Mark Dunn - We Five

“And who is this person?” said Abigail, pointing at Lyle indignantly. “He can’t be here.”

“He’s my brother,” said Jane.

Sister Lydia turned to Vivian. “Fix this, Vivian.” And then to We Five: “So nice to have you all back, even though by the looks of all that luggage, one or more of my sweet young songbirds may be getting ready to fly the coop.”

“I’ll find out what’s going on,” said Vivian. “Abigail, please go and prepare the rehearsal room. We’ve got to familiarize these girls with the two new hymns before the dress rehearsal. Run along now, and let me handle this.”

A brief moment later, both Sister Lydia DeLash Comfort and Sister Vivian’s officious assistant had departed the outer office, leaving Vivian alone with We Five Plus One.

“Just tell me,” said Vivian, “that if one or more of you is leaving, you’ll wait and do it after tomorrow morning’s celebration.”

“We’re all leaving, Vivian,” said Ruth. “But not until after the service.”

“So you aren’t the only one thinking about enrolling in the University of Winnemac. Your sisters have decided to join you.”

“It’s far more complicated than that, Vivian,” said Jane. “We’re all leaving — you’re right — but for different reasons.”

“Tell me that this has nothing to do with the rumors.”

“What rumors?” asked Maggie.

“That Sister Lydia’s Square Deal Ministries is in financial trouble. Because let me just say this at the outset: the organization may be floundering, but it certainly isn’t foundering. Sister Lydia — I love her bushels — but she doesn’t have much of a head for business, and sometimes she doesn’t plan for things very well. We aren’t nearly ready for the celebration tomorrow. The varnish on some of the pews isn’t even dry. We’re still waiting for five pipes for the organ. They’ve apparently gotten lost on their way from Cincinnati. And there seem to be problems with the new wiring; lights keep flickering on and off. On the other hand, the Sister’s done all this advance publicity and everybody who is anybody in the state of Winnemac is going to be here tomorrow, and she’s convinced it will be an utter disaster if we don’t go through with it. And just when you think she’s got enough to worry about already, this is when you’ve decided to turn in your choir robes!”

It was decided that Vivian could be trusted. We Five knew how fond their choir director was of Sister Lydia’s Quintet of Songful Seraphim, and especially how fond she was of one of the singers in particular: Ruth. And so it was explained to Vivian that, yes, Ruth would be enrolling in the University of Winnemac in the fall, and that Carrie planned to do the same. She was going to study music. Jane and Maggie and Molly and Jane’s brother Lyle would be going somewhere entirely different: to the northern woods of Minnesota.

“Why Minnesota?” asked Vivian.

Ruth placed a hand on her friend Vivian’s shoulder. “Sit down, sweetheart. Lyle, go shut that door. Vivian, we’re going to tell you what’s really going on.”

Vivian eased warily into the nearest chair. “It’s about those awful college boys, isn’t it? And the two sad ones who died.”

“ Three are dead now,” put in Maggie.

Vivian choked.

Jane looked over at her brother. Her eyes solicited corroboration for the incomplete truth she was about to dispose: “The young man was murdered. And the police think it was my brother who did it. We have to get him out of Zenith as soon as possible.”

“ You have to get him out? And Maggie and Molly as well?”

“There are other parts to it,” said Jane. “I’m sure that Ruth will explain it all to you in time. All we can do right now is apologize to you and Sister Lydia for leaving like this, and hope you won’t hold this decision against us. Oh, and one other thing. We have a small side favor to ask of you.”

“Yes?”

“That we be allowed to spend the night here.”

“Right here? In Sister Lydia’s tabernacle?”

Jane and Ruth nodded. Ruth picked things up from here: “This is a church. And a church should be a place of sanctuary. We need that refuge tonight. All six of us. I know there are resting cots in the storeroom downstairs — the ones you’ll be using for healing services. We can sleep on them —down in the storeroom. No one needs to make any fuss over us.”

Vivian thought about this. “It’s very irregular. But then again, what is regular in a world that seems these days to be spinning right off its axis? And I fear, my dear girls, that we are a long way from having peace and sanity restored.”

Vivian got up from her chair and walked over to where Lyle was leaning against a wall: silent, pondering.

“I have to know,” she said. “ Did you kill the boy? Did you do it?”

Lyle traded a look with Jane. Jane nodded that he should answer, and he should answer truthfully.

He tipped his head.

“ Why ?”

Jane sat down. Her eyes began to well up. Molly went to her and wrapped her arms around her neck in a gesture that was both loving and protecting.

“I think I know,” said Vivian Colthurst, looking painfully at Jane. “And I also know that the church has offered sanctuary to the accused for centuries — both the falsely accused and the rightfully accused who seek divine forgiveness. And why should Sister Lydia’s Tabernacle of the Sanctified Spirit be any different?”

Vivian spent most of the next two hours working with her five favorite choir members to teach them the songs that in their several-day absence the other members had already learned. In the meantime Lyle was down in the storeroom making ready the room he and We Five would share that night. It was decided that rather than have Lyle wait until the end of the morning service to leave — and thereby run the risk of being spotted by the police — he’d depart alone just before daybreak. He would drive his 1919 model Oldsmobile “Economy” delivery truck up to St. Agatha. He’d wait there at the depot for the arrival of the Middle West Limited from Zenith. Then he and Maggie and Molly and his sister Jane would continue their journey to Maggie’s uncle’s cabin by back roads.

Vivian had pointed out to Lyle that if he wished, he need only come close to the heating vent in the basement storeroom to hear his sister and the other choir members singing during the full rehearsal in the auditorium upstairs. “Sister Lydia is quite the showwoman, so you’ll miss all the eye-pomp that generally characterizes her theatrical services, but at least you’ll be able to hear things, if you’re so inclined: her sermon — riveting as always— and the music. Such divinely gorgeous music.”

At five minutes to six, a robed Molly and Maggie and Jane and Ruth climbed the stairs to the north anteroom off the auditorium. Carrie did not. Carrie took a detour; she went to the storeroom to see Lyle. For a moment Carrie and Lyle looked at one another without speaking. Then Lyle said, “Maybe I’ll tell you goodbye now, because you’ll probably be sleeping when I leave in the morning.”

Carrie nodded. She took Lyle’s hand and held it up to her cheek. “You’ve been very nice to me. Jane said you never used to be nice to anyone , so I consider this as a big improvement in your character.”

“I’m still not a very good person, Carrie. I killed a man.”

“According to Jane you’ve killed several men. During the war. In the Battle of the Argonne Forest. She showed me your Distinguished Service Cross.”

“How could she? I threw it out.”