The Rule of Sebastian

by Shelter Somerset

  He adjusted the flame, set the kettle on the burner. He scrunched his nose when Delores’s scratching at the walk-in freezer disrupted his tranquility. “You can’t have anything from there, old girl,” he whispered. “It’s all frozen. I’ll get you something.”

  She continued to scratch and whine while Sebastian retrieved a dog biscuit from a cupboard. He’d never known her to refuse a treat, but she did that night. He clenched the biscuit in a fist and watched her fuss by the freezer door. He remembered the last time she’d scratched and pawed—at the pantry door, when they’d found the nude stranger cowering in a corner.

  Sebastian dropped the dog treat on the counter and opened the freezer. A blast of cold, dry air hit him in the face. He expected Delores to scamper away from the chill. Instead, she bolted inside and ran straight into a corner. Large paw prints marked the frost on the cold thermal flooring.

  She scratched and snarled, glancing at Sebastian with big brown eyes. Sebastian bent over her, trying to understand what she saw. The one light in the freezer shone mostly in the center. He stepped back to allow the full light to shed on the corner. Boxes of frozen veggies and fruits stacked one on top of the other. He could discern nothing that should interest Delores. Sebastian sensed someone at his back. He glanced over his shoulder at Brother Hubert, standing by the freezer door.

  “What’s she fussing at?”

  Sebastian chuckled, and his breath exhaled in thick, misty clouds. “I don’t know, Brother Hubert. She’s acting silly.”

  She continued to scratch at the floor around the boxes. Strings of snot and saliva coated the area. Amused, Sebastian yanked her back and peered between the crevices. Delores panted beside him, running in small, tight circles, her large tail tracing a wide arc in the air. The thick thermal walls muffled her barking and whining.

  “Calm down, girl. Calm down.”

  Turning his head from side to side to get a better look, he fell to a crouch. Flanked by more stacks of boxes, an elongated object wrapped in thick green trash bags leaned against the frosted metallic walls. Sebastian pushed and pulled the boxes farther apart. His enchantment evaporated when something about the package struck him as eerie. He edged nearer. Delores barked.

  The package could not be frozen meat. Theirs was a fleshless order. What else could be that size? He hadn’t recalled seeing it before.

  He elbowed the hyper Delores back. Standing, he reached for the trash bags and began to tear a hole at the top to see what hid underneath.

  Blood pounded in his ears.

  Nothing prepared him for the horror, or for the high-pitched wail emitted by Brother Hubert behind him.

  Under a frozen cowl hood, caked and coagulated blood from a gash wound on the left temple streaked along the blue face. The white of his eye emerged, and Sebastian nearly fell backward. He continued to tear at the plastic wrap with trembling fingers to expose more of the surreal contents. His single heart-shaped diamond earring caught the freezer light, and the sharp and sudden flash cut into Sebastian’s eyes with the ferocity of a solar explosion.

  Chapter Ten

  SEBASTIAN could not shake from his memory the horrible ordeal of carrying JC’s rigid remains into the infirmary for a haphazard medical examination. According to Brother Jerome, JC had been bludgeoned on the left side of his head. But that probably wasn’t enough to have killed him. His body was riddled with frostbite. Even the eyeballs. While wrapped and unconscious in trash bags, his icy tomb had sucked life out of him.

  He’d been inside the freezer for at least eighteen hours. Some time the night before, JC had faced his horrible death. When Sebastian had found him, dressed in a white cowl (hard to the touch, like plaster), Sebastian could not deny the sick irony. They had found JC outside in the snow much the same way.

  Sebastian had to admit, Father Paolo’s swift actions following the haphazard medical examination were justified. He’d called the brothers from their cells and corralled them in the corridor. Their sleepy expressions evolved into gaping horror once they heard what had taken place inside the infirmary while they’d slept.

  “Do you remember seeing anything the other night?” the father demanded of them.

  “I was playing my flute then,” Casey said. “After that, I fell asleep and didn’t hear anything until Brother George woke us for Rise.”

  “I took Brother Augustine to the bathroom after Retire,” Brother Hubert put forth with a shrug and a look of shock on his face that matched the others. “I did hear Brother Casey’s flute playing, but I hadn’t seen anything strange along the way. After that, I’d slept soundly.”

  “I saw Brother Hubert, just as he said,” Brother Rodel added. “I was looking into the corridor right at that moment, and I hadn’t seen anything strange either. Brother JC’s cell was still sealed. Everything appeared calm, and nothing woke me.”

  “Brother Eusebius and I met in the kitchen just before seven thirty, if I recall,” Brother Micah said. “We were getting hot cocoa and saw nothing peculiar.”

  “I can attest,” Brother Eusebius said. “I noticed nothing unusual.”

  “I was in my cell reading and turned in at the proper hour of eight thirty,” Brother Jerome said. “I heard and saw nothing.”

  “Nothing.” Brother George shook his head. “I… I… went to get something to eat earlier, I think, but…. Nothing.”

  “I slept like a baby,” Brother Giles grunted.

  “I hadn’t seen anything, Father,” Brother Lucien said.

  Sebastian pulled in his lips. “I wish I knew something that might help.”

  Frustration carved on his ashen face, Father Paolo ordered each of the monks to return to his cell “immediately and until further notice.”

  Father Paolo held back Sebastian and Brother Jerome while the others sealed themselves in their cells. He escorted them to his private office, where they sat mute, staring at the ruby carpet in disbelief. Small orbs of light from the lamps stained the walls.

  “He’s dead,” Brother Jerome mumbled toward his gnarly toes. “Someone actually murdered him.”

  Only when Brother Jerome had uttered the word did the realization of what they stood in the midst of sink into Sebastian’s mind. The sharpened axe of reality.

  Murdered.

  He’d seen it before. Many times. Too many times.

  At first, Sebastian had considered that JC might have slipped in the kitchen, and someone had discovered him unconscious and made the rash decision to wrap him in trash bags and leave him in the freezer to keep the body from rotting. The guilty monk feared coming forward, embarrassed by his dim-witted actions. Yet the lack of blood splatter on anything inside the freezer or the kitchen rendered that scenario unlikely. Unless whoever was responsible had taken great pains to clean up the scene. Or transported him from another part of the abbey?

  “Is there any other explanation at all?” Father Paolo asked, staring at them with pleading eyes and wringing his vein-covered hands over the top of his shiny mahogany desk.

  “I… I don’t know,” Sebastian said toward the carpet.

  Brother Jerome shook his head. “Who would do such a thing? I can’t imagine. I’ve never heard of it. Not in my entire life, outside the abbey or inside.”

  Father Paolo launched himself from behind his desk and paced, leaving dark prints along the plush carpet from his sandals, which clipped and clapped against the balls of his feet. Sebastian followed him with his eyes, his mind racing with disbelief. For the first time since his arrival at Mt. Ouray, he feared for his other brothers—and feared them.

  Should they be standing guard at the cells, making sure the culprit didn’t escape? But where would he go with another raging snowstorm barricading them even from reaching the guest cottage? Were they really trapped inside with a desperate killer and nowhere to run?

  “We’ll have to call the authorities.” Sebastian’s words rocketed from his mouth in a firestorm. That was the first action he’d wanted to take. Unlike the other times, he r
efused to wait for the abbot’s instructions. “What other options have we? As soon as the storm clears, authorities can helicopter or snowmobile in and investigate. We should’ve called them while he was still alive, regardless of what he wanted.”

  Father Paolo stopped pacing and glared at him. “No,” he said. “It’s impossible. We can’t have law enforcement traipsing around here. We can solve this… this… whatever it is. Once we have who’s responsible apprehended, only then will we contact the proper authorities.”

  “I believe that’s wrong,” Brother Sebastian dared to say, and he formed tight fists in his lap. “You heard Brother Jerome. There’s been a murder. With all due respect, Father, this is out of our hands.”

  “I’ve made my decision.”

  “What about JC?” Brother Jerome asked.

  Father Paolo studied the two men, as if wondering which one of them might have bashed whatever instrument over JC’s head and attempted to conceal the crime. “For the time being, remove him from the infirmary and put him back in the freezer,” he answered without further uncertainty. “Wrap him in the plastic bags we found him in. Keep him away from the food, of course, just in case.”

  Sebastian and Brother Jerome gaped at each other. The tremor Sebastian noticed flowing under Brother Jerome’s tunic sleeves seemed to travel through his knotty fingers to Sebastian. He clasped the armrests to steady his arms and legs.

  “That’s ghastly,” Brother Jerome muttered. “I don’t know if we should do it.”

  “We must, Brother Jerome.” Father Paolo returned to his chair behind his desk. “The body will preserve there.”

  The body. Too easily the words had fallen from Father Paolo’s thick lips. The young man had arrived at the abbey known only to them as “the stranger.” In time they’d begun to refer to him as “the visitor” or “the guest.” Later, after learning his name might be JC, the brothers had commenced calling him “Brother JC,” as if he’d belonged to them. Now, barely a month later, the abbot referred to him as “the body.” A body in need of storage. Sebastian nearly cried out at the appalling absurdity.

  “You have any other suggestions where we might store it without venturing out into this blizzard?” the father said.

  Brother Jerome lowered his eyes. “I can think of no other place, Father.”

  “Then I expect you to obey my orders. Do it before I allow the others out of their cells for Vigils. I’ll send Lucien to help. Brother Jerome, you clean the infirmary. Have Brother Hubert launder any soiled sheets.”

  “What about his clothes?” Sebastian asked, numb. “We had to cut them off him.”

  “Bundle them up and stuff them inside with his wrapping.”

  Sebastian and Brother Jerome sat speechless. Minutes later, they followed through with the abbot’s demands without words. They rewrapped JC in the same trash bags, as if he were a life-size doll. Brother Jerome appeared nearly sick, and, like Sebastian, the former doctor had seen many bodies in his day too. But the circumstances were much different. A murder had taken place inside their abbey, not out on the heartless streets. Afterward, Sebastian and Brother Lucien carried the body to the freezer. They stored it where Sebastian had found it and shut the door with a resounding thud.

  Behind the gloom of a new storm, the morning awakened. During Vigils the chapel remained dim. No sunlight streamed through the stained glass windows and illuminated the crucifix hanging on the high altar. The monks’ voices barely rose above the howl of the wind. Not even Brother Jerome, who always chanted louder and fuller than any of them, raised his shaky baritone beyond a raspy whisper.

  Sebastian noted the vacant and deadened stares of his brothers; it looked as if none had returned to bed, knowing what stirred among them. They’d shared the same expressions at the impromptu assembly Father Paolo had called in lieu of breakfast. He’d ordered that they fast for the morning, considering the dreadfulness that had befallen the abbey.

  They sat on the hard wooden chairs and continued to gaze blankly, waiting for the father to address them. The fireplace at the end of the dining hall stood cold and empty, the gaping, murky mouth of an ogre.

  The abbot muttered a Latin prayer and scrutinized each one from his chair on the other side of the table. “If you struck out in a fit of rage without forethought or by provocation in self-defense, come forth and let me know,” he said. Only the wind smashing against the arched windows parted the silence that lingered. Enlarged eyes darted from one brother to the next.

  “He can admit his guilt without worrying about standing out among his brothers,” the father went on. “Whatever he says will be kept in strict secrecy between him and me. He has my word. No one will or needs to know his deed.”

  “It’s not true, it’s not true,” Brother George wailed.

  “It is true, Brother George,” the abbot barked. “And unless you have something to confess, keep your mouth sealed.”

  A few of the brothers dared to raise their eyes and ogle the father and their fellow monks after Brother George’s outburst. Which of those peering eyes appeared the most guilt-ridden? Sebastian hated the new emotions that coursed along his weary limbs.

  Casey remained frozen on his chair. His shimmering au jus-colored eyes reflected the sorrow and fear in everyone’s faces. Sebastian wanted to comfort him. They had not shared a word since he’d emerged from his cell.

  Brother Giles gazed at his lap, his withered hands demonstrating that uncanny strength as he clutched the wheels of his chair, as if he only needed one word so that he could take off, hide away from the others, never face any of them again.

  Sebastian sympathized.

  “We will continue our day as any other,” the father said. “God, now more than ever, will demand it from us. Prayer could not prove more potent. I will expect that you remain inside the abbey. There’s no way off the mountain, not in this blizzard. If anyone attempts to leave, I’ll call the authorities. They’ll hunt you, if you don’t die first. I will wait for a confession in my office. Go now and prepare for Lauds.”

  Father Paolo had stated a simple order, but one that filled Sebastian—and the others too, by their looks—with sickness and dread.

  Go about their day as if nothing had happened. Pray. Work. Wait for whoever had killed JC to step forward in secrecy. Or if he chose to run, hear news of his being chased like a fox in a hunt.

  The father’s lecture seemed to have unleashed profound emotions in the brothers. During Lauds, the Eucharist, and Terce, Brother George failed to hold back his weeping. Even the hyperspirited Brother Giles appeared forlorn, his good cheer having evaporated along with the smoke from the votive candles in the transept. The brothers glued their eyes to the pulpit where Father Paolo sang the psalms, ignoring the echoing, choked sobs of Brother George and the repeated heavy sighs from Brothers Rodel and Micah.

  Had any one of them yet come forth? When would they know?

  Work with Brother Eusebius passed as any other work period, as if nothing had happened. Only that morning the rustle of the coffee beans and the clink of the silver wire resided heavy and tedious inside Sebastian’s head. They kept to the tradition of silence, with more relish than ever.

  “It’s hard to believe. Hard to believe,” Brother Eusebius finally uttered moments before the call for Sext. “Must be some kind of accident.”

  Sebastian said nothing. No words came to mind to speak.

  Midday prayer passed, and the brothers lined up to take their leave from the chapel, dipping their shaking fingertips into the holy water, crossing themselves as they exited, continuing about their day as if Sebastian hadn’t found JC’s body in the walk-in freezer. A painful parade of numbness and bewilderment.

  Later in the kitchen, where they served themselves lunch (despite missing breakfast, Sebastian hardly had an appetite), they exchanged no words, no glances. The stillness stretched before Sebastian. He fed Delores and patted her big head like he had a thousand times before. As if nothing had changed in their lives. As if th
e sky hadn’t opened up and unleashed a horror upon each of them.

  The absurdity seemed surreal.

  Brother George dropped his serving spoon and sobbed again. “Did he fall? Is that how he died? Please, tell me he fell and didn’t die by one of our hands.”

  Sebastian gazed at him with pitying eyes. He allowed a slight smile to nudge his cheeks. Brother George wiped his tears while Brother Hubert patted his shoulder, much the same way Sebastian had stroked Delores’s head. Brother George returned to heaping food on his plate. Despite his anguish, the portly brother’s appetite seemed little affected.

  No one knew if anyone had yet confessed to the abbot. Sebastian figured Father Paolo would update them without betraying anyone’s identity. So far, the father had taken his lunch and retreated back to his private office without comment. Casey began again to help Sebastian plate his tray, pour his coffee, butter his bread. Sebastian supposed, with JC out of the picture, Casey could go back to the way things were. Yet his eyes never lifted to meet Sebastian’s gaze. He exuded shame, as did they all.

  In whoever’s guilt, they carried the sin among them all. Buried deep in their breasts, the burden of the crime dwelt inside each of them. Disgrace for the horrible acts of a fellow monk, a fellow human being, gripped Sebastian.

  He grew increasingly aware of the brothers observing each other as the day stretched ahead. Passing one another in the corridors, their furtive glances held onto one collective thought: Which one of the brothers was slinking off to the abbot’s private office to confess his sin?

  Dinner taken together in the dining hall lingered more brutally than an impending train wreck. Sebastian could not wait to free himself. But the awkwardness failed to cease. When the brothers met again for Vespers… and Compline, during the singing of the Salve Regina, their eyes continued to dart above their psalmodies and around their cowls. Would Father Paolo inform them someone had confessed? When would the snow lift and the authorities descend on their private retreat like the Marines on Okinawa, to escort the condemned man to prison?