Part 45 (1/2)
EPILOGUE.
THE MONASTERY OF THE BROTHERHOOD OF ST. ANDREW.
ST. JOHN OF THE CROSS.
Silence had fallen over the little chapel, and darkness as well. Things were peaceful, calm, as they should be. Up before the altar, the wooden coffin rested, waiting for the morning when it would be sealed away in the tomb with so many other revered dead.
Suddenly a blinding light burst in the chapel interior. And inside the coffin Father Juan revived with a gasp. Panic surged through him for a moment, until he realized where he was. This wasn't heaven. He was back on earth.
”Not again,” he groaned.
Then he rose.
And got to work.
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Fare ye well, Lord of Light
Thou wilt rule on Yuletide Night
Blackfires burn and scythe the Rows
So crieth House of Deveraux
From out thy Vessel, Lady Faire
Cahors Witches take to Aire
Blood drink of Foe and Blood of Friend
Renew the Earthe with Blood again
Mile 76 from Lee's Ferry, the Colorado River, August 1 (Lammas) Oh, great. A storm. On top of everything else.
Ignoring for the moment the thick, hot words her parents were exchanging at the bow of the inflatable raft, Holly raised her gaze to the shard of sky between the canyon walls. Nickel and copper sunlight sheered her vision, making her eyes hurt. Clouds like decomposing gray fists rumbled, and the canyon wrens fluttered from their hiding places, cooing warnings to one another.
Behind her, the extremely buff boatman who did these rides every summer for his USC tuition money grunted and sighed. Her parents had pushed the guy beyond his ”h.e.l.lo, my name is Ryan and I'll be your river guide” manners, and she didn't blame him. Her mother and father were wearing everybody out-him, her, and Tina, her best friend, who had had the bad luck to be invited on this nightmare vacation. Of course, Tina got invited to everything. Being an only child had its advantages, and both Tina and Holly were onlies.
Tina's mom had dropped out at the last minute, claiming a problem with her schedule at Marin County General, but Holly wondered if the pet.i.te, dark-haired woman had known something was up. That would make sense; Barbara Davis-Chin was Holly's mom's best friend, and even grown-up best friends told their girlfriends everything.
Hey, I know the score, Holly thought. I've seen s.e.x and the City.
Five days ago, when Holly had gotten home from her horse stable job, it had been obvious something had been going on behind the closed doors of their cla.s.sically San Franciscan Queen Anne Victorian row house. Her parents' shouts, cut short by the sound of Holly's key in the front lock, had practically echoed off the white plaster walls. She'd heard the rhythmic sound of a push broom as one of them swept up a mess. Above Holly's head as she stood in the foyer, taking off her jacket, the floorboards of her parents' bedroom creaked with tension.
”Hey, hi, you guys, I'm home,” she'd called, but no one had answered. Then after a moment or two, her father had come downstairs, his smile reaching nowhere near his eyes as he said, ”Hi, punky. Good day at the stables?”
No one had talked about what had happened. Her parents, Elise and Daniel Cathers, had joined in a conspiracy of polite silence, chilly to each other that night while packing for the trip, with the emotional frost dipping below freezing on the flight to Las Vegas. Thankfully, she'd sat with Tina in another row of the plane, and she and her best friend had had their own room in their suite at the Bellagio.
Her parents had gone out to see Cirque du Soleil, leaving Holly and Tina in their own room to talk about the upcoming senior year and their plans for college-USC for Tina, UC Santa Barbara for Holly. Then the two adults had come back, very late-and drunk, Holly hoped, because she didn't want to think that they would ever speak that way to each other when they were sober. They had flung mean words at each other like knives, words designed and honed to hurt. Holly knew it was wishful thinking that her father was not saying b.i.t.c.h, but witch, even though it had sounded like that through the closed doors of the suite's second bedroom. That was what Tina had heard too.
In the morning Ryan had met the four of them in the Bellagio foyer and driven them to the raft trip launch site. Mom and Dad had barely been civil to each other during the daylong safety training cla.s.s.
Ryan got the raft into the water and told them where to sit. Then, as if the swirling waters of the Colorado had driven their tempers, the arguing had begun again, and during the day of white-water rafting it had grown steadily worse.
Now Holly and Tina hunched over their oars, paddling according to Ryan's directions and pointedly trying to pretend nothing weird was going on. They wore bright orange life vests and orange helmets, Tina's hanging low over her black hair, which she had dyed aquamarine in honor of the trip. Holly, her own dark hair a ma.s.s of damp, crazed ringlets, was crammed beside Tina in the center of the raft, which resembled a kind of pudgy dinghy. Cold water sluiced at them from every direction as the raft roller-coastered between slick black boulders and tree trunks. As chilly as the environment was, it was tropical compared to her parents' att.i.tude toward each other.
”Dude, what is wrong with them?” Tina asked in Holly's ear. ”They're going to kill each other. Or us.”