Boys in the Valley(35)

The pounding comes from the hatch door.

Someone’s in the attic.

“Hello!” he yells, moving to stand directly below it. He spots a knotted rope hanging from a hole drilled in the hatch. He can easily reach it, but . . . not yet.

“Hello!” he yells again.

“Brother Johnson?” A muffled voice. A boy’s voice. By the sound of it, a very panicked boy. “Help me!”

Johnson grunts and frowns. Damn kids and their damned hijinks. He reaches up, grabs the coarse knot of the rope, and pulls.

The hatch swings down smoothly, and a ladder unfolds, dropping to the floor and nearly catching him on the head as it does. He curses under his breath.

He looks up at the open square of darkness and sees a boy with no face staring back. Johnson flinches at the sight, momentarily terrified, before realizing it’s nothing but a damned feed sack stretched over his face. “Jesus,” he murmurs, his fear turning quickly to ire.

“Take that thing off your head!”

“They said not to! They said . . .”

“Do it! Or I’ll rip it off you.”

The boy grips the corners atop his head, pulls the sack free. Beneath, his face is crumpled and red. Slick with snot, sweat, and tears. He starts weeping once more, and Johnson feels the anger inside him abate, albeit slightly. “What the hell are you doing, Benjamin?”

Ben shakes his head, wipes his face with a sleeve. “Can I come down?”

“What? Yes goddammit, and make it quick! What’s all this about?”

Ben reaches the bottom of the ladder, his words coming in spurts between hiccups and sobs. Johnson is taken aback by the child’s despair and forces himself to calm.

Damn boy is scared half out of his wits.

Johnson takes a breath, does his best to speak gently. “Okay, lad. Enough of that. Tell me what happened.”

Ben nods, takes a deep breath. “I was here alone. Or thought I was . . . everyone else was washing up, getting ready for lunch. I was getting something from my nightstand, when someone put a hood over my face. I couldn’t see, and I was scared. Then . . .”

Johnson grips Ben by the arms and leads him to sit on a nearby cot. A hood? What madness is this? Is the boy lying? No, no . . . he can’t be. Look at the poor bastard.

“Then?”

“Then I felt something sharp jab my back. Like a knife. They told me not to move, not to speak, or . . . or they’d stab me.”

“My God,” Johnson says, knowing this is beyond a prank. The consequences will be dire.

“I heard the ladder drop, and they pushed me over to it, made me climb. Then, I don’t know, something happened. There were voices in the hall, and they told me not to move, or take off the sack or they’d come back and finish me. Then the hatch closed . . . and I was trapped. I was so scared, Johnson!”

Ben starts crying again, and Johnson puts a hand on his shoulder. “All right, all right. Enough of that. Just a couple boys pulling a trick. Nothing to sob like a baby about.”

Ben nods, tries to hold it back. “It didn’t seem like a trick, though. I mean . . . they sounded . . . I don’t know. They sounded serious. They weren’t laughing or anything.”

Johnson frowns. This isn’t good. No, this isn’t good at all.

And one boy still missing.

What the hell is going on?

“All right. Well, let’s get you cleaned up and down to the dining hall.”

“Poole’s gonna be furious!”

“Don’t worry, lad. I’ll talk to him. You’re the victim here, that’s my position. He’ll listen to me.”

For the first time, Ben looks mildly relieved. “Thank you, Brother Johnson.”

“And for the record,” Johnson says, standing up. “That hatch will come down if you push on the ladder. Just need to put some weight into it.”

Ben nods, wipes away the last of the tears. “I don’t ever want to go up there again. It’s dark, and I felt things crawling on me. I hate it up there.”

Johnson thinks of the hole for a moment, wonders how Ben would fare if forced into that situation. Not well. Not well at all.

Ah, he’s a good boy, not as bad as the others.

Best not think of it.





22


JOHNSON WAITS WHILE BEN CLEANS HIMSELF IN THE washroom. He’s antsy to get going but wants to make sure the boy gets to the dining hall with no further problems. He’s already second-guessing where to look for Basil. The fact that he’s not with Ben is . . . troubling. The scenarios he’d previously considered have shrunken.

He can’t see Basil running away. Not by himself. Boy’s too small. Too weak. Maybe he figured he could make it to the Hill farm? Catch up with Peter? Even so, that’s a three-hour walk for a small child, in the cold. No. Chances are he’s holed up somewhere, like Ben. Perhaps outside; in the barn, or locked in the privy.

Johnson grits his teeth. Nothing like this has ever happened at St. Vincent’s. A boy—or, as Ben tells it, boys—threatening another with a knife? Unthinkable.

He almost feels sorry for what Poole will do to the culprit, or culprits, when found out.

He wonders if they’ll survive.

“Ready, Brother Johnson.”

Johnson is tugged from his thoughts and looks down at Ben, whose face is scrubbed and blessedly snot-free. “Let’s go, then.”