House Of Reckoning Part 10

Chapter Nine.

Sarah made her way along the frozen sidewalk as fast as she could, the cold of the Sunday morning making her hip ache with every step as she tried to keep up with the Garveys. Yet even walking as fast as possible, the family was well into the next block by the time she turned the corner and the Mission of G.o.d church came into view.

Sarah stopped dead in her tracks.

An icy chill-far colder than that of the late fall morning-filled her body as she gazed at the building that proclaimed itself the house of G.o.d.

But if it truly was G.o.d's house, why did she feel an overwhelming sense of darkness and evil as she beheld the simple frame building adorned only by a tall steeple spiking into the sky?

"Come on," she heard Tiffany calling, "keep up."

But the dread that flooded over her was so dark that she felt like even the wrath of Mitch Garvey might be preferable to being drawn through the doors of that church.

"Sarah?" Mitch said, his voice sharp and his eyes boring into her so deeply she was afraid he might have heard her thought.

She put her head down and kept going, but the closer she drew to the church, the colder she felt.

And now she felt eyes watching her.

Evaluating her.

Condemning her.

She wanted to turn away and run, wanted to find someplace-anyplace-that would shelter her from the strange cold that was invading her.

But there was no place.

Besides, she told herself, you've survived worse. It's only a church and there's nothing to be afraid of.

The pastor, wearing a long white robe and a black stole embroidered in silver, stood on the front step, nodding to each of his paris.h.i.+oners as they streamed through the door.

Sarah's palms went clammy as she waited, s.h.i.+vering, behind Zach and Tiffany on the step while Angie Garvey leaned in to the pastor's ear for a private word.

The pastor's eyes fixed on Sarah as Angie whispered, then he nodded, and one by one the Garvey family filed into the church. Mitch introduced her to Reverend Keener, but Sarah tried to evade both his gaze and the touch of his proffered hand until Mitch squeezed her elbow hard enough to hurt as the pastor's cold fingers closed on hers.

She peered up at the minister's thin, deeply lined face, and his ice-cold eyes pierced into her as if he were looking into her soul.

Looking into it, and hating what he saw.

"Welcome," he said.

She drew her hand back and slipped it into her pocket, even though she had a feeling it would never be warm again. Then, as Mitch steered her to the doorway, Sarah balked. "I ... I don't feel well," she said.

"Come on," Tiffany said, grabbing her arm and pulling her through the small anteroom and into the sanctuary.

Light seeped in through two tall and narrow stained-gla.s.s windows that flanked the altar, their leaded panes casting a tangle of shadows onto a thin metal cross suspended over the altar.

Hanging on that cross was a skeletal Christ, his mouth sagging open in a perpetual moan of helpless agony.

Sarah s.h.i.+vered and lowered her eyes.

A low and throbbing chord of organ music rolled out of unseen speakers, and then the choir, clad in black robes, appeared through a side door and took their places, sitting silently as Sarah followed the Garveys to their pew. She recognized some of the faces in the choir, which seemed mostly made up of the girls who sat with Tiffany in the cafeteria.

Now, as they had in school, they all turned their heads to stare at her.

Sarah took a deep breath, decided to ignore them, and glanced around to see if maybe Nick was here.

The church was filled, but Nick was nowhere to be seen.

But everywhere she looked, everyone seemed to be looking back at her.

And whispering to each other, their eyes remaining fixed on her.

She recognized some of her teachers, and the gym coach, and even the woman she'd seen in the car coming down Bettina Philips's driveway.

That woman was sitting next to Conner West, one of Zach's friends.

And they all knew who she was-the newcomer-and wanted to see her for themselves.

Some of them smiled at her, but their smiles felt cold, and even as they smiled, they kept on whispering.

Where is she from?

Who is she?

She's the Garveys' foster child.

Her father is a murderer.

Her father tried to kill her, too.

She stays after school in Bettina Philips's room.

"Straighten up," Angie whispered harshly, and Sarah jerked around, fastening her eyes on the back of the pew in front of her.

It's only church, she told herself. It's no big deal.

As if in response to an invisible signal, the entire congregation stood and opened their hymnals. Lagging behind the rest of the wors.h.i.+ppers, Sarah pulled herself to her feet, found the hymnal, and tried to mouth the words of the two dark dirges that followed. Then the pastor took his place in the small pulpit high above the congregation and began to speak.

Sarah tried to follow what he was saying, but her mind kept drifting back to the little country church where all her old friends back home were right now, singing joyful music, swaying together, smiling, and antic.i.p.ating the great potluck feast that always followed Sunday services.

Her belly cramped with homesickness.

Then Reverend Keener's voice rose in volume and turned strident, and Sarah looked up just in time to see him slam his hand down on the pulpit with enough force that she jumped even in her pew halfway back in the church.

Then his eyes fixed on her, drilling deep inside her. "Satan is among us," he said. "Right here in Warwick. Some of us would hold with him-"

"No," the congregation cried.

"But I say unto you right now," the minister roared, his right arm rising and his forefinger pointing directly at Sarah, "you'd best steer clear of those who personify Satan's evil."

Sarah shrank down into her seat.

"Cleave ye to G.o.d Almighty!" he shouted.

"Amen!" the congregation responded.

The pastor let the word hang in the air, then drew in a deep breath. "Amen," he said quietly, his eyes still on Sarah. After a moment that seemed to Sarah to go on forever, the choir rose to sing the recessional, and the pastor turned his back on his flock of faithful to make his way down the small circular staircase from the pulpit.

Sarah drew her coat collar up around her burning face, wis.h.i.+ng she could simply disappear.

But what had she done?

Why had she been singled out and accused with consorting with the devil?

But of course she knew: it had been Angie Garvey whispering to the preacher about Bettina Philips.

Now the heat of indignation began to burn away the embarra.s.sment of a moment before. Bettina Philips was her friend-her only friend, except for Nick Dunnigan.

No one-not even Reverend Keener-was going to change that.

Sarah sat quietly in the front seat of the old Pontiac as Angie backed out of the driveway. The dashboard clock read 2:07, and the prison visitors' center let no one in after two-thirty. If she wasn't inside by then, she wouldn't get to see her father.

"Stop fidgeting," Angie said as she turned out onto Quail Run and proceeded down the street at what seemed to Sarah to be more the pace of a snail crawling than a quail running.

"The visitors' center closes-" she began, but Angie cut her off.

"At two-thirty. I know. And I also know I've got better things to do on a Sunday afternoon than to ferry you back and forth to the prison. From now on you can take the bus."

Which would have been fine, except no buses ran out to the prison at any of the times she could possibly use them.

She'd already checked.

"And there better be a whole column of A's marching down your report card, too, missy," Angie continued, lighting a cigarette. "Hanging out at the prison is not the right thing for a young lady, and it's the first privilege you'll lose if your grades aren't up to snuff."

Sarah sat silently, determined to do nothing that might give Angie an excuse to turn around and go back home, but the dying landscape of autumn flying by outside the car's windows looked almost as bleak as she felt.

At 2:24, Angie pulled into the circular drive in front of the visitors' center. "I'll be back at four o'clock sharp," she said, barely even glancing at Sarah. "Don't make me wait-not even one minute."

Sarah hurried into the visitors' center, signed in, and caught up with the last of the visitors as they were going through the metal detector.

She'd made it.

But when she saw the man who stood up to greet her in the cavernous visiting room, she almost didn't recognize him, and for a moment thought her father wasn't there at all. Then, when he came a little closer, she did recognize him. In only a week, Ed Crane had lost more weight than Sarah would have thought possible. His cheeks had taken on a sunken hollowness, and his skin had turned a sickly looking yellow.

"Hey, sweet pea," he said, a small flicker of light glimmering in his tired eyes.

Sarah ached to run into his arms, to hold him, to comfort him, but one glance at the guard standing nearby told her that she'd better do nothing more than sit in the molded plastic chair across from him and hold his hand.

But at least she was here, and she could see her father, and he could see her, and no matter how cold and bright and horrible it was, it still felt better than being back in the Garveys' house.

"You okay?" her father asked. "How's school?"

Sarah searched her mind for a way to keep the truth of how bad it was from him, but already knew he'd seen some of her misery in her eyes. She forced a shrug. "It's okay, I guess. You know-I'm new-I limp-they think I'm a geek."

Her father's eyes clouded with anger. "You're not a geek."

She managed a smile. "I know that and you know that. Now all we have to do is figure out how to convince everyone in Warwick."

Some of his anger seemed to fade. "How's the family you're with?"

What was she supposed to say? If she poured her heart out to him about how horrible her life was, she'd only make him feel worse than he already did. "They're all right, I guess," she said. She could see he knew she was holding something back, so she forced a small smile. "They're just different."

"I'm sorry-"

"It's okay," she interrupted, deciding to toss one of her father's favorite sayings back at him: "'Life throws you some fastb.a.l.l.s, some sliders, and the occasional changeups,' right?"

Ed Crane smiled. "Right."

"What about you?" Sarah asked, trying to change the subject before he could ask more questions about the Garveys. "Are you taking care of yourself? You look kind of skinny."

"Now you sound like your mother," Ed retorted. Then the flicker of humor in his eyes died away. "Hey, I'm fine. I just don't have much of an appet.i.te in here," he said. "The food's not like what you and your mom used to make."

"Well, make yourself eat it," Sarah told him, realizing that she was now repeating words her mother used to speak to her. "You're going to get out of here in a few years, and I'll graduate and we'll go back home again, right? We'll be together again, like it used to be. So you have to be strong-you have to get through this."

"And I will," Ed Crane said, suddenly understanding just how much Sarah wasn't telling him, and knowing that no matter how much he asked, she wouldn't tell him. And if she could get through what she was going through, so could he. "Stop worrying about me," he went on. "We're both going to be okay." It seemed, then, that Sarah might start crying, and Ed knew he'd never be able to get through that. If she started crying, it might just kill him right here, right now. "Tell me about your art," he said, leaning closer and taking her hands in his. "Does the school have a good teacher?"

Sarah seized on the question, forcing back the tears that had been about to overwhelm her. "A really great one," she said. "Her name's Miss Philips. But-" She cut the word off as quickly as possible, but not fast enough.

"But what?" her father asked, c.o.c.king his head the way he did when he wasn't going to give up until he had an answer.

Sarah tried to make it sound like no big deal. "I don't know-the Garveys-the people I live with-they don't like her."

"Why?" Ed asked, frowning. "Is there something wrong with her?"

Sarah hesitated, then decided there was no point in not telling him the truth, at least about this. "The people at their church don't like her, either. They all think she's a witch."

Ed stared at her for a second, and she could see that whatever he'd been expecting, it wasn't that. Then, when her expression didn't change, he suddenly laughed out loud.

It was a huge, rich, booming laugh that transported her back to the home she'd grown up in and the way things used to be.

"A witch?" he cried out, then laughed again, and finally wiped the moisture from the corners of his eyes. "That's quite a church they've got you going to. How do you even keep a straight face?"

Sarah bit her lip. "If you'd been there, and heard the minister, you wouldn't think it was so funny."

Her father's laughter finally died away, and he reached out and took her hand once more. "You can't listen to nonsense like that and take it seriously, sweet pea. You've got a solid head on your shoulders, and you're perfectly capable of making up your own mind about things like what people might and might not be."