The Blessed - By Tonya Hurley Page 0,43

then brushed his hand along her forehead. She was burning up.

“Do they hurt?” he asked, sliding his hand from her shoulder down along her arm.

“No,” she said again, this time with more conviction, but quickly reversed herself when she saw the skepticism in his eye. “Yes.”

“Come with me.” Sebastian reached out his hand and gently helped her up. Agnes was in her bare feet, wearing a soggy Hippie Gypsy crinkled tiered peasant skirt that went down to her milky white ankles—each tier a different shade, resembling a snowfall in the city—the first tier was pure white, the middle tiers were degrees of gray, until eventually the bottom tier, which was the soft black color of soot.

He led her down the side aisle toward the front of the church, through a door and into a small room behind the altar. It was cool and the air was heavy with the aroma of sandalwood, balsam, and rose. Agnes had a good nose for aromas and prided herself on her ability to pick out even the most obscure scents for the personalized fragrances and soaps she made for her friends as birthday gifts. The one scent she did not pick up, which permeated the rest of the building, was the odor of her own decay.

Sebastian struck a match, lit a taper, and stood before a large wooden cabinet with drawers and double closets, one on each side. It was traditionally styled, antique, though it was hard to see completely in the dim light. The sort of oversize piece that Agnes and her friends might scour the Park Slope flea markets for ages to find. He turned the candle sideways so that some wax would drip from the wick and form a molten puddle on the wooden countertop. He forced the bottom of the taper into the hot wax and held it for a few seconds while it fixed itself, holding the candle upright.

For the first time she was able to see the room they’d entered. A large gold crucifix hung above the cabinet and colorful robes of purple, green, and white were suspended from hooks behind the door. There was a kneeler and several ornately carved chairs with deep burgundy velvet seat covers. She noticed two doors, a larger one next to the cabinet that led to a small bathroom and a smaller black one in the back wall. Strewn across the top of the cabinet were boxes of taper candles, votive candles, brass snuffers, incense packets, and chained bronze urns, glass and ceramic casters, gold cups and plates unlike anything she’d seen before. A bookstand with a leather-bound and gilt-paged prayer book, open, with multicolored satin bookmarks dangling from select pages. Agnes was awed and more than a little uncomfortable.

“Where are we?” Agnes asked.

“It’s called a sacristy. Like a man cave for priests.”

“Looks more like an operating room, I think,” Agnes said, eyeing all the tools of the Episcopal trade on display.

“Speaking of which . . . ” Sebastian grabbed for the closet door and pulled it open.

The aromas wafted upward and became even more intense, almost overwhelming to her. He reached for a glass cruet from among several on a shelf, stood up, turned toward her, and removed the stopper.

Agnes turned effortlessly toward him like a delicate figurine inside a music box.

“Give me your arms,” he said tenderly.

“Why?”

“It’s okay,” he said, smiling concernedly, and held out his hand to receive hers. “I won’t hurt you.”

She raised her slender limbs and held them straight outward, wrists facing up, almost offering her wounds to him. Sebastian’s eyes fixed on her chaplet.

“He gave this to me,” Agnes said. “Just like you asked.”

“He’s a good boy,” Sebastian said as he gently pulled at the wrapping on her wrists. Slowly, he removed the tape and then unwound the protective gauze bandage until all that remained on each wrist was a rectangular absorbent pad, soaked through a brownish red with her blood. More concerning was the tinge of yellow on the pad.

“I think it’s getting infected,” she said, wincing.

Sebastian got as good a look as he could by candlelight. The wound was healing but still raw and inflamed. She’d cut deep and there were more stitches than he could count.

“I was supposed to go back to the doctor today,” she said nervously, “but I got into a fight with my mom and—”

“Do you get along with her?”

“We just see things very differently.”

“Like?”

“I don’t know.” Agnes hesitated. “Love? Life?”

“Is that all?”

She smiled.

“What about you?”

“I don’t have an family