The Fates

by Thomas Tessier

  ‘You forget about the kids, Kevin,’ Duhl said.

  ‘Oh yeah, they —’

  ‘Both our boys recognised Her immediately,’ Duhl said, cutting off Henderson. ‘They had seen Her before but hadn’t said anything because they were afraid we’d just laugh at them.’

  ‘Did they think it was Our Lady, too?’

  ‘Uh, yeah.’

  ‘They sure did,’ Henderson said emphatically.

  ‘Well, what happened to you while you were sitting out there in your car? What did She do?’ Father Lombardy kept asking questions, partly to gain time to sort out this new information in his mind, and partly in the hopes of finding a flaw, an inconsistency in their story. Something he could use to pry it loose and dismantle it. It was out of hand, all right, way out of hand. These people were trying to form a spiritual posse.

  ‘Nothing,’ Henderson replied blankly, as if the question was peculiar. ‘Nothing at all. She was just there, that’s all.’

  ‘We didn’t move,’ Duhl said. ‘At first we didn’t know what to think, so we didn’t get out of the car.’

  ‘But you didn’t back up and drive away either.’

  ‘No,’ Henderson said. ‘I had it in reverse but I didn’t move. First, it didn’t move towards us and it didn’t seem harmful Secondly, I would have probably banged into a tree or something if I tried to reverse on that dark back road at night.’ Henderson had his story well worked out.

  ‘How long were you there — was She there?’

  ‘Five, ten minutes. Hard to tell, but not long. Then She… vanished.’

  ‘That’s right,’ Duhl said. ‘Faded away.’

  Father Lombardy noticed that Father Connors sat calmly and quietly through this whole discussion. He had heard all this before. Maybe, even, he wanted to believe in it. The other two men present, Schreiber and Mikenas, had also heard it all before as was obvious from their clumsily-contrived looks of interest and surprise at various points when either Duhl or Henderson were talking. At one moment Father Lombardy had noticed Mikenas looking at Duhl with an expression of mock-wonder on his face, brow furrowed very much like Stan Laurel’s in uncertainty. Father Lombardy had turned away quickly and asked another question, to avoid bursting into laughter. Now that everyone had apparently finished talking for the time being, that comic image came back to the young priest’s mind. It was like a drawing-room charade, utter nonsense.

  ‘Well, I’m sure you saw it,’ Father Lombardy began. ‘However, I’m not at all convinced that you saw Our Lady. Something, yes, but not Our Lady.’ Duhl and Henderson were shaking their heads in disagreement.

  ‘Before you go too far, Father Lombardy, there is more you should know.’ Father Connors had at last spoken.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Several of the children have reported that the apparition speaks.’

  ‘I heard about that. Joey Pomar says he heard voices but he couldn’t understand them. I doubt very much that he heard anything. As I said, and as I’m sure these men know, it is an unusual and impressive sight, whatever it is, and it can easily set the imagination racing.’

  ‘My kid understood it,’ Schreiber said suddenly, aggressively. ‘And so did lots of other kids.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Apparently,’ Father Connors said, as calm and smooth as ever, ‘several of the children have heard this presence speak to them.’

  ‘Really? What did it have to say to them?’ Father Lombardy tried to make it sound as sarcastic as possible.

  ‘That she is Our Lady, the Virgin Mary and Mother of God,’ Schreiber replied. ‘No doubt about it,’ he added for good measure.

  ‘That’s too much,’ Father Lombardy said flatly. ‘I can’t believe that.’

  ‘I don’t think it’ll do much good for us to sit around arguing with each other any further,’ Father Connors said. ‘Father Lombardy, a number of parents and children are going to Mason’s Mill on Saturday morning, as they believe that Our Lady will appear there. Do you know the place?’

  ‘I do. It’s an old abandoned mill that hasn’t been used for about a hundred years and there isn’t much left of it, aside from the foundation and, of course, the stream. Local farmers stripped the wood long ago, or most of it anyhow.’

  ‘I want you to go there, too.’

  ‘I’ll be there, Father, I’ll be glad to go. This matter has to be sorted out, the sooner the better. And I’m sure we’ll find it isn’t Our Lady.’

  After everyone had left but the two priests, Father Connors said: ‘You’re very upset.’

  ‘Of course I am. I think this whole business is crazy and dangerous. There was a minor scandal in Garabandal, and we don’t want anything like that here.’

  ‘No, of course not. But you’re also upset because it has all gotten out of your hands a bit, isn’t that right, Father?’ Lombardy’s face reddened, but the pastor continued quickly, so that the young priest wouldn’t have time to deny it, ‘I will not be there with you on Saturday.’

  ‘If this situation is to be handled properly,’ Father Lombardy said, ‘it’s no good just sending me out there. Higher authority should be brought in, the sooner the better.’

  ‘As a matter of fact, William, I have been on to the Chancery twice. These things do have to be reported immediately. I spoke to them after you came to me the first time and again this afternoon, after Mr Henderson phoned me.’

  ‘What did the Chancery say?’

  ‘They will have their own observer at Mason’s Mill on Saturday.’

  ‘Am I the local guide?’

  ‘No, you probably won’t even see him. They’re a fairly independent crowd at the Chancery, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Yes,’ Father Lombardy said.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘When does the show start?’ Dave Lutz asked. His eyes were still puffy with sleep but he felt alert and wide awake. A punch jug balanced on his knees, which in turn were wedged against the dashboard of his tiny car.

  ‘I don’t know exactly,’ Martin Lasker said, sitting on a large flat stone alongside Lutz’s open car door. He looked at his watch. It was quarter to nine in the morning and they had been there since eight ‘Nobody seems to know.’

  ‘An anonymous tip, eh?’ Lutz turned the valve on the jug and poured himself a Bloody Mary — his third.

  ‘Well, no. Plenty of people are saying it will take place this morning — this appearance. But nobody seems to know who found out first, who heard the word.’

  ‘What am I doing out here?’ Lutz said. ‘She won’t appear. I mean, I saw them, so I don’t disbelieve in the thing. But they didn’t look like the Virgin Mary to me.’

  ‘Maybe you saw the Trinity.’ Lasker smiled. ‘Maybe the whole gang is going to come down from on high.’

  ‘Screw that, you don’t believe it either.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ Lasker admitted. ‘But it is the most interesting explanation we’ve had so far.’

  ‘I still like flying saucers better, although they didn’t look like that either. What am I doing here? It’s Saturday morning, damn it. I should be sleeping.’

  ‘And miss a genuine miracle?’

  ‘Miracle my eye. If it was a miracle they’d stage it on primetime television, not in the middle of the night.’ Lutz shifted the jug to the car floor and scrunched down lower in his seat, eyes closed.

  ‘Quite a few people out there already,’ Martin Lasker said. He looked across the uneven field to Mason’s Mill, a ruin of mossy stones and rotted timbers. Only the stream kept going strongly. Lasker could hear as well as see it splashing down where the mill-wheel once was.

  ‘Are they parking their cars behind me?’ Lutz looked around. They were on a rutted dirt passageway nearly a mile from the main road. ‘Damn it, we’ll be the last ones out of here.’ There were thirty or forty people standing around the Mill and quite a few cars lined up down the dirt road.

  ‘Well, it’s a nice place for a picnic,’ Martin Lasker said, not really believing it.


  *

  ‘Isn’t there some way we can keep people out of there? It is private property, after all.’ Ned Hanley dropped his cigarette butt in the plastic coffee-cup and listened for the tiny hiss.

  ‘Yeah, but the Masons don’t have it posted for no trespassing, and it’s all wild country, not cultivated, and the Masons are in Florida or somewhere. Besides, that road is a public right-of-way.’

  ‘Yeah, but it’s still private property, and part of our job is to protect private property. Isn’t that so?’

  ‘Ned, I’d like to do it. I even talked to the Mayor about it,’ Sturdevent said, stretching the fact considerably.

  ‘You did?’

  ‘There’s no way we can go up there and turn people out as if were guarding Buckingham Palace. That’d only cause more trouble. All we can do is go along, try to persuade people to go home and when they don’t, at least make sure they don’t start cutting it up and making a mess.’

  It had been a rough week for Sturdevent, and today promised to be the worst day yet. He had been under steady pressure to come up with something in the Richter case, but it remained as unbreakable as the Donner death. He and Hanley had been at each other’s throats all week and the only reason they were comparatively civil this morning was because they were both so tired.

  What was worse, Sturdevent knew his home life was deteriorating rapidly. He snapped at the kids, when he bothered to say anything at all. His wife kept her distance, which was considerate but cool.

  This damn religious thing had blown up virtually overnight. Thank God his own kids were not involved. Protestant kids didn’t get up to that kind of nonsense. Now everybody in town thinks they’ve seen something, whether it’s the Mother of God or an expedition from Venus. And Millville, his town, was cropping up in news reports around the state. ‘A town of murder and miracles,’ one television commentator had said the other night, greatly upsetting Sturdevent — and the Mayor, who had telephoned the Chief immediately and bitched for twenty minutes.

  Sturdevent looked at his desk diary. He was due to take a week’s vacation, starting next Monday, but that was postponed now. He’d take both weeks together in August. With any luck.

  Hanley, who had been watching his cigarette butt float around in an inch of cold coffee, suddenly said: ‘Oh, I forgot to tell you. I finally got that priest, Father Lombardy, on the telephone last night.’

  ‘Yeah? And?’

  ‘He thinks the whole thing is crazy, but he says he did see the thing.’

  ‘Him too.’ Sturdevent was careful not to make a crack about Catholics; Hanley was one and they had squabbled too much already. ‘It appears you and I are the only ones who haven’t seen it yet.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘What does he think it is?’

  ‘Pollution. Some kind of gas cloud of poisonous chemicals. He’ll be there today.’

  Sturdevent grunted. Pollution. It made neither more nor less sense than anything else he had heard or thought of since this trouble started. The one thing it now seemed certain not to be was a nice, old-fashioned murderer, walking around with a blood-stained dagger in his hand. Too bad.

  Hanley ran one thumb along the line of his jaw, feeling for small patches of stubble he might have missed shaving this morning. Sturdevent looked like he wanted to sit here in the office all morning. Why weren’t they on their way already? Still, Hanley needn’t worry. It was Sturdevent’s problem. If they arrived too late — for what? — it would be Sturdevent’s fault. Hanley wasn’t going to say anything to the Chief.

  How the hell did I miss that, he thought, rubbing a spot of growth just under his chin.

  *

  ‘Idobannahabagonerrayatome,’ he said.

  ‘Stuart.’ Marge Calder stood, half-dressed. ‘Are you getting up or not?’ He didn’t move. Marge resumed dressing. ‘You’re going to miss it, and you’ll be sorry afterwards that you didn’t come.’

  ‘Mmmnaffalugmmmn.’

  ‘Well, I’m not missing it. I’ll take the car. Stuart, do you hear me? I may be out all morning.’ He was sleeping soundly, his face buried in the pillow. How can he breathe, she thought, turning his head sideways. What a nuisance. She didn’t want to go alone, but at the same time she was determined not to miss it. She knew that plenty of people had now seen what she saw, and it excited her. For one thing, it couldn’t be the Virgin Mary, as some people were saying. That was just too silly for words. But if people could think that, then it must be as remarkable and special as she had thought when she saw it. Now, if all went well, she would finally see it close up. Maybe it wasn’t a flying saucer and maybe it was, but it was bound to be something really new and strange, whatever it was.

  It was nice of Martin Lasker to call her up and tell her about it. She had only glanced at the piece in the newspaper — she didn’t read about religion, after all, and that’s what the article had looked like it was about.

  ‘Good-bye,’ she called to her husband. He didn’t move. Sometimes he’s so prosaic, Marge Calder thought, closing the front door of the house behind her. When she told him about the reporter taking down her story about the lights, he just chuckled at that. Stu was a happy, easy-going guy. So happy and easy-going it might just become a problem. Was he going to be increasingly dull for the rest of their lives? Marge Calder hoped not.

  *

  ‘Mind if I join you?’ Father Slomcenski asked, emerging from the dining room after Father Lombardy. ‘I know Father Connors asked you specifically to go to the thing today, but I’d like to tag along and see what happens for myself. Makes a change.’

  ‘Sure,’ Father Lombardy replied, without enthusiasm. ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Great. I cancelled my golf game. This thing really sounds weird, doesn’t it? I gather you don’t think much of it?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Father Lombardy answered, perhaps a little too harshly. ‘A bunch of runaway imaginations. The thing was bad enough when just the children were involved, but now that adults are trying to get into the act it’s almost criminal.’ His own words surprised him. Father Slomcenski nodded agreeably but said nothing. ‘Don’t you think so?’

  ‘I guess so. The whole thing seems too fantastic for a nice quiet middle-class town.’

  Father Lombardy switched on the FM radio in his car as they pulled out of the rectory parking lot, and found a station broadcasting pleasant orchestral music. Mendelssohn, perhaps, he thought. He turned the volume up slightly, to discourage talk.

  He wasn’t happy to have Father Slomcenski with him, especially at such short notice. The other priest was a nice fellow and they got along well, but his appearance this Saturday morning aroused suspicion and uneasiness in Father Lombardy. Was Father Connors behind it? A quiet word to Father Slomcenski? Did the pastor doubt Father Lombardy that much? Was he that devious? Father Lombardy doubted it. After all, Father Connors could have come along himself if he had wanted to — he wasn’t frail by any means.

  Perhaps Father Slomcenski’s presence was as innocent as he made it seem. And he could be very helpful, when it came to that. He was young, strong, burly, a former high-school football star. If things got out of hand at Mason’s Mill, Father Slomcenski would be a good man to have around. In spite of the fact that Father Lombardy had all but convinced himself with his own argument that the strange phenomenon was nothing more than a cloud of chemical gas, he still did worry that it might be something else, something much less explicable and infinitely more dangerous. Something could happen, and if it did, many people would be looking to him, as the representative of the Church, to handle it, to explain and resolve it. In that case he would be very grateful for Father Slomcenski’s presence on the scene. The theological irony of the situation didn’t escape him.

  But another question came to mind. Wouldn’t their presence at the Mill lend a certain credibility to the budding Marianist following? For that matter, was it already a movement, a cult? Newspapers might well report that they were there, and so imply
that the whole thing had the tacit approval of the parish priests. That was something Father Connors would have considered — or should have.

  ‘You look pretty worried, Bill. Cheer up,’ Father Slomcenski broke the silence. He smiled, but the net effect was only to enhance Father Lombardy’s suspicion.

  On Eight Mile Road they ran into traffic.

  *

  By nine-thirty the crowd had passed the one hundred mark, Martin Lasker estimated. Already a lot more than he had expected. Most of these people were probably just curious, but as the young reporter walked through the crowd he could feel tension in the air. Even the curious thought something would happen.

  Near the Mill he saw a group of children seated on the grass. They were dressed in white, a fairly even collection of boys and girls, numbering about thirty. A ring of adults, probably parents stood around the group of children. These were the serious core of people around whom today’s miracle or fiasco or non-event would evolve. They were dressed for church-going, and they didn’t mingle with the other people who strolled around in sports-shirts and Bermuda shorts, some carrying cameras.

  A man named Henderson had phoned in the news about today’s gathering to the newspaper. Martin Lasker asked one man if he knew Henderson. No. Nor did a second, but the reporter was lucky on the third try. An elderly woman beamed and pointed out Henderson, a squat, middle-aged individual with a crewcut that would probably check out as perfectly flat with a carpenter’s level.

  ‘Mr Henderson?’

  ‘Yeah?’ The large man turned to face Martin Lasker.

  ‘I’m from the Millville News.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘I’d like to ask you a few questions.’ Martin switched on his recorder and held his microphone halfway between Henderson and himself.

  ‘Yeah, uh, okay, what do you want to know?’ Henderson looked mildly uncomfortable but at the same time he felt he should cooperate. After all, he had notified the newspaper.

  ‘What’s going to happen here today?’