Sketch № 8: The Eyes of Applewood
For anyone in Applewood who may be following this blog, please know that rumors of Mrs. Creaverton’s arrest have been greatly exaggerated. For that matter, rumors of Roscoe’s, Violet’s, and my arrests have been as well. The police talked to us at Café Confictura over coffee and strudel, not under interrogation lamps at the precinct.
I will go on the record, though, to say that we four did not “break into” Our Lord of the Ascension church. Why would we? Our objective was to talk to Pastor Sweeney, not to vandalize or scandalize his sacristy. And yet for the past few days since this all went down on Thursday, a troubling buzz around town has intensified like a growing horde of bees looking to sting.
The reason we were there in the first place was to ask Sweeney his thoughts on why the volunteers of Father Jack’s Table all had the same dream — another fallout of the mysterious Quake — a dream that seems to have featured Sweeney himself in a cameo role. Since the Quake hit, nearly two months ago now, Sweeney’s name has jutted up more than a few times in rumor and conversation with a sharpness that rivals the shards of asphalt on most of Applewood’s streets, driven up by the 7.2 seism.
We just want to know why.
The proof that we did not break into Our Lord of the Ascension is simply in the fact that the doors weren’t locked when we tried one; the big glass entry swept out with a light tug on the handle. And when we turned into the nave and saw no one in the pews, at the altar, sweeping up or rehearsing the choir, nothing, Roscoe announced:
“Pastor Sweeney! We would like a word, sir.”
All that replied was the echo of his own voice.
Mrs. C called, “Hello? I brought cookies.”
I gave her and her empty hands a questioning look. Mrs. C just shrugged and told me, “That wakes me up when I’m snoozing.”
Violet’s French accent rang out: “We think you are up to no good but we don’t quite know why or how, so please come out and tell us so we can go home and watch reruns of Dynasty.”
I turned my questioning look to her and was joined by Mrs. C and Roscoe.
“Like you have never watched a Dynasty rerun,” she said to us. “I can’t be the only one who enjoys the dresses and the slaps.”
Roscoe said, “Let’s check around back. See if he just didn’t hear us or something.”
That was the only reason we ended up at the sacristy. The room is down a short hall from the sanctuary and altar, and it too has a glass door and glass interior windows with blinds. But even though the blinds were drawn, there was no hiding the deep cracks in several of them. Supposedly the pastor’s had these windows replaced twice already, but the cracks just keep appearing.
Mrs. C opened the door and peeked in. “Pastor?” she said, but again no one answered. She stepped inside, and the rest of us followed.
To one side was a cabinet closet, open, the pastor’s vestments hanging neatly inside. Other closed cabinets surrounded a sink, and more closets lined the opposite wall. One of these was open, too, with candles and holy books on the shelves.
Between two groups of cabinets was the golden thurible, hanging by its golden chain from a golden stand. Something about its bottle-shaped bowl and the base on which it rests reminds me of Aladdin’s lamp. As I stood close enough to it to smell the lingering spice of its frankincense and myrrh incense, I wondered, if I rubbed it, would a genie appear?
In the dream shared by Father Jack’s volunteers, this thurible appeared behind a glass pane that shattered, not unlike the cracked glass of the sacristy. Seeing it there, after hearing about the dream and knowing this is all somehow connected to the strange happenings that began with the Quake, goosebumps rained down my back.
“Uh,” said Violet, looking back toward the sacristy door, “are you seeing this too? Or am I having the hallucinations?”
As we stood there, a crack in the door’s glass began at one corner. No pressure or strike had started it; it just began of its own volition. Under its own power. It crept its way up, crossing the pane inch by inch like an advancing spider. Then, about halfway up, it stopped. We waited, watching, breath held.
The door flung open and we all yelped, jumping back.
Nessie Fyne popped her head in, her too-small eyes raging under her blond pixie-cut hair. She looked at us and then at the door she’d just opened. “Vandals!” she cried, and ran out.
We chased her back through the sanctuary to the nave, our explanations falling over each other as she pulled out her cell phone and then said into it, “Police, I need to report a crime in progress. They’re destroying Our Lord of the Ascension!”
“Oh, Nessie, quit the drama,” said Mrs. C.
“Please hurry,” said Nessie. “They may kill me!”
Vi raised her eyebrow. “Don’t tempt me.”
Nessie backed down the church’s main aisle, her hands held out to us. “I’m keeping the phone connected. They’ll hear if you come for me.”
Roscoe said, “Nessie, what are you talking about? You know us.”
“I thought I did. But I come in here and you’ve broken in and start smashing the glass of the Lord’s house? Has the devil taken hold?”
“Perhaps of your wardrobe,” said Vi, eyeing Nessie’s T-shirt and jeans.
Nessie pointed the phone at me. “You! Blogger! You come to town and suddenly our neighbors have turned against one of our institutions.”
“While I appreciate the credit you’re giving me,” I said with Violet-level sarcasm, “may I remind you I came here to cover the Quake, and I stayed to tell this town’s story?”
She reached the front doors and pushed her body against one to open it. Sirens neared us, but that wasn’t what concerned me.
What concerned me was the crowd choking the sidewalk and still-battered Beech Street, their horrified eyes turned on us.
Roscoe asked us, “How’d they all get here so fast?”
“Nessie,” Mrs. C uttered, “did you set us up?”
Now, even as a newcomer to town, I can see Nessie and Mrs. C aren’t exactly bosom buddies. I’d even go so far as to admit Violet might not be so crazy when she talks about how Nessie wants to take over Café Confictura because Nessie thinks the ground beneath is blessed earth. I haven’t, however, believed the lengths Nessie might go to to make that happen, like when Violet proclaims that Nessie has tried to kill Mrs. C over it.
Seeing all those people already arranged just in time for the cops to pull up and shout at us “perpetrators” through their bullhorn has me wondering if Violet’s call is closer to the mark than we think. At the very least, I’m starting to wonder if Nessie wants to kill Mrs. C’s reputation, especially given the tiny smile Nessie apparently couldn’t help as the cops approached.
After the cops took our statements over at the café, they left without any arrests or even a warning. Mrs. C, Roscoe, and Violet all have reputations that run so deep in this town Nessie’s going to have to dig in the dirt a lot more to start uprooting them. And all three of them vouched for me — even Roscoe, who hates bloggers, and Violet, who oscillates between tolerating me and clawing at me.
Frankly, and from the bottom of my heart, I’m touched by their solidarity.
So none of us is worried about legal action over this. As the four of us sat at a table in the café’s front room, the soft amber of the interior lights glowing against the rising dusk, we shared what exactly we are worried about.
As the crowd dispersed, we got our fair share of suspicious glares. At one point, a couple of kids wanted to come inside for a treat, and their mother hustled them away from the door.
“Our town won’t turn against us,” said Mrs. C, but her voice wasn’t its normal sturdy pillar.
“That would be bad enough,” said Roscoe. “But I have two questions that weren’t answered today, in all the police interviews, in all the accusation.
“Why was the church open when Sweeney was nowhere to be found, and even if Nessie did set us up, how would she have known we would be in the sacristy and that the glass would break so that she’d be able to accuse us of vandalism?”
“How did she even know we’d be at the church?” Violet piped up.
Mrs. C nodded slowly. “Right. How did she know to get all those lookie-loos there?” She turned searching eyes out to the town beyond her front window. “How did she know?”
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This and any related blog posts are works of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Any reference to living or dead public figures, entities, places, events, and the like, are of a fictional, opinioned, and/or parodic nature. No healthcare professionals have been consulted in writing this. Any advice given or inferred is anecdotal and used at your own risk. Consult your doctor in all healthcare matters.
Clarissa J. Markiewicz is the author of Christmas In Whimsy — a heartwarming, fun novel readers compare to Hallmark Christmas movies, and recipient of Readers’ Favorite 5-star Seal — and the genre-bending new-age mystery The Paramour Pawn.
