Father Gaetano's Puppet Catechism - By Christopher Golden Page 0,26

slits and his brow furrowed in irritation at the distraction from his descent back into sleep. The scratching came again, but it had a muffled quality so that it seemed to be coming from the wall rather than the headboard.

Mice, he thought. Or rats. And he shivered, for he had always despised vermin.

For the first time it occurred to him to wonder why he had come awake at all. Had it been this noise, haunting his dreams, drawing him from slumber?

Father Gaetano lay listening for the sound, waiting for it to come again. A minute passed, and then two, and the softness of sleep began to envelop him again, easing his mind, releasing the tension that had begun to turn his muscles taut. It felt as if he were sinking deeper into his mattress and pillow, and he felt grateful for sleep’s embrace, and the warmth his own body generated beneath the bedclothes.

All save the skin that remained uncovered. His throat and neck. His arm. The single foot that stuck out from beneath the covers, jutting out over the edge of the mattress. The gentle breeze that slipped through the slightly open window caressed him with chill fingers. Gooseflesh rose on his skin, and he became keenly aware, quite abruptly, of how exposed his foot and ankle were to anything that might creep out from beneath his bed.

It was not terror he felt, nor precisely even fear, but his heartbeat increased its pace nevertheless. Fool, he chided himself. Rats cannot reach your foot from the floor, nor would they wish to. But then another thought came, one that had been lurking beneath his unease. What if it’s something else? Something other than vermin?

A small smile touched his lips—a nervous smile—and now he admonished himself for the childishness of this thought. It had been many years since he had been a little boy afraid of monsters under the bed. He was a man, now. A man of God.

Even so …

Sighing, chuckling at himself, he drew his leg in, but the tangle of the bedclothes trapped him in place for a moment.

A moment in which he heard the skittering noise beneath the bed.

Cursing, he twisted and tugged the bedclothes free, pulling his leg onto the bed and sitting up straight, peering into darkness of the quiet room, the only light the dim glow of the moon that slipped in beneath the shades, which he had drawn nearly to the windowsills.

His heart thumped against the inside of his chest as if it meant to break free, perhaps to flee. For several seconds the young priest sat still, and then a wave of embarrassment swept over him. He felt more than a little ridiculous.

A mouse. Of course. He’d heard it in the wall, hadn’t he?

Shaking off the childhood fears that still lingered inside him, he reached out and turned on the small lamp on his bedside table. The idea of setting foot on the floor had no appeal to him, so he hung his upper body off the bed, hands propped on the hardwood, and peered into the dark shadows underneath.

A tiny, painted, grinning face looked back at him in jeering silence.

“Jesus Christ!” he cried, lurching back onto the bed, a hundred half-formed thoughts—mad thoughts—darting through his mind as his breath caught in his throat.

And then he shuddered, and exhaled, shaking his head in private humiliation at his idiocy, and at his breaking of the Third Commandment.

“Stupid,” he muttered to himself.

Taking a breath, he extricated himself from the bedclothes and slid from the mattress to kneel on the floor. Bending his head, he peered beneath the bed again, saw that same, garishly painted face staring back, and reached under to retrieve the puppet.

Father Gaetano sat on his knees, holding Pagliaccio in his hand and staring at the ugly little clown. He knew he ought to keep the incident to himself, but he felt sure he would share it with Sister Teresa. How it would amuse her to hear of his fear.

He set the puppet on a shelf—making sure to arrange it so that it faced away from him, not wanting its flat, puppet eyes staring at him as he tried to fall back to sleep—and crept back into bed. As he lay his head down upon his pillow once more, he wondered how it had come to be there. Had Sebastiano been playing in his room, or had one of the other boys stolen it and hidden it here to torment the little one?