by Matt Drabble
“Eat up dear, before it gets cold,” she urged.
He sat there with the fork frozen in midair and the last thing he wanted to do was to put it in his mouth. He could feel her eyes burning into him and her face swollen with anticipation. A tiny bead of sweat sprung from her forehead and ran down the side of her face; it was just the smallest bead, but he saw it just the same.
He placed the fork down on the table. “What did you do, Edna?” he asked quizzically.
“I really don’t know what you mean, Father,” she blustered. “Would you like me to make you something else?” she asked as she made a grab for the plate. “I mean, I’ve never known you to be fussy.”
He looked down at the cooling food in front of him as she suddenly snatched the plate away. She was lightning fast and the breakfast was already being swallowed by the garbage disposal before he could move. He pushed her out of the way of the sink, suddenly believing that something terrible had almost happened here.
He flipped the switch to turn off the disposal and reached into the drain to grab the last remaining sausage that was clinging on above the rim. He grabbed it just in time as Edna turned it on again and the whirling blades gnashed their metallic teeth together. He managed to salvage one small piece of meat in the palm of his hand just in time before his fingers ending up getting severed.
He turned towards her in shock and amazement at what she had tried to do. His words of chastisement and no doubt coarse language died in his mouth as someone else swung an unopened can of beans into the side of his head. He saw stars as he sunk to the floor dazed and confused. He could feel wet blood flowing down the side of his head as the world spun around him. The figure that had struck him from behind remained out of sight.
He reached out and grabbed Edna’s bony ankle as she stepped over him and made for the door, but she shook her leg free with ease and a surprising amount of strength. She stared down at him with burning hatred. She spat a thick glob of phlegm onto his face and snarled a single foreign word that sounded oddly familiar. He just heard the front door slam behind her and her accomplice before he fell into a deep dark sleep.
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Jemima stared down at the little plastic stick with shock in her wide eyes. The small blue plus sign was blaring like heaven’s bugle charge in her ears and rocking her to her core. She couldn’t understand what was happening. It just wasn’t possible that this could have happened. She was cut off in Ravenhill, far removed from the dating scene and its willing and irresponsible players.
A hand flew to her mouth as she suddenly remembered: Stuart, the night of the party. It had only been days ago and yet it felt like years. But it still wasn’t possible for her to be exhibiting symptoms, surely? She had been throwing up every morning like clockwork and her moods had definitely altered.
Her hands travelled down to her stomach. She stroked and prodded the soft flesh and found that she was bigger. It had only been days since she’d had sex and now she was showing. The whole thing stank of nut house crazy and yet, somehow, there was a strange feeling of right about it. A warm glow of bliss started to creep up from the soles of her feet and spread throughout her bones.
She cradled the small but unmistakable swell above her waist and felt the warmth radiate from there. It was a gift from God she was sure now, a blessing that filled her entire being with grace and love. She was chosen; she was chosen by the hand of God and placed high above others to sit at his side and provide him with this child. A child of God and a child for God to serve him as he best saw fit. She just knew that he had plans for her and their child, plans that would change the world.
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The following morning barely dawned at all as the sky was scarcely visible above the falling snow. The storm seemed to be intensifying rather than dwindling, as predicted by the shiny well-groomed men and women standing in front of large maps on the television.
Sarah threw back the curtains with a sense of dread. She was beginning to think that she was never going to get free of this place. What had once seemed like a welcoming - if a little cold - home now felt more like a prison. There was nothing to see except a white blanket stretched across the world, burying everything and everyone beneath it.
The room felt particularly icy this morning and she walked to check the large radiator on the wall. The metal heater was bone cold to the touch. She looked over at her radio alarm clock on the bedside table and saw that its face was dark and dead. Despite the obvious lack of power in the room, she still felt compelled to flip the light switch a couple of times just to make sure.
She dressed quickly and didn’t dare risk a frosty water shower. She had to check her watch to make sure that she wasn’t running late and was relieved to find that she wasn’t. Her internal clock had always functioned reliably well and as she was on duty this morning she was grateful for it.
She exited her room and headed down towards the dining hall. She knew that it would have been easy to dismiss what she saw last night as yet another hangover of her troubled past. But she knew that she wasn’t quite so easy to fool. She had followed an old guy to the rooftop and he had jumped over the edge. She had then rushed outside to find no trace of a body. Whoever the man was, she couldn’t help feel that he had been warning her in some way, and she was fully prepared to listen.
She approached the dining hall with a puzzled expression. Normally, the room would be a buzzing hive of noise and clattering crockery, especially during the more relaxed atmosphere of the holidays.
She pushed open the door expecting to find the room empty, only to her surprise there was one fully laid table with a dozen clean and smiling faces sat around it. The kids were all dressed smartly in their school uniforms even though they weren’t required to be. The kitchen staff were standing to attention behind their counters and all were waiting patiently.
She had assumed that breakfast would have been a cold affair, but in the back of her mind she remembered that the ovens ran on gas, not electricity. Through the kitchen she could see that the back door was slightly ajar and that milk bottles were placed out in the snow to keep cold.
As soon as she stepped into the hall the kids all stood quietly and moved slowly and in single file towards the serving counter. She could have heard a pin drop as the usual pushing and shoving was abandoned in favor of polite queuing.
It should have been a pleasing sight to greet a teacher normally concerned with maintaining order, but somehow it was deeply unsettling.
They were halfway through the breakfast hour when the dining hall doors swung forcibly open and Barnaby marched through. Trailing behind him were Stuart, Jemima, and Hannah but no Maurice.
Sarah looked up as they all approached the head table where she sat in an overseeing position, although there was little noise this morning.
“Can I have your attention please,” Barnaby boomed loudly and a little unnecessarily given the volume level of the kids. “I believe that all of you are fully aware of the rules concerning after hours. For those of you who are in need of a refresher course, let me state it clearly.”
Sarah could see that the Headmaster was staring directly at the kids, but she couldn’t help but feel that he was also speaking to the staff as well.
“You are all assigned your own rooms. For those younger pupils whose older companions have left for the holidays, you have the opportunity to request a temporary change of room. After 9 pm sharp you are confined to your rooms and there should be no wandering the halls in the middle of the night; is that clear?”
Sarah thought about her own adventures last night and wondered if maybe Barnaby had seen her out and about after lights out.
“We have a certain amount of trust here, and I do not expect Ravenhill students to abuse that trust. If you are caught out of your rooms or playing silly pranks, then you will be dealt with in the harshest possible manner,” Barnaby stressed forcibly.
Sarah couldn’t help but notice that the usually unflappable man seemed strang
ely perturbed by something. She knew that he had been on duty last night and she couldn’t help but wonder what he had seen in the dark that had shaken him so much.
She looked over at Stuart who responded with raised eyebrows in reference to the Headmaster’s attitude. Hannah merely sat contently with a large beaming smile etched across her face and Jemima looked oddly distant with a strange glow.
After breakfast, and when Barnaby had departed, she cornered Stuart. “What was all that about?” she asked him.
“He did seem a little strained, I guess,” Stuart replied.
The two of them were alone at the top table after the other staff had trotted off, led by the Headmaster.
“A little strained?” she whispered leaning in close. “When have you ever seen the man dressed anything less than impeccably? I’m sure that was the same suit that he was wearing yesterday.”
“I can’t say as I noticed,” Stuart shrugged. “Maybe he’s like Einstein, maybe he’s got a whole wardrobe of the same outfits.”
“Maybe he saw something last night,” Sarah pondered.
“Like what? Like a ghost or something?” Stuart chuckled before the laughter died in his throat when he saw that he was laughing alone. “You’re not serious?”
“Maybe,” she shrugged.
“Have you ever seen anything?” he whispered.
“Maybe.”
“Shit, really?” he said excitedly. “What? When?”
“What about you?” she replied, ignoring his questions.
He sat back in his chair and seemed to think deeply. “I’m not sure,” he finally answered.
“That means that you did but you’d feel rather foolish repeating it,” Sarah said, smiling gently.
“I don’t know,” he said awkwardly. “Why don’t you tell me yours? Ladies first, and all that.”
Sarah looked up and saw that the kids had all finished eating and were now all sitting motionless as if waiting to be dismissed. The new boy, Joshua, was seated at the head of the table and all heads seemed to be pointed in his direction. She was struck again by the strange sense of familiarity even though the kid didn’t resemble anyone that she recognised. He suddenly turned towards her and smiled radiantly. She felt a responding smile creep across her lips before she was even aware of it.
“Someone’s got a little crush I think,” Stuart teased.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” she snapped. “What the hell do you take me for?”
“Easy!” he said, holding his hands out in mock surrender. “I meant that young Joshua looked like he had a crush on you.”
“Oh, sorry,” she mumbled.
“You really are one funny onion,” he sighed. “Every time that I think I’m getting somewhere with you I seem to put my foot in it without ever knowing quite what I’ve done.”
“It’s…, it’s...,” she struggled.
“It’s not you, it’s me? Boy if I had a quid for every time that I’ve heard that, I’d have at least a fiver,” he grinned.
She couldn’t help but grin back, no matter how much she didn’t want to. It really wasn’t him and it really was her, but she could never tell him why.
Abruptly and silently, all of the kids suddenly stood up as one and began trooping out of the dining hall in single file.
“What’s with them?” Stuart asked, watching the procession. “And what’s your secret? Whenever I’m on duty, the little buggers run me ragged.”
“I don’t know,” Sarah answered honestly but a little distractedly. “You were going to tell me about your experience.”
“I don’t think that I was,” he grinned again. “I think that we decided on ladies first.”
She fixed him with a frozen glare that she saved for the most wayward of students.
“Or I guess that I could go first,” he replied after blinking first. “It was a few months ago; I was on night duty and I was up near the top of the stairwell. Little Billy Moffet was screaming bloody blue murder because he’d had some nightmare. He reckoned that he had woken up to find a man in his room, sitting at the bottom of his bed. I checked everything out obviously; no man, no nothing, just a nightmare. Billy’s grandfather had died the week before if you remember and he had been having dreams about seeing him. Well the odd thing was that when I left his room that night, I thought that I saw, well I don’t know what I really saw. But just for a second I thought that I saw some old guy in the corridor. He was wearing pajamas and a dressing gown, but when I moved towards him, he suddenly just wasn’t there anymore. He didn’t go up in a puff of smoke, or slowly fade away, I just blinked, and he was gone. I put it down to a lack of sleep and an overactive imagination; I’m sure that’s all it was and nothing more,” he said firmly.
“What color were his pajamas?” Sarah asked pointedly.
“Uh, blue and white stripes if I remember,” he replied. “Why?”
“Because we saw the same guy.”
CHAPTER 13
Sergeant Donald Ross looked up in surprise as the police station door flew open and a large man staggered in. “Father Monroe?” He gasped, as the man wobbled his way through the door drunkenly. His first thought was that the man was indeed drunk, until he saw the blood running down from his head and landing on his shoulder. “Jesus, what happened to you?”
Monroe stared at him through glazed eyes and he quickly gave up any thoughts of interrogation.
“Here, come sit down,” Donald said as he took the priest’s arm and guided him to the closest chair. He sat the big man down and looked around for the first aid kit that they had only used on him yesterday. “This is getting to be quite a habit,” he joked to silence.
He started to call Paterson before he remembered that the young PC wasn’t in yet. But he spotted the green box on the constable’s table.
“Just sit here and don’t fall off,” he said to Monroe as he left him.
He quickly grabbed the kit and wetted a clean towel at the sink. He washed the already crusting blood on Monroe’s head and peered through the hair to check the wound. There was a large lump with a small cut there, but nothing too serious.
“Did you have a fall?” he asked the priest.
“No,” Monroe mumbled groggily. “Some bastard hit me from behind with a bloody can of beans. My mother always said that food would be the death of me, but I don’t think this is quite what she meant.”
“Who the hell would attack a man of the cloth? Especially round here?” Donald asked shocked, as he handed the priest an ice pack.
He had a school secretary locked in a maintenance closet who had apparently butchered her husband with an axe and now this. The police part of his brain suddenly sparked into life and wondered about Father Brendon Monroe. The man was a relative newcomer to Bexley Cross and it was the second time in two days that he had been attacked, including by Mrs. Merryweather. He knew that it was all too easy to jump to conclusions in this day and age regarding the men beneath the collar, but it certainly deserved looking in to.
“I told you I didn’t see him. And by the way, just what the hell is going on in your little village, Sergeant?” Monroe demanded grumpily. “First Mavis kills her husband and then my housekeeper tries to poison me.”
“Poison you?” Donald exclaimed.
“Sorry, didn’t I mention that?” Monroe winced as he pressed the ice pack to his head. “Sorry, I’m a little scrambled. Yeah, I think that she put something in my breakfast.”
“How do you know? Did you see her?”
“No. She was acting weird and I just got this funny feeling, and when I didn’t eat she flipped out and went nuts.”
“So she attacked you?”
“No. She grabbed the plate from me and chucked it down the waste disposal. She was standing next to me at the sink and when I tried to grab the plate someone hit me from behind.”
“With a can of beans.”
“Yes.”
“Why would your housekeeper want to poison you, Father Monroe?” Donald asked officiou
sly.
Monroe stared at him for a long time. “You mean, have I been fiddling with any kids? Was I perhaps messing around with my housekeeper’s grandson and she found out?”
“Something like that,” Donald replied, not liking the question but feeling that it needed to be asked.
“No, Sergeant; despite what you might hear in the news, not all priests join up for the all you can eat kiddie buffet. You can check my records, contact my Bishop, and trace my history as far back as you like. You will not find any skeletons in my closet or sudden transfers after ugly rumors, I can assure you.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Donald answered, but thinking that he would do it just the same. He normally had a good sense about people and everything in his bones told him that Monroe was on the level. He didn’t expect to find anything on the priest, but he would check anyway.
“Speaking of skeletons in closets, how’s your guest this morning?” Monroe said nodding towards the door marked ‘Maintenance’.
“Quiet as a church mouse, so to speak,” Donald replied.
“You know, there was an odd thing,” Monroe started.
“Just the one?” Donald laughed without much humor.
“Just before Edna left she looked down at me. Her eyes were burning with pure hate and she said a weird foreign word to me, or rather spat it. The thing was that it sounded oddly familiar and now that I’m sitting back here I remember where I heard it.” He turned and pointed to the makeshift temporary cell. “Mrs. Merryweather. When she was trying to claw my eyes out I remember that she said the same word.”
“What word?”
“Tlacatecolotl, at least that’s what I think it sounded like.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
Monroe could only shrug in reply. He looked over to the computer sitting on a nearby desk. “We could try and look it up.”
Donald looked uncomfortable. “Are you any good on those things?”
“Nope, I thought that you coppers were all on the cutting edge of technology; I’ve seen CSI.”