Chapelwood

by Cherie Priest

  Pretty words, but I didn’t believe a single one of them.

  (Except that perhaps I believed he was leaving for the company of his own foul kind.)

  I left, too, back outside to follow after Ruth and Lizbeth, and George Ward. They were clustered together, slipping away as a group before anyone else with a notebook or an opinion could bother Ruth. I joined them shortly.

  “My mother was with him. Did you see her?”

  “Yes, I saw her. Did you want to talk to her?” I asked. By the time the words were out of my mouth, I already knew the answer.

  “What would I say? Should I tell her to leave and come with me? Should I . . .” She sighed heavily and shook her head. “Should I tell her I’m afraid for her, and that she should stay away from Chapelwood, and Daddy, and the reverend, too? She knows all that already. I’ve said it a thousand times, and either she doesn’t hear me, she doesn’t believe me, or . . . or she doesn’t care.”

  Lizbeth wrapped an arm around her shoulder and gave her a short hug. “I understand.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes, I do. It’s easier to hope that she’s only being manipulated, and not that she’s given up or that she doesn’t love you.” Lizbeth’s earnestness was back on display, and she reconsidered it immediately. “I mean, I’m sorry. That didn’t come out quite right.”

  “Sure it did,” Ruth said. “You said it exactly right, and that’s exactly how it is. I just . . . I want to go home, all right? I just want to go home.”

  I stuffed my hands into my jacket pockets. “You know, your father says you can have his house. He and your mother are moving into Chapelwood, and leaving it vacant. He alleges that it’s some sort of apology.”

  “If he really wants to give it to me, that’s fine,” she said with a sniff. She tugged at George’s arm, and began walking toward his car. “I’ve got a box of matches in my purse.”

  Reverend Adam James Davis, Minister, the Disciples of Heaven

  CHAPELWOOD ESTATE, ALABAMA OCTOBER 3, 1921

  The order is righted. I knew it would be, but the specifics eluded me—in part because of young Mr. Kincaid’s treachery, though I’m loath to admit it. I preferred to think that he was a gnat in the air, something annoying but ultimately harmless . . . something bound to be squashed in a very short time, by virtue of its own ridiculous behavior.

  Or does that carry it too far? I’m not sure. The sentiment remains, regardless.

  It doesn’t matter anyway, not anymore. It might not’ve mattered in the first place at all—who can say? Not Leonard. He only read the messages. He did not manage them, or deploy them. He barely even transcribed them, and when he did, he was not always correct or successful.

  I know that now. His methods were good, but not perfect.

  In time, if he’d been more patient, he might have led us to perfection.

  But I put too much pressure on him, and assigned him too much importance. I entrusted him with too much—that’s one more mistake I made—but ultimately, I must be fair to myself: It was right to bring him into the fold. It’s a pity he did not stay. Had he remained with us all this time, we might be closer yet to our goal.

  I say that . . . but.

  Here, where I am being true, and fair, and right—to myself, and everyone else . . . I must confess that I cannot be certain.

  Some things are certain, yes: We receive the messages, we hear the voices, we see the smoke. We close our eyes, and we touch the nearest edge of that damnable wall that separates us from divinity. We reach out, with our inefficient chisels and our small hammers, and we chip, chip, chip away, knowing that heaven awaits us on the other side.

  It awaits us, and us alone.

  • • •

  Leonard Kincaid brought us closer than we’d ever been. He refined the language we used to communicate with Our Lord, I will give him that. I will grant that he showed uncanny intelligence, and a natural propensity toward the tasks we required of him. I admit freely that he was useful to us, and that he might have been great among us.

  That’s especially easy for me to say, now that I’ve seen his handiwork. He always behaved like such a benign, nervous man, afraid to blow his own nose. Who knew he had murder in him?

  I should’ve known it. I know good and well that everyone has murder inside, given the right stimulus.

  Now . . . now I would like to think that he may join us yet. Not in any full capacity—not with the glory of a disciple whose faith stayed strong and never wavered, no. But his help was such a blessing, I honestly hope that there is some room for him in the Land of Glory beyond that aggravating wall between life and death, God and man.

  Because Satan was wrong, you know. It is better by far to serve in heaven than to reign in hell.

  As Leonard should have known already.

  • • •

  He’s gone now, I’ve seen to that—in what might be described (if I flatter myself) as an artful fashion. I was pleased with my handiwork, at any rate. I feel confident that, likewise, heaven approves. And if he’s waiting for us on the other side, so much the better—but I’m thinking too hard about things yet to come. I mustn’t let it distract me from the present, where great things are happening.

  We are finally thirteen, in accordance with the pattern. Twelve disciples and one prophet leading the way. I will do my best to prove worthy of this leadership role. I will do my best to serve the Lord.

  • • •

  Edwin Stephenson was the final piece, which I frankly did not expect.

  I appreciated his zeal, of course, and I was pleased by his dedication to the cause, but I did not imagine that he was really “disciple” material. For in all reality, the man is a little thug. With time, penitence, and prayer, I thought he might rise through the ranks to “deacon,” but he’s certainly proved himself more useful than that. I’m well aware that it was not mere rage that sent him after the priest; yes, he was furious about his daughter—but he’d been furious about his daughter since the day she was born, and she was not a son. But no, that wasn’t what sent him to Saint Paul’s. Coyle’s murder was officially an act of rage, as the courts concluded, but it was also an act of devotion—and an act of very fine timing for Chapelwood.

  Stephenson told me in confidence how he saw that the time was right, that the pattern had revealed itself to him in a divine and sudden fashion. He knew, he told me, that this was his destiny—that the wheel had turned to align events in his favor. And it was that choice of words, “the wheel has turned,” that made me consider that he might be correct.

  I’ve seen the phrase myself, in the scriptures the mad Arab left behind.

  It stands to reason. A wheel is a pattern of another kind, each spoke rising and falling again and again to the same point, in the same path. Everything comes around again, in some form . . . until the wheel is broken and reassembled into something greater, and rolled onward to someplace better.

  So I gave Edwin’s behavior a blessing after the fact. He’d operated independently, but he was guided by the same hand as the rest of us. If I was wrong, then fine: I was wrong—but I still had an inconvenient figure removed from the equation, at no reputational cost to myself or Chapelwood. There is room in the world for little thugs. Like everything and everyone else, they serve a purpose, and that purpose might as well be higher than rage or chaos.

  Since the trial is done, and since Edwin is free, he has come here to join the fold in a formal manner. It only seemed fitting, after our last service in the underground hall, where I received the expected revelation.

  As every piece slots into position, a new edict appears.

  Much as Edwin Stephenson is the final member of our coterie, his daughter is the final sacrifice after all.

  She was taken from us by the priest, and now she’s been given back. Or she will be given back, that much is assured and I am much relieved to
hear it. Though Leonard hacked his way through our lists of worthy subjects, and though he inconvenienced us and delayed us, he has not prevented us from anything. His success has turned out to be our success, for he adjusted the timing in a fortuitous manner.

  This was how it was intended all along. We all serve our purposes. There is a place in the world—and beyond it—for all of us.

  • • •

  I asked the Lord how we should collect Ruth Stephenson, and I was told to wait. I was told that she would bring herself to Chapelwood in time, and then our setting would be complete. She will be the lynchpin, the keystone. We will unlock the door, and she will hold it open.

  I am assured, and I am trying to have faith . . . that she will come to us.

  I hope it is soon. The wait has been so long already, and so fraught with delay and confusion. I want her here, now, at our disposal and at our mercy.

  If only she knew. I can’t help but think that if she really understood, she would march directly to the estate, climb the steps with confidence and pride, and offer herself up in service to the greater plan.

  She will hold the door ajar. She will save the world. Her blood will be the solvent that wrecks the walls between heaven and earth, and then . . . then we will all be whole, and home with our Creator.

  I tried to make her understand, but I could not. That particular failing is mine, but as another book says, “All things work together for good.” This, too, this failing of mine, this stretching of the timeline . . . Oh, how we have trudged through the calendar, and our trudge was all the more disheartening for not knowing whether we yet progressed, or only treaded water.

  I am impatient, and this is another failing. We have all fallen short of the glory of God, but it is upon us all to do our best to correct ourselves. This is part of that effort—this record I leave behind: It makes me feel like I’m accomplishing something, like my time is being used productively, rather than simply passed. It’s all I can really do, while I wait for the young woman to find her own path back to the fold.

  The pattern is a promise. It brings us all home, in time.

  George Ward, Birmingham City Commission President (Former)

  OCTOBER 3, 1921

  Here we are, then, on the other side of the trial.

  Here we are, on the other side of the election.

  Here we are, at the end.

  It took so little time for them to undo so much. We spent years upon years trying to heal the grievous wound left by the war; and for a moment there, during the one that engulfed the whole world so recently, I wondered whether a different war wasn’t the answer we’d all been seeking. We rallied together again, North and South. One country, joining other countries—fighting a good fight, for the benefit of the whole world. All of us, rallied together for a greater cause.

  It was not a perfect solution, no. But is there one? Could there ever be one?

  Sixty years ago, the Confederacy tore itself loose . . . only to be conquered and stitched back onto the Union. Might as well try to reattach an unwilling arm or a leg, and expect everything to work just fine again in a fortnight. Some things are only impossible.

  And when the Great War began in earnest, when the United States of America threw its hat into that ring of fire, I had the horrible thought that, yes, one war might mend the damage of another. Someone else’s war, this time. Let someone else’s land be the battlefield, and let us ride together, blue and gray beneath the red, white, and blue.

  It worked, didn’t it? In some places, yes, I must believe that it did.

  But not here. Not for the long haul. Oh, it’s true—we had a wave of unlikely immigrants, Jews and Italians and Bohemians, and it looked like we might all live alongside one another in peace, didn’t it? We even had the sanity to take strides toward equality for all our citizens, and to beautify our city, and to bring it into the twentieth century with pride. Electrical lights and traffic direction, telephones, paved walkways, and more . . . we are a modern city, for Christ’s sake! How can we behave like this, and expect the rest of the world to judge us as civilized and progressive?

  We can’t. It shouldn’t.

  We should be judged for precisely what we are, and nothing more: a city full of villains and victims, and the hopeless men who failed to change it.

  • • •

  I’ve gone back to Storage Room Six, Ruthie. That’s why I’m writing this, to tell you that much—so you’ll understand to go looking there, in the event I do not return from my errand. I’m not sure how much help the storage room will be to you; I’m not sure how much will even be left by the time you find it. It’s as I told the inspector: The place eats things—evidence, relics, time, and memories alike.

  Piece by piece, shred by shred, all the evidence with which we ever even tried to serve justice and goodwill is eroded, right out from under us. This is a cliff we stand upon, Ruthie. A cliff that will fail in time, and we’ll all fall into the ocean unless we walk away, leave this place, find bedrock somewhere else.

  You should walk away. You’ve done literally all you can, and more than was asked. There’s nothing left for you here. Take your husband and go, make a home in another town. Anywhere else. Leave while you can. Leave before they force you to stay.

  • • •

  I sat in the storage room and I listened hard, closing my eyes and opening my ears, breathing as quietly as I could. When I do this, when I slow down the world, muffle out the distractions, sometimes I can hear little voices when I’m in that weird basement.

  No, not voices. That lends the wrong impression. It’s more as if . . . I can feel the currents of some conversation taking place around me, regardless of me. It’s a soft thing, tendrils almost. Think of the softest silk you’ve ever touched, and imagine it stripped down to its very threads. Imagine those threads drawn across your skin by an invisible hand, or imagine (better still) that you sit inside a cauldron full of the things, being stirred by an unseen spoon.

  That’s almost what I mean.

  And when it’s very quiet, when I sit inside the damp, musty silence of Storage Room Six, I feel those threads. I feel them and I can almost see them, hear them. Believe them, when they move around my ears like whispers.

  I only catch stray words, here and there. The occasional phrase. Sometimes it’s helpful, sometimes it’s nonsense—or taken so far out of context that it might as well be. But there’s a rhythm to it all the same. A tidal fluctuation, a coming and going. A beat.

  I have sat there, in Storage Room Six, for hours upon hours. I have pored over boxes full of files, wishing for the pieces to assemble themselves in my mind—demanding that the evidence lend me some hint of a killer, or a motive. Anything, really.

  I’ve wondered at that motive time and time again. What would make a man (or men, or woman, or women) hunt down fellow citizens on the streets? What would make him (or them, or her) relentlessly murder, all across the cityscape?

  And beyond it, too. There’s rumor of a new death, this one outside the usual parameters. This one, they found in a set of runoff tunnels that dump into a creek. Usually these tunnels (and they’re not tunnels, really—they’re concrete chutes, as much as anything) . . . usually they carry detritus from the rail yards—they sluice off all the wet things. All the things that are easier to dump down a drain than to bury or burn.

  I don’t think the body was flushed down the drain; I don’t think there’s a drain big enough to hold it. I think the body was carried to the creek’s edge, and jammed up inside that cold concrete casket, and left there to rot. I think that the killer assumed, and correctly, that by the time the corpse was found, there’d be little left to identify it. There’d be nothing present but bones, and strips of fabric, and muddy damp flakes of peeled skin.

  I’m not sure if it’s the same man.

  Not “Harry the Hacker,” for he never existed. But the same fellow wh
o committed (most of) the other killings. I’m not sure if it’s him—or if it is, then we may have something awful on our hands. More awful than a spree killer with an axe, that is.

  (Dear God, would you look at how far my standards for awful have fallen? It’s as if they never existed in the first place.)

  But here, this is what I mean: The killer never tried to hide the bodies before, no further than a cursory dragging to haul them out of a main thoroughfare. If this is the same killer, then he’s learning. He’s improving. He intends to continue unabated, and with greater efficiency. If it’s not the same killer, then it’s some other one—hoping to ride the first maniac’s coattails.

  Either way, it spells bad things for Birmingham.

  All the more reason, Ruth. All the more reason for you to leave, while the leaving is good.

  • • •

  The room tells me little, and it tells me lots. It gives me hints and signs, and it takes everything else away. Pages of evidence fade until they are clean white sheets, or unfilled forms never typed upon, never signed. Envelopes vanish into the air. Paper clips collect at the bottom of boxes, freed from whatever documents they once held in meticulous place. Pencils shorten themselves, reduce to nubs, and are gone altogether without having ever been sharpened. Pens run dry. Photographs lighten and lighten and lighten until they may as well be pictures of sheets strung out on a line.

  All the signs are there, and all the portents have evaporated.

  Whatever has happened, whatever is coming, it won’t fall in our favor. We have few allies, no legal standing. No knowledge of what we’re even fighting, though it wears a man’s face and speaks with a man’s voice, for all that it’s unreal and untrue.

  Whatever that reverend is, whatever he claims to be, whatever he once was. Whatever his connection, you can bet he’s the monster behind this. Somehow. Whatever. There are no words true enough to describe him. I know that now. I know that he will destroy the world with his books, formulas, and figures. He thinks of them as scriptures, that’s one thing I’ve gathered from the silk that drapes itself in currents and waves throughout the room. He has scriptures, and they’re no scriptures for the likes of us. Setting eyes on them would be a horror. Reading them would be madness.