Fallen Rose

by Amelia Wilde

  It’s nearly midnight when I arrive at church. Thomas, my most trusted driver, drops me off behind the building. Stained glass glows against the dark. It’s never fully lit when I come. Bright enough to find my way and no more. The door at the back is open. The lock clicks closed as soon as I’m inside.

  I’ve entered at the far end of the sanctuary, near an archway that opens onto an aisle. I pass rows of shadowed pews on the way to the narthex. My own confusion, my own unrest, doesn’t begin to calm until I’ve reached the baptismal font and made the sign of the cross. It should burn me. I’m going to hell. But it doesn’t. I shrug off my overcoat and hang it on one of the hooks off to the side. There are no others here. There are never any others here when I come to Mass. This is how I have to arrange it.

  I know how fucked up it is that I’m here. Most of my siblings have dropped out of the church entirely. I don’t blame them for that. Some unholy shit has gone on behind the doors of most churches. Crimes. Of all of them, I’m the least likely to do this at all, ever. The Beast of Bishop’s Landing doesn’t believe in God. He definitely does not attend church.

  It’s remained as big a secret as the wounds on my back. If anyone were to find out, they’d use this place against me. They would hurt the people inside it. And I won’t fucking have that. I’ve worked too hard to make it what it is. A real sanctuary.

  Father Simon moves behind the altar as I reenter, lighting candles near the crucifix. It hurts to bend my knee at the side of the last pew. My chest aches where I was shot. My muscles are all overtired. But following the ritual feels better than not following it. When I’ve finished I drop into the closest seat, fold my arms over the back of the next pew, and put my head down.

  It’s against church etiquette. It’s not the worst I’ve done. Fortunately for me, Father Simon is a forgiving priest. He’s also the only priest who knows about Caroline. He is the only one who knows about the wounds, and the pain. Another reason I arrange private midnight Mass. Sometimes I need to be here. And sometimes I can’t fucking stand. Sometimes I need a minute in what he calls my personal attitude of prayer.

  He moves unhurriedly down the nave a minute or two later, making no comment as he goes. He’ll be waiting for me in the confessional.

  I spend another few minutes breathing in incense and polished wood, then follow him. The confessional itself is large, wooden, and meant to look like an antique. It’s not. I had it built for the church eight years ago. The one at the church where I was baptized, the one where I was an altar server—that confessional was too narrow. After Caroline, I couldn’t stand to be in a space that small. I made this one easier to breathe in. There’s a narrow shelf near the grate where I can lean, which is good, because I’m so fucking out of sorts that sitting up straight would be the last straw.

  In the dark of the confessional, I can only see Father Simon’s outline through the wooden grate. I make the sign of the cross. “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.” He murmurs this along with me, and I hear him settle in afterward.

  “Good evening, child of God.”

  “You always say that to me. Child of God. But it’s not the usual greeting.”

  “Some penitents cannot help but close their hearts if I say my child. I say it to remind you that I am standing in for Christ, not for your father.”

  Well.

  “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been…” Jesus. How long? An eternity, and not long enough. “Five weeks since my last confession.”

  “May God help you to know your sins and trust in his mercy.”

  “Amen.”

  “For the steadfast love of the Lord will never cease. His mercies are never ending. They are new every morning.”

  So is His judgment, but that’s not why I’m here. Not all of why I’m here.

  “Tell me,” says Father Simon.

  “I’ve been busy.” From the moment I got Phillip Constantine to sign that contract to now feels like a hundred lifetimes.

  “It’s been a long time. I thought you had forgotten me.”

  “No, Father. I’ve broken every commandment at least twice, but I never forget.”

  He pauses. The first time Father Simon did this, I wanted to tear the confessional down around me and light it on fire. I was sure he’d turn me out. Confirm what I already knew. “I sense a struggle in you. Something’s changed since you were last here.”

  Something. Someone. Haley walked into my life, and now I’m another person. Or now she’s seen the heart of me. I don’t know which, but a heavy despair pulls at me with grasping hands. This is the only place I don’t have to hide it. It’s too late, and I’m too wrecked, to hide it. “What do you do when you’ve sinned, you’ve committed crimes, you’ve hurt an innocent and—” Fuck. Hard to breathe. “And you don’t regret it?”

  “God’s mercies are never ending,” he answers. “As is love.”

  My sharp laugh is answered by fresh pain where the bullet wound has mostly healed. “Is that what this is?”

  “That is not for me to say. But I think you have much to tell me.”

  I let out a breath. Will the agony to ease up a little. “I confess to Almighty God that I forced a woman. Not the way people think it will happen. Not in an alley with a knife in my hand. I used a pen instead. I forced her to sign an agreement. She had no choice. I used her love of her family against her so she had no choice, and then I used her body for my own pleasure. Again. And again.”

  “Hmm. Go on.”

  Father Simon has never been shocked by what I tell him. He has never broken the seal of the confessional. We had a frank discussion about that once. He’s bound to go to his grave with these secrets. But in this church, in my fucking church, there’s a line. As far as I know, no one has ever confessed to hurting a child, and I would know about it.

  “I almost killed a man. I wanted to.” Rick’s throat in my hands. His eyes widening. “I don’t regret any of that, which must be another sin. And there’s something else.”

  “Confess.”

  “I confess that I took revenge on a woman. On Caroline.” Thank fuck he already knows about Caroline. “I hurt her. With a whip. I thought—” I swallow around an ache in my throat. “I thought it would free me, but I just felt hollow afterward.”

  “Paul gave us guidance on this, child of God. Do not take revenge, dear friends, but leave room for God’s wrath.”

  “Yes, yes. Vengeance is mine, I will repay.”

  “Yet you took matters into your own hands.”

  “We’re supposed to be messengers of God.”

  “And God told you to seek vengeance?”

  I lean my head on my hand. “I swore I’d return the favor for what she did to me. And then I survived to do it, which seems like encouragement, if not endorsement. Whatsoever a man soweth, that he shall also reap.”

  Father Simon waits. I haven’t made a convincing argument. There isn’t one. I’m here to confess, not to argue about Caroline.

  “Her name is Haley,” I tell him, and my heart punches at my rib cage. “And I want to keep her. It would be—it is a sin to keep her.”

  “I disagree.”

  The sound I make isn’t appropriate for a confessional. “I’m sorry, Father. I’m fucking—I’m shocked you would say that. I have to let her go. How can I let her go?”

  “If God has given her to you, then would it not be a sin to send her away?”

  “God didn’t send her to me. I went after her family. Her father. And then I found her, and I took her.”

  “The Lord moves in a mysterious way, His wonders to perform.”

  “That’s a poem, Father, though I appreciate your sense of humor.”

  He sighs. “You are a good man. If Haley needs your protection, then you will find a way.”

  A flicker of anger. Of grief. “Your faith is clouding your vision. I’m not a good man.”

  “The children who study at the after-school program you fund would
disagree.”

  My face goes hot with suspicion. A sensation of being seen when I didn’t want to be witnessed. It’s true that I have made good here. Anyone who works with children has been background-checked to within an inch of their lives. There are rules in place to protect them. Protocols. I am heavily involved with the teachings at the after-school program. I’ve forbidden the staff from using guilt as a cudgel. It’s different here. I have pissed off the diocese and the Vatican on more than one occasion because of it. “That’s not—”

  “You remain anonymous to our church and to the world,” Father Simon says, his tone soothing. He’s completely unafraid of my temper. Completely unthreatened. “But you are known to the Lord. He knows what you give.”

  This doesn’t settle me. It doesn’t give me the calm I came here to find. It’s not true, but when he says it, I want to believe it. Just like when Haley says I’m a fucking prince. Princes don’t have to confess to being nightmares made flesh. And I am a nightmare in more ways than one. “I confess that I came near to death.”

  “Dying is not a sin, child of God.”

  “I got shot in the chest. The bullet collapsed one of my lungs and almost killed me. I bled out all over Haley’s lap. I didn’t make an act of perfect contrition. I spoke to her, not God, and the whole thing terrified her. It’s given her nightmares.”

  “Bear ye one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”

  “I’m the burden, Father Simon. Are you even listening?”

  “To your every word. And the words you are not saying.”

  I cover my face with both hands. Make the darkness more absolute. Breathe.

  “I can’t burden her with me. With the—with the magnitude of my sins. I need penance.” I take my hands down. “I’m sorry for these and all the sins of my past life.”

  “To satisfy your penance, you will pray three Hail Marys and one Our Father.”

  “That’s bull—”

  “And you will open your heart to this woman. To Haley.”

  It takes several moments for his words to filter through my rage. My hurt. The grief that Haley stirred up and named when we looked at that photo. She’s seen it now. She’s seen me now. The things we did today, in that room—

  “I can’t get much more open.”

  “Tell me. Does she know you are here with me now?”

  I stare at the outline of him through the grate. “No.”

  “You hide yourself, but that is not the way.”

  “Hide me under the shadow of your wings,” I say to him.

  “From the wicked that oppress you,” Father Thomas answers. “From your deadly enemies. Not from Haley.”

  I don’t know where he gets the nerve. I can hardly fucking speak. “Lord Jesus, Son of God, have mercy on me. A sinner.” The biggest sinner there ever was. The worst nightmare ever to walk the earth. But I’ll repent forever if it means keeping Haley. Forgive me.

  “I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father,” begins Father Simon, and something behind my heart releases. “And of the Son. And of the Holy Spirit.”

  “Amen.”

  Another pause. I catch my breath.

  “The Lord has freed you from your sins. Come out into the church, child of God, and celebrate Mass.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Haley

  My phone rings early, but it doesn’t come early enough. I’m dreaming of Leo again. Leo bleeding. Leo gasping. The buzzing on the bedside table pulls me out of it before it can drag me down completely.

  I’ve slept late. My heart beat hard all day yesterday after we came out of Leo’s study. Before we left, he picked up the photo in its frame and put it in my hands. He waited while I put it back on the shelf. And then I couldn’t stand to be apart from him. It felt like fighting against a tide. Or gravity. We talked about dinner and books and nothing at all. What do you do, after a moment like that? I felt torn open by it. Exposed by it. Like all the soft parts of me had been turned inside out and put on display for him. I can only imagine how he felt.

  The sun streams through his bedroom window. Bed’s empty. I push my hair out of my face and grab for the phone, fumbling it at the name on the screen. I get it to my ear just in time.

  “Petra?”

  “Hey, Hales.” My older sister sounds fresh and awake, unlike me. But concern has made her voice higher. And something else—surprise? “Did I wake you up?”

  “It’s fine. Are you okay?” I ask, pushing away sleep. Her husband doesn’t like her to have much contact with us. She visits the house once a month, but we barely talk otherwise.

  She sounds uncertain. “Of course. I was just calling to say congratulations.”

  I run my hand through my hair again. Without Leo in the bed, without him in the room, I feel unprepared. For phone calls. For everything. I want him here.

  “Congratulations—for what?”

  “For your upcoming nuptials?”

  Petra’s the one who did things right. She was in love with this boy who did underground boxing, but of course the family would never approve. Caroline Constantine would never approve. So she picked someone out for her to marry. They were introduced at a party. It was essentially a modern-day arranged marriage, and Petra went along with it.

  She was the steady older sister who took care of things. Who got good grades. Who unburdened our dad as soon as she could so he could focus on his work. She’s a good sister. I miss living with her. And now I hear the hurt underpinning her polite question. I know she was torn between leaving and staying. Between making a life for herself and making one for us. She would be devastated if I got engaged without telling her.

  A pang of guilt. I haven’t told her a thing about Leo. There hasn’t been a good moment. “Petra, I’m not getting married. I don’t know who told you that, but—”

  “The Tribune,” she says. She means the Bishop’s Landing Tribune. “There’s an announcement in the paper today for your engagement. And your wedding.”

  Oh, Jesus. Oh, shit.

  “It’s right here in the society section.” A page turns. She’s flipping back to it. I can see her standing at the kitchen island of her house, keeping her neutral expression on while she leans an arm on the table and reads. “The Constantine family is pleased to announce the engagement of Haley Constantine, daughter of Phillip Constantine, to Rick Joseph Jr., son of Darla and Richard Joseph of Bishop’s Landing. Invited guests will gather at the Sweetwater Country Club on the second of February—”

  I put a hand to my chest. It does nothing to calm down my terrified heart. “No. Petra. Stop. No. This isn’t real. This is—this must have been Caroline.”

  “Caroline?”

  “She’s been really out of control lately.” Regret wraps itself up in a ball and sits heavy in the pit of my stomach. I should have told Petra everything to begin with. Then it wouldn’t sound like this. It wouldn’t sound like some random accusation.

  “What does that mean—out of control?” More confusion has clouded her voice. “Why would she think you were getting married if you’re not? Are you—” She lowers her voice. It makes me wonder if her husband is there. No, he has an office. Maybe there’s a maid or something. “Are you okay? Like, are you leading Rick on?”

  Acid scorches the back of my throat and I swallow it. I’m not going to be sick. Not here. Not because of Rick. He was willing to do anything to me for Caroline, up to and including rape. It’s not Petra’s fault she doesn’t know. “I am not leading him on.”

  “Hales, I’m not trying to upset you. I just don’t understand how this happened. Have you been clear with Caroline? I know she has strong opinions, but she gave me the choice. When I got engaged, we talked about it beforehand. I agreed to it.”

  It wasn’t a real choice. I long to tell her that. If she didn’t marry who Caroline wanted, we would have been ostracized from the family. “I was as clear as I could possibly be.”

  She had me in her house. She’s capable of hurt
ing people. Of damaging them for life. So Petra’s suggestion feels like a condemnation of what I did, even though it can’t possibly be. She doesn’t know. Petra is assuming that Caroline is the woman we’ve always known. Cold and demanding and judgmental, but not a psychopath. Petra is assuming that Caroline is a garden-variety Constantine. And Caroline, for all she’s done to me, has never done anything to Petra beyond choosing her husband.

  “Well, maybe you should give her a call. Set things straight. It’ll be a little awkward, but you don’t want people wondering if they’re invited to a wedding that doesn’t exist.” My sister laughs a little. It’s an attempt to smooth things over, but I’m all jagged edges. I breathe deep, trying to clear that knot from my stomach. Trying not to be sick. A notice in the paper—Jesus.

  “I can’t call Caroline.” I don’t know what else to tell Petra. Where to start the story. How to tell it in a way that she would understand. “That’s not really an option for me right now.”

  “About that.” She makes a clicking sound with her tongue. Petra always used to do that when she was thinking. She would lean against the countertop and look out the window. “Is that because Leo Morelli won’t let you call her? Is he controlling your actions?”

  All of my emotions tumble free. Guilt that I didn’t tell her earlier. Shame that I believed what the Constantines thought about Leo. Hurt that she’s come to such a wrong conclusion. Such a terribly wrong conclusion. “Why would you think—Petra, why would you think he wouldn’t let me call Caroline?”

  “Cash told me you were with him. At his house.”

  I put my hand over my eyes to cover the burn of my tears. I haven’t heard from Cash, or talked to Cash, since he lured me outside to get kidnapped by Caroline’s henchman. And now he’s telling Petra things about me. It’s more than the rug coming out from under my feet. It’s the whole floor.

  “Are you okay, Hales? Should I—” Her voice drops again. “Should I call the police?”

  “Jesus, Petra, no. I’m fine. I promise.”