Andrew looks at the sky, as if hoping the answer is written above. “We’ll wait a few minutes, then we’ll follow. We must get inside and make sure the other children are safe.”
“What if that’s where they’re going?”
“I don’t know,” Andrew replies.
“And what of Poole? Or Johnson?”
“Peter, I don’t know.” Andrew takes a deep breath. He needs to control his fear if he’s to help the orphans. “I’m sorry,” he says, and turns to Peter, a sad smile on his face. “Pray for them,” he says. “And pray for us.” Andrew puts a hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Now we know how Daniel felt, readying himself for the lion’s den.”
Peter smiles. “That turned out okay.”
“That it did, son. Okay . . . let’s go.”
Andrew and Peter begin their walk through the accumulating snow, back toward the orphanage. They have gone only a few steps when Peter grips Andrew’s arm.
“What is it?”
Peter is looking away, toward the fields.
“Ben and Bartholomew,” he says. “They must still be in there.”
Andrew tries to recall who he saw walking into the orphanage. Was one of them Bartholomew? He looks at the tracks the others made, a blurry gray line running through the sheet of white, a jagged line cutting from the hole’s trapdoor to the front doors of the orphanage.
“I think that’s where they were, Peter. But let’s check, anyway. Quickly.”
They jog toward the hole. Andrew looks everywhere—at the doors, the fields, back to the barn. He doesn’t want to be surprised again.
Despite his faith, he has no wish to die anytime soon.
They reach the wood platform. The snow all around has been trampled away by many, many feet.
“What happened here?” Peter asks, but Andrew has no answer.
Instead, he kneels down, lifts up the closed trapdoor. He looks down into the dark pit.
And sees nothing.
“Hello!” He yells, just loudly enough to stir any bodies that may remain below, but not loud enough to alarm the ones inside. “Anyone there?”
They wait for a response, but the darkness is absolute and quiet as death.
“It must have been why they were here, to pull out the boys,” Peter says, and Andrew agrees. He finds it hard to believe Ben would cast his lot with murderers, but much has surprised him recently, and he is in no position to make assumptions on the natures of the children he loves so dearly. Or, at least, those he once did.
“Well, there’s no one here now. Come on, we best get inside, and hope we don’t run into the others.”
Peter bends down, begins to raise the trapdoor in order to seal the black pit.
He pauses.
“What is it?” Andrew asks, turning to leave.
After a moment, Peter lets the door close. “Nothing,” he says. “I thought I saw something, in the shadows. But I was wrong.”
Andrew nods, knowing it doesn’t matter if he was wrong or not. If someone was down there, they weren’t moving, and they weren’t calling for help.
Not anymore.
43
SULLEN AND SERVILE, JOHNSON WATCHES AS Bartholomew tries to open the thick wooden door.
He could have told the boy that Poole likely threw the iron bolt into place, but since his exodus from the hole it’s been hard for him to find the right words. The buzzing in his head is so loud—that black cloud of insects （he now imagines them as fat, black flies） swarming behind his eyes, between his ears—cancels out everything else: all thought, all memories. Although his sight and hearing are, mostly, intact, speaking seems impossible. Like lifting giant bags of sand from deep water.
“Brother Johnson . . .” Bartholomew says. An order.
He knows what he must do. The instructions come to him from the flies. They are as clear and commanding as the voice of God.
Bartholomew steps aside as Johnson takes a step back, then kicks his boot at the spot where the bolt rests on the opposite side. The clasp housing the bolt blasts from the frame. The door bursts inward with a shower of splinters and an old man’s scream from within.
The boys flow into the room as a slick line, an eager serpent slithering through a hole in a broken wall, as if smelling a digestible infant asleep on the other side.
Poole lies in his bed, the very one Paul Baker died upon only a few nights prior. As Johnson enters, the priest is perched up on one elbow, eyes wide with fear and indignation. “What is this? Get out!”
Johnson doesn’t want to look at Poole. Doesn’t want to see the betrayal on his face, the shock, the disappointment. Instead, he walks straight to a far corner and slumps down into it, head hanging on a loose neck, hair covering his features. The swarm in his head intensifies. He presses his hands onto his eyes to keep the bugs from escaping.
“Johnson? Johnson!” Poole screeches. “What are you doing?”
But Johnson doesn’t reply. Even though he can hear the words, he doesn’t allow himself to feel the words. He focuses instead on the noise inside his head. The instructions.
He loses himself to the swarm, lets his body go slack.
“How are we feeling, Father Poole?” Bartholomew says. There are snickers from the other boys, seven in all. The lion’s share of the rebels. The totality of what evil has brought to the small orphanage.
And yet, there is another.
But, like Johnson, each of the boys has their own instruction. Their own tasks to perform.
“Your leg looks rather angry, Father Poole,” Bartholomew says, tutting. “That wound is deep.”
Despite himself, despite the swarm, Johnson dares to lift his eyes. He wants to see this . . . this command over Jeremiah Poole. He wants to see the man humiliated, the way he has humiliated Johnson for so many years.
Your dog is sick, master. The thought flows through the noise and he grins, loving the sound of his own inner voice mingling with the swarm. It feels glorious. Your dog is sick. It’s been bitten by a bat, or a rat, or a boy. Johnson shows teeth. Yes, bitten by a boy, and now it’s sick. Now it’s rabid.
The swarm sings: Lyssa! Rabere! Rabhas!
Poole begins to pray. Johnson watches him from the floor; watches as he presses his cross to his lips, eyes closed. Murmuring nonsense to a deaf, uncaring god.
Bartholomew laughs, then turns and catches Johnson’s eye. Something passes between them. Instruction.
Still, Johnson does not move. Not yet.
“Enough, Father. You’re boring us, and we have much to discuss.”
Poole’s eyes snap open, lock on Bartholomew. Filled with hate.
“Are you so weak, demon? That you infest the innocent?”
Johnson looks from face to face. A few of the boys are frowning now. Not so confident. Not so cheerful. Simon, seemingly unfazed, studies the drawers of Poole’s dresser.
Bartholomew sits at the foot of Poole’s bed. Unbothered.
“Why not ME!” Poole screams, holding the cross on his neck aloft, aiming it like a weapon at Bartholomew. “Why not infest someone who deserves your scorn and your hate? You coward! You spiteful trickster!”
“Enough!” Bartholomew snaps, and slaps a hand down on Poole’s thigh, where the bandage wraps the wound. Johnson sees him squeeze, sees the blood spill from the cloth, run down the skinny white leg and into the sheets.