The Blessed

by Tonya Hurley

  “The blindfolded person represents faith. Turning symbolizes the disorientation of temptation.”

  She placed the stick in Jude’s hand and instructed him to begin. Agnes was nervous for him. She’d played this game countless times at birthday parties. It was hard and he was not “typical,” from what she’d seen.

  “Striking the piñata recalls the battle against evil. Defeat it and the reward is revealed.”

  Heavy shit for a kid, was all Agnes could think as she listened.

  Jude held the rod in front of him and grabbed it with his other hand, steadying it. He tapped the piñata once, taking a measure of the distance between him and the suspended object. He drew the stick back up and over his head like a knight with a broadsword. Agnes could almost see how badly he wanted the candy inside from the grimace on his face as he swung at the piñata. He smacked it top and bottom, side to side. Agnes was surprised at how on target he was, but there was no sign of damage.

  Jude was obviously frustrated and getting upset the longer the game went on. The nun removed the stick from his hand and struck the piñata herself, also without result. She handed it back to him.

  “Again,” she said, counseling both patience and perseverance.

  The boy swung and turned the stick over to the teacher, who did likewise. Over and over.

  Agnes marveled that this was possibly the first combination of religious instruction and occupational therapy she’d ever seen. Other children began to turn their heads toward Jude, counting the strokes and licking their lips impatiently in anticipation of the sweets they hoped would eventually escape. For her part, Agnes was beginning to feel bad for the piñata.

  The nun’s next swing was a productive one. She made a dent. But then Jude took his turn and cracked it wide open with a mighty whack. The candy spilled and children came running.

  “See, Jude,” the nun said, kneeling to help the children collect their sugary treasure. “You can’t always do it alone. Everyone has a part to play.”

  Agnes smiled, not just at the boy and his achievement but also at the thought of Sebastian, Cecilia, and Lucy that came to her in that moment. There was more than a lesson in the game, Agnes felt. There was a message. A message for her.

  To her surprise, Jude removed his blindfold and looked directly over at Agnes as if he’d known she was there all along. She beckoned him, and the boy, taking the opportunity while the nun was distracted, ran over to her, forgoing the candy he’d earned.

  “I told him,” Agnes said.

  The boy kissed her through the chain link.

  “There are snakes behind the rocks. You might not see them. But you know they’re there,” Jude said in a whisper.

  Just then the nun ran over and grabbed Jude’s hand.

  “You shouldn’t run away like that,” the nun said sternly, looking him directly in his eyes.

  “I think he wanted to tell me something,” Agnes offered, hoping to keep the boy out of trouble.

  “I’m sorry, but that’s impossible,” she said to Agnes. “He’s nonverbal. He doesn’t talk.”

  13 Cecilia awoke to piss-warm rain leaking through the street grate above and onto her in the filthy, white-tiled corner of the subway station she presently called home. She opened her eyes to confirm that it was indeed rain and not some pervert or bum getting his jollies by relieving himself on her. Or something worse.

  She’d ducked into the subway for a nap the night before and had the eerie feeling she was being followed. The subway wasn’t exactly the best place to hide, but it was the brightest place at that time of night, and that was a plus. Turns out she wasn’t entirely wrong. There was a person, scrunched up in a fetal position, lying at her feet. Way too close for comfort.

  “Hey,” Cecilia said, nudging the girl with her foot. “Get up!”

  The girl just moaned, turning over slowly and rising to her hands and knees.

  Cecilia recognized her immediately, even though her long straggly hair was hanging down obscuring most of her face.

  It was Catherine. The fangirl from Pittsburgh. What was left of her.

  “Was it you following me?”

  “No,” Catherine said quietly, lifting her head into the harsh light.

  She was obviously badly battered and bruised. Her hair was matted. Her clothes stained and weather-beaten. This clearly wasn’t her first night on the street. How long had it been since she’d seen her outside the club? CeCe pondered groggily. A week? Two? By the hollow look in Catherine’s eyes, it might as well have been years.

  “Who in the hell did this to you?” Cecilia asked, taking the girl’s head in her hands.

  “Does it matter?” Catherine responded through swollen lips, barely able to muster the strength to form words.

  “Yes,” Cecilia said, already suspecting the answer. “Tell me.”

  “Ricky’s band. They said I could sing a song in their set,” Catherine said. “They said we were going to their rehearsal space in Williamsburg. That I could stay there with them.”

  Cecilia didn’t need to hear the rest. She knew.

  “New York is not a place for someone like you.” Cecilia railed at the girl’s naïveté. “I told you. You need to go home.”

  “I believed them,” Catherine responded sadly. “I’m so ashamed.”

  Cecilia stopped preaching at her, stopped trying to solve her problem. She’d been there too once. Made her share of mistakes. It was like looking in a mirror. She pulled a tissue from her pocket and wiped at the girl’s eyes and face. “We all put our trust in the wrong people sometimes.”

  “What would you do? Would you really leave? Just give up on your dreams?”

  Cecilia did not respond.

  “That’s what I thought,” the weary girl said through cracked and scabbed lips. “That’s why you’re great.”

  Cecilia unpacked her guitar, plopped a few coins into a used coffee cup, and began to play.

  “Still wanna be like me?”

  “What happened?” Catherine asked.

  “Reality. Sucks, but life is full of it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, what?” Cecilia asked, putting down her guitar.

  “Yes, I still wanna be like you.”

  “Why? So you can sing for your supper, live on the streets, and drown in all the abuse?”

  “I can’t leave, just give up.”

  Cecilia heard her words and thought of Agnes. She knew there was no way she could convince Catherine otherwise.

  “Up to you, Catherine. You’ve paid your dues.”

  “I don’t even feel like I have a choice. It’s like fate.”

  Cecilia stared blankly ahead, thinking of Sebastian.

  “I mean, I think our dreams choose us anyway, not the other way around,” Catherine continued. “I’m supposed to stay, to do what I came to do. Whatever that is, you know?”

  “I know.” Cecilia reached again for her guitar.

  “Back to work,” Catherine said. “Can I stay for a while?”

  “Please do,” Cecilia answered, as she began to slowly strum a moody minor chord. “At least I will be sure one person is listening.”

  “One is all you need.”

  “God damn right.”

  Cecilia chanted a few words over the top of the chord changes that she played in the church.

  “That’s amazing,” Catherine said. “Is it about a guy you know?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Have you ever sung it for him?”

  A bit of the wide-eyed devotee returned to Catherine’s face for just a moment, and CeCe smiled.

  “Not yet.”

  A train pulled loudly into the station, cutting off the conversation but not Cecilia’s song. She continued to play and sing through the clanging racket, eyes closed, head hung low, as a few passengers ran for the closing doors and the last subway car pulled out. She shook her head and looked up at the emptiness and squalor all around and then up at Catherine.

  “Does this look li
ke a dream to you?” Cecilia asked, searching herself more than Catherine.

  “No,” the girl admitted. “It doesn’t.”

  “Well, what does it look like?”

  “A calling,” Catherine responded.

  7 “Decaf or regular, hon?” the waitress asked.

  “Regular,” Lucy answered reflexively.

  She filled the white ceramic cup in front of Lucy, who was out of sorts from her experience at the museum. She found herself at a diner on Cadman Plaza in the wee hours. Alone. As usual, she couldn’t remember how she got there. Except this time vodka or Vicodin weren’t the reason; it was a supernatural one.

  She could feel herself being watched, but not by the regular gawkers and stalkers that followed her around.

  “Need to wake up?” a nasal female voice asked, seemingly out of nowhere.

  Lucy was startled. In the neighborhood, she was usually left alone.

  “The coffee?” the girl asked.

  Lucy looked up. It was Sadie. She hadn’t seen her since the ER that night.

  “Sadie?” Lucy said, sheepishly standing up. “Ah, how are you?”

  There was a sadness in the girl’s eyes and Lucy girded herself for the accusations she certainly had coming and the judgment she most certainly deserved. She prepared her defense quickly. Jesse made me do it was the first thing that came to mind. It was the truth but a very thin excuse for ratting out Sadie to him. She should have been able to keep her pregnancy and what she had done private. Lucy looked down at the girl’s belly almost reflexively, but there was no sign of life that she could spy.

  “I just want to thank you,” Sadie said.

  “For what?”

  “For helping me turn my life around.”

  “Really?” Lucy said, genuinely shocked. “How?”

  “You exposed me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “When the story ran with the picture you took, and the nasty looks from everyone started, the gossip, I realized what my life had become. Who my true friends really were. What was really important to me.”

  It didn’t sound much like a compliment to Lucy, more like a cleverly crafted dis, in fact. Something Sadie had been expert at.

  “I still don’t quite see . . . ”

  “I didn’t have an abortion, Lucy. I had a miscarriage.”

  Lucy bit her lower lip to keep it from shaking. Could she have been more wrong?

  “I’m so sorry,” Lucy said, genuine concern and remorse welling up in her face.

  She was sorry. Sorry for making the abortion joke, for taking the picture, and even more sorry for the tremendous loss that Sadie had to bear either way.

  “It’s okay,” Sadie said. “I’m out of that world now. For good.”

  “What about Tim?” Lucy asked. “How’s he taking it?”

  “He’s fine,” Sadie explained, forcing a smile through her tears. “He is back with his girlfriend. He did tell his grandmother. She said that the baby would have been so beautiful, the angels wanted to keep it for themselves.”

  “I’m sure she’s right,” Lucy said, reaching for the girl’s hand. “I know she is.”

  Lucy looked down at her cooling cup of coffee only to realize she’d lost her appetite.

  “Just talking about it with you is making me feel so much better. I haven’t told anyone yet outside our family. I don’t care what everyone else thinks. Their minds are made up already anyway.”

  “You know it’s nothing to be ashamed of, right?” Lucy queried sympathetically. “You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s not your fault.”

  “Thank you.” Sadie sniffed. “I’ll try to remember that.”

  Lucy cringed at how easily she’d betrayed the girl in her hour of need, just as she had Sebastian. The tears began to come and she knew she had to make it right.

  “I’m so sorry,” Lucy said again, hugging Sadie as tightly as she could.

  “I forgive you.”

  One by one they arrived at the church as evening fell. In the order in which they’d originally come.

  Lucy. Cecilia. Agnes.

  All out of breath and filled with foreboding. Looking over their shoulders. They met only a little unexpectedly in the vestibule and smiled empathetically at one another. No hugs or air kisses. No words. None were necessary. Just sighs of relief and commiseration.

  “You felt it too, right?” Lucy said to them.

  They knew what she meant. It was a pull at the center of their being. A fire in the back of their heads and at the bottom of their hearts, burning hotter the longer they were away. A restlessness they’d each had even as children, and then more intensely as teenagers, that something bigger was in store for them. But more than anything, it was the desire to return to him. It was all the same compulsion.

  “Yes,” Cecilia responded.

  “Yes,” Agnes said.

  Agnes explained to them about their namesakes. The legends of their saints and the influential roles they played. Their martyrdom.

  “I told you, I’m not religious,” Lucy said.

  “Virgin?” Cecilia said. “That lets me out.”

  “That’s not the point. It was a different time,” Agnes rebuffed them. “It’s about realizing what’s most important, what you are meant to be, meant to do. And what you are willing to sacrifice for it. They gave all they had for what they believed in. Gladly. A love, a duty, a calling beyond themselves.”

  “Oh, yeah, and what is our calling?” CeCe asked.

  “I don’t know, but whatever it is, I believe it’s something we can’t do alone. Like opening the door to the chapel,” Agnes insisted. “We’ve been thinking that he meant to bring the three of us here to him. I think what he really meant was to bring the three of us together.”

  “We do know something else,” CeCe said. “We know someone is trying to stop it.”

  “But why?” Agnes asked.

  “He can tell us.” Lucy yelled out for Sebastian without reply.

  “Do you think he’s still here?” Cecilia asked.

  “He must be,” Lucy fretted. “Maybe he’s angry at us?”

  “He’s here,” Agnes said with certainty. “In the ossuary.”

  They stepped over the trail of warped plywood sheets, splintered beams, shattered glass, and the damp crumbled plaster that led down the side aisle, surveying the old church like a beloved landmark that was about to be imploded to make way for new construction. Through the sacristy door and into the vestry, which was still showing the effects of the rummaging they’d given it just a few days earlier. It didn’t look like a single soul had been in there since.

  The door to the stairwell was in their sight now, and Lucy held up.

  “All our problems, all our questions started when we walked into this building.”

  “They started way before that,” Cecilia said, shaking Lucy’s grasp and reaching for the doorknob.

  13 “Hey, Bill. How’s it hanging, old man?”

  The junkie squinted through his hungover eyes at the thin young man with the messy shag cut, strategically torn tee, thick-linked wallet chain, and skinny jeans. Everything about him screamed asshole. In fact, Bill would have sworn it was a girl or a tranny at least, if not for the lowish voice.

  “It’s Ricky. Ricky Pyro,” he said, fidgeting. “You’ve seen me play. I sampled your typewriter for one of my songs that time.”

  Bill went blank, searching whatever brain cells might have dried out between then and his last drink. He still couldn’t make the kid.

  “C’mon. You know. Ricky Rehab. From Dr. Frey’s program at the hospital,” the rocker said a little more quietly, leaning into Bill’s ear.

  “Oh, yeah, now I remember. Ricky.”

  “That’s right, Bill. Mind if I pull up some sidewalk?”

  Ricky slid down on his bony butt, resting his forearms across his knees. The old man couldn’t help but notice the paper bag the kid was holding. Ricky couldn’t help noticing Bill notice it.

&n
bsp; As expected, the bag was an icebreaker. Bill suddenly turned sociable.

  “You’re a friend of CeCe’s, right?”

  “Some nights,” Ricky said with a laugh, elbowing the old man like a frat buddy. “Seen her around?”

  “Not a lot lately, but she did come around last night,” Bill said, elbowing Ricky back less convincingly. “She brings me my breakfast every so often.”

  “She say where she’d been?”

  “Oh, yeah. Even told me to write it all down.”

  Bill pulled a few barely legible handwritten pages from his coat pocket and flashed them tantalizingly at Ricky.

  “Sounds like a good story. Tell me about it.”

  Bill was wary. He was an addict, not a sucker.

  “Couldn’t do that. She swore me to secrecy. A promise is a promise.”

  Ricky tilted the bag back and forth. The familiar sound of a liquid rolling around inside a bottle was more than obvious to the old man.

  “Yeah, but CeCe knows all about junkies and promises.”

  Bill dropped his head slightly.

  “All right then, Bill. I gotta go. Great seeing you again,” Ricky said.

  Ricky started to get up from the ground when Bill grabbed his arm, the one with the bottle.

  “What’cha got there, son?”

  “Firewater,” the rocker said with a smile.

  “Holy water, you mean,” the old man retorted with a small cackle.

  “All depends on your point of view, I guess,” Ricky observed.

  Bill’s eyes glazed over and focused tightly on the bag, like a hungry cat in a restaurant back alley. The gentle sound of the whiskey sloshing to and fro as seductive to him as the lapping surf on a seaside resort. Ricky’s tone turned exponentially more serious and demanding.

  “Tell me about CeCe,” he said.

  “I don’t know,” Bill said nervously. “It’s real personal. I promised to keep it just between the two of us.”

  “She’ll never know, Bill.”

  Ricky pulled the top of the bottle up through the bag and opened it, the aroma of alcohol wafting under Bill’s nose like anesthesia. He could not resist any longer.

  “Okay, but don’t be sore at me if it hurts your feelings. I’m just the messenger.”