Chapter 22 Kate #2
I turned. Laura stood a few feet away, the tablet still clutched to her chest like armor.
She looked tired—we all looked tired these days—but there was something else in her expression.
Sympathy, maybe. Or just the particular exhaustion of being the one who kept everything running while everyone else fell apart.
“Father Corletti’s on the phone,” she said. “He says it’s important.”
“Of course it is.” I managed a small smile. “Everything’s important these days.”
“I can take a message if you need a minute.”
“No.” I straightened my shoulders. Pushed the grief—or whatever it was—down into the place where I kept all the things I couldn’t afford to feel. “I’ll take it. Which line?”
“Stuart’s office. I transferred it there.”
I hurried inside, not surprised to find that the office still smelled like him. I sat in his chair, and grabbed up the phone, longing for Father’s voice.
“Father.”
“Ah, Katherine.” His voice crackled through the line, the connection from Rome never quite as clear as it should be in the age of fiber optics.
There was warmth in it, though. There always was.
Father Corletti had been more of a father to me than anyone else in my life, and even across an ocean, I could feel his presence like a steadying hand. “I trust Stuart is safely on his way?”
“Just left. He’ll see you soon.”
“Good. Good.” He cleared his throat. “I had hoped to send Father Donnelly to assist you with the Samarek situation. Unfortunately, an urgent matter has arisen here that requires his attention. He will not be able to come.”
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. My shoulders dropped. Something tight in my chest loosened.
“That’s really not a problem. I mean, the more the merrier for fighting, but, well, you know.”
“Because you do not trust him.”
There was no point in pretending. “Eliza does. And I know he and I are related. But you said it. I really don’t.
Especially not after learning what he did to Eric.
To Allie. All those experiments, Father.
All that breeding program nonsense. He played God with their lives.
With my family’s lives. He put demon bits into a child and called it science, called it necessary, called it serving a higher purpose. So not sorry he can’t come.”
“I understand. Much of life is complicated. There are many facets. And your instincts have always served you well. I would not ask you to ignore them now.”
There was a pause, and I heard him take a sip of what I knew would be tea. “Tell me, child, what do you know of Samarek’s current state?”
We talked for a while about the portal, about what we’d found in the basement, about Trevor’s body and the blood and the failed attempt with Allie’s blood that should have worked but didn’t.
Father listened more than he spoke, asking the occasional question, making small sounds of acknowledgment.
I could picture him in his study in Rome, surrounded by his books and his crosses and his centuries of accumulated wisdom, processing everything I told him and filing it away in that vast, orderly mind.
“We’re trying to figure out Stuart’s prophecy, but we don’t have a good idea yet. Allie’s blood was our best guess, but obviously that didn’t work. Maybe Stuart will remember something that was in his head but that he didn’t speak.”
I hoped so. The vessel of light that’s shadowed? Allie had been sure that was referring to her blood. Someone with a soul but tainted. But since that didn’t work, there had to be another interpretation.
“We shall all keep pondering,” Father said. “And you must take care. All of you,” he said.
“We will. Eric and Laura have been going through the archives with Mindy and Zane, looking for anything about Samarek’s methods.
So far, nothing useful.” I paused. “About Zane,” I began, then wasn’t sure how to continue.
I’d written everything up and sent Father an email, but this was the first time we’d spoken.
“You did the right thing,” he assured me. “That boy is a victim, too. Not as much as Trevor, but we do not try to count pain. That is never wise. Let him help, Katherine. It would do his soul good to help undo some of what he helped his father wreak.”
“We will,” I promised.
The conversation shifted then, the way it always did when I spoke with Father. “And how are you, Katherine? Truly?”
I leaned back in Stuart’s chair. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Relieved that Stuart’s going somewhere he can get help. Sad that he’s gone.” I swallowed against the tightness in my throat. “And guilty that the sadness isn’t...bigger. Does that make sense?”
“It makes perfect sense.”
“I feel like I should be devastated. He’s my husband. He’s the father of my son. He’s leaving because of me, because I—“ I stopped. Started again, “You remember what happened, right? When Stuart was in the coma. When we thought he might never wake up. Eric and I...”
“I remember.” His voice held no judgment. It never did. “You confessed this to me some time ago, if you recall.”
“Yes.”
He had given me absolution, but I’d had to find a way to carry it myself . “I still feel terrible about it. And now this. The visions. It’s a lot.
“It is. But Katherine. That is not your fault. You did not cause his suffering. You did not choose for him to become an oracle.”
“I know.
“You have done much good in this world.” His voice was firm now, the voice of the priest who had trained me, who had believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself. “You have saved lives. Protected innocents. Raised a remarkable daughter. You have earned the right to happiness.”
He paused, and when he spoke again, his tone was softer. Almost teasing. “And when that which makes you most happy is practically offered up on a silver platter, perhaps you should not run from it. Perhaps you should embrace it.”
I couldn’t help it. I smiled. Actually smiled, for the first time all day. “You always see too much, Father.”
“It is both my gift and my curse.” I could hear the warmth in his voice, the affection that had sustained me through so many dark nights.
“Stuart will be an asset here in Rome. The oracles are eager to work with him, to help him understand and control his abilities. And he will still be in touch with his son. This is not an ending, Katherine. It is a transition. A door closing so that another may open.”
“I hope you’re right.”
“I am old and occasionally wise. Trust me in this, if nothing else.”
When I hung up, the office was quiet around me. Stuart’s books still lined the shelves. His handwriting still covered the calendar. His absence still filled every corner of the room.
But something had shifted. Some weight I’d been carrying without realizing it had lifted, just slightly. Just enough to breathe.
My eyes drifted to the corkboard on the wall above the desk. Stuart had pinned various things there over the months—schedules, notes, reminders, a few photographs. But tucked in the corner, almost hidden behind a flyer was something else.
A drawing. Small. Crayon on construction paper.
I stood and crossed to the board, pulling the paper free.
Red door. Gold doorknobs. The same image Timmy had been drawing for weeks now, over and over, scattered around the house like warnings I’d been too busy to read. But this one was different.
This one had the shadow.
Behind the door, pressing against the frame like something trying to get out, was a dark shape. Darker than the other shadows Timmy drew. More defined. More deliberate. It had eyes, two small circles, carefully filled in with black crayon. And it was looking at something.
A small figure stood in front of the door. A stick figure with yellow hair and blue dots for eyes.
A little boy.
Standing right in front of the thing that was trying to get through.
The knocking man is happy today, Mommy.
Timmy’s voice echoed in my head, casual and unconcerned, the way kids are when they don’t understand that the things they’re saying should be terrifying.
He’s happy. He was knocking really loud last night.
I’d asked him about it that morning, crouched down to his level in the kitchen while he fidgeted and asked for pancakes. He’d shrugged like it was nothing. Like everyone heard knocking from behind doors that shouldn’t exist.
I stared at the drawing. At the shadow with its careful crayon eyes. At the little boy standing between it and the world.
My son. My baby. Drawing pictures of the thing in our basement.
I was out of the office and halfway up the stairs before I even realized I was moving, the drawing still clutched in my hand, Timmy’s name on my lips like a prayer.
I found him in the playroom with Elena, the two of them building a lopsided tower out of wooden blocks. Fran sat nearby with a book, glancing up when I burst through the door.
“Kate? Is everything okay?”
“Fine.” The word came out too fast, too breathless. “Everything’s fine. I just wanted to check on him.”
Timmy looked up at me with a smile. “Mommy! Look what we builded!”
“Built,” I corrected automatically, crossing the room to kneel beside him. “It’s beautiful, baby.”
“It’s a castle. For the dinosaurs.”
“Of course it is.”
I pulled him into my arms, hugging him tighter than I should have, breathing in the little-boy smell of him—grass and sunshine and the grape juice he’d had at snack time. He tolerated it for about three seconds before squirming.
“Mommy, you’re squishing me!”
“Sorry.” I let him go, then watched him turn back to his blocks like nothing had happened. Like he hadn’t been drawing pictures of the monster in our basement. Like he hadn’t been hearing it knock.
I stayed there for a long moment, crouched on the playroom floor, the drawing crumpled in my fist. My son was fine. Happy. Building castles for dinosaurs with his best friend.
And somewhere beneath us, the thing behind the red door was getting stronger.
The knocking man was happy.
I smoothed out the drawing, looked at those careful crayon eyes one more time, and tried very hard not to scream.