Stephen Irwin - The Dead Path

Laine Boye was on her way back to her seat when a scream broke the silence.

Mrs. Boye was on her feet; she ripped off her hat and hurled it at the carving of Christ. Her white hair flung out like lightning. She screamed again, a furious shriek, and the congregation was jolted into whispering motion.

“Blood is the only sacrifice that pleases the Lord!” she cried. Her voice echoed loudly in the transepts and hung unpleasantly on the air.

Laine hurried to Mrs. Boye’s side. The man beside the struggling old woman took firm hold of her arm. Hushed-voiced, they tried to comfort her, Laine’s fluttering hands grabbing for hers. But Mrs. Boye shook them off, her hair wild. “Blood alone pleases the Lord! ” She spat the last word like a curse.

Reverend Hird shot a nod to his young understudy, who hurried down to Mrs. Boye. Fast as a snake, the old woman slapped the young reverend hard on the face.

“Fisher of men!” she cried. “What do fishermen do with fish? Haul them from their water, drown them in air, and then gut them! Eat them! Or toss them back dead and empty! Fisher of men!” This time she did spit, a huge mouthful of foamy saliva that arced through the air to land on Christ’s shin.

Nicholas stared, stunned.

Firm hands took hold of Mrs. Boye. She fought for a while, then settled in a grump. Hird nodded to the organist, who started a lively rendition of “To Jesus’ Heart All Burning.”

And so the funeral finished early.

N icholas huddled under his umbrella as the pallbearers loaded the casket into the hearse. Suzette and Katharine came to stand beside him. The rain fell steadily and cold.

“Nice service, I thought,” said Nicholas. “Colorful.” His head throbbed. He couldn’t remember the last time he ate.

“You might have called,” said Katharine. “Your sister and I were worried sick.”

Suzette simply punched him hard on the arm. “Fuckwit.” She leaned close and whispered harshly, “I need to talk to you.”

“Okay. What, now?”

Suzette smiled primly. “No.” Of course not; not with their mother right there.

“Later, then?” Nicholas suggested helpfully.

The church sat on a corner block, and graceful movement there caught his eye. Laine and another man were shepherding Mrs. Boye into a dark sedan. The old woman was hunched and docile, as if the outburst in the church had never happened. Before following her mother-in-law into the car, Laine hesitated, straightened, and looked around. Her eyes lit on Nicholas. She said something to the driver, then strode over to stand squarely in front of Nicholas. They watched each other a moment. Then, deliberate as a chess tutor, she turned to Katharine and extended her gloved hand.

“Laine Boye, thank you for coming.”

Katharine took it. “Katharine Close. I’m so sorry for your loss. This is my daughter, Suzette, and my son, Nicholas.”

Laine returned her steady, gray gaze to Nicholas. “Would you be so kind as to excuse us, please, Mrs. Close? Suzette?”

Nicholas smiled pleasantly at Suzette. “Chat soon?”

“We’ll see you at home this afternoon. ” Suzette took Katharine by the arm and they walked away.

With them gone, the air between Nicholas and Laine seemed to chill. Nicholas found himself looking again into her cool gray eyes. Dark shadows at their corners betrayed the stress she’d been suffering since Gavin’s death. But her face was without expression as she stared hard at Nicholas. When she spoke, her voice was barely a whisper.

“What happened?”

Something lurked beneath her fine features. Not fury. Not disgust. Nicholas watched her.

“I was hoping you could tell me,” he said.

Laine’s face was inscrutable, her features motionless as a portrait’s, something from another time.

“What did you do to him?” she asked. This time, there was accusation in her tone, and Nicholas felt a burr of anger.

“Me? How about you? You didn’t pick up any little hints that Gavin wasn’t perfectly happy? Lack of sleep? Crazy stare? Love of firearms?”

She watched him, testing his eyes. After a long moment, she nodded curtly and turned away.

“He was going to kill me!” said Nicholas, loudly. She kept walking. “Mrs. Boye!”

She stopped. Droplets of rain collected like glass beads on her shoulders. She turned. Her mouth was held tight. She lifted her chin and met Nicholas’s gaze.

“How did he know I was back?” he asked.

He could see now what the emotion was, brewing behind her eyes. The knowledge surprised him. She was embarrassed.

“Thank you for coming, Mr. Close.”

She turned, again with a grace belying her weariness, and hurried to her car to follow her husband’s casket.

Nicholas looked around for his mother and sister, but they were gone.

He watched the remaining mourners drift away in twos and threes. In just a few moments, he felt awkwardly exposed, like a desperate adolescent still standing on the dance floor that all others have vacated at the first beats of an unpopular tune.

“I saw you looking.”

The unexpected voice behind him made Nicholas jump.

It was the young reverend. Nicholas saw he had misjudged his age. He was probably closer to forty than thirty.

“Looking at what?”

“At our Green Man.”

Nicholas steadied himself. “At your what?”

“Our Green Man. Jack the Green. Green George.” The minister extended his hand. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Pritam Anand.”

“Nicholas Close.”

The reverend inclined his head; he knew who Nicholas was. “News travels fast. Bad news travels fastest.”

“I’m bad news?” asked Nicholas.

Reverend Anand laughed, then looked around to check there were no mourners he might have offended. “News of what happened to Gavin Boye, I meant. A tragedy.”

Nicholas nodded, and looked at Anand’s red cheek. “Not a bad right hook for an old bird.”

Anand touched the spot where Mrs. Boye had slapped him. “Some people get upset when a loved one passes.” He inclined his head again, a very Indian gesture that Nicholas was certain induced parishioners to share secrets they’d rather keep.

The rain, which had been politely holding off, started falling again.

“You’re getting wet,” said Nicholas.

“Then join me inside.”

T here,” said Reverend Anand, pointing. Nicholas followed his finger. Below the angular capital of the column was carved stonework: ivy leaves, fernery, and a long face with oak-leaf tusks sprouting from the corners of its mouth. “And there,” he pointed out another on the pillar’s twin. “And there.” In the carved forest curling ripe behind Christ crucified, another.

He sat on the front pew, drinking white tea. Nicholas sat beside him, drinking his black. The church, empty of everyone except the two men, felt to Nicholas suddenly huge and much colder. Hardly any light came through the tall, narrow stained-glass windows. The stone sheaves of the roof killed the sound of rain.

“What are they? These Green Men?” he asked.

Anand smiled. “He is one entity, Jack o’ the Green. Have you been to Europe? You’ll find him in lots of churches there. Many, many in England; but also Germany, Poland.” He sipped his tea and looked over the cup’s rim in a way that reminded Nicholas of his mother. “But go farther and you’ll find similar images of this face-part man, part tree-in Nepal, India, Borneo.”

“It’s not Christian?”

Anand laughed. “Oh, no. His origins long predate Christ. His is a pagan image.” He smiled with barely disguised delight.

“I’ve seen it before,” said Nicholas.

Anand nodded, but said nothing for a long while.

“It is a disturbingly familiar face.” He cast his own gaze upward to the Green Man on the carved ceiling boss, then down to Christ crucified. “The timeless man who dies each year and is reborn. Who symbolizes triumph over winter and death.”