Before I Wake (27 page)

The chords vibrated through me and it felt like every one of my cells opened to welcome the music like rain. I sang, and for a moment, I felt a part of something larger, something just beyond my understanding. Every word seemed to bring me closer.

LEO

The only light in the church basement was from the candles, stuck with their own wax to the bookshelves. When I lit them I said a Hail Mary as I waited for each wick to catch. Candles always make me think of Jesus, His brightness in a world of dark. They made me feel so proud I could be helping.

Pride. That's a deadly sin.

But it felt so right to be doing God's work. To be standing tall against the forces of evil.

Even with the candles, the room was more dark than light, and filled with people. Everyone was waiting. Everyone jumped when Father Peter stepped out of the shadows.

“I apologize for our surroundings here tonight,” he said as he walked to the front. “It's not pleasant, but the need for privacy outweighs comfort.” He didn't talk loud, but I could hear him all the way in the back. Nobody else was making a sound. Quiet as a church mouse. Church mice.

“I don't want to keep you in this place any longer than you have to be. I'd like to begin with a prayer.”

Everyone bowed their heads. We all knew the words.

We said amen after Father Peter, then the room was quiet again.

“You all know why we're here,” he began. “I'd like to take a moment to thank those of you who were with me today at that house, and to think of those who aren't with us tonight, because they are still there, doing the Lord's work in the dark of night.”

A few people said, “Amen.”

“If you were at the Barretts' house today, you saw those misguided souls, those who believe that Sherilyn Barrett can perform miracles. Can perform miracles! As if she were gifted at the piano, or could paint.” People whispered in the dark.

“Miracles are the province of God!” He lifted his hands over his head. He punched the air and almost shouted. “And yet these people continue to insist that this little girl is somehow holy. Unbaptized, but holy. Taking money for these miracles, but she is holy!

“I have been inside that house. I have seen that little girl. I have uncovered and revealed their lies for what they really are: a cruel attempt to make money—to make money!—from the pain and suffering of other people. To take advantage of people who are too weak, too desperate, to take solace in the Lord, to put their faith in God alone. It is our job to protect these people.

“I've been in that house. I've looked at that little girl. There are no miracles there, only lies and deception.

“But they will not stop. The Barretts will not stop their lying. The truth has been revealed in the newspapers—you've all seen it. Everybody knows that they are lying, but still they prey on the weakness of the sick, the crippled, the suffering, the weak in God. They must be stopped. We must stop them!”

Father Peter bowed his head. “Let us pray for strength.”

SIMON

Sergeant John Richards was waiting for me at the bar, a bowl of peanuts and a plastic cup in front of him.

He stood up and extended his hand as I approached.

“How are you, John?” I asked, sitting next to him.

“I been better,” he said, settling himself back onto his stool. He looked like a boxer gone to seed, big and shambling. “Nice place you got here.”

The bar at the Balmoral had a reputation as the roughest in Victoria. It stank of spilled beer and cigarette smoke, piss and vomit. There was no pretense of civility—no music, no plants, just the raised voices of its patrons, battered furniture and hazy blue light. “All the comforts of home,” I said.

He waved the bartender over for me. “I'll have a—” I tried to think of a they were likely to have. “—A Canadian. A bottle.”

The bartender shook his axe-shaped head. “No bottles.”

“You don't have Canadian in bottles?”

“No bottles at all. No glasses.” He gestured down the bar, and John lifted his plastic cup to me in a mock toast. “Safer. None of this.” The bartender pointed at his own face, where it looked like someone had tried to dig his eye out with a broken bottle, leaving a twisted, livid scar and a white orb in the socket.

“All right. Just a pint of Canadian.”

He pulled the beer and slid it to me. When I opened my wallet he glanced at John and shook his head at me, waving away my five-dollar bill.

“So are you a regular?” I asked after the bartender turned away.

John shrugged.

I took a swallow of the weak beer. “So what's up, John? Karen told me you came by the house.”

“Yeah. I wanted to…” His gravelly voice was low, and I leaned toward him to hear. “I'm sorry I had to do that.”

I shrugged. “I figured we'd hear from the police, after the story in the paper.”

His voice dropped further. “I owe you a lot, Simon.” He stared down at the bar.

“Don't sweat it, John. I just did what anybody would have done.”

He glanced up at me sharply, locking eyes. I wondered how long he'd been sitting at the bar. “Don't say that. It's not true. Because of you I've still got a job, I've got a pension, I've got my family.”

I nodded, uncomfortable with his vehemence. “Sure. Okay.”

“That's why I wanted to be the one to go to your house. I thought maybe I could…I dunno. I thought I might be able to help. Take a bit of the heat.” He shook his head.

“What's going on, John?” I asked, steeling myself for his answer.

“Charlie…you know Charlie, right?”

I nodded. Charlie Hopkins was John's partner.

“Charlie's got this girlfriend, works over at Monty's sometimes. Dances on the circuit. He sees her when she's in town. Sends her flowers. Nice girl. Clean. No drugs. She makes Charlie happy. Not the sort of girl you want your wife finding out about, though.”

“Ah.”

“Yeah. You know.”

I did.

“Anyway, so Charlie's got this girl. And yesterday he comes in all twitchy. I ask him what's up but he doesn't say anything. Not at first. But Charlie, he knows a little something about what you did for me, so he pulls me aside and he tells me about this telephone call.”

I could see where this was going. “Shit.”

“Yeah. He got this phone call at home Sunday afternoon. His wife is sitting right there and this guy starts talking about Clarice, and how if Charlie didn't want his wife to find out…Your name came up. Your little girl.”

“Right.”

John nodded, drained his glass and waved for another. “Thing is, I'm walkin' around the station today after Charlie tells me this and nobody's making eye contact. Everybody's twitchy. And I start to think that maybe there were a lot of phone calls on Sunday afternoon. And then the story in the paper came up at the morning briefing. You've never seen a squadroom so quiet.”

“What are you telling me, John?”

“I'm telling you to be careful. I don't know who you pissed off, but somebody's got it in for you.”

I had a fairly good idea. “Are we in danger?”

“I dunno. I can't get a read on it. All Charlie said was that the person who called him told him to be on the lookout for you and your family. And not in the serve and protect kind of way.”

I couldn't bring myself to take another drink. It was all I could do to hold down my dinner.

 

Victoria New Sentinel
Friday, December 13, 1996
Waiting for a Miracle
Religious seekers disturb neighborhood
~City Desk~

 

More than a week after the
New Sentinel
first broke the story of miracles attributed to four-year-old Sherilyn Barrett—and despite conflicting reports concerning her ability to heal the sick—pilgrims continue to arrive daily at the comatose girl's Fernwood home. The increased traffic is creating problems for the normally quiet neighborhood.

“It's like a circus over there,” says Cecil White, who lives next door to the Barretts. “The people waiting to see Sherry are fine,” says White, who calls himself a friend of the family. “It's the ones on the sidewalk who are the problem.”

The house has been besieged by demonstrators since early this week, protesting what they feel is a deception on the part of the Barretts.

“I've called the police on them a couple of times,” says White. “They're out there all night, singing and shouting. They call themselves good Christians, but good Christians would let an old man get a good night's sleep.”

 

SIMON

I was guardedly optimistic as I walked toward the house and saw that the crowd of protestors was no longer blocking the gate. They were partway down the sidewalk—I didn't have to fight my way through them. I didn't even notice the graffiti until I was in the front yard.

WHORE CHILD

Scrawled on the front wall in black spray paint, bordered by a pair of crosses, the words screamed at me.

SATAN

A crowd of the pilgrims were gathered at the painted wall, talking in whispers, pointing up to where the vandal had sprayed the words across Sherry's window and wall.

I burst through the door and into the silence of the house.

“Simon, what—” Karen came out of the kitchen as I slammed the door behind me and headed for Sherry's bed.

“Are you all right? Simon, what is it?”

Nothing was changed from the day before. The light glowed beside the bed where Sherry lay, covers folded on her chest.

I released a breath I hadn't even realized I was holding. “Sherry's all right.”

“Of course she is. I just checked on her,” Karen said. “Simon, what's wrong?”

I stepped around the bed and opened the blinds. Karen gasped as the morning light struggled vainly past the words
WHORE CHILD
and
SATAN
,
the writing backward through the glass. Trails of paint trickled from the letters like black blood.

“Oh my God.” One hand rose to her throat as she stepped toward the window. She knocked one of Sherry's stones to the floor and bent to pick it up.

“It must be Father Peter.” She set the stone back on the sill.

“Or his crowd.” I looked out, expecting to see the skeletal priest looking back at me from the sidewalk. Instead, I met the eyes of several pilgrims. I tugged on the cord, lowering the blind.

“I'm going to call the police,” Karen said, turning away from the window. “They can't ignore vandalism, can they?”

“Let me,” I offered. “I'll talk to John.”

I made the call from the kitchen, sitting at one end of the table.

“Sergeant Richards,” I told the switchboard. He picked up after three rings.

“Richards.”

“It's Simon Barrett.”

The phone was silent in my hand.

“Hello, Mr. Barrett.”

“You're there early.”

There was another long silence. “I'm just coming in. Is there something I can help you with?” His voice was flat.

“Is something wrong, John?” I knew, even before I asked.

“Just busy, Mr. Barrett. Is there something I can help you with?” Mr. Barrett. As if he didn't know me.

“I'm sorry for disturbing you, sergeant. There's been some vandalism at the house.”

“I'll transfer you to the reports desk.”

“John—”

“It's Sergeant Richards, Mr. Barrett.”

“Oh.”

“I'm transferring you now, Mr. Barrett.” He paused.

“Somebody called you, didn't they?”

He answered in a whisper. “They know, Simon. They know everything.”

“Who are ‘they'?”

He ignored the question. “You and your family aren't…I can't help you. I can't talk to you. Do you understand what I'm saying?”

Karen was staring at me, trying to make sense of my side of the conversation. “I think so.”

“If a police cruiser stops in front of your house, Simon, they're not there because you called them. Do you understand that?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

“Do you want me to transfer you, Mr. Barrett?”

“No, thank you.”

The phone died in my hand.

“That didn't go well,” Karen said.

“No, it didn't.” I recounted John's side of the conversation. “It's the same thing that happened with Jamie at the newspaper, with my job and Stephen at the hospital. It's Father Peter.”

Karen was pale.

“This is what he was talking about when we let him into the house that day. The ‘repercussions' of our decision.” I
shook my head; I still couldn't believe I had let him in. “What else could it be?”

“Right.”

I started to rummage through the cupboard under the sink.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“Looking for a bucket and some gloves.” I set a bottle of cleaner on the counter. “I thought I'd try to get some of the paint off.”

She looked at me as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

“What?”

She shook her head. “Nothing.”

 

The stranger was silent and still in the center of the crowd. The black letters on the white wall, covering the window, almost made him smile.

It was crass and crude, but he couldn't always control the details—and it served its purpose. Most times, all he had to do was put the spark to the tinder, fan the flames to life and let the wind take the fire where it would.

Would it be enough? He thought it might be.

Over time, the stranger had learned what worked: a steady escalation of pressure until spirits broke.

In these days of little faith, a vague threat and a promise of money was usually enough, and the pretenders were never heard from again. Sometimes, where traces of belief still lingered, he had to go further. Without livelihood, and with their positions in the community under attack, most people found it easier to walk away, to abandon their delusions and fade into obscurity.