Clearer in the Night (21 page)

My guts roiled. My hands clenched and unclenched. My head was swirling. I was so full of want and need that my joints ached, but what I wanted, what this need was for? Couldn’t have said, not for all the tea in—well, anywhere, really.

It was too early to go dancing, and for the first time, my stomach turned at the thought. I didn’t want to be pawed at by a stranger. I couldn’t go home and have another fight with my mom. I sure as shit was not going back to my apartment so that Shan could come home and we could go another ten rounds. She’d be fine tomorrow, and we’d talk, and all this crap would go away again, but until then, no thank you.

Window shopping wasn’t as much fun as people pretended, and I didn’t really want to buy anything anyway. Adding more caffeine to my upset stomach and stressed out mind would be a bad plan. I could crash at the park and try to read a book, but I didn’t think I’d be able to sit still for more than half a minute.

It took me some time, but I figured out where I wanted to go. I put my feet in gear and started walking.

I stood outside the church for a while. When I was a kid, we’d all gone as a family, because my mom wanted to go, but we were basically Easter-and-Christmas Christians. And then, when Dad and Sophie died, Mom needed a life raft. I did too, maybe. The church gave us that. People held us when we needed it, and gave us a place to cry and heal and be loved. I got really into it for a while, and was even a youth leader when I was in high school. Mom was a deacon, and a chair on the outreach board. And they were a great church, as churches went. Pam, the Reverend Pam Beacher, had been pastor for about five years now. They’d voted themselves welcoming and affirming around the time I graduated high school; it had been an ugly conversation, and we’d lost a few members over it, but we’d gained more.

But then I went to college. And it wasn’t that I didn’t believe in God anymore, because I was still pretty sure there was something bigger than me out there in the universe, but religion had done so much harm in the world. So much pain and so much anger and so much terror had been bred in the name of organized religion. Add to that what plenty of church members probably would have had to say about how I spent my evenings, and I didn’t really see the point in fighting a losing battle. I just left. I figured that God and I were on good terms, but the church could go hang.

But I couldn’t think of anywhere else to go. There probably wasn’t anyone inside, but I still had the key they’d given me as a youth leader, and I’d never really remembered to give it back. I could go inside and just sit for a little while. And maybe I’d get to be forgiven. Or, better yet, cleansed of this unclean spirit. Jesus was big on that, after all.

Of course, Wes had said a couple of times that some part of me was now an evil monster. Would I even be able to walk inside? It was only vampires that burst into flame, right? At least my key worked on the back door, near the office, rather than the front doors that led into the narthex and the sanctuary. Surely any pending divine retribution would be less stressed out about a source of evil entering through the tradesmen’s entrance. I hoped. My heart skittered inside my ribs as I put my hand on the door.

I didn’t burst into flame. I didn’t even get warmer than I already was in the oppressive August humidity. I took a big, shuddering breath, and gently pressed the wolf back down into my ribs from where she had risen. I unlocked the door, then locked it behind me. It was one thing for me to skulk around in the church, but another thing entirely for someone with more nefarious intent to follow me in.

The downstairs of the building was where I’d always felt godliest. It was a large community room with a kitchen, the nursery, the church offices, and a small religious library. It’s where I’d served lunches and dinners, helped with cleanup, minded the nursery, hung out with friends, and gotten my weekly fill-up on being a good person.

A small staircase led upstairs into the sanctuary. I walked up the stairs, trying to keep my footsteps quiet. There was no reason for anyone else to be here, but still. One does not simply stomp into the presence of God.

If I’d felt godliest downstairs, I’d felt holiest here in the sanctuary. It was simple, as these things went, especially compared to some of the more elaborate churches that my friends had been dragged to. The walls were a clean, clear white, and the pew cushions were neutral and durable. Up in the choir loft, there was a large wooden cross hung over the organ, but no creepy dead guy hanging from it, oozing painted blood. Whenever I stepped into the sanctuary, I’d always been shocked by the amount of space around me and above me. I wondered how beautiful it must have been, when people lived in tiny cramped houses, to step into such an extravagant space.

It was stranger than I’d expected, being the only person here. I walked to the second pew back in the center rows, and then sat down in the quiet stillness and closed my eyes. When I had been a child, hearing the voice of God had been such an easy thing. But now I saw through a glass, darkly, as the man said, and though the stillness was peaceful and exquisite, I didn’t feel that whole body welcoming that had been a feature of every Sunday morning of my youth, when I had fewer doubts and considerations on my mind.

I sighed, and opened my eyes before I strained something in my brain. My faith had changed from when I was a child, so it wasn’t shocking that my experience of faith would have changed as well. It just would have been reassuring to feel explicitly that I was still welcome here. In fact, I wouldn’t have been upset about a neon sign.

It was early afternoon now. How long could I stay here? Would they notice if I just stuck around the rest of the day?

And then there were footsteps clomping up the stairs. My heart skipped—it would be easy enough to lie down in the pew and hide, but getting caught hiding would be way more humiliating than just saying, “Sorry, needed God.” The worst that Reverend Pam was going to do was talk to me about my problems, or maybe take back my key. And hey, maybe talking would be okay. Wasn’t there some rule, anyway, about priests and pastors not being able to share what you tell them?

But it wasn’t the curly headed pastor who appeared at the top of the stairs. Eli stared at me, and I stared back.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. Good to get the upper hand.

He wasn’t fazed, just raised an eyebrow at me. “I had a meeting. What are you doing here?”

“Your grandmother has you on committees already? Wow, taskmaster.” Good deflection, Cait.

That earned a small smile from him. “Something like that. You, however, are not on any boards or committees that I’m aware of. How did you get inside?” Well, A for Effort, anyway.

“The door was unlocked?”

He shook his head. “I was the last one in, and I checked it myself.”

Well, shit, then, be like that. “They gave me a key when I was in Youth Group, and forgot to get it back. And I just…needed somewhere to be today.”

He studied me for a long moment. His grandmother had described us as being about the same age, but he looked so much older than me as he stared. And then he broke into a welcoming smile, and that ageless look faded from his features. It didn’t fully encompass his cold-ocean eyes, but they were not untouched. “May I join you?”

Kisses like cold water, soft and gentle, polite, but still urgent. “Sure,” I said, and patted the pew cushion next to me.

He sat down near me, close enough to talk, but not so close that it would feel awkward in the empty sanctuary. “So how are you?”

“Superb, and yourself?”

He laughed, rich and full, the sound echoing off the excellent acoustics around us. He laughed longer than was strictly polite, but I found myself smiling, and then giggling along. “I’m sorry. That was an idiotic question. I’m sure that everything in your life is sweetness and light. So, how about—what brings you here today?”

Something in his tone, or the twinkle in those cold and lovely eyes, or the self-satisfied sense that he just knew I was going to answer him made me snap back. “How about—why do I keep bumping into you everywhere? Are you following me?”

I expected him to laugh again, and maybe in some corner of my brain I meant it to be a flirty line, but he grew somber. Suddenly he looked much older than me again, and incurably serious. “Has someone been following you?”

“Other than you?” I tried again for acerbic flirtation, but either I missed, or he just wasn’t going to bite. I gave the most all-suffering sigh that I could manage. “No, I don’t think anyone is following me.” I couldn’t help myself. “Maliciously.”

“Don’t joke about it,” he said. “If you fear someone, call the police.” He smiled, finally. “Even if you fear me.”

“Ha! I wouldn’t call the cops on you. I’d call your grandmother.”

He winced. “That would definitely be effective.”

“She’d beat you with a casserole pan.”

“She’d use a frying pan. Cast iron.” He reached out and touched the back of my hand with just one finger. Everything went still and quiet, except for the sound of blood rushing in my ears. “Please, talk to me. Why are you here, and alone, and so incredibly sad?”

A million things crowded in at once. I had a fight with my best friend, or there’s this guy, or even I think my mom is trying to kill herself. What came out was, “My sister died. And my dad. A long time ago. But it ruined everything, absolutely everything, and I have no idea how to fix any of it.”

I didn’t really want to cry anymore. It seemed like I’d cried enough last night to last me for years, but here I was again, the tears sliding out, soft and stinging. I pulled my knees up to my chest, rested my head on them, and let it wash over me. Maybe I’d just never stop, now that I’d gotten started.

His hand came to rest on my back, between my shoulder blades. A gentle pressure that somehow made it easier to relax and just let the tears flow. I turned my head, looking at him. He had a still, almost distracted look, instead of the intense curiosity I’d anticipated. “Who are you?” I asked, without really knowing quite why.

He smiled faintly. “No one so fancy. You know who I am.”

“Why did I tell you that?”

“Maybe you needed to tell someone. And I looked like someone who likes to listen.”

“Do you? Like to listen, I mean?”

Just a nod. Quiet, still. Still waters, running deep.

I told him about that day. About how I’d woken up, and Shan and her mother were already at our house. How Mom couldn’t choke the words out, and how Julia, Shannon’s mother, had been the one who had to tell me that my family had been bisected. How we didn’t even have bodies to bury, and everyone assumed that they’d been washed out into the lake. How my mom had died, too, on that day, and left me all alone. How we went to their empty graves on different days, so that we didn’t have to share grief. How I didn’t even go anymore. Because it didn’t make anything better.

“Why now?” he asked, that gentle pressure constant, just below my shoulder blades. “Why is all of this coming up for you now?”

I sat up a little, tried to wipe my cheeks and collect myself. I felt empty, and impossibly heavy. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

“It would shock you, the things I’ve seen that proved to be real. Try me.”

“You were out looking for me in the woods. Why?”

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.”

“Someone was hurt. Someone was lost. Near my school. I wanted to help.” I stared at him until he rolled his eyes and threw up his hands. “What?”

“I try not to be utterly self-centered, but this week, a surprising number of things that shouldn’t have turned out to be about me have been all about me. So please forgive me for being suspicious.”

He smirked. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

I took a deep, shaky breath, all through my body. “I think I’m turning into a werewolf in about two weeks. What’ve you got?”