Epilogue

Where in the World is Arlo Grimm: Epilogue

I’d been awake most of the night and felt pretty much like hell. I spent most of my time at the hospital, half-dozing occasionally in the chair beside Arly’s bed, but each time I even started to drift off I’d jerk awake with latent visions of what had happened in the church and a name on my lips: Angelique Ficatier.

Of course, before going to the hospital, I’d stopped off briefly at home to feed a grumbling Puddin’ Head his dinner and get a new sweater. The Red Lagoon might like half-dressed strippers, but the hospital…not so much.

Arly was going to be in the hospital a day or two, getting his strength back. Nothing was broken and there appeared to be no internal bleeding or injuries, but he was dehydrated, half-starved and battered to a point that would take a week or two to recover from. I’d snuck him in the slice of pizza—black olive, heavy on the oregano—he’d bugged the hell out of me to get him for breakfast—ugh—and the nurse had given me sideways looks the rest of the morning. She hadn’t seen it, but I knew she had smelled it and had pinned me as the likely suspect for smuggled snack foods.

I was running on caffeine and left-over adrenaline. My own wounds had all simply vanished with the destruction of Praetallious except for a few burns, and I had heard on the car radio all plague victims had mysteriously recovered. Doctors were at a loss to explain it. I was not.

I started my car and pulled out of the hospital parking lot. I was going to go home a get a little sleep before coming back in the evening, but first I had something I needed to take care of.

It was another gray day, charcoal underbellies of clouds threatening rain. I had half a notion to stop at the museum and try to get a few more answers out of Genie Lansing, but decided against it. She wouldn’t tell me anything she didn’t want me to know, anyway. I was certain, however, of one thing: she was no normal curator. There was something damned peculiar about her and she knew a hell of a lot more about what was going on, and what would be coming, in New Salem than she was telling.

Six-hundred-year-old-dead-monkey. Pfft. I still didn’t want to believe that but a crawling suspicion told me she hadn’t been joking. She wasn’t really the joking type.
Later. After Arly got out of the hospital. I would let him handle her—though I’d keep a close eye. Couldn’t be too careful with Pixie Sticks. The way she’d looked when she’d talked about him—yeah, right, I trusted her alone with my man.

A few minutes later I pulled into the parking lot at St. Luke’s and killed the engine. Praetallious had said my sister hanged herself after what appeared to be an affair with a priest—Father Lansing. Was the demon lying? Most likely, but I needed to know for sure. And those with the name Lansing weren’t particularly high on my list for trustworthiness, either.

I got out of the car, leaving my backpack on the seat. I went the church, tried the door, surprised to find it locked this time. I stared at it like an idiot for a minute—I think exhaustion was catching up to me and it wasn’t just a blonde moment—then stepped away from the church and peered at the building behind it, which I pegged for the Rectory.

I walked around the church and went up onto a small porch, poked the door buzzer. Footsteps came from within, and I fully expected Father Lansing to answer, but it was an older woman who opened the door. She was heavyset, with graying hair and the look of a woman who had sucked one too many limes.

“May I help you?” Her tone seemed a bit bothered, and she gave me a look like I had sin written all over me. I got that look a lot.

“I was wondering if I could speak to Father Lansing a moment.”

Her brow knitted. “There’s no Father Lansing here, dear.”

Ack, I hated being called dear. “But I just talked to him yesterday, in the church.”

“In the church?” The lines in her forehead deepened. “I sincerely doubt that, Miss. We keep the church locked. Vandals, you know.”

“But I saw him there yesterday.” I made my voice insistent but the fact was I had a gnawing feeling New Salem’s supernatural had just crapped all over me again and I was looking like a first-class fool to this woman.

“You couldn’t have seen Father Lansing, dear. Father Knox leads the flock here.”

Leads the flock. Yeah, great. Who wrote their dialog, anyway? “Do you know where I might find Father Lansing, in that case?” I am pretty sure annoyance came into my tone. Her face pinched. Yup, I was right, and it bunched her Depends.

“Try the cemetery.” I didn’t care for the edge in her voice.

“Cemetery?”

“New Salem Cemetery. Father Lansing hanged himself, oh, must be going on ten years of thereabouts.”

“Hanged himself?” Oh, yeah, if you’re thinking a big rock plunged in my stomach…you nailed it.

“Over at St. Bosco’s.” She leaned in closer, her eyes sparkling with that weird sorta gleam gossips get when they snag the juiciest neighborhood news. “I hear tell he was having an affair with a young nun there.”

I found myself back in my car a few moments later, a bit dazed, exhaustion really hitting me with the news of Father Lansing’s death. So Praetallious had been only half-lying. It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. That meant yesterday I had talked to…

A ghost? It was New Salem after all.

I supposed I should have felt a little relieved, too, because it wasn’t my sister hanging from the rafters. But all I could think about was the fact that again, somehow, she seemed close enough to touch, yet at the same time so far away I would never learn the truth. Was she that nun at Bosco’s? Was she alive? Dead? What about what Lansing had alluded to, about there being choices other than living or dead? I didn’t have a clue what that meant but as I sat there, my forehead pressed to the steering wheel, both hands gripping it until my fingers ached, I suddenly remembered that line from the beginning of Arly’s favorite TV show, Dark Shadows. Only in this case I could substitute my own name for that of Victoria Winters:

“My name is Chloe Everson…and my journey is just beginning…”

Oh, hell, yes, that just about said it all…