Andrew calls after Poole. “I’ll see the boys get breakfast.”
Poole lifts a hand and waves without looking back.
Andrew’s eyes travel up toward the dorm windows. He sees the faces of many of the boys peering out, some looking down his way, most likely having noticed the sheriff and his men.
Which means they’ve seen the bodies, he thinks, and sighs deeply.
He wonders how he’ll explain it all to Peter. He suppresses a smile at the thought of he and David sneaking out last night. Poole was right about them, they are an unlikely pairing, but Andrew has a suspicion they are also more tightly knit than even Poole realizes. Perhaps more than they fully realize themselves.
He sighs once more, feeling the weariness from lack of sleep infiltrating his mind and body. He stares down blankly at the wrapped corpse of Paul Baker. Something tells him that whatever evil, whatever power, had been locked inside Baker’s body has since been released. Unbidden, he recalls the story of Jesus and the wild man who lived in the tombs.
We are many.
“My name is Legion,” Andrew mutters, quoting the passage from the Book of Mark. “For we are many.”
In the story, Jesus commanded the demons out of the man and cast them into a herd of two thousand pigs. Driven mad, the pigs rush into a nearby lake and drown.
Staring at the body, Andrew gloomily considers the story, then debates bestowing a final blessing on the man before he is buried. After a moment’s thought, he decides against it. Deep down in the darkest parts of his mind, where the evils of the world are caged away for inspection, he finds fresh fear. Fear that blessing this man may cause some sort of a response; some final, rebellious act of the haunted flesh.
Andrew grimaces, turns away quickly, and follows Poole’s path to the orphanage.
He has no desire to see the corpse protest its soiled bindings.
15
I LEAVE THE WINDOW AND SIT DOWN ON MY COT, UNSURE what to do next. It’s highly unusual to be allotted extra free time in the mornings and, like most of the boys, I’m not sure what to do with myself. I’m hoping the kitchen is preparing breakfast, even if it is just biscuits, because my stomach is filled with needles, sharp stabs of hunger piercing me every few seconds.
I don’t notice David until he sits at the foot of my cot. The springs creak beneath the weight of two of us, and I look at him in surprise. It’s unlike him to be this familiar.
Looking at him now, I find it’s strange to think that I’ve known David nearly my whole life. He came to St. Vincent’s about a year after I did, and at the time we were two of the younger boys, both still reeling from our abrupt change of scenery, the disruption of our childhoods. We didn’t hit it off like many others in similar situations, certainly nothing like Jonathan and Finnegan, our notorious “twins” （despite being born on completely different continents）。 Instead, he and I sort of gravitated around each other, neither friends nor foes, like the moons of a planet we had no interest in observing, but whose orbit we were forced to nonetheless reside within. Now, years later, we are the oldest of the boys. Those ahead of us having gone off to workshops or military. Many died. At least one ran away.
Being the oldest （we’re both at least two years older than any of the current orphans） has always borne for me the weight of additional responsibility, an albatross my training for priesthood has only added to. I never thought David felt similarly. I’m beginning to think I was wrong.
“Weird, right?” he says quietly. I study him, not understanding. He nods his head toward the north end of the dormitory, and I look over.
Most of the boys are awake now. It would have been impossible to sleep given the excitement and activity of the others. Many sit on their bunks, as if unable to function without instruction. A couple have slipped on shoes and coats and hurried to visit the outhouse.
What David is indicating, however, is something else entirely.
Something I can’t explain.
At the far end of the room a group of boys are sitting on the floor, cross-legged, forming a rough circle. This in itself isn’t totally strange, although certainly not common.
It’s the combination of boys that makes it bizarre.
I easily spot Simon among the group, along with Terrence, Samuel, and Jonah. A few younger boys have joined them as well, including Frankie, who boasts the olive-toned skin of an Italian immigrant, and Auguste, a tall 14-year-old whose only claim to individuality is that he is French （he always made a point to say he isn’t French, but French-Canadian. To kids from Pennsylvania who’ve lived on the streets most their lives, the distinction is slight）。
Samuel and Jonah are tight friends, have been since they arrived several years back. Samuel is short, but strong as an ox. A farmer’s boy whose parents were robbed and murdered in their home, their only child somehow being the only one to avoid their horrid fate. As for Jonah, he never speaks of his past, but it is clear that he is rotten to the core. Always wearing a chiseled smirk on his waxen face, and often brushing a fingertip along a puckered scar that splits his cheek, a marker of his violent history. As far as I know, Samuel is his only true friend, so there is nothing odd about them huddling together. But they’re also tyrants, those two, and have a well-worn history of teasing Simon and Terrence mercilessly.
But now, as if their pasts were forgiven—or forgotten—they all sit together, whispering to each other like conspirators. As if they’re suddenly best of friends.
As if they all share a secret.
“Since when is your pet so tight with those little assholes, eh? Samuel and Jonah? Come on, they hate Simon.”
I concede with a shrug, even though I know he’s right. Still, I hate it when he calls Simon my pet, a nickname he came up with when I took the poor kid under my wing upon his arrival. He’d been badly abused by his parents for years and was free of them only when they’d both succumbed to influenza, a fate he miraculously avoided. He was so helpless, so shy, and I could see how hard it was for him to not be afraid of the others, of the priests, of his own shadow. I befriended him and he, subsequently, looked up to me, as one might a big brother.
Ironically, since he likes to wear such a callous emotional front, I think it annoys David how many of the boys gravitate toward me. But it’s only because I treat them with kindness. Because I feel a protective responsibility, an inherent defensiveness for them that triggers when the situation calls for it. I know that if David ever gave the younger boys even the tiniest bit of sponsorship, they’d flock to him as equally.
This outer shell he wears leads many—priests and boys alike—to misunderstand David. They don’t see the kindness in him that I do. He has a big heart, bold as a rose in full bloom, even if it is surrounded by protective thorns. In addition to this, there’s one other misperception about my friend that his cool demeanor often exhorts. Most, I think, assume that he’s not very intelligent. Not perceptive. I know from experience that neither is true. In fact, he beats me on both counts. Still, I don’t think he wants the responsibilities, or the attention, so playing the careless dullard keeps him out of that particular light.
In times like these, however, I welcome both his keen perception as well as his amity. I’m grateful that, if push comes to shove, I won’t be standing alone.