Page 36 (1/2)

This new troop, to whose freedoives inal troop There is no evil in these newest creatures, no thirst for violence, no rage--

A forlorn cry from the attic called my attention away from the journal This was a wordless wail of fear and pain, so eerie and so pathetic that dread reverberated like a gong note through my mind simultaneously with a chord of sympathy The voice sounded like that of a child, perhaps three or four years old, lost and afraid and in extreme distress

Orson was so affected by the cry that he quickly padded out of the bedroohtly too large to fit into one of my jacket pockets I tucked it under the waistband of ainst the s into the hall, I found hi up at the pleated shadows and soft light that hung in the rectory attic He turned his expressive eyes on ot to do so not only harbors a fleet ofshould possess, but often seems to have a well-defined sense of moral responsibility Before the events of which I write herein, I had soht be more than superstition, because I could envision Orson as a committed teacher or dedicated policeman or even as a wise little nun in a former life, now reborn in a downsized body, furry, with tail

Of course, ponderings of this nature have long qualified me as a candidate for the Pia Klick Award for exceptional achievement in the field of airheaded speculation Ironically, Orson’s true origins as I would soon coh not supernatural, would prove to bethan any scenario that I and Pia Klick, in fevered collaboration, could have iined

Now the cry issued from above a second time, and Orson was so affected that he let out a whine of distress too thin to carry into the attic Evenvoice seemed to be that of a small child

It was followed by another voice, too low for the words to be distinct Though I was sure that this h to tell if it was consoling or threatening

28

If I’d trusted to instinct, I would have fled the rectory right then, gone directly home, brewed a pot of tea, spread lemon marmalade on a scone, popped a Jackie Chan movie on the TV, and spent the next couple of hours on the sofa, with an afghan over my lap and with my curiosity on hold

Instead, because pride preventedthat I had a sense of , I signaled Orson to stand aside and wait Then I went up the ladder with the 9-ht hand and Father Toainst the ss against a cage, dark ies from Lewis Stevenson’s descriptions of his sick dreairls as young as his granddaughter, but the cry that I’d just heard sounded as though it had coer than ten If the rector of St Bernadette’s was in the grip of the same dementia that had afflicted Stevenson, however, I had no reason to expect him to limit his prey to those ten or older

Near the top of the ladder, one hand on the fliup from the hallway As instructed, he had not tried to climb after me

He’d been sole cole sarcastic chuff or rolling of the eyes This restraint marked a personal best for hiin of at least half an hour, an Oly to take a kick in the head froher nonetheless, into the attic Evidently I’d been sufficiently stealthy to avoid drawing Father To to kick my sinus bones deep into my frontal lobe

The trapdoor lay at the center of a small clear space that was surrounded, as far as I could discern, by a maze of cardboard cartons of various sizes, old furniture, and other objects that I couldn’t identify--all stacked to a height of about six feet The bare bulb directly over the trap was not lit, and the only light came from off to the left, in the southeast corner, toward the front of the house

I eased into the vast attic in a crouch, though I could have stood erect The steeply pitched Norman roof provided plenty of clearance between h I wasn’t concerned about walking face-first into a roof bea clubbed on the skull or shot between the eyes or stabbed in the heart by a crazed cleric, and I was intent on keeping as low a profile as possible If I could have slithered on my belly like a snake, I wouldn’t have been all the way up in a crouch

The humid air smelled like time itself distilled and bottled: dust, the staleness of old cardboard, a lingering woody fragrance fro, and the faint stink of so in a lightless corner

To the left of the trapdoor were two entrances into the maze, one approximately five feet wide, and the other no wider than three feet Assue provided the most direct route across the cluttered attic and, therefore, was the one that the priest regularly used to go to and from his captive--if indeed there was a captive--I slipped quietly into the narrower aisle I preferred to take Father Tom by surprise rather than encounter hi in this labyrinth

To both sides of me were boxes, soths of shipping tape that brushed like insectile feelers against, and I dared not bu and set off a clatter

I reached a T intersection but didn’t i for a

Cautiously I leaned out of the first passageway, looking right and left along this new corridor in the maze, which was also only three feet wide To the left, the lahter than before To the right lay deep sable gloo eyes, and I had the impression that a hostile inhabitant of this darkness ithin ar no only indemons--wouldn’t dare to take up residence in a rectory, I stepped into the new passageway and turned left, putting my back to the i that I swung around and thrust the pistol toward the blackness, certain that trolls, wicked gnohosts, zo on er, because this transient madness passed, and I realized that the cry had arisen frohted area in the southeast corner

This third wail, which had covered the noise that I’d inary horde, was from the same source as the first two, but here in the attic, it sounded different from how it had sounded when I’d been down in the second-floor hallway For one thing, it didn’t see child as it had earlier More disconcerting: The weirdness factor was a lot higher, way off the top of the chart, as if several bars of thereminmy path to the ladder, but I was in too deep to turn back now There was still a chance, however sli a child in jeopardy