FIFTY-TWO

There was an old frame church out in the middle of a cane field. It had been painted yellow, and from a distance it looked whole. Only when Sayers drew nearer did the reality begin to show. The roof had been stripped down to its laths and the window openings were like holes in a skull. No one had prayed here in some time. But someone had moved in.

He saw the Silent Man at about the same time the Silent Man saw him. Sayers was crossing the field toward the church, way out in the open. The Silent Man was pumping water and he stopped, resting his hand on the pump handle and watching as Sayers drew nearer. After about a minute, his wife, the so-called Mute Woman, came out and stood on the stoop. Both continued to watch him, and neither moved as he drew closer.

Sayers had grown so used to the stray dog’s presence that he now sensed when it wasn’t there. It had peeled away and moved to a spot about a hundred yards from the building, where it seemed happy to stay for now.

As Sayers got closer, the Silent Man took his hand from the pump and straightened up.

Sayers said, “Is she inside?” but the Silent Man continued to stare at him. Sayers noted that the man hadn’t shaved in a few days, and his clothes had grown shabby. Over by the church, his wife was looking no better. Once lithe, she’d gone to fat. Of all of them, she was the one who had changed most over the years.

Sayers said, “How is she?” and the man glanced toward the building. He seemed to be looking to his wife for guidance. Sayers saw her make the faintest move by way of response. If it wasn’t a shrug, it was intended to mean more or less the same thing.

Sayers met with no interference as he covered the last few yards to the church, but he was aware of the Silent Man abandoning the water pump and following him.

The Mute Woman stepped aside as he entered the building. Sayers remembered her eyes. They hadn’t changed. Dark, and intense. They were on him as he passed.

It wasn’t one of those simple one-room churches. In its day, it must have been something. The nave was a jewel box of a hall, with a curving balcony and fancy detail in the rails and paneling. There had been a real pipe organ, but that had been ripped out. The pews were all gone and it looked as if animals had been kept here for a while, leaving a mess that made the ground floor unusable. Sayers climbed a stairway to the organ loft and found Louise in a room behind it.

One of the old pews had made its way up here and she was sitting on it, feet apart. She was looking rough and hollow-eyed. There was a bowl of water on the floor before her. Her hair was up and her blouse was more or less white. Her skirt was nondescript and her boots were dusty. She’d been splashing her face, and had nothing to dry her hands on.

She wiped her face on her sleeve. She didn’t seem surprised to see him.

“Tom,” she said.

“Have you been keeping up with the news?”

“They’re looking for me,” she said. “I know.”

The Silent Man and the Mute Woman came around from behind him and stood by her, one to either side.

Louise looked down in utter dejection.

“You tried, Tom,” she said. “And for a minute you almost made me believe it. Then I had to go and ruin it all. No excuses this time.”

“I don’t know what these two have told you,” Sayers said, “but Sebastian Becker didn’t die.”

Louise raised her head.

The Silent Man was to the left of her. Sayers drew the Bulldog pistol from his coat and shot him once in the chest. He swung around to cover the Mute Woman and fired again. This time he shot high, but it didn’t matter. Blood and brains flew up the wall. She was starting to crumple before her husband hit the floor.

Louise was frozen in the middle, hands half raised, eyes glancing from side to side as if she was frightened to move her head.

The Silent Man was writhing and making an unpleasant noise. Sayers went over and shot him again in the head. His entire body bucked once and then he stopped moving.

Sayers returned to his place in front of Louise, and carried on as if nothing had happened.

“There,” he said. “Less for you to worry about. Think of it as the end of an era. You’re going to walk out of this place and not look back. You know what the book says. Go forth and sin no more.”

“No!”

Her sleeves had been rolled back for washing. He reached forward and gripped her arm above the wrist. It was slender and wiry, her hands long-fingered and powerfully tendoned. They were the hands of a grown woman, not a soft girl. The nails were bitten.

“Look at you,” he said. “You’re not lost. Your guilt’s devouring you. The longer you stay away from the world, the worse it’s going to get.”

She pulled her arm away. “I’m a destroyer,” she said.

“You’re no destroyer,” he said. “And now you’re no Wanderer, either. Look at us. You were right about one thing. You and I are creatures of our time. There’s only one way forward for us now.”

He reached out and touched her cheek, where a tear ran.

He said, “If love can redeem, then you should know that you are redeemed many times over.”

He transferred the tear to his own cheek, as she’d once taken the blood from Edmund Whitlock’s.

“What are you doing?” she said.

“You are loved,” Sayers said. “By your own confession, I am not.”

She jumped to her feet and almost fell back over the bench trying to get out of his reach. “Tom,” she said. “Don’t do this.”

“Too late,” he said. “Come on.”

Louise didn’t move. So he took her by the shoulders and turned her toward the doorway. He walked her past the bodies of her onetime servants. She gave no resistance as he steered her to the organ-loft stairs and down.

She just said, “You mustn’t. You mustn’t do this,” while allowing herself to be guided.

Sayers’ dog was waiting down in the nave, looking up toward the organ loft. It watched as the two descended the stairs, which were narrow and turned awkwardly.

Sayers walked Louise to the door of the church. There he stopped and turned her to face him. He held her at arm’s length so that he could look into her eyes, and he studied her for the very last time.

“I release you,” Sayers said. “It’s all on me now.” And then he shoved her out the door.

“Go.”

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