The Patron Saint of Butterflies (8 page)

Winky sticks out a dirty, gloved hand.

Nana Pete grabs it and pumps it up and down. “Your garden looks absolutely lovely,” she says, surveying the plants. “The nasturtium especially.”

“Thank you,” he says, looking pleased.

“You don’t mind if I borrow your helper here for a little while, do you?” Nana Pete asks. “I have to talk to her about something.”

Winky shakes his head. “Go ’head, Honey. I’ll be here till late.”

I trot behind Nana Pete down to the car, trying to keep up with her. For an old lady, she can
move
when she wants to.

“Where’s Agnes?” I ask again, my hand poised on the handle of the door.

“Just get in the car, Honey,” Nana Pete answers. Her voice is terse, almost rude. “And shut the door.”

I slide into the front seat next to her, clutching the armrest as she guns the car down Sanctity Road. Glancing over the backseat, I stare at Benny, hoping to discern any bit of information from him, but he has drawn his knees up under his chin and buried his face into the top of them.

Nana Pete finally screeches to a halt, coming so close to the edge of the frog pond that I gasp and rear back. She shuts the engine off and turns sideways, looking at me with wild eyes. Her mascara has started to run and her overly rouged cheeks are shiny with perspiration. She looks like a first-class lunatic.

For the first time, I am frightened.
“What?”

Nana Pete swallows. “What is the Regulation Room? What is it, where is it, and what happens to you inside there?”

I am so shocked at her barrage of questions that for a moment I am speechless. Then I realize I don’t know what to say. Except for a few painful details here and there with Agnes over the years, I have never discussed the Regulation Room. With anyone. Ever.

“How’d you find out about
that
?” I ask finally, struggling to keep my voice from shaking.

“Agnes.”

“Agnes?”
I repeat.

“Well, sort of,” Nana Pete says, glancing over at Benny. She is gripping the top of the seat so hard that the soft leather is indented. “Her parents mentioned something earlier about the two of you having been
sent for
by Emmanuel and well, I don’t know, something about that particular choice of words
got me thinking. Then I saw her limping and I kept pestering her to tell me what was wrong … ” Her voice trails off.

“It was my fault!” Benny wails, lifting his head. “I asked about it on accident.” His face crumples behind his glasses, as if he has just realized the magnitude of his admission. “I didn’t mean to, Honey. I didn’t know … ” He lowers his face again and begins to sob, his little shoulders heaving up and down. Nana Pete reaches out and touches his knee with her fingertips.

“Agnes wouldn’t tell me anything,” she says. “But the way she bolted out of the car when I pressed her about it makes me think there is a lot to tell.” Her hand freezes on Benny’s back. “I just want to know if any of you are being hurt, Honey. Please. Tell me the truth.”

My heart is hammering inside my chest. The tips of my fingers feel tingly. I realize all at once that if I tell Nana Pete the truth about the Regulation Room, a chain of events will probably be set into motion that I will not be able to stop.

“It’s … just … this room,” I say.

“And?”

“And … what?” I bite my lip, unsure why I am stalling.

“And where is it?”

“It’s … um … behind Emmanuel’s room.”

“
Behind
Emmanuel’s room? Like a hidden door or something?”

I shrug. “It’s not hidden, really. But there’s a door.”

“Okay. And what would I see if I opened this door, Honey? Hmmm?”

My mouth tastes bitter, just thinking of it. “A kneeler,” I say quietly.

Nana Pete’s face blanches. “What’s a kneeler?”

“It’s a bench thing you kneel on.”

“To pray?”

“No,” I answer. “Not to pray.”

Nana Pete shakes her head slowly. “What’s it for, then?”

I stare at the top of Benny’s head. The hairs are so white that it is hard to distinguish them from his scalp.

“Honey?” Nana Pete presses. “What’s the kneeler for?”

I wince, thinking of this morning. “He makes us kneel on it and then lean forward.”

“On your stomach?”

“Yeah.”

Nana Pete swallows hard. “Why?”

A picture of me bent over that damn thing, naked from the waist down, flashes through my head. Suddenly I remember where my shoes are. They had been covered with mud and Veronica made me take them off before I went into Emmanuel’s room. “I don’t want your smelly shoes stinking up the room,” she had said. Her lip curled over the top of her teeth. “Get rid of them.” I was glad that Agnes and Peter had already left; it was humiliating to have to hide my dirty shoes under the bench, and even more awful to walk back inside in my bare feet, which smelled even worse than my shoes.

“Honey?” Nana Pete says my name so softly that it makes me want to cry. “Honey. What else is in the room?”

I grit my teeth. “Belts.” Behind me, Benny’s shoulders tighten.

“Belts?”

“A wall of them. He makes us choose which one we want
him to use before we take our robes off and get on the kneeler.”

There. It’s out. Finally. But instead of relief, my whole body feels rigid, as if I have been shoved into a too-small compartment and am struggling for air.

“And then he hits you?” Nana Pete whispers. “With the belts?”

“Yes.”

“Once?”

I almost laugh the question is so ridiculous. “No, not once. Lots of times.”

“And this … this is where you and Agnes were this morning?” Nana Pete’s lips are trembling. I nod. She wipes her forehead with her fingers. “Do Agnes’s parents know? Have either of you told them?”

“I’m not sure if they know,” I answer slowly. “But it doesn’t really matter anyway.”

Benny takes a deep breath and sticks his fingers in his ears.

Nana Pete doesn’t seem to notice. “Doesn’t
matter
?” she repeats. “Of course it matters! Do they know what’s happening to you? Do they have—”

“Hey, Benny,” I say, pulling one of his hands out of his ears. The base of his neck is turning a mottled shade of crimson. “What’re you doing, buddy?”

Without opening his eyes, he says, “Trying to disappear.”

“Oh,
sugar.
” Nana Pete bats gently at Benny’s other hand. “Stop it, sweetie. Look at me.” But Benny just squeezes his eyes tighter.

I lean in. “Benedict!” His eyes fly open fearfully. “You don’t
have to do that,” I say softly. “It’s okay, Benny. It’s just us.” A tear slides down the front of his face, behind his glasses. I wipe it from his cheek with the pad of my thumb. “Listen. Why don’t you go down to the pond and look for that huge bullfrog we’ve been trying to catch? Go ahead. And I’ll come join you in a few minutes.”

Benny is out of the car before I can finish, leaving the door wide open. There is a horrible, awkward silence as Nana Pete and I watch him squat down at the pond’s edge and stare out at the water. I can feel her gaze shift back over to me, but I don’t turn my head. Not yet.

“So Agnes’s parents … ,” she begins.

“Agnes and Benny’s parents know all about the Regulation Room,” I say, drawing my finger down a wide crease in the seat. “Emmanuel has taken them in there several times.”

Nana Pete’s lips curl back over her teeth. “You mean,
they’
ve been whipped, too?”

“Yeah. Most of the Believers have. It’s not just for kids. Emmanuel uses it for the retraining of anyone. That’s why it’s called the Regulation Room.”

“Retraining,” she murmurs. “My God. What a word. How could Leonard … ” She shakes her head. “I’ve got to do something about this. Right now. Right this minute. I’m going to have to call the police. This is unbelievable. You can’t continue to live here.”

Something inside of me rises like a wave of heat at her words. Can this really be happening? After all this time? Someone coming in and putting a stop to all of it?

And then, with a lurch, I think of something. “You can’t call the police,” I say.

“What do you mean, I can’t? Why not?”

“If the police come and investigate, we might be taken away.”

“But that’s a
good
thing, Honey! That’s the whole point! I don’t want you liv—”

“But I—I’ll be sent away,” I stutter. “Agnes and Benny will get to go with you, probably, but
I’ll
be sent to an orphanage or something because I don’t have any parents here. I belong to Emmanuel.”

Nana Pete gets a strange look on her face. “You don’t
belong
to Emmanuel.”

“Well, there’s no paperwork that says otherwise.” A panic is starting to rise within me. “My mother just left me here. With him. And he’s the one in charge. He’s the only one who gets to say what happens to me. If they take him away, that means I’ll have to go, too. And they’ll just put me away somewhere until they get it all straightened out, until everything is legal. Which means that I’ll probably never see any of you again.” I grab on to the sleeve of Nana Pete’s blouse. “Please don’t call the police, Nana Pete. Please. I just … I won’t be able to… I mean, without Agnes, I don’t know if … ” My throat is getting smaller and smaller, until it is a little pinpoint of pain.

“Honey.” Nana Pete’s voice is firm and calm. “Calm down. No one is going to put you in any sort of orphanage or take you away from Agnes. I promise. But I have to do something. There’s no way I’m going back to Texas now that I know all of this.”

“Then take us with you!” I blurt out.

“What?”

“Just take us! Take us! We’ll sneak away at night when everyone is at evening prayers or something and just leave!”

“Oh, Honey.” Nana Pete’s voice is faint. “I can’t do that, darlin’. That’s kidnapping. I would get arrested, maybe even sent to jail.”

“But it’s not kidnapping if we
want
to go with you,” I plead. “Or if you’re taking us out of here because we’re being hurt. Please, Nana Pete, it’s the only way! Just take us and leave. Then we can all be together, at least until everything gets straightened out.”

“But what about Leonard and Samantha?” she asks. It takes me a minute to realize she is talking about Agnes’s parents. “They would never come with us. And I don’t want to be responsible for breaking up the family … ”

“The
famil
y, Nana Pete, is not what it is supposed to be. Emmanuel is the real father here. And Veronica is the mother. Agnes and her parents are complete strangers to one another.”

“But
they’re
her parents!” Nana Pete says. “Emmanuel isn’t … ”

“Yes, he is.” I finish the statement for her. “After all these years of coming to visit us, how can you not see it, Nana Pete? Why do you think all the kids live in the nursery for the first seven years instead of with their real parents?” I breathe in deeply through my nose. “It’s so that whole … parent-kid thing … that bond … can be broken. He wants it attached to him. Not them.”

Nana Pete is looking at me incredulously. I know what she is thinking. Like Agnes, Mount Blessing is all I have ever known. How is it that I have managed not only to remain unaffected by Emmanuel’s ways, but to figure out how deeply everyone else has been? I look out the window again at Benny. He is still crouched down on the edge of the pond,
scanning the smooth surface for frog eyes. He looks so small. “I watch TV, okay?” I say suddenly, knowing she is waiting for some sort of explanation. “I know what it’s supposed to be like out in the real world.”

“
TV
? But I thought you weren’t allowed … ”

I shrug. “Winky has one. It’s real tiny and it doesn’t work very well. It only has three channels. But I’ve seen enough things on it to know that this place is a freak show. I know most people don’t live like this.”

Nana Pete stares at something above my head and shakes her head slowly. “Why haven’t you said anything to me before about the Regulation Room, darlin’?”

Her question stops me cold. I’m not sure if I even know the answer. The easy explanation is that it has never come up. There have never been any Regulation Room visits in August, when Nana Pete usually comes to visit. Is that a coincidence? Has it really taken something as simple as Nana Pete dropping in unexpectedly for Emmanuel’s ugly secret to be unearthed? Or is it something more complex? Have I been afraid all these years of exposing him? Does Emmanuel really have that kind of power over me? The thought makes me angry.

“I don’t know,” I answer, kicking the bottom of the dashboard in frustration.

“Hey,” Nana Pete says gently. “It’s okay. I’m not blaming you, Honey. Don’t get angry.”

But I
am
angry. I’m livid. And not just at Emmanuel. I’m aware suddenly of a horrible, frightening fury against my mother, who left me here with this monster. When I think about the disgusting word in red marker on my back, the fury
transforms into a heavy, choking thing, like a giant sea monster sitting in my belly, reaching up the back of my throat with its long tentacles. Before I can stop myself, my arms and legs begin flailing, kicking, and pounding the inside of the car, the dashboard, the front seat, the floor, the door.

“I hate him!” I scream. “I hate him! I want to kill him! And her, too! I want to scratch her eyes out!” I pound the soft leather and kick the underbelly of the car until, exhausted, I sit limp and dazed, staring at the swollen ridge along the tops of my knuckles. Nana Pete is frozen next to me, her hands pressed tightly over her mouth. But then she opens her arms and pulls me inside them. She is warm and soft and she smells like nail polish and peppermint gum. I cry so hard and for so long that when I am done I feel sick. My nose is running in one big snotty ribbon down the front of Nana Pete’s shirt and when I sniff, it makes a gurgling sound. Without a word, Nana Pete reaches over me, extracts one of her handkerchiefs from inside her purse, and presses it against my cheek. I blow hard and then sit up. My ears are ringing.

“You’ve been waiting for someone to take you out of here for years, darlin’, haven’t you?” she asks softly. I swallow hard and nod, trying not to cry again. She cups the side of my face with her palm. “Well, you don’t have to wait anymore, Honey. I’m going to get you out of here. And Agnes and Benny, too.” I lean forward and bury my face against the side of her arm. My whole body feels loose and shaky, as if the bottom of the car has dropped out from under me.