Angel of Darkness (32 page)

Besides, Adam had people who loved him and would see him through. He had Connie, who welcomed him into her house without hesitation, converting the guest bedroom into a sanctuary that Adam could make as tidy as the tiny space he had left behind. The room once designated as my place of banishment on drunken nights was transformed into a place of hope for a boy who had finally caught a break in life. And Adam's English teacher, Mr Phillips, was there for him, too, to be his advocate with Social Services and to make sure that Adam got the scholarship he had been hoping for.

In the end, Adam Mullins – who had been born on the wrong side of the tracks and, by all prescribed conventions of our town, doomed to die there, too – escaped Helltown.

My son Michael found himself while helping Adam through the difficult weeks of his father's trial. I think that all the months of being the boy whose father had been killed during a drug bust, under murky circumstances, had left Michael feeling like a character in a movie he did not want to see. Adam gave Michael himself back. He gave him a way to discover strength and compassion within himself and he gave Michael something bigger than himself to worry about. People call these byproducts of our suffering ‘blessings in disguise.' But I think they represent so much more than that. I think they prove that there is, indeed, an evening outside of the Universe, one that takes place in a hundred different ways in a thousand different places each and every hour of every day that passes in the plane of the living. It is a constant taking back of the world from the forces of darkness. Who or what oversees this balance, I cannot say. But it is an awe-inspiring power once you notice it.

The house where I had once lived was transformed into a noisy, teenage boy headquarters where Connie reigned supreme and sports equipment cluttered every room, and my youngest son, Sean, delighted in having another older brother – one who was actually nice to him.

They would all be OK, most especially Michael. He had left the darkness behind.

Connie continued to see Cal, but something had changed between them forever. Connie no longer needed Cal as much as she once had and Cal had seen Connie's astonishing inner strength, strength she had earned during her years with me. Whether they would stay together, I could not say. But I did know that, at least for now, I'd had enough of watching them and enough of contemplating what I did not have. I was constantly leaving Connie and returning to her, drawn by the need to spy on the life I had wasted. Enough. From here on out, I would fight that urge. It keeps me here, in this place, and I know that, no matter what, my mission now is to move on.

Holloway survived. It survived the murders and the chaos and the macabre sight of Otis Parker's body being toted across the lawn and disposed of like the garbage he was.

Holloway survived because it had to. My town, like all towns, needs a place like Holloway – a place where people who are lost can find their way back to a tentative truce with themselves; a place where people can make peace with the minutes that mark their days and find a way to go on living through the years. Those who remain at Holloway lead the simplest of lives. They walk, they see, they eat, they sleep. Maybe that is all the world can ask of them this time around. I have seen what thoughts they hold, what sorrows they harbor, what fears – often rightly – they run from. I understand. They need Holloway every bit as much as Holloway needs them.

It did not take long for order to return to Holloway, at least the level of order that was possible there. Soon, the short-term unit was filled again with people hoping to get back on the track of their lives. Harold Babbitt continued to spew his stew of words as he marched across the lawns and up and down the brick walkways. And he continued to astonish the weary aides who followed him around with occasional nuggets of wisdom that pierced through their exhaustion and gave them pause.

‘Harold Babbitt sees an angel,' he said one day, staring at a fat aide whose skin was the color of walnuts and whose hair danced in braids when she shook her head. She was keeping him company as he marched across the lawn. ‘Harold Babbitt sees an angel,' he repeated, pointing to her hair, ‘and her braids shine like spun gold beneath a fiery sun.'

It was, in his own way, words of love – words that I knew the aide would never forget.

The staff returned his affection. They found a helmet for him made of a material that would protect his head while still allowing his wounds to breathe. He wore it rakishly, like a World War One pilot who has just gunned down another German ace. Someone with a sense of humor – my money was on a quiet nurse with light-brown hair who seldom spoke to anyone – gave him a long white scarf one day. Harold wore it wrapped around his throat so that it flowed behind him if he ran fast enough. All he needed now was a biplane.

Harold Babbitt was a man of the stars.

He and I seldom ended up in the quiet room with the padded corners anymore. He had found an identity, however improbable, and he clung to it with a contentment that trumped launching himself at walls.

I missed those moments alone in the padded room with Harold. It wasn't the same without him. Sure, I could go in and enjoy the quiet, but what I really missed was the feeling of Harold's frantic dissatisfaction transforming into contentment. It had seemed, somehow, to mirror something still unknown and restless within myself.

Lily did not remain at Holloway. Something had changed in her the night she ventured out into the storm. When a new psychiatrist arrived to put Holloway back in order, he brought with him a list of new drugs and found a combination of two that held hope for Lily. As the days passed, and her mind calmed, and it appeared that the grinning cat in the dark shadowed forest of her mind had been banished forever, her parents made plans for her to move to a special school closer to their home. It wasn't the same as living a normal life, but at least Lily would be among others near her age. The day she left Holloway, she held her father's hand and clutched her teddy bear close to her heart. Someone – an aide, perhaps, who wished her well – had embroidered bright-yellow daisies where the mutilated eye holes had once been, transforming the grotesque toy into a jaunty symbol of childhood. He'd be a big hit at tea parties for sure.

Olivia, too, left Holloway, her journey back to herself complete. One perfect spring morning a few weeks after Eugene Mullins and Otis Parker had been discovered at the lip of the pipe, Olivia rose, combed her hair, packed her suitcase and sat on the couch in the waiting room, hands folded in her lap and eyes fixed resolutely on the entranceway door. I wondered who was coming for her. Her husband was dead. Her child was dead. No one had ever visited her while she had been at Holloway. But later that morning, as the birds burst out in song, and the sun climbed in the sky, and the tulips seemed to grow right before your very eyes, on a day filled with new life and new promise, a plump older woman with frazzled hair and a grateful look on her face spotted Olivia and took her in her arms, sobbing without restraint at the joy of seeing her daughter again.

It was Olivia who had imposed her own exile, who had felt compelled to punish herself by locking herself up at Holloway. There were people who loved her waiting for her, who knew what she had been through, who would help her find her way through the world.

I knew I would never see her again.

She opened the door and stepped outside, then turned back to me as if to say goodbye. My heart leapt – until she looked right past me to a corner of the room, where a beautiful old woman with gray hair falling charmingly from her bun sat on a chair, enjoying the sunshine that spilled through the French windows nearby. She was waiting for her knight to come bearing the yellow roses he always brought for her.

Olivia ran back to her and knelt in front of her, taking the woman's porcelain hands in her own. Olivia kissed each palm before placing them back in her lap. Then Olivia rose and turned to go, never seeing the miracle that I saw follow – a smile on the old woman's lips.

I followed Olivia and her mother out to their car and watched them drive away until they were nothing more than a speck of silver twinkling along the road that wound down to the valley below. It felt like she had taken my heart with her.

I stood for a moment on the street outside of Holloway, staring in through the front gate at the beautiful lawn and the aimless people wandering over its acres. They were lost, just like me. They wandered, just like me.

No wonder I'd felt like I belonged at Holloway.

But that was then and this was now. Yes, there were times when the lost souls of Holloway could see me, when their gazes lingered on my face and I could feel the heat of their recognition. It felt good, but it wasn't good for them. Too many of them wanted to join me here, in the afterlife. I could not become the wandering commander of a raggedy crew. They were not done with their lives and they were not why I was here. I had redeemed myself at Holloway, at least a little, but I would not find my answers on The Hill.

As I turned my back on the great house of secrets and began to make my way down toward town, I could hear Harold Babbitt behind me greeting a newcomer to Holloway. His voice drifted on the wind, reaching me like a gift: ‘Harold Babbitt sees a crazy man,' he was announcing to all. ‘Harold Babbitt sees a crazy man for sure.'

EPILOGUE

T
he storm raged, pounding the prison relentlessly. Thunder and lightning split the sky as if mocking the anger of the men trapped side. It had been an ugly evening, even for a place where ugliness was expected. A new prisoner, recently transferred in from a small town nearby, had been challenged at dinner by inmates far stronger and more experienced in the ways of institutional cruelty.

The new prisoner had surprised everyone. Although overweight and doughy, with a mournful face that seemed both sleepy and resigned, he had defended himself with a surety that took his attackers by surprise. Two of them were in the infirmary now, one with a fork wound in his eye.

Those who witnessed the fight pronounced the new inmate ‘ferocious' and gave him the nickname ‘Badger.' At the moment, though, he was simply Inmate #4372, confined to an isolation cell as punishment until the authorities could figure out what to do with him.

God, but he hated the rain. As soon as he was free from this hellhole, he was going to move to a desert town where he never had to see it or hear it again. He stood at the tiny window carved into the massive stone walls that confined him and stared out at the pelting rain, cursing his luck and, just for good measure, cursing the world itself.

He turned as a tinkling sound in the hallway approached. A series of clanks signaled the unlocking of his door. The heavily reinforced steel slab opened and a guard entered the cell. He was huge and his head was shaved so closely his skull gleamed beneath the cell's single light bulb. His uniform barely covered his bulging muscles and he had a red beard that had been twisted into small braids that dangled from his chin. Tiny brass bells threaded through the ends of the braids explained the tinkling sound.

The guard looked familiar, though the inmate could not quite place him. Had he known him on the outside?

‘What the hell do you want?' he asked him. The guard made him uneasy.

‘Not a thing,' the guard said cheerfully. He had a gold upper tooth that twinkled when he smiled. He was staring at the inmate as he smiled, his head cocked to one side and his massive arms folded over his chest.

The inmate stared back at him. ‘What the hell do you want?' he asked again. His hands twitched. He was ready for anything.

‘I just wanted to make sure you were in here all alone.'

‘All alone?' the inmate growled back at the guard. ‘No shit. I'm in solitary confinement.'

The guard nodded, satisfied. ‘Better get used to it, my brother. I'm going to make sure you stay right here.'

‘You can't do that,' the inmate said. He could feel the rage rising in him, like a beast that hungered to break free. What he wouldn't give for the chance to tear the guard's eyes out and rip his entrails from his body.

‘Sure I can,' the guard said cheerfully. He dangled his keys just out of the inmate's reach and jingled them. ‘I can do anything.'

He turned and left, locking the door behind him.

Behind the inmate, flickering against the gray stone wall, a terrible shadow coalesced and took shape. Dark wings swelled to life, magnificent in breadth, flexing and testing their strength. Just as quickly, they folded down into nothingness and the shadow disappeared.

The inmate never even seemed to notice. He moved to the window and stared into the night. Outside, the wind howled and the heavens thundered as the sky wept relentless, never-ending tears. There was nothing the inmate could do but watch the rain.

Eugene Mullins was alone.