Chapter #44A Judgment by: Seuzz   The three of you sit at the small table afterward, munching on sandwiches, pickles and chips, and drinking cola straight from plastic bottles. Dad listens intently but merrily to Frank's account of the drive, interrupting and embellishing it with questions and reminiscences about the towns you passed through, and then gives some light gossip of his own, about the dog and about their circle of acquaintances.
Your initial feeling of nervousness quickly melts away, and you find yourself blurting out long-forgotten stories of your own that the conversation has reminded you of. Frank's dad responds warmly to these, and draws you out further, asking about your life. Most of what you tell him are trivialities--and certainly nothing about your adventures since acquiring the Libra--but he seems entranced, and is able to conjure details from you that you yourself had thought forgotten, and descriptions that to your own surprise seem both vivid and apt. The atmosphere is vibrant and merry, and if not exactly festive, it is certainly relaxing.
Then there's the sound of the front door opening. "Whose truck is that blocking half the street?" The voice is a strong, nasally honk. "There are other people who need to park around here, you know."
Dad leans forward with a sly grin. "Pray for us, Will," he says in a low voice. "Now, and at the hour of our death. But especially now."
Heavy footsteps usher in a tall man--six foot two, at least--with a mop of gray hair that perches like a bad toupee over a flat face. Big, square glasses frame flinty blue eyes and a mouth that purses grimly. A thin windbreaker that is too small for its wearer binds tightly to a white shirt. He stands at rigid attention as his eyes flick over the three of you. "Chuck," he says, and his mouth snaps around name like a turtle biting at an apple. "Giuseppe." His eyes fall on you. "Who are you?"
"His name is Will Prescott," says Frank's father--whose name apparently is Charles. "And now he wants to know yours."
"Oh, ha ha," the newcomer says sourly. "He'll learn it in due course. Most likely while you two are gossiping about me while I'm on the toilet. Here." He sets a plastic bag on the table. "Laverne picked me up at the bus station and told me to give you this. It's a tickerstopper cheese cake. Then she dropped me off while she went to run another errand for you."
"If she dropped you off, why are you complaining about not having a parking place?" Frank asks.
"I wasn't complaining on my own behalf, mister," the other retorts, bending over to thrust his face into Frank's. "I was complaining on behalf of anyone who might want to park there. Like Laverne, when she gets back. Now, if you'll excuse me, Chuck, I need to move something from my plumbing system into yours. I was on that bus for four hours." He stalks abruptly from the room.
"Father Ed drives a Buick the size of a small aircraft carrier," Dad says, hiding a smile behind his hand. "But the saints defend you if your economy subcompact isn't parked well within the lines of your parking space." Frank just sighs--but Dad reaches across to squeeze his hand encouragingly.
* * * * *
Father Ed returns after ten minutes, to bark about the state of the bathroom, the miseries of interstate bus travel, the inadequacies of his preparations--despite every attempt to anticipate every possible contingency--and to baffle and banter with Dad about people you don't know. Laverne--who turns out to be a plump, faded, middle-aged woman in a lime-green pantsuit--shows up thirty minutes later with some dry cleaning. After cheerily greeting Frank, she tidies up the kitchen and then departs. Shortly after, Dad suggests that Frank take you on a walk around the neighborhood.
Your friend is distracted on the short stroll in the fading light, and contents himself with brusque, one-sentence descriptions: who lives where, how long he's known them, what he and Joe used to do with them. He lingers near an open field and points to a spot off toward a distant house. "There used to be a big tree there," he says. "Me and Joe loved to climb it." He shifts on his feet. "I miss it."
"What happened to it?"
"I killed it," he says simply. "I was twelve. Goofing off, practicing some stuff. Like, what you caught me doing in our backyard?" He mimes the "tree trimming" motion. "Anyway, I accidentally cut it down. Man, Joe was pissed." He swallows. "Until now, that was the worst thing I'd ever done. Dad didn't yell at me," he adds after a pause. "Which made it worse."
"What did he do?"
"He was just very grave. And then he made me chop it up into firewood. With an axe. We took it around and gave the stacks to the neighbors. Dad told me I should keep part of it, but I didn't want to remember what I did, so I gave all of it away, and burned what I couldn't give away. Which was stupid. I'd give anything to still have part of it. Just a cross section from the trunk."
"None of what happened back there, at Blackwell's-- None of it was your fault."
"Maybe not. But I'm ready to talk about it now. That's why Dad sent us out, so I could get my head together. Come on, they'll be waiting for us."
* * * * *
For a court of inquisition, it's a surprisingly low-key affair. Dad takes a large easy chair in the sitting room, while Father Ed fills a big wooden rocker. Dad smiles with warm gravity as you and Frank enter; Father Ed scowls.
You and Frank slowly drop on the floor before his father. Frank, sitting up straight, looks his father full in the face and launches into a brusque, colorless account of his and Joe's mission, starting with their arrival in Saratoga Falls. You keep your own head ducked deferentially, cocked to the side as you listen to events you didn't know about, and keeping a poker face when Frank begins to describe how he and Joe found you and started working with you. He is careful, you note, not to make any judgments about your actions or to speculate on your motives and intentions. Still, you feel the hair rise on the back of your neck, and slowly turn to find Father Ed glaring hard at you, as though trying to bore into your head and examine your soul. Just as slowly you turn away, to rest your eyes on Charles Brennan, but he is entirely wrapped up in listening to Frank's account.
Eventually Frank comes to the part where he was possessed by Blackwell's anima band. He spares himself nothing in his account, and if he doesn't dwell luridly on the details, they are all the more stark and horrifying for being so bloodlessly conveyed. Dad's expression doesn't change as he listens, but you can see his cheeks pale, and a great sadness settles into his eyes. Father Ed, who has been softly rocking back and forth, brings his chair to a stop.
The silence that follows lasts only a few seconds, and then Dad softly speaks to you. "Is there anything you would like to add, Will?"
"Well, sir," you swallow. "If it's about me, I'd have to start at the beginning. If it's about this anima band stuff-- Well, I haven't made one or had one put on me, so I can't say what it's like. But I've studied the sigil, and-- Sir, it wasn't Frank doing those things."
"It's not your place to judge his culpability, young man," Father Ed snaps. "The Governor wants to know about these anima bands and what they do to a person."
"They-- Like, they transfer the soul," you stammer. "Only they don't transfer, exactly, and I guess it's not the soul." Father Ed snorts at your equivocations. "They make you think and feel like another person. Like, you think you're that person, only you're inside another body. You have all their wants and desires. You act like they would."
"So you were doing what you wanted to do, when you did those things," Father Ed says with a horrible note of triumph in his voice.
"It's not your place, at this session, to make that kind of judgment," Charles chides the other gently. "This is only an inquest, to establish the facts." Father Ed bows his head deferentially. "And it seems to me that Frank was not in his right mind when he did these things." He smiles. "Are you in your right mind now, son?"
"Yes sir," Frank says fervently. "And whatever I have to do to fix things, or make up for them--"
"I think you already have, from what you've told me. Whatever happens now, to those girls, for instance, is out of our hands." He makes a soft motion with his hand. "If you'd like something to drink now, I think we're finished."
"Thank you, sir," Frank says. He shifts onto his knee and bows before his father; the latter lays his hand on his head and ruffles his hair. Then Frank rises to his feet and steps into the kitchen. Father Ed follows.
"That still leaves the two of us," Dad says to you gravely. "And what do you want to do with yourself?"
The question startles you. From what Frank has said, you'd been prepared for some kind of invitation--maybe even a forcible induction into the Stellae. But the actual question is much more open-ended. And you realize that if you're to join the Stellae you will have to ask to join.  indicates the next chapter needs to be written. |
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