Fiction

By Blair Arsenault

LAST winter Sean climbed the spiral stairs up one of the steeples above the cathedral. He’d just turned 13 and was lithe, strong and curious.

Choir practice had ended, and the church foyer stood empty. A black iron-gate that usually blocked the stairs to the loft remained open.

From the loft, he found a door to the spire stairwell and began to climb. The crude board stairs twisted upward like any others, but the interior darkened and the walls closed in on him with every step. He grew fearful, as if facing some perverse challenge. Mortar that had oozed between the stones reminded him of the deformed, tormented mouths of the damned he’d seen in old paintings.

A gust of wind swayed the spire. Fear locked the air in his lungs. When something grabbed his ankle, he shrieked.

“Come down from there,” said a voice. He recognized Father O’Riley’s brogue.

Feeling for the treads, Sean descended.

The priest, tall, thin and pale as a saint, blocked the gate. He’d come from Ireland to the city diocese two years ago to teach catechism and grammar.

Sean had learned about O’Riley’s talent for inflicting pain when he once saw the holy man bind a student’s fingers with a thick elastic band, pull the end between the fingers, draw it back and let it snap against tender flesh. The student, showing a perverse restraint, didn’t whimper, although tears flooded his eyes. Topping the impulsive cruelty that students inflicted on each other on the concrete playground at lunchtime, a beatific-looking O’Riley had taught the formal sadism of church authority by snapping the elastic again and again.

“What were you doing up there?” the priest asked. His hands appeared corpse-white against his black drapery.

“I saw inside the spire where the bells are,” Sean said. “I won’t do it again.”

O’Riley’s eyes, the pale grey of a cruel god’s, impaled the boy. “Those spires are dangerous for a young boy. You might have fallen and hurt yourself.”

“Yes,” Sean agreed.

After a thoughtful pause, O’Riley said, “Be a good boy.” He gripped Sean’s shoulder, perhaps harder than necessary.

The gate to the loft clanged shut as Sean ran down the Basilica steps. He moved from light to dark through the shadows of the twin steeples on his way down Mercy Street.

Months later, Sean rode a cross-harbor ferry to Nail Point, a 20-minute excursion. The scow-like, black-and-white craft made a twice-daily run, saving its passengers a 30-kilometre drive. It’d return three hours later.

Sean wanted to break the tedium of a hot August day by exploring the beach and swimming off the pier. He carried no bathing suit, but his friends had said that the pier jutted into the middle of nowhere, at the end of a clay road, far from houses or even cultivated fields. The place stayed empty except when people came to meet the ferry.

Self-sufficient and curious, Sean delighted in the small intrigues along a shoreline. His aunt called him an “old soul”. He wondered if people could sense that in him, if it showed like a mark on his face.

When the ferry docked, Sean scampered off and strolled to the shore. He smelled the pungency of kelp and salt-sea wrack pushed ashore by tides. Sounds of water lapping at sand relaxed him. The beach stood empty, save for someone reclining on a distant beach-chair, his head lolling. Sean noticed the sun reflect off black sunglasses. Maybe the guy napped.

After the ferry captain collected money from a family of six and then the driver of a potato-laden truck, he cast off and backed the ferry away, etching a wake on still water. He’d return at 4:30 p.m.

A flat sandstone on the beach warmed Sean’s legs and hands. He scanned a fresh perspective of the city horizon, noticing a battery of last-century cannon aimed at the harbor entrance, a phalanx of skeletal white-birch and, off to the right, a white mansion with pillars, palatial and aloof. Above the trees, the church spires spiked passing clouds.

The water off the pier looked deep. Quickly, Sean undressed, walked out to the edge of the huge bulwark and prepared to dive. He liked to enter the water with the precision of a blade, but always kept his dives shallow since the time he’d badly scratched his chest on shells and rocks, having misjudged the depth.

With his legs, he pushed off into the air and entered the wetness like a plunging knife. He swam parallel to the bottom, dolphin-kicking, his arms by his sides, eyes open. Surfacing limply, he enjoyed the upward tug of buoyancy. He rolled onto his back and floated.

Next he struck out for water along the coast. He dove like a seal, hands cupping water, down to the reeds and shells. To surface, he arched his back and floated upward. Breaking from water to air, he looked around.

Oh! Something bobbed his way. Maybe it was a dog, or a ball.

Treading water and squinting through the sun’s glare on the water, Sean realized it was a swimmer, crawling in his direction, the head bobbing unsteadily. But instead of swimming, the figure walked on the bottom. A chill descended when Sean recognized the priest’s face.

“Sean!” O’Riley spluttered. Hair plastered his skull. He bounced on the bottom to keep his mouth just above the water. “Come closer to shore. I can’t swim,” he half-yelled in his Irish inflection.

Sean approached within inches. Oddly, they communed, only their heads visible. The water removed the difference of height. They were just faces and minds, reminding Sean of the cherubim, angels without bodies frescoed at the church dome’s perimeter. Maybe heaven resembled this, with the minds floating free.

“Hello. What do you want?” said Sean.

“I want to talk. Come to shore. I’ve something to show you.”

O’Riley turned and bounced away. Once secure on the sandy bottom, his shoulders protruding, he turned.

“Sean, come.”

Sean advanced, doing a gentle breaststroke, easing his body forward, like a boat would enter unfamiliar water.

“That’s better. Let’s play. Let’s be friends.”

The priest drew closer. A look of animal intensity entered his eyes. Suddenly, O’Riley’s arm circled Sean’s floating body, and his mouth pressed against the boy’s.

Panic engulfed Sean. Strengthened, he yanked free and paddled away into deeper water.

Rage and need reddened the priest’s face. “Sean!” O’Riley yelled. “Be a good boy and come ashore. The water …. I need your help now.”

As the priest water-crawled toward him, Sean feared the pale countenance and the presumed nakedness beneath. Fear swept through him. When a hand touched his thigh, he recoiled and swam farther out.

“Come ashore, Sean.”

“No,” he retorted instinctively. As the priest awkwardly pursued, Sean saw a reaching hand and felt violence in the sudden grip.

“Do what I ask!” O’Riley hissed.

Again, Sean broke free and swam to deeper water. Behind, he heard thrashing arms and then coughing. Turning, he realized that the priest struggled and took in water.

“Leave me alone,” Sean yelled. “Go back.”

Terror grimaced the priest’s face. Fearing a trap, Sean cautiously breaststroked closer.

With helpless terror, O’Riley spluttered: “Don’t let me…” He coughed.

Sean allowed the priest to grab his arm in an anchor-like hold. Momentarily, they struggled. Clearly, Sean realized they both might die unless he broke free. Diving, he pulled the priest along.

O’Riley released his hold and clawed toward the surface. Seeing the man’s pale nakedness, Sean felt shock and disgust.

Once above the surface, Sean saw O’Riley’s face appear and the man’s hands claw at air, but soon the movement stopped, leaving only the top of a head visible.

For a while, Sean looked. Then he swam closer, suspecting a trap. The body seemed lifeless.

Slowly, he placed an arm around O’Riley’s neck and began towing him to shore. It took a long time. He struggled to pull the priest onto the sand.

Sean wondered what people would think at the sight of a naked boy pulling a naked man to the beach. Once O’Riley rested above the waterline, Sean left him. Running to the pier, he dressed and then stood looking at the motionless body.

The priest moved. O’Riley rolled onto his stomach. After a minute, he pushed onto his hands and knees.

Sean watched him convulse, like a dog vomiting, his back arching in an involuntary spasm as his stomach and lungs emptied salt water.

O’Riley knelt there for a long while before he turned and sat. Moments later, he stood, fell, stood again and dressed.

With that much achieved, O’Riley slumped into the beach chair. From a distance, the ferry engine droned.

As the vessel pulled close and its ramp lowered, the two boarding passengers stood far apart on the dock.

Despite his clothes and the summer heat, Sean trembled and shook. Shock paralyzed his face.

Concerned, the ferry captain inquired about Sean’s health. “I nearly drowned, but I’m okay now,” he lied.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” the captain said.

From the ferry railing, Sean watched the city pier loom larger. Unsteadily, O’Riley approached. He leaned against the railing, his arms dangling, fingers knitted as in a pew, and whispered hoarsely, “Thank you.” A moment later, he added, “Forgive me.”

Sean shook so violently that he feared flying into pieces.

Gliding dream-like across the water, its wake closing behind, the ferry prepared to dock. As the engine noises subsided, solemn bells in the distance called the faithful to vespers.

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