When I followed the dog into the hall, I found him at the foot of the folding ladder again, gazing up at the pleated shadows and soft light that hung in the rectory attic. He turned his expressive eyes on me, and I knew that if he could speak, he would say,
This peculiar dog not only harbors a fleet of mysteries, not only exhibits greater cleverness than any dog should possess, but often seems to have a well-defined sense of moral responsibility. Before the events of which I write herein, I had sometimes half-seriously wondered if reincarnation might 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 come to understand them, although not supernatural, would prove to be more astonishing than any scenario that I and Pia Klick, in fevered collaboration, could have imagined.
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. Even more than the first time, the wailing voice 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 must be Father Tom, I couldn’t hear his tone well enough 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 prevented me from admitting that I had a sense of moral responsibility less well- developed than that of my dog, I signaled Orson to stand aside and wait. Then I went up the ladder with the 9- millimeter Glock in my right hand and Father Tom’s stolen journal riding uncomfortably against the small of my back.
Like a raven frantically beating its wings against a cage, dark images from Lewis Stevenson’s descriptions of his sick dreams flapped through my mind. The chief had fantasized about girls as young as his granddaughter, but the cry that I’d just heard sounded as though it had come from a child much younger 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 flimsy, collapsible railing, I turned my head to peer down along my flank and saw Orson staring up from the hallway. As instructed, he had not tried to climb after me.
He’d been solemnly obedient for the better part of an hour, having commented on my commands with not a single sarcastic chuff or rolling of the eyes. This restraint marked a personal best for him. In fact, it was a personal best by a margin of at least half an hour, an Olympic-caliber performance.
Expecting to take a kick in the head from an ecclesiastical boot, I climbed higher nonetheless, into the attic. Evidently I’d been sufficiently stealthy to avoid drawing Father Tom’s attention, because he wasn’t waiting 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 my head and the rafters. Although I wasn’t concerned about walking face-first into a roof beam, I still believed there was a risk of being 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 from the rough-sawn rafters, mildew spooring, and the faint stink of some small dead creature, perhaps a bird or mouse, festering 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. Assuming that the roomier passage 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 him accidentally at some turning in this labyrinth.
To both sides of me were boxes, some tied with twine, others festooned with peeling lengths of shipping tape that brushed like insectile feelers against my face. I moved slowly, feeling my way with one hand, because the shadows were confounding, and I dared not bump into anything and set off a clatter.
I reached a T intersection but didn’t immediately step into it. I stood at the brink, listening for a moment, holding my breath, but heard nothing.
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 lamplight in the southeast corner was slightly brighter than before. To the right lay deep sable gloom that wouldn’t yield its secrets even to my night-loving eyes, and I had the impression that a hostile inhabitant of this darkness was within arm’s length, watching and set to spring.
Assuring myself that all trolls lived under bridges, that wicked gnomes lived in caves, that gremlins established housekeeping only in machinery, and that goblins — being demons — wouldn’t dare to take up residence in a rectory, I stepped into the new passageway and turned left, putting my back to the impenetrable dark.
At once a squeal arose, so chilling that I swung around and thrust the pistol toward the blackness, certain that trolls, wicked gnomes, gremlins, goblins, ghosts, zombies, and several psychotic mutant altar boys were descending on me. Fortunately I didn’t squeeze the trigger, because this transient madness passed, and I realized that the cry had arisen from the same direction as before: from the lighted area in the southeast corner.
This third wail, which had covered the noise that I’d made when turning to confront the imaginary 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 seem as much like the voice of a suffering 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 theremin music had issued from a human throat.
I considered retracing my path to the ladder, but I was in too deep to turn back now. There was still a chance, however slim, that I was hearing a child in jeopardy.
Besides, if I retreated, my dog would know that I had haired out. He was one of my three closest friends in a world where only friends and family matter, and as I no longer had any family, I put enormous value on his high opinion of me.
The boxes on my left gave way to stacked wicker lawn chairs, a jumbled collection of thatched and lacquered baskets made of wicker and reed, a battered dresser with an oval mirror so grimy that I cast not even a shadowy reflection in it, unguessable items concealed by drop cloths, and then more boxes.
I turned a corner, and now I could hear Father Tom’s voice. He was speaking softly, soothingly, but I couldn’t make out a word of what he said.
I walked into a cobweb barrier, flinching as it clung to my face and brushed like phantom lips against my mouth. With my left hand I wiped the tattered strands from my cheeks and from the bill of my cap. The gossamer had a bitter-mushroom taste; grimacing, I tried to spit it out without making a sound.
Because I was hoping again for revelations, I was compelled to follow the priest’s voice as irresistibly as I might have followed the music of a piper in Hamelin. All the while, I was struggling to repress the desire to sneeze, which was spawned by dust with a scent so musty that it must have come from the previous century.
After one more turn, I was in a last short length of passageway. About six feet beyond the end of this narrow corridor of boxes was the steeply pitched underside of the roof at the east flank — the front — of the
