Embracing Darkness

By Christopher D. Roe

Phineas Poole is notorious for making bad decisions. Blindly accepting the position as pastor of a small, unknown church in rural New Hampshire isn’t the worst choice he could make. Yet he and Sister Mary Ignatius, an overbearing, foulmouthed nun, choose to risk everything when they secretly open their rectory to shelter abused children. Their trouble begins when they take in Zachary Black, an antisocial misfit with no conscience and a burning hatred for those around him. Assuming the boy’s malevolence to be a cry for help, the priest focuses all his attention and efforts on Black, who has neither the desire to be helped, nor the intention to be reformed. Ultimately, this situation puts the lives of those whom Phineas loves in peril and forces him to reveal the sins of a dark past.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Aug 15, 2012
• ISBN: 9781477252758

Christopher D. Roe

Christopher D. Roe is a native of New Rochelle, New York. He holds a master’s degree of professional studies from Manhattanville College in the area of foreign language education and is a Spanish and French teacher in a suburb of New York City. His first novel, “Embracing Darkness,” was released in 2012. He lives in northern New Jersey.

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PROLOGUE

One night, when I was on night duty, looking after the littlest of the lot, I was stirred from my staring fit by the sound of rustling in the nearby bed. It was little Ziggy, wide awake and apparently a bit frightened. He told me he’d been awakened by a loud noise that sounded like cannon fire. I simply told him that he’d been dreaming, and to go back to sleep.

As I was known among all the children in the home for being the one to weave some pretty interesting yarns, the little boy knew that if asked, I might tell him a story. I suppose it’s almost like when a composer is asked to play his latest piece, or a chef asked to cook up his best dish. I, too, considered myself a professional, albeit one in the story-telling field; and although, at the age of ten, I had a long way to go as far as my writing was concerned, I could keep people entertained for hours with my tales. I was so good at it, in fact, that many times, unbeknownst to my listeners, I would make things up as I went along. It came easy to me; almost naturally, it seemed.

But the story I told Ziggy that night was one I’d been thinking of for awhile. I had always been fascinated with the nearby Indian nations, and had even read comic books on the subject. Although these books were mostly based on real-life facts of how settlers clashed with the Algonquin tribes of the Northeast and the Canadian border, I preferred to spin my own take of the Native Americans, as I found their culture to be somewhat alluring in that they believed in magic, evil spirits and monster-like demons; much like ten-year-old kids believe.

Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not calling American Indian culture juvenile in any way. I simply mean that their life is quite appealing to an impressionable pre-teen such as I once was.

Before my time at the Home, I would often go to Holly Public Library and read up on the local tribes. I quickly became enthralled with each passing word I read about Abenaki and Pennacook Mythology. It wasn’t long before I began to mold my own Native American legends in my head, and by the time Ziggy had asked me to tell him a story that night, I was ready to accommodate him.

Tell me a story about the maple. he begged.

What kind of story do you want to hear? I asked him. A funny one or a sad one?

A scary one. he replied. One with ghosts in it.

Scary, eh? I said, a bit perplexed, seeing as how he’d been so frightened just a few moments before.

With ghosts. repeated Ziggy.

I wanted to tell him that it was ridiculous to scare him more than he already was for obvious reasons. But if you’ve ever tried reasoning with a five-year-old, it’s as futile as squeezing a rock with your bare hands, expecting it to break apart and reveal a diamond.

Alright, Ziggy. I said, rolling up my sleeves and then rubbing my hands together as if ready to perform a magic trick. This is the story of how our maple tree out back and Holly Hill came to be.

*       *       *

A long time ago, long before the arrival of the white man, there lived a beautiful young Indian girl, named Kerawana, who lived in the north among the Abenaki Indians. People said she was so beautiful, that it was as though Kisosen, the sun god, shed a tear and from it was born Kerawana. Her father, Penaushiwa, a proud and headstrong Abenaki warrior, kept Kerawana hidden from the eyes of any man seeking to catch a glimpse of her beauty.

But on her sixteenth birthday, Kerawana slipped away from her father’s vigilant eye, just so she could wander freely in the woods, for she had forgotten what it felt like to be free. Once at a safe distance from the village, she broke into a slow run, and let her long black hair flap behind her in the breeze, and at that moment, she felt free. Kerawana experienced the cool breeze on her face and thought that nothing in this world felt so good.

As Kerawana grew tired from unfamiliar exertion, she rested at the foot of a large tree. Within moments, she was asleep. Soon after she was awakened by a high-pitched scream, which was quickly followed by its own echo. Kerawana jumped up and stood motionless, her body now trembling as she waited to hear the ungodly distant cry once more.

It’s the wendigo. she told herself, and remembered what her mother had always told her about never interfering where the evil demon spirit wandered. As long as Kerawana stood where she was, and let the wendigo pass without seeing her, she would be safe. She squeezed her eyes tightly shut and waited. She heard the same shrill scream once more. She held her breath and clenched her hands tightly into fists, causing her nails to dig into her palms until they bled. The scream was quickly replaced by the sound of leaves rustling in the trees as the wind swept through the forest.

When she opened her eyes again, Kerawana began to fear the woods around her. Nothing appeared familiar to her. Being kept in isolation for so many years, she knew no further than the confines of her own village. She was lost. She followed the light from the setting sun, believing that she had originally traveled east. She wandered for hours and hours. By the time the moon was high in the sky, Kerawana had given up all hope, and collapsed into a ball. She lay, trembling with cold, and cried for her mother and father. With her one ear pressed against the ground, she heard a voice call her name. The voice was like no other voice she had ever heard before, for it did not sound human. It sounded like it was filled with rotted leaves and dirt, and it crunched and crackled with every syllable.

Kerawana. the voice called.

Kerawana opened her eyes and surveyed the near pitch black that surrounded her. For comfort, she looked up to the only source of light that she had coming from the full moon. All was quiet. Again she lie down and put one ear to the ground and again she heard the voice.

Kerawana.

This time, Kerawana was too frightened to move. She lay frozen in fear and began to tremble. She thought the voice to be that of the wendigo, who had found her and was prepared to spill her blood.

I can help you, Kerawana. the voice whispered, slowly.

Kerawana, in all her fear, noticed something strange about the voice. She could only hear it in the one ear that was pressed against the earth.

Who are you? asked Kerawana, still motionless.

I am Wanom-keea-po-da, the spirit that dwells below the grass and dirt. As all creatures walk above me, so I see all that they do. I see where the closest of your kind is. I can help you find your people.

My people? asked Kerawana, feeling unsure about enlisting the help of a strange spirit. I don’t trust you, spirit. How will I know you are telling me the truth?

The voice didn’t answer for several moments, within which time Kerawana believed she’d been dreaming the entire thing. She was even beginning to doubt whether she’d heard the wendigo just hours earlier.

She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, but before she was able to exhale, the voice replied, Believe me, I can! But if I do help you, then I want something in return.

What? Kerawana asked, nervously.

I will make it so that you are found safely, and by someone who will love and protect you; someone who will even ask for your hand in marriage.

And what do you want in return?

You must agree to sacrifice your first born in my name. That its blood be spilled onto the earth, so that I may taste it.

Kerawana would have agreed to do anything at that moment just to be out of the cold and darkness, so she anxiously agreed.

But how will you speak to them if their ear is not to the ground as was mine?

I will bring them to you. replied Wanom-keea-po-da.

Suddenly, the entire ground around Kerawana began to tremble. She leaped up and watched the dark ground as it shifted to and fro. She lost her balance and fell down onto the forest floor. Then she heard the voice of a man calling.

Cooooooo!

She could tell the voice was close.

Cooooooo!

Kerawana followed the voice. Within minutes, she spotted the owner of that voice, and although it was too dark for her to see his face, she could tell he was no animal, nor was he the wendigo.

HELP! she cried.

The man jerked his head and saw the outline of Kerawana’s shapely body before him. He ran to her. He asked her if she was alright, but before Kerawana could respond, she fainted. The fright from the past several hours was more than she could take.

When she awoke the next morning, she noticed that she was lying on a pile of soft blankets. The head of the man who had found her the night before was hanging over her. He appeared to be only slightly older than she, and he was very handsome; the most handsome man she had ever laid eyes upon.

My name is Pentautuwuck.

I am Kerawana. How . . . How did you find me?

Strange. I was walking back to my village from a late night hunt. The land began to shake under my feet, and every time I tried walking north, west and east, it grew more powerful. It was only when I turned to walk south that it stopped.

I still felt it, even when I saw you. said Kerawana.

As I said, replied Pentautuwuck, strange.

Pentautuwuck helped Kerawana to her feet, and the two journeyed back towards her village, for Pentautuwuck knew the way, as his father had taught him as a boy how to get to the five closest neighboring villages. The two spoke the entire length of the journey, and realizing how much they had in common, quickly fell in love.

Finally, they reached Kerawana’s village nearing the end of the light of day. But Kerawana’s father, Penaushiwa, sick with grief over the disappearance of his daughter, flew into a rage when he saw her standing before him, holding hands with a strange man.

Father. This is Pentautuwuck, and he rescued me from the wilds of the woods. Would you have your daughter dead and fed on by the animals, or would you have her home again, safe, and in the bosom of her family?

It was then that Penaushiwa swore to kill Pentautuwuck and Kerawana for their amour. The two ran as fast as they could back into the forest. They ran southward for days and days, until finally they came to a clearing. They knew that Penaushiwa was close behind them. With nowhere to hide in the open field, the two were resigned to dying.

Just then, they heard a voice call out from above. It sounded deep, wise and ancient.

You will never be safe. said the voice. "Penaushiwa will hunt you down until he finds and kills the both of you. Otherwise you must take him down."

Oh! replied Kerawana. I could never kill my own father. Then she looked towards Pentautuwuck. And I could never love any man who killed him either. Oh, please, Kisosen! Sun God of the Abenaki! Surely you can help us!

Perhaps there is a way. But it would mean giving up everything you knew before.

We’ve already lost that, great Sun Deity. replied Pentautuwuck.

Just then, a rumble was heard in the distance, and within seconds, the earth around Kerawana and Pentautuwuck began to shake violently. It was Wanom-keea-po-da, angered that Kerawana had forgotten her promise to him. Kisosen acted quickly, transforming Pentautuwuck into a large hill, on top of which no tremor could reach. Then the sun god transformed Kerawana into a large and beautiful maple tree, and placed her on the hill.

Feeling betrayed by Kerawana, as she would now never give birth to any child whose blood could be spilt, the subterranean spirit went in search of Kerawana’s father.

After days of fruitless searching, Penaushiwa laid down his arms for a few minutes to rest. Within moments, he was asleep; his ear pressed against the earth. He was immediately awakened by a strange voice that sounded as if a fire were speaking to him, such as snaps and crackles that kindling makes in a blaze.

Penaushiwa. the voice gargled, and Penaushiwa slowly opened his eyes.

Within minutes, he was on the hunt again. He followed the tremors on the ground, just as Wanom-keea-po-da had instructed him to. By the time the sun was midway in the sky, Penaushiwa cleared the forest and the quaking below his feet ceased. Again, he put his ear to the ground to seek instructions from Wanom-keea-po-da, who told him what Kisosen had done for the two lovers.

Brave in every way except one, Penaushiwa told Wanom-keea-po-da that he could not climb the hill, for he had always been frightened of heights. Wanom-keea-po-da reacted violently, and all the land shook violently. A distant cry could be heard by Penaushiwa, and he wasn’t sure if it was the wendigo, or the jaded and vengeful spirit below the earth.

As he turned around to go back to his village, Penaushiwa shouted to the majestic-looking hill with its splendid maple tree perched on top. He swore everlasting revenge on his daughter and her lover, and that they would never be safe. Citing Wanom-keea-po-da’s own defeat at Kerawana’s betrayal, Penaushiwa called upon the subterranean spirit to keep watch over the maple and the hill; and that if Kisosen’s spell ever wore off, or if the two lovers thought it safe to come out of hiding, that Wanom-keea-po-da would kill the both of them.

Kisosen heard all this and decided to bless the tree with eternal life, and swore to Kerawana and Pentautuwuck that they would live forever as long as they stayed the way they were. And to this day, neither the hill nor the maple has ever broken that spell.

BOOK I

St. Andrew’s

ONE

A Brief History

I am often haunted by my memories of the Benson Home for Abused and Abandoned Boys. The fragmented pieces of an injured childhood have left what little remains of my life in ruins, yet I’ll not make what I’m about to tell you about me. Not at all. In fact, that which I feel compelled to express on paper isn’t autobiographical whatsoever; and although it takes place in the town of my birth, none of my kin are involved.

What’s more, born and raised a strict Congregationalist, I find that my faith here takes a back seat to everything involved. In other words, my story is the story of others. All that occurs, you see, are events that I’ve researched. Some of those involved are simply people whom I once knew; others, people I just heard of; and a few, ones I feared.

Imagination and wonder are truly remarkable. Some say the two go hand in hand. Perhaps so, but wonder does lead to many things. It opens doors, huge floodgates of supposition. A powerful thing, surely, to be able to search one’s memory and wonder how the whole world could be different, or even to wonder about everything that exists within the confines of one’s own small town.

I wonder a lot.

I wonder how, had I chosen a different path, my life would have been. I wonder whether the mistakes I made, both during my stay at the Benson Home for Abused and Abandoned Boys and afterwards in adulthood, could have been avoided had I done things differently.

I wonder what children who are like I once was—abused, beaten, and neglected—become once they reach adulthood. Do we necessarily become like our parents? Is the abused always destined to become the abuser? Or do we become something worse?

I wonder too whether I can answer such questions. Isn’t the first step to self-improvement admitting to yourself and to others that you have a problem? I know all too well what my wife and children think of me. I’ve made mistakes. I acknowledge that. God only knows how many mistakes I’ve made. And I’m paying for them every day.

I wonder why I ever became a writer in the first place. Was it so that I could relive the pain of remembering over and over as I transfer my reality into fiction? Was the decision a way to torture myself as a means of atonement? Some people become alcoholics or drug addicts to hurt themselves on purpose because of self-hate. Do I hate myself?

I do not wonder why I’ve finally chosen to write this story. I desperately wanted to tell it, even though it was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. It took me years to drum up the courage. The research has steered me all over the country and consumed two years of my life. I had to investigate whatever needed to be found out to get the story right. The interviews were many; the disappointments and doors slammed in my face were even more. However, I vowed not to give up until I got everything down for a fair and accurate account of what occurred in Holly, New Hampshire, between 1925 and 1942.

What would it have been like had Father Phineas Poole not been asked to take over the Parish of St. Andrew’s in the spring of 1925? Would the small Roman Catholic population of the town have grown substantially or decreased dramatically? Would the troubled youth of Rockingham County have been better off with indifferent foster families, or would such children have benefited more from a state-run institution whose bureaucracy would neglect these lost souls far worse than any private citizen ever could?

Wondering becomes complicated. That’s why I stopped asking myself questions that were too complex to answer. Instead, I concentrated on only one: Would things ever be as close to normal again as they were in Holly before the arrival of the new priest?

St. Andrew’s Roman Catholic Church was nothing spectacular, but then again neither was Holly. It was as close to a normal, small New England town as anyone could hope to find at that time. It had been established in 1640, shortly after Reverend John Wheelwright and his followers arrived, courtesy of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, today known as the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Wheelwright had been exiled for rather inflammatory religious opinions that he shared with Anne Hutchinson, his sister by marriage. His other sin was that he robbed the land in and around what would become Holly, land that had once belonged to the Squamscott Indians.

Being a man of the cloth, one would presume that Reverend Wheelwright treated the natives fairly, giving them more than the twenty-four dollars that the Dutchman, Peter Minuit, had paid for Manhattan Island only twelve years earlier. Yet who am I to say how their business transpired? There isn’t much in our local history books to shed enough light on whether or not Wheelwright acted magnanimously or miserly.

I suppose this speculation is irrelevant, since it’s more astonishing to me that Holly was even founded at all. Even though it was hundreds of years ago, folks around town still hold to the legend that, when Reverend Wheelwright came through this territory on his way to establish Exeter, he passed a great spread of land. What made him choose to press on was not that he thought the land impossible to irrigate for farming, but the presence of one thing he called a "monstrosity. Onward they continued, or at least most of the party did. A few of the nearly 200 souls he had taken with him asked to remain behind. They liked the land and thought Wheelwright’s monstrosity" actually quite pleasant to look at.

This geological structure known as a drumlin, formed by receding glaciers thousands of years ago, was indeed an amazing sight, bulging out in the middle of the flattest of flat land. Being a small-to-average size for a drumlin, it still looked immense to the human eye, yet its summit reached only eighty feet. From one side to the other, it spanned approximately 3,000 feet, looking like the back of a whale slowly emerging from the earth. The 1,200-foot ascent to its peak from its gentlest slope of four degrees made it not too difficult to climb and offered a much more pleasant view from its apex than from the bottom.

Climbing the beast, as the locals used to say, was avoided in the beginning, with the first settlers ignoring its existence. Often it was Holly’s children who would call attention to the hill, periodically gawking at it. After a while some started asking their parents whether they could go climb it. They would say things like, Perhaps we can see the ocean from the top! and Maybe a giant lives up there!

Old Mrs. Kingood would relate stories that she had heard when she was a child. Dr. Hapscotch, the town physician back in the early 1800s, was the first to deem the hill a blessing. It was, as he always put it, a way for lazy people to go out and do their bodies some good for a change. He’d always said that Holly had more than its share of corpulent people. Before the doctor went public with his approval of the hill, not one soul had ever climbed it, which was a shame because the top offered a splendidly picturesque and panoramic view of the land below. From the summit could be seen miles and miles of flat farmland, dirt roads, cows grazing in the distance, a house here and there, a thin blue line in the distance, signifying where New Hampshire’s coast met the vast Atlantic, and of course, directly down the hill, the cluster of small buildings and streets that made up the town of Holly.

Silas Rosgrove and Cletis Cartwell, two rather large gentlemen in their forties, and best friends, took the doctor’s advice and made their way up the hill on the first day of summer in 1822. Unfortunately their first attempt was their last. About halfway up the hill, with their bald heads getting sunburned and their eyes stinging from drops of sweat, Silas took out his handkerchief to wipe his forehead and, in doing so, accidentally pulled out an embroidered hanky with the initials CC on it. These initials were not Cletis’s but rather his wife’s. Clarissa Cartwell had been having an affair with Silas Rosgrove, and until that moment it was the best-kept secret in town.

An argument on the hill ensued. People in town would bet what they’ve got in their purses that accusation and denial occurred up there on the hill that late June day of 1822. The two men were seen by Jeb Hawkins, the local blacksmith at the time, wrestling each other like two sumo wrestlers, until they both lost their balance and tumbled down the hill, clutching each other’s clothing and anything else they could grab. It was determined later by Dr. Hapscotch that Cletis had died from a broken neck, most likely due to the fall, and Silas from a heart attack.

In the latter’s mouth was found the embroidered handkerchief. Of course, the only way anybody knew about the affair was that Missy Gilmore was at both funerals and quickly spread the word that Clarissa Cartwell had been sitting in the front row at Silas’s service and muttering words such as loved, can’t, alone, need, miss, and we. Missy even heard people saying how Clarissa had put off Cletis’s funeral so that she could attend both without missing a single word of Reverend White’s eulogies.

In 1853 Jefferson Pierce, beau to Hilda Beauregard, had finally drummed up enough nerve to ask her to marry him. He had been the first in his family to graduate from college and was an aspiring young man who attended his first four years of college at Harvard before entering Yale Law School. During his first year in New Haven, he met and fell in love with Ms. Beauregard, the eldest daughter of one of his professors. The two quickly became constant companions. Among their friends the couple was voted most likely to be together until death did them part.

Jefferson took Hilda up the hill. They made it up there in about ten minutes, which was about twice the average time for one to climb it, but the two had to stop every few seconds to cuddle, kiss, and fawn over each other. They reached the top a bit out of breath but happy to have finally made it. Spreading their blanket out on the edge of the summit, they set their shoes on each corner and immediately resumed the physical side of their love for one another.

They had never made love before, but when Jefferson had told Hilda the night before that he wanted to take her up the hill to make a special request, she assumed it would involve her virginity rather than her hand. Jefferson pulled his lips away quickly, trying to speak over his heavy breathing, the result of his excitement and anticipation of the question he had yet to ask. Hilda was also still nearly out of breath, due to the ascent up the hill while half the time her lips had been locked onto Jefferson’s.

What is it? asked Hilda.

Jefferson lowered his head and said, I’m, I’m ready to . . . well . . . would you be willing to . . . ?

Hilda, understanding Jefferson’s stammering to be a request for sexual intercourse, shouted, Oh, yes! Jefferson! Oh, yes! Oh, yes! Oh, yes!

Young Jimmy Phillips had also climbed the hill that day. He had been dared by his friends to climb to the peak, stick his mother’s broom handle into the ground, and come back down; yet he had come up from the opposite side, whose slope was steeper, another condition of the dare. After shoving the stick into the ground, Jimmy decided to take a rest, as the ascent had been fairly strenuous. So he lay down on his back, taking in the sun. As he reclined in the tall grass, he heard all the commotion coming from the two young lovers.

Jimmy sat up and watched. Later he would say, Call me a peepin’ tom if you want, but what I saw I ain’t never gonna forget! That’s for damn sure!

Hilda, after screaming her last Oh, yes! tore open the upper part of her dress and undid her corset. As stunned as Jimmy Phillips was, he said later that Jefferson’s face looked even more so. Hilda then leaned forward to rip open Jefferson’s shirt. Dumbfounded, he looked from her face to her naked chest, to his naked chest, and back to her face.

Now a bit embarrassed by her astonishing behavior, Hilda said, "I’m just as anxious as you, I guess. That is why you asked me up here, isn’t it?"

Jefferson paused, then grinned and exclaimed, Uh, yeah! Oh, yeah!

The two laughed together before Hilda, wanting to finish what she had begun, lunged to unfasten his pants, losing her balance in the process and falling on top of him. With Jefferson’s back on the hill’s edge, his penis protruding from his trousers and the weight of Hilda Beauregard falling onto him, the two began to tumble down the hill, half-naked and wrapped in an embrace. There was nothing for either of them to hold onto except each other as they kept rolling.

Suddenly, about halfway down the hill, Hilda felt something tear inside her. At that same moment she heard Jefferson grunt in pleasure. She soon began making that same animalistic sound as he tumbled over her, then she over him. During their last five tumbles before hitting the bottom, Jefferson screamed in coital pleasure, louder and louder with each roll. Having lost all their remaining clothes during their awkward journey downward, they came to a stop with a loud thud. Jefferson, now on top of Hilda, gasped and then sank his heavy head on her breast. He lay there motionless.

Hilda, knowing that the deed was done, albeit not how either had planned, chuckled to herself, ran her fingers through Jefferson’s hair, and said, Hmmm. That was fun, Jefferson. I mean, it hurt something awful. My mother always said that the first time would hurt, but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. Probably because my mind was elsewhere, thinking we were going to break our fool necks.

Jefferson didn’t move a muscle. Unbeknownst to Hilda, some people had taken notice of the two lying at the foot of the hill naked.

Jefferson! Hilda hissed, now realizing that people were gawking at them. She began to tug on his hair, whispering angrily, Get off me, and take your thing out of me! I can feel blood trickling down my thigh, and there are people coming this way.

Still not a muscle did Jefferson Pierce move.

Jefferson? Hilda asked, a bit frantic now as a crowd of eight assembled around them in confusion.

You alright, young lady? Luther Reynolds asked as he patted Jefferson on the shoulder, as if beckoning him to remove himself from the young woman.

Now realizing what had happened to her beau, Hilda gazed up at Luther Reynolds and the others and calmly said, quite indifferently, in fact, He should’ve asked me to marry him instead.

Jimmy Phillips, who had run down the hill after them, said later that it took three grown men to pull Jefferson Pierce out of Hilda Beauregard.

She left Holly the following week in grief for her dear Jefferson, taken away from her so prematurely. It was said that she gave birth to a son nine months later, whom she named Richard and called Dick for short.

Hubert Young, one of the oldest living residents of Holly, would say from then on that the hill was like war: A good way to keep the population down. It would be several more years before the next endeavor was made to tackle the hill. That wouldn’t come until 1860.

What John Wheelwright had failed to discover, besides the sheer beauty from the hill’s vantage point, was that it was an ideal place for a tree, far away enough so that people wouldn’t molest it for its sweet syrup or its wood. Such a tree standing tall at the summit of Holly’s drumlin symbolized the region. It became a full-grown New England maple, and it stood firm and proud, surveying everything else for miles around. In fact, this totemic tree, planted in 1860 by the Benson clan, was never once robbed of its syrup. It stood nearer to heaven than any other living thing of equal or larger size as far as the eye could see. Its leaves danced freely in the breeze that swept across the hill’s summit.

St. Andrew’s Roman Catholic Church, like Holly itself, was in contrast to the maple rather bland and unimpressive. Of course, some said that its white-painted planks and timbers made the church glisten in sunlight, but if you didn’t notice St. Andrew’s aesthetic qualities it wouldn’t linger in your mind. This was in fact the opinion of nearly the entire population of Holly. St. Andrew’s, being so far out of everyone’s way, easily escaped attention, so much so that Holly’s tiny Catholic population infrequently attended St. Andrew’s, just as it was largely forgotten by almost everyone else.

The sanctuary’s hill location prompted many of the faithful to worship at home on Sunday mornings. Some Catholic families even opted to break church law and attend the services of other denominations that were considerably closer and easier to get to. As was the case throughout this part of the country in the late nineteenth century, most New Englanders were Baptists, Congregationalists, or members of the United Church of Christ. Holly’s Catholics were descendants of Irish immigrants who’d left Eire during the potato famine of 1848, recently arrived Italians who had found Boston too crowded, and some German Americans who’d inhabited New England since before the Revolutionary War. No matter what their ethnic background, Holly was given a church for these people.

It was certainly a wonder to many, if not most, why anyone would put a church on a hill with no road linking it to town. The only way up and down the mountain was by foot. During its construction back in 1892, it was decided by contractor Horace Crosby that the church should be built solely of wood, due to the difficulty of transporting stone and brick to the summit. This was fine by the Diocese of Manchester, which had recently established its presence in upper New England by 1884. The cost of constructing grandiose, cathedral-like churches ran very dear and would have taken more manpower to get the materials needed up the hill. Lumber, however, was plentiful and, better yet, cheap.

Horace Crosby knew the local mill owner, Jack Harmon, whose grandfather had started the company when Jack’s father was still in grade school, but in recent years the mill was losing a considerable amount of business. Buildings were being created in brick and stone more frequently, and most sales of wood were mainly for floors and furniture.

No one in Holly was building houses anymore. The population had remained very steady, with a low birth rate and constant mortality rate. In fact, 1889 stood out in Holly as the year when the population dipped under 1,000 for the first time since James Monroe was President.

Jack Harmon, in a rare vein of humor, thus joked to his wife one night as she was clearing away the supper dishes: People in this town seem to have forgotten how to fuck, but they sure as hell remember how to fucking die.

A decent and God-fearing Christian woman, Pamela Harmon simply shot her husband a disapproving look and continued cleaning off the caked meatloaf from her husband’s plate.

As it turned out, the carpenters became Jack Harmon’s saving grace.

If it weren’t for these nail-banging sons o’ bitches, he’d say often enough to himself so that after a while it became second nature to mutter under his breath, when one of them would show up at the mill to buy lumber, I’d have probably hung up my saw long ago. On occasion Jack Harmon would sometimes substitute myself for up my saw. Perhaps it was because he had a wife whom he loved and four kids who all looked up to their father that Jack Harmon found the strength to get out of bed every morning for the rest of his life.

Horace Crosby and his men finished St. Andrew’s in the fall of 1892. He was relieved to finally be done with his contract for several reasons, the two biggest being that the difficulty of building on such an obscure hill with no natural resources nearby was no longer a concern and the constant nagging and squawking of the Bishop, Joseph Hanrahan, who oversaw the project for sixteen months, ceased as soon as the last nail had been pounded into its rafter.

Irishmen! said Crosby to himself, as Hanrahan signed the Acknowledgement of Work Completed section of the contract. You go through your whole life without running into one, and when you finally do he’s a goddamn Bishop!

As time went on, it became evident to the townspeople that the only reason for choosing the hill, which after the church was built people began calling Holly’s Holy Hill or simply Holy Hill for short, was because the land value so high up from the valley was so low.

Besides the church and rectory there were only two other edifices up there. Both owners had raised their respective properties on the mount for the same reason. Old Ben Benson used to say how glad he was to live up on the hill. Yep! No townsfolk always comin’ ’round here peskerin’ ya. Yep! No siree, Bob.

This silver-haired, thick-spectacled relic was a permanent fixture on the front porch of his faded yellow, two-story house, on which he’d sit day after day in his pre-Civil War rocking chair, which sounded like the hinges of an old door that needed to be plunged into a gushing oil well just to quiet it down a bit. In fact, Old Man Benson was the first person Father Phineas Poole saw as he reached the summit of Holly Hill for the very first time in the spring of 1925.

TWO

The Stuttering Priest

As the door opened, Father Poole quickly took his eyes off the discolored plaque that adorned the front of St. Andrew’s Roman Catholic Church. As he entered the rectory, none other than the current yet soon-to-be retiring priest of the parish, Father Albert Carroll, greeted him. Carroll’s clerical white collar was stained by a blotch of brown and was conspicuously crooked. His potbelly, which hung over his excessively tightened belt, jiggled as he walked.

This priest, Father Poole thought as they walked through the rectory, should be on the front cover of Catholic New England Journal with a headline reading, "The Do’s and Don’ts of Being Leader to Your Own Congregation."

Father Carroll was a large and slovenly man of about sixty who stuttered profoundly when saying more than four syllables at once and who reeked of garlic and pickle juice. This curious and frankly nauseating combination was enough to make the young Father’s stomach lurch.

So, your very first p-parish! Carroll blurted out jovially.

Father Poole observed how Carroll had to close his eyes slowly in order to get the word parish out. Doing so allowed him to visualize it.

He had learned this helpful trick in grammar school. Mrs. Whitehead, Carroll’s first-grade teacher, had told him to close his eyes and look for those dumb old words that were giving him trouble. Of course, this pedagogical advice allowed his classmates to add to their mockery of him by not only stuttering phrases in his presence but also closing their eyes tightly, poking their chins up, and stumbling into chairs or knocking into tables.

I’m confident the Lord will guide me and help me through this new chapter in my life, said Father Poole.

When did you enter th-the p-p-riesthood? Father Carroll inquired, as a fresh burst of pickle juice, pungently seasoned with garlic, assaulted the younger priest’s nostrils. As it did so, his eyes began to water, and he pulled his head back a little in revulsion. C-can’t have been too long, said Father Carroll. You look a mere boy.

Actually, Father, I’m thirty-three, Poole replied. I’m out of the seminary five years. I joined my parish in Exeter at twenty-eight.

Ah, so you’re th-thirty-thhhhree, are you? I was just that age m-myself when I f-first arrived here in the early 90s. Not m-much has changed in all these y-y-years. Carroll’s eyes closed again as he concentrated on the word years. W-why did you l-leave? Father Carroll added.

I would have thought you’d find the answer to that question obvious, Father, said Poole. I was five years at St. Luke’s as a full-time priest but part-time teacher, offering one theology class to teenage boys, with no seniority as I was the youngest of twelve priests. Being Exeter’s one and only Catholic church, and a fairly large one at that, we naturally had a need for large numbers of clergymen.

Father Poole surveyed the emptiness of St. Andrew’s rectory as he said this, and then continued, a note of sadness now in his voice. Last month I was offered the parish here at St. Andrew’s. As it’s only a few miles from the city limits of Exeter, I thought it a wise move, since I’d still be close to my friends and former students. The young priest again looked achingly at his surroundings. After a brief pause he added, "Although it is a lot smaller than I was led to believe. Are we the only priests here, you and I?"

Ha! W-we? Father Carroll chuckled. "There is no ‘we,’ y-young Father. You are r-replacing me! After thirty years at S-St. Andrew’s, I’m r-retiring. Then the malodorous cleric drew nearer to Father Poole until the tips of their noses were literally an inch apart. There is n-no other priest h-here with us. After th-this aftern-noon, there will b-be no other p-priest but you."

Father Poole’s heart sank as Carroll relayed the unhappy news. Being offered a new parish to run as he saw fit was one thing, and a wonderful thing at that; however, running it all by himself was a different matter completely. Surely there must be others here with you, said Father Poole. I mean, this is indeed a small parish, but . . . .

Small is right. Y-y-y-you said it! Father Carroll interrupted, his stammering even more pronounced. And you’ll s-see just how s-small when you have your first S-Sunday M-Mass!

Stopping in the middle of the hallway, Carroll noticed his crooked collar in a mirror hanging opposite of where he was standing. He slowly brought his two fat thumbs and two stubby index fingers up to straighten it. Then Father Poole heard Father Carroll muttering to himself, The complete and utter n-nonsense of bothering every w-week. I n-no longer have the f-fortitude. The s-sloppiness of it all.

Father Poole, taken completely aback by the news about his situation, neglected to keep out of the direction of Father Carroll’s awful breath and was immediately hit with a fresh gust of garlic and pickles.

The letter I received from Manchester told me I’d have a staff, Father Poole informed Father Carroll.

STAFF! Ha! Th-that’s a good one, Carroll blurted out.

They lied to me? Father Poole said flatly in an incredulous voice.

For a moment Father Poole thought that he was going to be reprimanded for speaking out against the Church, but instead Father Carroll laughed heartily. Oh, they d-didn’t lie to you, and gave another energetic laugh. Y-y-you’ll have a staff, alr-right! Ha! Y-y-y-y-y-yeah. Carroll closed his eyes once more to get out the yeah.

Just then Father Carroll recognized a bit of patronizing remorse in the young priest’s eyes. He coldly shunned Father Poole, knowing this patronizing look very well. The old priest had seen it many times before in other people’s eyes, those who had felt sorry for him because he stammered. Yet as much as people pitied him, no one did anything to help him overcome it.

There was Mr. Stevenson, the corner store owner who would give little Albert Carroll a piece of candy every day, more as an act of sympathy rather than because the boy had done something that merited the treat, such as receiving a perfect score on his homework or helping an old lady across the street.

Then there was Mrs. Purdy, who always gave little Albert Carroll first pick of any batch of cookies fresh from her oven. Albert had heard her say once to a neighbor, just as he was coming up the stairs to see her, I’m saving first choice as I always do for Mathilda Carroll’s boy. You know him, the one who always stutters.

With Albert Carroll people were either too kind or fantastically cruel. At sixty years old he couldn’t think of anyone in his life besides his parents who were good to him just for being himself. It’s no surprise that Albert turned to food at a young age as a source of comfort. By the time he was twelve years old, Albert Carroll was thirty pounds overweight, and his family doctor had told him privately, At this rate you’re going to see God a lot sooner than your parents.

Dr. Burns had come to the Carroll home because Albert was stricken with a terrible bellyache, which kept him home from school one Thursday morning. The night before Albert had eaten an entire chocolate fudge cake that his mother had made for her Rotary Club meeting. Dr. Burns had given Mrs. Carroll a bottle of Paregoric, along with instructions, and all of this came after his dire prognosis.

In a way Albert was grateful to his family physician. Although food would continue to be his constant companion, since no one else was going to be, Albert Carroll decided to get as close to God as he possibly could, so that when death came for him, whether at forty-five or fifty-eight, he’d go right on through into heaven without needing to endure the remission of his sins in Purgatory. If Dr. Burns had seen Albert Carroll outlive both his parents, he might have given up his practice or perhaps, less drastically, simply learned a better bedside manner.

Father Poole started again, A staff? Who? Where are they?

Father Carroll breathed heavily through his nose, adjusted his pants just below his bulky gut, and exhaled loudly. Sister Mary Ignatius, he said slowly.

Sister Mary Ignatius? Father Poole echoed skeptically. Where on earth would a nun live? he wondered. There was no convent attached to the church.

He was yanked out of his contemplation by Father Carroll’s abrupt and phlegm-filled cough. I had no idea there was a convent on the premises, said Father Poole.

This way to your r-room, said Father Carroll, ignoring the priest, and a stronger whiff of garlic once again hit Father Poole.

The two clerics entered a small room with a bed and wooden nightstand balanced by a book under one leg. There was a stained runner in the middle of the floor, and in the corner something that appeared to be a table with two stools. How cozy! Father Poole thought to himself, a look half of repulsion and half of regret now apparent on his face. Not quite, he reflected, what I’d expect for the head of a parish.

Father Carroll began to walk toward the door, eager to say farewell and be done with St. Andrew’s once and for all. As he walked, his hips swayed from side to side, more apparent now to Father Poole than previously.

Yes, said Father Carroll. S-sister Ignatius will b-be your primary staff. As for th-the others I’m sh-sure you’ll meet them s-soon, but it’s S-Sister Ignatius you’ll meet first. Of th-that I’m shhh-sure.

As he said this, Father Carroll grinned a bit fiendishly and had to bite his lower lip in spite of himself. Father Poole was about to ask Father Carroll what he meant by that, but the ensuing silence had been long enough that it would have sounded awkward.

Then the fat priest muttered to himself, I hear retirement for p-priests is all but diverting. S-sleeping late, attending M-Mass, eating to one’s heart’s c-content. Food! Now th-th-that’s w-what s-sustains life.

Not satisfied with Carroll’s comportment, but also not wanting to infuriate the man, Father Poole replied, "Is there a problem with Sister Ignatius?"

As he shuffled out the door, Father Carroll said slowly, without turning around to face his successor, You’ll just have to see for yourself now, won’t you? This time he didn’t stutter one syllable.

THREE

A Cold Welcome

Father Poole stood alone in his room. The door was wide open, and he could see a portrait of Pope Leo XIII from where he was standing. As he walked toward the door, suitcase still firmly in hand, young Father Poole began to wonder why this Pope, out of so many others, had his portrait on the wall of St. Andrew’s rectory. The small brass plaque under the portrait read, His Holiness, Pope Leo XIII. "Let’s see now, mused Father Poole. Pope Leo XIII. He was what? Twenty, thirty, f . . . . Of course!"

At that moment he remembered the dedication plaque hanging in front of the rectory, tarnished almost to the point of illegibility and hanging lopsided: ST. ANDREW’S ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH—ANNO DOMINI MDCCCXCII. St. Andrew’s was completed in 1892, said Father Poole out loud. Leo the Thirteenth was Pope then. Amused that he had solved an insignificant mystery, the young Father wanted more than anything to share the pleasure with someone else.

Looking around his room, and then peeking into the empty hallway just outside his bedroom door, he chuckled at the idea that he was in the presence of papal company. Wanting to ease the tension about the less than congenial meeting he’d just had with Father Carroll, the young priest indulged in a bit of whimsical humor for his own benefit, as he once again looked around the room with no great enthusiasm.

All changes within the Church have to come from Rome, don’t they? he thought. Laughing out loud in spite of himself, he came to the conclusion that it wasn’t that funny. Father Poole threw his lone suitcase onto the bed and opened it. Stockings, underwear, extra white collar, prayer book, suspenders, belt, Bible, Book of Psalms, bottle of aspirin, crucifix, two bars of soap, rosary beads . . . .

The priest suddenly recalled an advertisement from his childhood: GRUBER’S TOILET SOAP. He and his father used to read it as they passed by Dodson’s General Store in town to go kite-flying, which little Phineas Poole hated because once they were in the park Mrs. Edith Fisher would always happen to be there. She was a very good friend of Dr. Poole’s wife, Mary Margaret Brennan-Poole.

His father would always say, I’ll be right back, Phin. You get that ol’ kite rarin’ to go, and I’ll be back before it reaches the tails of those seagulls. Yet his father never came right back. Instead, he would disappear and leave Phineas to his kite.

The boy never cared much for kite-flying; he only liked the idea of spending time with his father. One time Phineas made the mistake of turning his head around to look for his father, once the kite had reached beyond the seagulls, but his father was nowhere to be seen.

The boy learned to accept that inevitability while accompanying his father to Wallis Sands State Park on the tiny stretch of New Hampshire coastline for the fourth time that summer of 1900. This is the way it’s going to be every Sunday afternoon, he thought.

Once Phineas asked his father on the way to the park, Daddy, is Mrs. Fisher going to bring Louisa to the park so I have someone to fly my kite with?

Dr. Robert Poole was in no way a violent man, but Phineas still recoiled a little when his father turned abruptly to answer his question. "Now, Phinny, you know I’ve told you before. Whatever you and I do in the park stays in the park. Always. Mom doesn’t need to know anything. My friendship with Mrs. Fisher . . . well, we’re just good friends, just as she and your mother are good friends. Friendship is never wrong. Mom never needs to know what we do in the park, okay? It’s our special private time."

Phineas loved his father in spite of how he’d been feeling neglected during their special private time. Perhaps it was the relationship he had with his father in other respects that made him feel closer to Robert Poole rather than Mary Margaret Brennan-Poole.

It’s our secret, said Robert Poole.

Just like what we do in the shed is our secret, Phineas added.

Dr. Poole stopped abruptly. "What we do in the shed is our business. Yours and mine!" he said angrily.

Phineas withdrew a bit, and tears welled up in his eyes. His father knelt down until the two were eye to eye.

As I’ve told you before, Dr. Poole continued. "Mommy can’t know about that either."

GRUBER’S TOILET SOAP! THE SOAP OF CHOICE FOR HOUSEWIVES ALL ACROSS NEW ENGLAND! AVAILABLE NOW AT YOUR LOCAL GENERAL STORE!

Phineas remembered the picture at the bottom of the advertisement. It was a picture of Pope Leo XIII in the same exact pose as the portrait in the hallway of St. Andrew’s rectory. A hand painted on the picture, meant to be that of the Pontiff, extended menacingly out of his robes. In a rather exaggerated bubble connected to his mouth were the words, CLEANLINESS IS NEXT TO GODLINESS!

Father Poole managed a more genuine laugh this time, finding this coincidence to be more amusing than the joke he had made earlier about Rome coming to redecorate the drab interior of St. Andrew’s rectory. As his laugh faded, the priest looked around the room once more, desperately trying to find something else with which to entertain himself.

A priest presiding over Sunday Mass who stutters when he speaks, he thought. No wonder the church attendance here is small.

The priest’s glance then shifted from the pistachio-green walls to the floor by his bed and then to the nightstand with one leg supported by a book. When he looked more closely, he noticed that the book was in fact a Bible. As he lifted the weight of the table off it, Phineas picked up the volume and opened it to the title page, where he found this inscription: To Father Albert Carroll. Good luck in your new parish. May this Holy Book offer you support when you need it. Love always, Mother. February 3, 1895.

Father Poole read the inscription a second time and then wondered whether he ought to run after Father Carroll and return his Bible. But Poole rejected the idea and justified his unwillingness by the obvious lack of importance this Bible had for Father Carroll.

The man used it to keep the table level, thought Father Poole. I’m sure he won’t miss it. He probably forgot the darn thing was even there.

Father Poole then looked from the book down to the busted leg on the nightstand, back again to the Bible, and managed a second genuine laugh. "I don’t think that was the support your mother had in mind, Father Carroll!" he chuckled. After determining that there wasn’t much else to explore in his bedroom, he scanned it one last time, thinking how dull it all seemed.

But Father Poole couldn’t have imagined how interesting the rest of his day was going to be.

FOUR

A Less Than Auspicious Beginning

5:30 p.m. It was customary at this time of day for Father Poole to have his supper, yet in this new place he was unfamiliar with even the simplest protocol. His body was tense, as though he were afraid of precipitating a series of unfortunate events throughout the rectory. A sudden clumsy turn could knock something over, such as the small framed photo of a much younger Father Carroll sitting, carelessly forgotten or intentionally abandoned, on the dresser that now belonged to Father Poole. The crash of the frame onto the floor would surely shatter the glass, alert whomever was downstairs to Father Poole’s presence, and prompt that unknown person to scold him for making excessive noise just before dinner.

Is there a kitchen in this building? he wondered, assuming from Father Carroll’s girth that there not only had to be a kitchen within the rectory but a fairly sizeable one at that.

He then remembered what Manchester had promised him—a staff of his own. He also could hear Carroll’s voice bellowing, Y-y-you’ll have a staff, alr-right! Father Poole recalled the only name Father Carroll had mentioned, Sister Mary Ignatius.

Is there no one else? Father Poole continued to himself, as he walked to the solitary window in his room.

He glanced out and saw Father Carroll waddling down the hill toward town. Again he wondered whether he should rush out to return the priest’s Bible to him, but no sooner had the idea crossed his mind than Father Poole said, "What’s the use? He wasn’t even the sort of fellow you’d want to do a favor for. And really, if the shoe were on the other foot, and it had been my Bible, would he have returned it? He appears as happy as a clam to be done with this place once and for all."

Father Poole noticed a slight feeling of envy toward Carroll, and he now wished that he had visited St. Andrew’s prior to accepting the position. But he was a devout man who believed that God always did things for a reason. For priests everything has a purpose. Mosquitoes, tree sap, weeds, a human appendix, the unbearable summer humidity—all things were put here on earth for some reason or other.

Walking away from the window, as he had no desire to set eyes on Father Carroll again, Poole recited part of a lecture he had memorized by one of his teachers at seminary:

And if at first we cannot find a reason why something is what it is, then we must search deep within ourselves to find the answer. And if even then, after much searching, we are still unable to find a reason, then it is God’s will to keep us ignorant of such matters; and there is a reason why God would choose to do so, if such an enigma existed.

The young priest remembered writing this quotation in his notes because he found it to be laughable, and he had appended a passage from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s The Charge of the Light Brigade:

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die.

This summed up Father Poole’s outlook on the mysteries of life, and he was quite content with it.

What was that? Father Poole gasped as he heard a loud crash downstairs. It sounded like a set of cymbals.

DONG! There it goes again! he thought.

He went over to the door of his room very slowly, shuffling his feet as he walked. Halfway across the room he realized he’d been shuffling and picked up his feet. Even with the door closed all the way, the noise had been loud enough to make Phineas jump. He was afraid to open the door at first, worried that once he’d opened it the noise would sound even louder and possibly make him jump even higher, lose his balance, and fall on his backside. He’d be embarrassed if that were to happen. But embarrassed in front of whom? He was alone, or was he? Someone had to be in the rectory. The priest was determined to find out.

Father Poole opened the door to his room. Once again staring at him on the other side of the hall was Pope Leo XIII with a sober look on his face. Immediately the