Black Apple (20 page)

“Eww, that’s good!” Martha Buffalo squealed. “Should I confess stealing food?”

“No, stealing breaks one of the Ten Commandments,” Beth warned. “A mortal sin. Sister Joan will make you pray on your knees down the whole chapel aisle. Probably the Commandments to copy out too. Unless you can get Rose Marie to write them for you.” Beth had glanced over at her, sniggering.

Rose Marie retaliated. “As everyone knows, E-liz-a-beth”—she pronounced the name just as Sister Joan did when she was mad—“the priest can’t tell the nuns what you confess. Only God.”

Just then, Sister Margaret snapped out a warning and switched off the lights. Lying awake in her bed while the other girls, one by one, stopped whispering and fell asleep, Rose Marie decided to take her first confession—
her reconciliation with God
, Sister Joan had told them in class—seriously. She was fed up with being awake at night with no company but ghosts no one else ever saw. She would tell Father David what she had never told anyone but Anataki.

Next morning, inside the confessional it was dark, almost as dark as the dormitory at night. The prayer bench was low, and she had to raise her head to speak through the screen. They had practised what to do in Sister Joan’s religion class, and Sister Cilla had gone over the procedure with all the girls in third year for a few nights just before bed, but still, she felt small and bewildered.

“Good afternoon, my child,” Father David greeted her, but no light flooded down from heaven, no flame ignited her heart, no wings of deliverance had lifted her spirit.

“Have faith in the Lord, my child.”

“Amen.”

“Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.”

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” she muttered. “This is my first confession, and I’m not sure if God is really here.”

She had been so ignorant.

“The Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.”

“I confess to Almighty God and you, Father, that I hate those people at night!”

“Speak up!”

She raised her voice only slightly, afraid the other girls waiting their turn outside the confessional would hear her secret. “Father, something happens at night, things I see, things that no one else knows about.”

“What is it you see?”

She leaned on her elbows to raise herself closer to the screen so Father David would hear. “They come out of the shadows. They walk all around the dormitory. That nun, a young one who isn’t even here in the day. She talks to me.”

“A nun?”

“Sick girls too.” She stopped. She thought she heard something—a scoff in Father David’s voice—and she wondered if he believed her. She wanted him to lift the edge of her fear, to pull it from her with his old fingers, then explain it, pray it away.

“Dead ones,” she said. “Lydia, Ruth, Maryanne. I see them when they leave. But mostly, it’s just the nun.” Her voice became a whisper, but Father David, his ear pressed to the screen, didn’t ask her to speak up again. He didn’t speak at all.

“Child,” he said finally, “I believe you’re dreaming.
May the Almighty God have mercy on you, forgive you your sins, and lead you to Eternal Life. Amen. May the Almighty and Merciful Lord grant you pardon, absolution, and remission of your sins. Amen. May our Lord . . .
” He went on forever before muttering the words she expected to hear:
“I absolve you of your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”

She would never confess to seeing shadow people again. He thought she was dreaming.

  *  *  *  

Now she raised her head and stared at the books on the desktop, Mother Grace’s chair, the cross over the door, disoriented by all the years that had passed at the school. But one thing she knew for certain: she couldn’t stand it, couldn’t stand
them
anymore. The ghosts. She shoved
A Child’s First Confession
, and it thudded to the floor. Hearing Mother Grace’s footsteps coming down the hall, she quickly retrieved it.

“Rose Marie!” Mother Grace exclaimed as she entered, as if she was surprised to see her. One of her hands was locked around a newspaper, and her tongue flicked nervously over her bottom lip. She looked different, older than ever. “We’ll have to leave things for today.” She dropped the newspaper on her desk.
“Mon Dieu, Mon Dieu.”

  *  *  *  

On Saturday, Rose Marie went to confession even though she didn’t want to. She tripped through a list of dumb venial sins but didn’t say anything about the shadow people. Father William probably wouldn’t believe her any more than Father David had. “Dreams,” she was almost certain he would mutter through the confessional screen. Or “lies.” “Say the rosary. In the name of the Father, of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.” Blah, blah, blah. If only she
could
dream. Taki had taken her beautiful summer dreams with her.

  *  *  *  

On Monday afternoon during free time, she walked around the school grounds with Susanna Big Snake and Maria Running Deer, listening to them chatter about some singer named Elvis Presley.

“I think he’s part Indian,” Maria said. “You can tell.”

Susanna nodded. “What a dreamboat!”

Blah, blah, blah.

She knocked on Mother Grace’s office door. “Do you think I could attend evening Compline with the sisters like I do in the summer?” Perhaps if she were around the sisters more often, the ghosts would stay away.

Mother Grace examined her closely. “All right.”

That evening she went to chapel with the nuns. After prayers, as the sisters rose to file out, she followed at a distance. Before she reached the font of holy water by the door, the new nun, Sister Simon, who was now the youngest, younger than Sister Cilla, turned off the lights.

Rose Marie made the mistake of looking back at the altar.

Moonlight drifted through the stained glass and revealed the thick outline of the ghost priest as he dropped to his knees before the crucifix.

“Loathe,”
Sister Joan had pronounced that day in class, drawing the word out and making Rose Marie remember maggots wriggling through a deer carcass. “The people loathed the lepers. Everyone loathed them but Jesus.”

The shadow priest loathed himself, but watching him, she thought he was taking pleasure in his loathing, working at it like it was his sacred duty.

She needed her Anataki back. Who had always listened. Who had believed her, had even seen the shadow sister herself. She crossed herself with holy water and left the chapel.

As she climbed the stairs to the dorm, she remembered what Mother Grace had said to her that afternoon. Mother had been upset, still upset, and that newspaper on her desk was folded so tightly she couldn’t read the headline. “God doesn’t always answer our prayers in the manner we expect, Rose Marie. He provides answers, but we don’t necessarily understand them. Not at first. We have to use this—” She had tapped her temple with a forefinger.

But Rose Marie’s brain wasn’t working. Her skull had cracked, and if she went up the steps too fast, pieces would break off and shatter. Yet she wasn’t dying. All this
blue
, all her
heartsick
, and yet she just wouldn’t, couldn’t seem to die.

M
OTHER GRACE ASSUMED
that Father Alphonses had told William about Tom Two Horse’s death firsthand, though he had informed her by simply muttering “terrible tragedy” and shoving the newspaper in her hand.
Body Found Behind Hilltop Catholic Church
the headline screamed, as she opened it on the kitchen table.

Since reading the article, she had tried not to think of Tom, yet thoughts of him kept dropping into her mind like black rain.
Aie foi en Dieu
, she told herself, pressing her fingers to her eyelids. Trust in the Almighty. Piled in front of her on the desk was the bookkeeping she should be doing, would be doing if she could stop the memories of Tom. She hadn’t thought she remembered what he looked like, but
Mon Dieu
, there he was—a first-year boy, small for his age, his eyes as large and soft as those of a new calf, an immature and vulnerable child with no brothers or cousins to protect him.

Hearing footsteps in the hall, she glanced up in time to see Father William hurry past her door, a cup and saucer clattering in his hands.

“Father William,” she called, but he didn’t so much as slow down.

He was taking all his meals with Father David this week, carrying them up to their suite on the second floor rather than sitting in the dining room with Brother Abe. Perhaps he was afraid he’d miss Father David now that the old man had finally decided to retire to the Oblates’ facility in Toronto.

The first Thursday of Lent would be St. David’s Day, and while honouring his namesake, the religious community of St. Mark would also celebrate Father David’s service to the school. On the Saturday, Father Alphonses would drive Father David and his boxes to Hilltop to catch the train.

She wanted to ask William about Tom’s death. Did he have any insights; indeed, any guilt? She could think of little else, and since Father William was avoiding her, she would have to find out the details from Father Alphonses. Despite not having money in the budget for unnecessary calls, she reached for the phone and dialled the rectory in Hilltop.

“Well, Grace,” Father Alphonses impertinently addressed her. “It was snowing and the walk needed shovelling. I went around the back of the rectory to retrieve the shovel. Nothing clears the mind before Sunday services like shovelling snow.”

Such false levity, she thought.

“I was breaking ice from the top stair when I noticed something grey hanging from the big elm at the back of the yard. I couldn’t tell what it was.” There was a pause, and she heard the muffled sound of popping joints. Father Alphonses had an annoying habit of pulling at his cold fingers when nervous.

“He had hung himself,” Father Alphonses said finally. “I hardly knew the young man, but he was a drinker. Hadn’t made much of his life since he left school. Why he chose the churchyard to do his dirty deed, I can’t say.”

“Well, I can. Unless he was about to hitchhike to St. Mark’s or St. Gerard’s, there wasn’t a more appropriate place. Both church and school were the sources of his suffering, and if you don’t know that as well as I do, you can guess.”

Her outburst startled her, and she pressed her fingers to her lips. Normally she held her tongue until she could think of a way to approach controversial topics diplomatically. But her jaw was sore with all the tongue-holding she’d been doing for the past four decades.

“Well . . . why . . . Mother Grace, I’ll have you know—” Father Alphonses stuttered, but she had no time for his attempt at righteous indignation.

“That’s all I wanted to know, Alphonses.” And she hung up.

  *  *  *  

Just before supper, she heard Father William quietly making his way down the hall towards the kitchen. As quickly as she could manage, she got up from her desk and moved to the door.

“Father William.” She stepped neatly in front of him.

“Oh.” As she caught his eye, he looked down.

“I was just recalling when you were Brother William, before you returned to the seminary to become a priest.”

He was clearly uncomfortable. “I’m afraid I, um—”

“The school was coeducational then. Remember?”

“Yes, Mother Grace, I do. I’m sorry, but I really must—”

“Of course, that was before the fire that forced the Antelope Hills students to attend St. Mark’s. My, but it was crowded, wasn’t it, Father? St. Mark’s nearly burst at the seams. What did it take? Two years before we finally got money to build St. Gerard’s and make it the boys’ school? Another year before the doors opened. And it wasn’t finished then. You went to St. Gerard’s with the boys.”

“Yes. Now I, um, really must get Father David his dinner.” He ducked around her and rushed away. As if he knew exactly where the conversation was headed.

Mon Dieu
, she could see now that so much of what had gone wrong at St. Gerard’s and St. Mark’s had been unnecessary. She was so naive back then. She should have opened her eyes. Instead, she did as she had always done: she had trusted her superiors and prayed to God that things would improve. Just as she was always advising the sisters to do.

And what good had it done? Father Damien, a man subject to temptations of the flesh, had been sent to St. Mark’s from St. Gerard’s after he beat poor Tom Two Horse so soundly. None of the sisters had been unduly concerned when Damien arrived, because no one had informed them that he had been transferred to St. Gerard’s from a school up north due to unseemly allegations involving senior girls. She still wondered if Father Matthew had told Father David, who simply hadn’t passed on this “trivial” piece of information to Mother Paul Pius, or if Matthew had kept Father Damien’s shameful conduct to himself.

To make matters worse, Father William, with his own proclivities, had remained at the boys’ school. Why hadn’t Father Matthew reprimanded Father Damien for his violence against Tom and then placed him under his watchful eye? If the man had a watchful eye in his empty head. Conversely, an all-girls’ school would have been a much better place for Brother William, who had grown too fond of certain male students, the ill-fated Tom Two Horse for one. The beating administered to Tom by Father Damien had been the act that had started even more trouble.

She wished William hadn’t run off just now. She wanted to be absolutely certain he knew about the death of Tom Two Horse.
Non
, he knew. She was certain of it. She turned back to her office and her accounts.

But she couldn’t concentrate. Little Tommy was watching her.

He must have been ten years old when he went off to St. Gerard’s with the other boys. And encountered the wrath of Father Damien, as it turned out. She remembered Brother William, while delivering supplies to St. Mark’s, in a breathless recounting of the crime, describing the marks Damien had left on Tommy’s back as “terrible welts on the boy’s flawless skin.” That was the beginning, she supposed, of Father William’s subsequent fixation on young Tom.