alex that night. My stomach tightens a little, wondering if he’s still here.

  Regardless, I need to see Christy and make sure she’s okay. Of course, it wasn’t my fault that she fell—or jumped. But I can’t help but feel guilty somehow. It was my fault she was at Harmony House, after all.

  So I get out of the car, hurrying because of the rain starting to fall. I enter through the automatic sliding glass door and cross to the reception desk. The woman behind the counter, rail thin, with big bug eyes and dark hair parted in the middle, directs me to the third floor.

  The elevator is a long time coming and I look absently around at the doctors and nurses and orderlies walking purposefully up and down the hallway.

  On the third floor, I hear the rain spattering the windows and smell that noxious hospital smell of disinfectants and cleaning products. The rubber soles of my boots squeak-squeak on the polished linoleum.

  Christy’s room is all the way down at the end of the hall. I knock twice quickly on the door and take a deep breath before going in.

  It’s a shock seeing Christy. Her entire body is wrapped tightly in different casts and bandages. Her left leg is elevated and her neck is in a brace. Both her eyes are swollen, bordered by black
-and-blue marks like she’s been punched in the face.

  The breath I took in, I let out all at once.

  “Jen,” a voice says, scaring me so I jump back.

  But, turning, I see it’s only Rose. She’s wearing a heavy barn coat and dirty jeans and she stands and comes over to hug me for a long time.

  “Jen,” she says again. “I’m so happy you’re here. I need to talk to you.”

  “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I feel so bad about Christy.”

  “There was nothing you could do,” she says—holding me at arm’s length now. “It’s not your fault.”

  “I don’t know how it happened,” I say, feeling tears well in my eyes now.

  “It’s okay,” she says again. “But I do want to talk to you. Do you mind coming out in the hall with me?”

  I look over at Christy lying there.

  “Of course,” I say.

  She smiles more and puts a hand on my shoulder.

  I follow her out into the hall.

  I lean back against the white-painted drywall, banging my head and then banging it again rhythmically—not too hard, but not too soft either.

  “The storm’s looking pretty bad,” I say, just to say something.

  She nods.

  “It is going to be bad,” she says. “That’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

  “About the storm?” I ask, making a face.

  “Jen,” she says. “I know this is going to sound a little . . . forward . . . but I’m very worried about you.”

  “I’m worried about myself,” I tell her.

  “With everything that’s been happening at the house,” she says, “I think it might be best for you to leave as soon as possible.”

  She’s staring hard at me and I shiver.

  “You mean because of Christy?” I ask.

  “Because of that, yes. And Alex Winter. And the storm and, honestly, sweetie, you look sick—you’re covered in bruises, you have dark circles under your eyes, you’re thin and pale.”

  “Gee, thanks,” I say. I actually laugh a little at that.

  “You’re a strong girl,” she tells me, again putting her hand on my shoulder. “But you’re not strong enough—not yet. And now this storm is coming. If I had some time with you, maybe I could teach you how to control the power you have, but as it is, I’m afraid you’re in a lot of danger.”