Andrew turns, studies Peter’s face. “What are you concerned about?”
But Andrew knows, because he’s been thinking the same thing. And Peter is no fool, not to mention a priest-in-training. He can make the connection as easy as anyone.
There was an infestation, he thinks. But keeps that thought to himself.
For now.
Peter looks at the ground, gathers his thoughts. “It’s just . . . this all started that night.” He looks up to meet Andrew’s eye. “That man. There was something wrong with him, wasn’t there? Besides being hurt, I mean.”
The two of them stand just inside the partially open doors of the barn. The dying daylight, reflected off the silver-toned snow, casts Peter in an eerie light. A hazy glow that makes Andrew think of a halo, a nimbus effect causing the boy to appear insubstantial, as if Andrew is being visited by a spirit.
The light has another unsettling consequence. The way it glints off Peter’s eyes. As if the boy is fevered, or raving. Perhaps suffering from delirium.
“His soul was poisoned, if that’s what you’re asking,” Andrew says finally, cautiously. “I won’t go into the details of his troubles, Peter. It won’t help us through this.”
“Father, please. Tell me who he was. Why did the sheriff bring him?”
Andrew sighs. Peter has always been good at getting him to talk, to give him information he should not be giving. It is his love for the boy that weakens him. But that’s what love is, ultimately. A form of blessed weakness.
“Okay,” he says, debating what he should say, what he should not. “I’ll tell you what I can. The man was the sheriff’s brother. He brought him because, well, he’d been shot. He was dying, and the sheriff hoped Father Poole could save him. Due to his medical training in the war . . .”
“Shot?” Peter says, wide-eyed.
Andrew nods. “That’s right. But Poole couldn’t save him. We tried, but the man died.”
Peter thinks on this a moment, as if debating its truth. “But there were two bodies. One left in the wagon, the other buried here.”
Curse the curiosity of a child, Andrew thinks. Too tired to think of a good excuse, a good lie, he does what is easiest. Under the circumstances, what could it matter?
He tells the truth.
“That was one of the deputies. Paul—the man who was shot—was quite fevered, Peter. Raving, in fact. He managed to kill one of the deputies before we could subdue him. It was tragic, awful.”
“He was insane?”
Andrew does not immediately answer, but instead looks out toward the snow-covered landscape, the dimming sky. “Perhaps.”
“Andrew, tell me the truth about one thing,” Peter says, and Andrew finds himself forced to look directly at the boy, to meet his questioning stare. “Was the man possessed?”
“Possessed?” Andrew tries to imitate shock, but fails. He looks at the ground, toes some old hay into the hard earth with the tip of one boot. “I don’t know, is the answer. God help me, I don’t know. When they found him, he and some others had been performing a . . . well, a ritual of some kind. They killed a young girl, Peter. That’s why he’d been shot by the sheriff’s men. I don’t know if that means he was possessed by devils, or simply insane, like you suggest.” Andrew sighs heavily, studying the heavy carpet of snow, the swirling flakes falling, falling . . . “He was evil. That much I can say with assurance.”
Now it is Peter’s turn to study the ground, the drifting snowflakes.
What’s he thinking about? Andrew wonders, but waits, knowing it will come in time. Peter is stubborn as a mule when it comes to questions needing answers, and Andrew knows he will not let this go until he is satisfied.
“When the man died,” he says warily, as if even he isn’t sure he wants the answers he is seeking, “something strange happened inside the dormitory. The doors were thrown open, as if by a strong wind. And the cross . . . it fell to the floor. It was as if . . .”
Andrew waits, trying to temper his own apprehension.
“As if something entered that room, Father,” Peter says, his eyes no longer delirious, or frightened, or feverish. They look at Andrew steadily. Cold. Assured. “As if something had come inside . . . and settled there.”
Andrew feels sick to his stomach. His muscles turn watery, and he has to fight off a wave of lightheadedness.
It’s not possible . . .
He recalls Paul Baker’s tattooed body. The impossibility of the wound, surely fatal in any other man.
The words he said to Poole.
WE ARE MANY.
He recalls that, for a moment, both priests were convinced the man was possessed. They spoke the rights . . . the holy water . . .
“Andrew, what if what was inside that man,” Peter asks, speaking with more urgency now, knowing he’s on to something dark, something impossible, “if what harbored inside him was somehow . . . released?”
“Enough!” Andrew winces at the sharpness of his tone, but he’s shaken, upset. He wants to hear no more of this. The boy is scared, in shock, surely desperate for answers as to why his friends could do something so horrible.
He takes a few steps away, deeper into the dark of the barn. He breathes deeply.
When he speaks again, he tries to soften his tone, but the sharp edge still remains, albeit lessened. “Look, Peter, I know you’re confused. And I know you’re frightened. But we need to focus. These children that are doing this, they’re . . . angry. They’re desperate. They’re filled with hate. But they are just boys, Peter. The same ones you’ve known most of your life. They’re nothing but flesh and blood. Do you understand?”
Peter stares back at him, a thin shadow standing before the backdrop of framed daylight. Only the whites of his eyes are clearly visible—wide and frantic. Zealous.
But then, finally, he turns away, and his face catches the light, showing the confusion written there, reminding Andrew how young he is. That he’s nothing but a scared child. “I understand, Father. I’m sorry,” he says.
Andrew sighs with relief. This is not something he will entertain. He won’t.
He can’t.
“That’s fine, that’s good. Now, let’s get back to the dormitory. I’m anxious to check on the children.”
Andrew walks past Peter, out into the dying day. His boots kick through thick snow. He grabs the door to push it closed, then snatches back his hand, as if the wood is covered in burning thorns.
He ducks back behind the door, grips Peter’s wrist tightly.
“What is it?” Peter asks, trying to look through the gap of the door’s hinge, to see what has drawn Andrew’s attention.
“No, stay back,” Andrew says, whispering.
But Peter already has an eye to the crack between the hinged door and the barn. “I see them. They’re going inside.”
Andrew releases a held breath. His heart races. “Let me see.”
Peter moves over and Andrew puts his own eye to the crack. He watches as the last boy enters the orphanage. He isn’t able to tell how many there were, having only seen the tail-end of the group. But at least two, maybe three.
Maybe more.
“What do we do?”