The Monk

by Hallahan, William H. ;

The monks knelt once more and began the prayers for the dead.

  The meeting at eight that night almost didn’t take place. Several monks came, sat down, then left. They returned later. No one spoke for a long time, then Brother Paul delivered a eulogy. He spoke of the first time he had met Matthew, of his relationship as his cardiologist, of his own experience as a weekend monk under Matthew’s influence and finally of the profound effect Matthew had had on him.

  “This monastery is indeed a league of puzzled men seeking answers to cosmic questions. I came seeking God. Instead I found love. And just possibly that may be the whole secret. I love you all.”

  After he’d spoken, the group sat without talking, watching the fire burn down. At eleven they all went to the chapel and prayed for Brother Matthew’s soul.

  While the monks were in the chapel, Brendan stepped outside into the frosty night. It was a splendid skyscape. Great clouds sat motionless to the north, drenched in silver by the three-quarter moon. The stars had the hard-edged quality of absolutely clear air.

  Brendan regretted he hadn’t known Matthew better—only a few weeks. He was a sunken face with purple lips, gasping on a pillow to Brendan. What was more to the point, he wondered at his own position in the monastery. He was here at the sufferance of a man who was now dead. No one else knew about his purple aura and his need for sanctuary. He was liable to be dismissed by the new leader of the monastery. Then where would he go? Suppose he confided his plight to the new leader only to discover later that the new leader was secretly the demon worshiper?

  Brendan went to bed hesitantly. He looked long and hard out on the lake, then he wedged a dowel into the track of the sliding door and drew the drapery.

  Later that night, he had a premonition, a sense of alarm, and he rose from his bed and went to the draperies. Carefully, he parted them. There, right on the other side of the glass pane, with its back to Brendan, sat the creature. It seemed to be watching the greenhouse door intently.

  A moment later the creature stood up, and with that low titter it crossed the courtyard and bounded the wall with a leap. Like quicksilver, it was gone in an instant. Brendan had yet to see its face.

  The next day they prepared for the funeral. They had no tradition for death. A number of men had come there over the years and taken what they wanted and left. Some later had died elsewhere. But here in the monastery they had never been confronted with a funeral. To compound matters, the ground was frozen; and besides, Brother Matthew had left explicit instructions. He was to be cremated. There was to be no ceremony at the crematorium. His ashes were to be dispersed, no remnants retained. There were to be no memorials, no busts or plaques or eternal flames or candles, no scholarships or charitable funds or annual ceremonies. Let the dead bury the dead.

  Forget me, he commanded.

  They discussed that. Some wanted to disobey him. He was a founder. He’d inspired others with his presence, his thoughts and beliefs. He was a monument, a beacon in the night to the lost and the despairing.

  “Other men said what he said—only better,” Brother Benedict chided them. “Other men set greater examples. Other men had an influence of larger magnitude. And they have all been forgotten. Trying to memorialize him is a puny gesture. We were not meant to be remembered. Man can survive only by forgetting the past, lest despair pull us all into the grave.” While they were sitting, Brother Thomas strolled curiously to the window and looked out at the night skyline. There was a great smudge of red in the northeast like a miniature dawn. “Fire,” he said. “Must be in Ealing.” The others gathered at the window and watched the changing shape of the glowing red. Some building was dying. The glow remained for two hours.

  A horn cried in the night. Then another. The whole monastery woke and went to their windows. Brother Vincent came from the phone. “An Episcopal church in Ealing.”

  “Oh!” Brother Paul said. “I know it well! A lovely building.”

  “Burned to the ground along with the rectory and another building. And the minister was killed. Murdered. His neck was twisted. The whole town is up in arms. They’re on a sweep, chasing some kind of animal.”

  The horns were shrill noisemakers mounted on cans of compressed air. And their noise carried over the lake to the monastery like cries of dismay. Then distantly through some trees on the shoreline, Brendan saw the creature faintly in its white grave cloth. Brendan found Brother Vincent looking at him and they both knew. Both had seen it. Brother Zen then quietly touched Brother Beaupré and nodded in the direction of the running creature. The three knew. They all looked at Brendan, then averted their eyes. They had drawn the pentacle on the greenhouse floor; they had raised this demon.

  It was hours later when Brendan heard the hunt returning, their snowmobiles chattering distantly. He parted his curtain and involuntarily drew back. In the dark the creature was standing in front of the glass door with its back to the room. Its broad back filled the glass. It was watching the procession of snowmobile headlights cross the ice. The creature languidly placed a hand against the doorjamb, enjoying the spectacle.

  It must have been eight feet tall or taller, covered in a dirty gray shroud. Its face was turned away and partially wrapped in a linen band.

  It rose and without once looking back walked away from the building down to the greenhouse and disappeared there by the wall, just as dawn was breaking.

  So the witchcraft that Brother Matthew spoke of before he died was practiced by not one but three of the monks, Vincent, Beaupré and Zen. Their eyes had told him. They had raised a demon and it was now marauding the countryside, learning its trade as it went.

  Of the three, Brendan decided, Brother Vincent was the one to speak to. After breakfast he found the man washing the windows of the conversation room. The habitual cigarette hung from his lips as he peered myopically at the glass.

  “Still wearing your civvies, I see,” Vincent said.

  “What are you going to do about that creature?”

  “What creature?” Brother Vincent concentrated on a spot of glass, scrubbing furiously.

  “That monster from hell running through the woods last night. You saw it as clearly as I did.”

  “What’s that got to do with anything?” Brother Vincent huffed a cloud of breath on the glass and wiped it.

  Brendan gently but firmly gripped the man’s arm and turned him around. “You raised it. You and Zen and Beaupré. In the greenhouse. And now it’s your responsibility. Do you think you can just let it run amok now?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You know very well. The Tipperary pentacle.”

  “I have work to do. Don’t you?” Brother Vincent walked quickly away, hugging his cleaning rags and bottles.

  But the conversation did its work. Brother Vincent went in search of Brother Zen. And a few moments later, Brendan saw the two of them walking with Brother Beaupré in the well-trod path in the snow. Vincent was in the middle, the tallest, and the other two walked heads bowed and cowled as he talked, his breath coming in rhythmical plumes. Zen kept glancing back over his shoulder at the monastery. Brother Beaupré was the first to stop, cast down, shaking his head. Then he withdrew his right hand from his sleeves and admonished Vincent with it. Now they stood in a circle miserably. Occasionally all three of them would look with fear toward the greenhouse. In the end they all walked back to the monastery in slow silence. None of them appeared for the midday meal.

  It was around two when Brother Vincent came to Brendan’s room. “We want to talk to you,” he said, and he led the way to the conversation room. Both Zen and Beaupré were waiting there. Vincent shut the door.

  “Sit down,” Brother Vincent said to him. Only Zen remained standing, hands behind his back, at the window. Brilliant sunlight filled the window.

  “How do you know about the Tipperary pentacle?” Vincent asked him.

  Brendan shrugged. “It’s not exactly a secret, is it? It’s been published in a number of books. It’s an occult symbol
used in ceremonies to call up demons.”

  “You ever draw one? Use it, I mean.”

  “No.”

  They seemed to run out of questions. They all stared at the slate floor, thinking.

  “Why did you do it?” he asked them.

  They didn’t speak for a while, then Brother Zen said in an almost inaudible voice, “Desperation.”

  “It was all these nightly talks,” Beaupré said. “In this room. We were supposed to be finding God together. All we did was argue. Guardhouse lawyers. We got so we could disprove everything.”

  Zen said, “That kind of relentless skepticism erodes faith.”

  “We were in a crisis,” Beaupré said. “We couldn’t prove God exists with logic and we couldn’t find Him with faith. We were in some kind of limbo that was almost unbearable.”

  Brother Vincent turned and pointed at Zen. “So one night Brother Zen said, ‘If we can’t prove the existence of God, can we prove the existence of Satan?’ That made sense. Satan has always seemed more eager to communicate with man.”

  “So,” Brother Zen said, “we got a copy of Paxton’s treatise on demonology.”

  Vincent said sadly, “I curse the day we opened it. What a catastrophe.”

  The three remembered with horror, staring at the floor.

  “Well, what happened?”

  “We went down to the greenhouse. We had just a candle with us so we wouldn’t be seen from the sleeping quarters.”

  “I drew the pentacle,” Zen said. “In different-colored chalks.”

  Beaupré said, “Then we read the incantation and we waited and nothing happened. We really didn’t believe in such stuff anyway.”

  Vincent said, “In fact we began to giggle like school kids. It seemed so absurd.”

  They kept interrupting each other now, eager to confess to him. Often they all said the same thing at the same time.

  They had taken turns reading. They felt silly and read the incantation in a singsong voice, trying to be funny. They stopped at last. They were cold and cramped and had begun to leave when they heard heavy breathing.

  And then slowly, right there on the circle, the creature appeared.

  “It’s more than eight feet tall! Did you know that!” Zen gripped Brendan’s sleeve. “It’s a monster!”

  “It ran in huge circles like something let out of a cage.”

  “Frantic!”

  “Crazy! It seemed overjoyed. It giggled.”

  “Terrifying!”

  “It said one word over and over. Purple.”

  “Purple?” Brendan exclaimed.

  “Purple, over and over.”

  “Then it jumped the wall and ran away. And we didn’t see it again.”

  “So what did you do then?”

  “What could we do? It was gone.”

  “You mean, you just went to bed?”

  “What else could we do? Tell us.”

  “Try another incantation there in Paxton to return it to hell. Didn’t you try that?”

  The three exchanged guilty looks.

  “We had no idea where the creature was until we heard you say you were followed.”

  “We knew it must have killed that horse.”

  “Horse,” Brendan echoed. “My God, what have you done?”

  “We thought it would go away.”

  “Away!” exclaimed Brendan. “It’s thriving! Prospering! Learning by leaps and bounds. I bet it hasn’t realized its own powers yet. Each day it becomes more dangerous—in quantum leaps. What are you going to do when it gathers a following?” He watched their stunned faces. “Why not?” he asked them. “It’s a logical step. It can gather armies! We are locked in on this earth with madmen who will form legions and eagerly do the creature’s bidding. Didn’t you ever think of that?”

  He waited for them to say something. But they didn’t. “You have to push it back down to hell now. Tonight. Before it’s too late. Didn’t it occur to you to do something about it before this?”

  “Well, as long as it was just killing a horse or two—”

  “Dear God,” Brendan said.

  They gazed at one another’s face. Brother Zen shuffled his feet and recrossed his legs, resting the side of his head on his palm. Brother Beaupré pressed his lips down on his fists and Brother Vincent wiped his palms on his gown. See-no-evil. Hear-no-evil. Speak-no-evil. They regarded him with great round eyes. Push it back down to hell? Their eyes told Brendan he was mad.

  “Well, you’ve proved one thing.” Brendan said. “Satan exists. You’re halfway to God.”

  Brendan got off by himself to gather his thoughts. The creature had said purple over and over. There could be no mistaking what that meant: The creature was looking for Brendan’s purple aura. All it had to do was get a good look at Brendan’s head.

  How many other demons were on the earth, looking for him? He felt he was the target of a worldwide manhunt. Every creature in hell must be out searching for him.

  Brendan’s reaction was the same as before. The gnawing fear and feeling of weakness gave way to impotent rage. If he could only find a suitable weapon, he would gladly face Satan. Just to have done with it one way or the other. And he vowed he would win. But what was the weapon?

  CHAPTER 9

  Trevor’s Sailboat

  Trevor’s sailboat was a 42-foot ketch and he’d hired two students, the Benson brothers, from Brown University to crew for him. The boat was beautiful, with teak decks and brass fittings. It was named the Hirondelle. And it even had its own fireplace—a black metal flue with a glass door. Behind it a charcoal fire cast a warm glow.

  “What’s the word hirondelle mean?” Anne asked him at supper.

  “Oh! don’t you know! Good heavens! The Hirondelle was the fourth ship in Columbus’s flotilla. You know the other three, don’t you?”

  She watched him with a growing smile. “The Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria.”

  “Marvelous! But most people don’t know that there was a fourth ship. The Hirondelle. You know what happened to it?”

  “No.” She was smiling broadly now. “Lay it on me, Alphonse.”

  “It sailed off the end of the earth.”

  The two college students groaned and booed him.

  Trevor was widely known in Newport as an outstanding sailor. Water was his element. There he was one of the elite. He’d been helmsman in four major races during the past season and had won them all.

  All through the evening before the regatta, he sat in the Yacht Club lounge with her, greeting scores of other yachtsmen and their wives. The number of millionaires in the room was beyond count. And even the oldest among them came up to Trevor and shook his hand. He was a celebrity and they all wished him well. Many of them would be racing against him in the morning and obviously had no expectation of beating him or even keeping up with him.

  “I see you have Eddie Benson’s two brats for crew,” one man said. “They’re racing fools, those two. They’ll tear the sails off to win a race.”

  Trevor smiled at him. “So will I.”

  The man patted him on the shoulder. “I know, Trevor, I know. Just like your father.”

  The four of them slept on board that night. A fresh wind kicked up sometime after midnight and even in the protected harbor they were in, tied to the dock, she felt the rhythmic flow of the tidal waters passing under the keel.

  Anne was wide-awake. Guilty. She was having a wonderful time. She was fascinated by the rich. Scott Fitzgerald was right: The rich are not like thee and me. While she lay contentedly on board a ketch, Brendan was lying somewhere in hiding, watching with furtive eyes for the spirit that stalked him. There was barely any light coming in from the dock lamps but she looked over and saw Trevor in his bunk, staring at the ceiling.

  “Trevor.”

  “Hummm.”

  “Do you believe in the occult?”

  “You mean spirits and demons and such?”

  “Yes.”

  He thought about it.
“I can’t say that I do. I don’t think about it much, but I mean—have you ever seen a ghost or a demon?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “I think it’s all a lot of poobah,” Trevor said.

  If it were only true. Poobah. Anne could go find Brendan and tell him it was a hoax. He could come home and live a normal life with her.

  The next day the water was wild, and a number of sailboats dropped out of the regatta. There was a booming surf and a high wind. The two Benson boys were exhilarated; they couldn’t get out on the open water fast enough. It was thrilling. The boat sailed like a champion, running on a long port tack, then on a starboard tack, knifing through the water rail-under. When they went on a broad reach, the two crewmen wanted to run up the spinnaker but even Trevor demurred. The chop of the water would spill the wind and could split the sails. The spinnaker would be in shreds in minutes and the boat could be dismasted. No matter. Trevor won his class going away. Anne discovered she loved sailing. She was truly a wind-and-water girl. Trevor was delighted with her. He vowed she would make a great helmsman.

  There was a merry victory dinner that night, packed with the crews and even with those who had dropped out. The talk was all sailing. It was as though the enormous power that these people wielded in finance and industry didn’t exist. It was never mentioned. It was just there. Power and wealth.

  Trevor, who was a moderate drinker at best, had too many champagne cocktails and he fell asleep with his head on her breast.

  “A hard day,” one of the yachtsmen said to her. “Winning takes a lot out of you.”

  “So does losing,” said his wife. She led him away with a laugh.

  Anne pushed her fingers through Trevor’s curly black hair and felt his warm slow breath and then woke him. It was time for bed and sleep.

  He dropped her at her apartment the next day. As they parted, he said, “You’re the most wonderful girl I’ve ever met, Annie.”

  That evening she went to see Aunt Maeve. It was nearly two months since Brendan had left. The weather had turned bitter again, and that mad wind off New York Harbor was wilder than ever. Even the short skip from the cab to Maeve’s doorway was enough for the wind to go through her coat.