Chapter Thirty-Eight
THIRTY-EIGHT
MAVEN
I sleep soundly through the night with the help of Dr. Hansen’s magical pills. When the aunties tell me they’re headed to church in the morning, I’m seized with an irrational desire to go with them.
I’m not a religious person, but all things considered, having a little holy water sprinkled on my head might not be such a bad thing.
Q drives us all across town to the old and beautiful clapboard church. Its spire is topped by a shiny bronze weather vane. Its exterior gleams with a fresh coat of white paint. The stained-glass windows depict various Biblical scenes, none of them violent.
The antiseptic New Testament with its convenient superhero savior, not the bloody Old Testament with its vicious, vengeful god.
The sermon has already started when the four of us enter the church through the main doors. On the pulpit, the priest pauses midsentence. The congregation turns to peer at us suspiciously. Thick silence descends upon the sanctuary, as somber as a funeral shroud.
“Why couldn’t we sneak in through a side door?” I mutter, my gaze sweeping over the pews of hostile faces.
Auntie D says, “Blackthorns don’t sneak, and we don’t hide. Take my hand, Bea.”
The two of them lead our processional down the main aisle to—naturally—the front pew. The family of four sitting there immediately stands and moves to another unoccupied row. We sit, wood pews groaning in the unnatural quiet.
Once we’re settled, Auntie D waves her hand at Father O’Brian, granting him permission to continue.
He glowers at her.
She smiles at him.
I can’t believe they engage in this insanity every week.
After an uncomfortably long pause, the old priest clears his throat. Addressing the congregation, he says, “Have mercy on us, O Lord.”
With the exception of four silent females in the first pew, the congregation replies in unison. “For we have sinned against You.”
The priest spreads his hands and entreats the heavens. “Show us, O Lord, Your mercy.”
“And grant us Your salvation.”
“May almighty God have mercy on us, forgive us our sins, and bring us everlasting life.”
For some reason, Auntie D finds that last part funny. Gazing at the giant cross with its hangdog Jesus nailed to it on the wall behind the altar, she shakes her head in amusement.
The congregation murmurs a collective “Amen,” then everybody shuts up again.
Looking down at the Bible open on the pulpit, Father O’Brian debates silently for a moment, then starts aggressively flipping pages.
He glances up, sending us an apocalyptic look from under lowered gray brows.
“A reading from the Book of Revelation.”
Auntie E sighs.
What follows is an astonishingly violent, bloody, and depressing account of the end of the world, which is somehow also mind-numbingly boring.
By the time the priest finishes, I’m gratified to see Bea looking dubious that a supposedly “loving” god would cause so much suffering in the people he created, all of whose sins and ultimate damnation he supposedly knew right from the beginning when he made them anyway, meaning the concept of free will is a joke, and he’s nothing but a sadist.
I sit through the rest of the service wondering why I felt so compelled to come to this place that seems to offer only solid reasons to embrace atheism.
Then it’s over, and it’s time to leave.
But I don’t stand. There’s a reason I wanted to come here today, and I still don’t know what it is, so I’m going to stay put until I find out.
I tell the aunties to take Bea back to the house, saying I’d like to walk home. They think a little exercise will do me good, so they agree without argument. I give Bea a kiss, then watch my family go, parishioners nervously parting around them as if they’re afraid Blackthorns are infectious.
Finally, the church empties, and it’s just me and poor hangdog Jesus up on his cross.
I study him.
The artist who carved him must have intended to give him an exhausted appearance, but he looks guilty instead. Filled with shame.
Maybe it’s the loincloth. I’d be embarrassed to wear that to church, too.
“It’s not too late for you.”
The voice makes me jump. I turn to see Father O’Brian standing at the end of the pew.
His hands are hidden inside his vestments. His shoes are also covered by them, lending him an unsettling ghoulish appearance. A disembodied head in an embroidered sheet, floating off the ground.
“Excuse me?”
“I said it’s not too late for you, May. You can still be saved.”
“You remember me?”
The look in his eyes is ineffably sad, as if he knows something about me that I don’t, and it really isn’t good.
“Of course I remember Elspeth’s daughter. Your mother was a believer. She hoped you’d be, too.”
“A believer in…?”
“God.”
“Oh. Him.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“I’d sound the same way if you told me she believed in Santa Claus or Tinker Bell.”
“Except neither of them could save her eternal soul from damnation. And unlike Tinker Bell, God doesn’t need anyone’s belief to exist.”
The smug is strong with this one. He’s giving Ronan a run for his money.
We stare at each other in awkward silence until my curiosity gets the better of me. “My mother came to church?”
“No. Never.” His eyes harden. “She didn’t engage in the kind of playacting your aunts enjoy.”
I don’t like his tone, the judgmental prick. “I’d be willing to bet most of your flock are acting, too, Father. People just love to perform their morality dance in public.”
“What about you? What are you performing here today?”
A vision of the swarm of flies devouring my rotting flesh flashes in front of my eyes. I shake my head to clear it. “I’m not performing anything.”
He studies me. “But you’re seeking something. An answer to a question perhaps. Or perhaps something more important.”
“Like what?”
“Salvation.”
That makes me smile. “You say that as if you’re offering it.”
“Not me. Him.” Without looking away from me, he gestures to hangdog Jesus. “Repent, and be saved. Be resurrected after death to join Him in His glorious kingdom where He’ll reign forever.”
“Do you really believe that?”
“What I believe is immaterial, child. It’s what you believe that matters. Faith is a choice you can make freely.”
“Or it’s a crutch the weak-minded need to manage their fear of the unknown.”
“You wouldn’t be sitting there if you truly thought that.”
I’m getting frustrated because it’s possible he’s right. Still, this calls for an argument.
“Why would any rational being want to live in servitude for all eternity, floating around on clouds and singing hymns?”
He smiles at that. “Well, consider the alternative.” His smile fades. “But don’t take too long in your consideration. There’s a battle being waged for your soul, child. Very soon, you’ll have to choose sides.”
I can tell even hangdog Jesus thinks this guy is creepy. He looks as if he’s wishing he could crawl down from his cross and make a run for it.
I stand and face the priest squarely. “I have chosen sides, Father. I’m on the side of science, which never encourages war, rape, murder, genocide, or human sacrifice in the name of dogma.
I’ve read your ‘holy’ Bible. Cover to cover, as a matter of fact.
It’s an indefensible work of fiction that espouses violence and intolerance.
Your god isn’t a just one, and he’s not deserving of worship. ”
Father O’Brian purses his lips. “I see you spent a lot of time in the Old Testament.”
“Yeah. Scary shit.”
“Jesus is the New Covenant whose grace dissolves the Old.”
I say drily, “How convenient. I don’t believe a word of it.”
“Yet here you stand, debating me.”
“You make an excellent point. Please excuse me, I have to go talk to grown-ups now.”
I turn away, but suddenly he’s there in the pew beside me, breathing down my neck with hot, rancid breath, urgently pressing something into my hand.
Gripping my wrist so hard, it’s painful, he hisses, “You feel it, don’t you?
The pestilence spreading through your blood like poison.
The Old Serpent is stirring. Soon he’ll rise from the sunless void of the deep to fulfill the prophecy and claim the one promised to him, the queen who will rule by his side in hell.
Renounce him before it’s too late! Repent and save your soul! ”
I yank myself from his grip and stare at him in shock. He looks possessed. Eyes bulging, nostrils flared, lips peeled back from his teeth like a rabid animal’s.
But then he blinks and seems to return to himself. His expression clears. He releases my wrist and smiles.
“Go in peace, child,” he murmurs.
He makes the sign of the cross and drifts off to the opposite side of the sanctuary, disappearing through a door in the nave.
I unfurl my palm to find a rosary nested there, its wooden beads worn smooth from uncounted years of touch during prayer.
A crimson shaft of light from one of the stained-glass windows spills across the sanctuary and my hand, painting the beads and the small metal crucifix at the end as red as freshly spilled blood.
A loud bang! startles me.
The sound reverberates throughout the space, drifting up to the rafters where it dies in whispering echoes. Scanning the empty pews, I search for the origin of the noise until I look at the sanctuary wall behind the altar, where Jesus was hanging on his cross.
The wall is now bare.
The big wooden cross lies face down on the marble floor, shattered into pieces.
Christ’s severed head has rolled out from underneath. His blank eyes stare at me accusingly.
My heart starts to race. A feeling of wrongness overtakes me.
In a lighted nook in the north transept, a stone statue of the Virgin Mary turns her head to glare at me.
The saints in the stained-glass windows set high on the walls gaze down at me with narrowed, judgmental eyes.
From the carved wood confessionals on the end of the chancel, whispering begins, growing louder and louder until it’s a deafening chorus of Latin litanies.
Terrified, I clap my hands over my ears.
A crushing weight begins to descend on my body, as if I’m being smothered by an unseen force brimming with malevolent intent.
I make it to the end of the pew before I break into a run.
The moment I burst through the front doors and out into daylight, a great storm of ravens explodes from the rooftop of the church in a chaotic black cloud.
As they fly away, their harsh croaking squawks call my name.