Also seated with them were fragile Ben, soft as bread dough, seemingly always on the verge of tears about something or other. James, who was a good kid, loyal, and always willing to pitch in. And Timothy of course, who David thought was a nuisance, but the kid kept his stuttering mouth shut most of the time, which he appreciated.
For some reason, he felt it was important to keep his thoughts confined to a small, reliable group. Byron, seated at the next table over, was obviously trying to listen in, but David didn’t mind that. The rough-edged kid was as stalwart a protector of Saint Peter that you could ask for.
He probably wants to be sure nobody is upsetting his holiness.
“I’m telling you,” David continued, “I was out there this afternoon while you lot were wanking in the privy.” Peter gave him a glare, which he ignored. “I wanted to, you know, see it.”
“Who’d want to look at a dirt-bath?” Basil said, giggling at his turn of phrase.
“What do you mean, burned?” Ben asked, ignoring Basil’s comment, eyes wide.
David told them what he’d seen. “It was easy to see the sod they cut and removed, then laid back over the grave. Black as oil, I’m telling you. Like it had been poisoned.” When he finished, the table grew quiet, each of them lost in their own nervous thoughts.
After dinner, things didn’t get much better. Once Bartholomew got himself cleaned up and had a long nap, he started acting even stranger than the rest of them put together. Out of nowhere he was talking to the other boys as if he were the newly appointed mayor of St. Vincent’s, all smiles and handshakes. A child politician if there ever was one.
But he’d never been that way. Not in all the years since he’d arrived. He’d been quiet, reclusive. David had always thought of him as distant and, quite frankly, strange. Consciously or unconsciously, he’d kept a wide berth of the boy, as had most of the others. A wallflower, yeah, but poisonous to the touch.
Now, however, he’d apparently come out of his shell.
At one point, during a game of after-dinner cards, even Basil had noticed. “What’s he so happy about, anyway?” he asked, shooting careful glances past David’s shoulder at the group gathered in the rear of the dorm, Bartholomew right in the middle of them, as if holding court. David didn’t have a good answer then, and doesn’t have one now.
Maybe a night in the hole did the boy some good.
Still, David can’t help but find the whole thing bizarre. Unnerving. Boys are chumming together that had always kept their distance. Even at supper, David noted that Bartholomew’s table was filled to capacity.
But the strangest thing of all is Simon’s newfound affinity for the oily-haired ghoul. Suddenly the two kids are inseparable, when only a couple days ago you’d have needed a sharp knife to remove Simon from Peter’s hip.
David knows that Peter also noticed. And looked, if not worried, at least confused.
Once they’d finally doused the lights and gone to bed, David made a point to keep an eye and an ear open well into the night, making sure no one was doing anything untoward. Unable to explain his own trepidation, his own fear, he nonetheless wanted to make sure no boys were moving about, sneaking between cots. The last thing he wanted was to wake up and have someone’s wide-eyed face inches from his own. Even worse, waking up to a group of smiling faces, surrounding his bed, hands ready to clamp down . . .
No, he doesn’t trust this new normal, and he likes the timing even less. As he lay in bed, the same recurring question popped into his brain for the hundredth time. Unbidden, nonsensical. Burrowing into his thoughts like a rat, gnawing at his brain like cheese.
What had been wrong with that man?
Now, however, between the late night, the lack of sleep and Poole’s droning sermon, he isn’t able to properly focus on his nagging concerns. Besides, the old bastard is finally at the wine-and-crackers part of the program.
David spruces up. Food is food, after all. Even if the “wine” is just grape juice and the piece of cracker isn’t enough to satisfy a baby bird’s hungry guts, he’ll take it gladly.
They all will.
As they stand for communion, David keeps his eyes moving to catch anything that seems out of place. He’s morbidly curious to see if the kids’ strange behavior will permeate the service.
He doesn’t have to wait long.
In the front row, two boys sit side-by-side at the end of a long bench. They are, at this point, the only ones still sitting. The rest are lined up like sheep waiting to be clubbed on the brain and sold for wool. All but the two.
Bartholomew and Simon.
David huffs a breath and looks around for Peter, wondering if he also noticed the odd stragglers. Before he can locate him amongst the others, however, he notices rickety old Father White shuffle over to the two seated boys, the ancient priest apparently winding himself up for a rare reprimand. As David steps closer to the front, he tries his best to listen to their conversation, difficult as it might be to hear anything clearly over Poole’s mumbling prayers as he thumbs stale wafers onto sprung, eager tongues.
“But I can’t, Father,” Bartholomew says, face earnest. “I haven’t confessed.”
“Neither have I, Father,” Simon repeats, looking decidedly less innocent. David thinks his expression is more amused than anything. “I missed confession yesterday, so I can’t possibly take communion. There’s mortal sin in me, Father White. Mortal sin.”
Bartholomew nods along, and Father White alternates between looking apoplectic and totally befuddled.
“You saw it yourself, Father White,” Bartholomew adds. “In the dining hall on Friday. The sin of pride.”
“And my sin was sloth, Father,” Simon says merrily. “Oh, and envy.”
“But, but . . . boys,” Father White stammers, “those aren’t mortal sins.”
Both boys sit up straight at this, their eyes widening as they fervently shake their heads in disagreement. David can’t help but smile at the temerity of their off-stage play, even though he knows it will be called out soon enough, that they’ll pay dearly for it.
“Well, we will certainly discuss this with Father Poole after the service,” White says finally, shaking his head in annoyance as he waddles his bag of bones back to his chair.
For a moment, David stands even with the two boys. Bartholomew—as if sensing his attention—turns his black eyes to focus on him. David gives a light nod, and Bartholomew smiles in return with pale, wormy lips, hiding his teeth.
A wash of queasiness floods his stomach, and David turns quickly away, skin prickling. He swallows a rush of bitter acid rising in his throat, then steps shakily forward and into the extended hand of mumbling Father Poole, whose sticky thumb waits impatiently with the body of Christ.
17
ANDREW IS MORE RESTED FROM A DAY OF RECUPERATION after the incidents of Friday night, but he still feels his eyes grow heavy during Poole’s ponderous sermon. He keeps himself alert by focusing on the children, making sure they aren’t nodding off, or creating mischief, during the service. He knows it’s hard for many of them—especially given how little they generally get to eat and the lack of daily exercise—to stay alert during the long Sunday morning Mass. Still, he will do his part to make sure they remain at least relatively focused.