Harmony House - Nic Sheff Page 0,57

out its eyes.”

“Dad, please, let me go. Please. I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You speak with the devil’s tongue. You must be silent. Do not let his words corrupt your ears and defile you.”

He drags me toward the door and I scream.

“Stop! Stop it!”

And then I call for help. “Somebody! Please! Colin! Colin!”

I try to wrench myself free. A blow hits me on the side of the head.

And I go down.

And there is only unconsciousness.

And in that unconsciousness, I see:

Winter in the darkness and the bare, frozen branches tap-tap against the fogged icy glass windows. Windblown snow paints the gray sky white. Within the cracked walls a fire offers little heat, burning dully in the shallow hearth. An Oriental rug frayed at the edges is laid out across the roughly textured floorboards. The light is dim and flickering—shadowy—playing across the face of the same small, pale-skinned boy with inky blue-black hair and clear blue eyes. He wears a white pressed shirt, wool pants, and jacket. His hands clasp a leather-bound book and beaded rosary.

Kneeling next to him is Sister Margaret, again dressed in a habit, with a cross dangling from her neck—the cross on a silver chain reflecting yellow light.

The boy opens his eyes, looking up at her—thinking for the thousandth time that she is the most beautiful person he’s ever seen. To him she is only pure and perfect.

He follows her down to the nursery—the walls painted a washed-out pink trimmed with painted pink and white roses. The curtains are drawn—the air cold and stale. The infants take turns crying and kicking their legs and flailing their arms uselessly—dressed in white lace nightgowns.

The boy follows Sister Margaret with a jar of silvery-gray ashes as she makes the sign of the cross over each baby’s tiny forehead.

“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. . . . Amen.”

Sister Margaret smiles down at him, her teeth white and straight, her lips full. He watches her with his own eyes flashing. But then she tells him to wait while she goes to get fresh towels. She leaves. The boy walks to the window, looking out on the snowy wilderness. A bird, huge and black, smashes into the frozen glass. The boy jumps back, spilling the sacred ashes on the polished wood floor. He falls to his knees, panicking, holding his breath, desperately trying to get the spilled ashes back in the jar.

Someone shouts from just behind him—the voice of a man, deep and rasping. It is the monsignor.

The boy trembles violently as he approaches.

The monsignor’s baritone bass voice booms out.

He holds a small leather whip in one hand.

He raises it high above his head.

The boy trembles and wets his pants.

The priest calls the boy’s name.

Urine pools beneath the boy on the floor.

The priest says his name again.

“Anselm Noonan!”

Then the whip comes down.

CHAPTER 17

I am first aware of the cold concrete pressed against my cheek. My hair has fallen down in front of my eyes and a steady pressure at the back of my neck keeps me pinned where I am. That blood taste is back in my mouth and I have to be sick. I retch against the wall and I feel the pressure release.

Then I hear my father’s voice. My father, the boy who lived here in Harmony House. The visions are coming on more and more frequently. I feel myself out of any one time—drifting from the past to the present. But now I am down in the basement, held fast against the wall the way the sisters of Harmony House were. My dad stands holding a silver cross and rosary, like the monsignor did. He wears the monsignor’s ring. He speaks with his voice. On the ground, at his feet, are the torn pages of the book—the words all crossed out with thick black lines. Candles are lit. The flames make the long shadows writhe like snakes. Without the rain and wind and thunder claps and flashes of lightning make the whole world seem like it’s going to come crashing down around me. I hear the falling of the trees in the forest.

And through it all my father’s voice like the monsignor’s carries through the echoing basement. Reverberating so it seems to berate me on all sides—like the monsignor’s whip lashing. Like Sister Angelica’s edged metal ruler. I feel the stinging pain of his words like there really is a devil in me that’s clinging on for possession.

“Lord have mercy,” my father says.

“Christ have mercy. Holy