Val was waiting for him. He'd promised her that after mass was over he'd come over and take her out for the day. Sundays seemed to be the only day they could spend a significant amount of time together, because there was school during the week (although they saw each other a lot in the hallways of Notre Dame High School in Vancouver) and Saturday was devoted to helping Dad in the fields, because there was a lot of preparation to be done before planting could begin; rocks had to be harvested from the ground, then the soil had to be turned and manure applied (luckily Dad had a rototiller for that work and they wouldn't be breaking their backs).
Getting through mass was like inching toward the end zone over the final five yards with two or three defensive tackles on your back; the struggle, the agony of waiting just that one more hour before he could see her again, knowing he was almost there but still feeling like he was a million miles away. It didn't help that he was the altar boy at Holy Spirit Parish, and that the whole congregation was watching him and making sure he didn't screw up whenever Father Rino indicated he wanted the water and wine for the liturgy of the Eucharist, or when he rang the little bells when the priest raised the bread and wine in the air for the incarnation, or when he had to open the censor for loading with frankincense. It wouldn't do to be thinking of Val while all this happened and worrying about his erection poking through his alb.
Today was even more of a hassle, because Joe's weird little friend Lauren was distracting him, and she was irritating Father Rino, which was never a good thing; the priest was dour at the best of times and, being conservative, he could erupt in a rage at the slightest hint of impropriety, which wasn't a good example of turning the other cheek. Johnny could see the man's neck reddening, which meant that he wasn't far from another eruption, because Lauren, for some reason known only to her, was dancing around the vestibule like a monkey, and because of the glass wall separating it from the rest of the church anybody could see her if they looked.
Joe was looking, of course, and that pissed Johnny off. He should be up here serving but, for some reason, Mom had never pushed Joe into becoming an altar boy. Maybe only one son, in her mind, needed to serve for the family to be considered present in the parish community. That left Joe off the hook, free to be distracted by the antics of his friend who, Johnny suspected, had more than a friendly interest in his brother. Joe needed to watch out, or he was going to find himself with an uncomfortable choice: either requite the infatuation of the half-Japanese girl, whose parents seemed perfectly normal but who seemed to have a screw loose herself, or risk hard feelings with her and with his other friends, who all lived on the street and had come up with some sort of club that had them running around looking for mysteries to solve. Their antics were childish for kids on the brink of adolescence (especially Rachel; now, if Joe were going to set his sights anywhere, Rachel, who seemed a little feral but was already developing a bosom, would be the obvious choice, not this simian impersonator.)
Johnny would never have admitted it, but he envied Joe his friends. His little brother had the great fortune of having four other people his age and grade living on the same street, three of whom he'd befriended as early as age five, very soon after the day the street had witnessed the awful scene of Rachel's mother abandoning her and her father. Joe had literally taken Rachel in hand, then collected Sunil, who'd been in his father's arms that day too, and finally that little boy Alistair (who named their kid Alistair?) at the end of the street, and immediately glued them together in friendship. Then Lauren had moved to the street last summer, and they'd taken her in too, maybe because Rachel had wanted another girl in the group.
It had seemed so easy, and Johnny wished he'd had some other kids to play with when he and his family had arrived in Canada. He'd had to face the loneliness of attending Queen Elizabeth Elementary School with no cohort of his own, unable to speak the language, subject to the taunts of cruel children who saw anyone new and different as worthy of mockery. He'd had more than a couple of fights and luckily held his own, and that, oddly enough, had won him grudging respect that had evolved into camaraderie, but no friendships that lasted, because when he'd entered Notre Dame for high school, no one at Queen Elizabeth had followed. At least now he had friends in high school, teammates from basketball, and their ability to drive made up for their lack of proximity.
And of course, he had Valeria Reginato, his dark beauty, with whom he'd fallen in love at first sight, and who, to his great fortune, was ready to go all the way with him even though they weren't married and it would be a sin; they just had to find a place, and he had to get the condoms (that was a deal breaker, she didn't want to get pregnant and limit her life choices.) Before he could do any of this, of course, he had to get through this mass, which seemed interminably long despite Easter being over and no special liturgies in sight to increase its length.
Finally, finally, Father Rino gave the blessing to end the mass, and Mrs. Zielemans, the parish organist, on whom he'd had the biggest crush when he was a kid (even now, the dancing of her long, slender fingers on the organ keys fascinated him,) played the closing hymn as he led Father Rino out, carrying the processional cross on its long brass pole. Their procession led the rest of the congregation out of the church, and there he left Father Rino to shake hands with them as he continued around the back and to the door to the vestry, where he quickly stripped off his alb and cassock, hung them up, and put all the instruments back in their place for the next mass. He was already in the clothes he was wearing for his date with Val, and all he had to do was run home, grab Dad's car (Dad allowed him to use it only on Sunday, overruling Mom's disapproval about his seeing a girl on what was supposed to be a holy day; it was the only time Dad stood up to Mom, to his fortune), and drive to East Vancouver, where she lived.
When he went back out the door of the vestry, he noticed it was oddly quiet outside. He should have at least heard the chatter of a hundred congregants as they stood, stretching their limbs after an hour-long mass and having a much needed smoke after holding in their craving for such an unnatural length of time; these were the days when a two-pack-a-day habit was quite common, and lung cancer would have taken many of these parishioners before they reached the age of sixty.
Curious, he walked back around the side of the church to see what was going on. Shouldn't there at least have been the sound of a car turning over? The parking lot was right there, and even though most hung around to chat, some liked to leave early and beat the traffic jam out of the parking lot.
When he came around the front of the church, though, he found it completely empty.
He stood there for a moment, unable to believe his eyes. He hadn't taken that long to change. There was no way everyone could have taken off by the time he'd reemerged. Where was Father Rino? Already back at the rectory?
No parishioners. No cars. Nobody smoking. No kids walking the concrete parking barriers like a tightrope. No priest.
"What the fuck?" he breathed, cussing only because no one was around, and because he felt justified in cussing precisely because no one was around when they should have been there.
He turned around, rotating in place to see if he could find anybody. There were houses across the street, but he could see no one in the windows. He didn't know what to do. He should have been relieved no one was around to ask him where he was hurrying off to, or to delay him in any other way. He could have just run back down Lawrence Street, across Ewen Avenue, gotten in Dad's car (he already had the key), and driven off, looking forward to his date with Val. But something held him back. He knew something wasn't right about this, but he didn't know what.
That was when he noticed the parking lot. Or, at least, what was drawn on the pavement of the parking lot.
Chalk drawings. Or, more specifically, words written in chalk, statements bordered in flowers, which were also drawn in chalk. There were four of them, and the way they were positioned reminded him of a four-square drawn on a school playground, but much larger than a typical four-square; they took up about half the available surface area of the parking lot, and the sheer size of them, as well as the message they contained, made the hairs on the back of Johnny's neck rise.
"I have committed the perfect murder"
"You're going to thank me later"
"Come find me in 35 years"
"Sadie T. Diamond"
Now there were two mysteries. Where did everybody go, and who had written this message, in the church parking lot, of all places? There was a name, of sorts, Sadie T. Diamond, but it sounded fake. Anyway, who would write their real name to a murder confession? This was really weird, and kind of creepy too, and paired with the disappearance of the entire congregation and their cars, it gave him the irrational idea that Sadie T. Diamond had slaughtered every one of them and cleaned up after herself, all in the time it had taken for Johnny to change into his street clothes.
He ran his hands through his hair and wondered what to do next. All he wanted to do was go home, but he worried that, because his own family was among the missing congregation, they wouldn't be home either, and that would frighten him worst of all.
"Johnny? Johnny DiTomaso?"
He whipped around and saw that there was at least one other person around. It was one of Joe's friends, the little boy, the one with the funny name. "Alistair, right?" he asked.
The boy grimaced and said, "Just call me Al. I don't know what my dad was thinking when he named me. I did find out recently that he's not really my dad, that my mom had an affair with my uncle, so maybe my dad got his revenge on me by giving me a ridiculous name."
Johnny shook his head in dismay. Jesus, were all of Joe's friends weird? "I'm sorry to hear that," was all he could think of saying. "How on earth did you find that out?"
"My dad told me a couple of episodes ago."
"Huh?"
Al shook his head in frustration. "Never mind. What are you doing here?"
"What am I doing here?" Johnny asked, frowning. "I just left the church after finishing mass. What are you doing here? You're not Catholic, are you? Or at least, I never saw you at church."
"I'm not Catholic," Al said. "I'm not anything. What I mean is, why are you in one of my episodes? I don't remember you figuring a great deal in my life."
"Al, I have no idea what you're talking about, and frankly you're starting to get on my nerves, I don't care if you're friends with my little brother. I'd tell you to fuck off, but I'm afraid you really would, and then I'd be all alone again."
"What do you mean, again?" Al asked.
Johnny gestured to the parking lot. "Do you see anyone around? Minutes ago I was in a church full of people, and then I went into the vestry to change, and when I came out everybody was gone."
Al frowned. "Really? That's a little weird."
"You think?"
"I mean, it's not completely out of character for one of my episodes, but anyone would be unnerved by that."
"Why do you keep talking about this as one of your episodes, as if everything that's happening has to do with you?"
"Because it does. Because I'm down the well and need to figure out how to get out."
Johnny shook his head. "Jesus Christ. I think you need to talk to someone. Isn't your dad a child psychologist?"
"I told you, he's not my dad, and he wouldn't treat me anyway because I'm family and it's a conflict of interest."
Before Johnny could tell him to fuck off for real this time, Al suddenly noticed the parking lot. "Who drew those?" he asked.
"That's what I'd like to know."
Al raised something to his eyes, and Johnny suddenly realized he'd been holding it in his hand the whole time. It was one of those Kodak 110 Instamatic cameras, long, flat and rectangular, easy to carry and point and shoot, with the flash built right in. He took a series of photos, advancing the film with his finger after every shot.
"What are you doing?" Johnny asked.
"My mom bought a new camera, and I'm testing it out. I took a few of your dad at Mrs. Anderson's place while I was visiting Rachel the other day, and these drawings look like great candidates to test its resolution. We have a Polaroid for instant shots, too, but they don't turn out that great."
He closed the lens and put the camera in his pocket. "I'll develop them and see how they turn out."
Al turned around to leave, and Johnny shouted, "Wait! Where are you going?"
Al shrugged. "Home, I guess."
"Did you come from there? Did you see my family coming from here down Lawrence Street on your way here? Did you see Joe? Or Lauren, for that matter? She was clowning around in the vestibule, before."
Al's brow furrowed. "No, actually, I didn't. That's weird."
"I don't know what to do. I'm... a little scared, actually." He wouldn't have admitted this to anyone else, but he suspected Al wasn't the kind of person who would tease someone about being scared; if he remembered correctly, the boy was a bit of a scaredy-cat himself, even if his behaviour today indicated he was a thoughtful and curious person, if a little weird.
Al nodded, then looked to his left and frowned as if he were listening to someone only he could see. Yes, Johnny thought, it might be best if he saw someone.
Al said, "My friend Sam here is telling me that if you came out of the vestry and found everyone gone, maybe you should go back into the vestry and come out again, and see what happens."
"What?" Johnny asked in disbelief. "Who's Sam?"
"Never mind, it doesn't matter. Try it. At the very least, it won't change anything, and maybe you'll end up back where you started."
"Back where I--" He shook his head and sighed in frustration. "Okay. Why the hell not? But could you..."
He trailed off. Al stared at him and said, "Could I what?"
"Could you wait here, just in case nothing changes?"
Al nodded in understanding. "Okay. I get it. Don't worry, I'll be here."
Johnny nodded and ran back to the vestry door. Luckily it was still unlocked. He went back inside, closed the door firmly (for some reason, he felt he needed to close the door for this to work), waited ten seconds, took a deep breath and opened the door again.
The din of conversation was the first thing he heard. Then he heard the starting of engines. Johnny took another deep breath, closed the vestry door and crept back around the front of the church.
There they were. All of them. Chatting with each other. Reversing out of parking spaces. Smoking. It was the smoking that brought tears to his eyes, not that they were irritated by the smoke, but from relief. When he saw his family still there, Joe tightrope walking with Lauren on the concrete parking barriers, he knew for sure he was back, back from what, he had no idea, but, fuck's sake, was he ever glad.
He was glad most of all to see that creepy chalk art gone. He couldn't see even a trace of it on the pavement of the parking lot. It was as if it had never been there, not that someone had cleaned it up in the minute it had taken him to run back inside the vestry and come back out again.
"Hey, Johnny!" Joe called.
Johnny quickly wiped his eyes and shouted, "Hey, Joe! I see you have your shadow with you."
"The shadow's name is Lauren," Lauren called.
"You know, Lauren, it's not very respectful to dance around the vestibule like a monkey while everyone else is inside celebrating mass. If you want to be with Joe, why don't you come in and sit down beside him?"
Joe reddened at that (the infatuation was requited after all, Johnny thought), but Lauren just shrugged and said, "But then I'd have to sit through the whole thing, and it sounded boring."
To Johnny's surprise, he burst out laughing. Good thing Father Rino was distracted talking to other parishioners, or he would have been furious if he'd heard what Lauren had said. From the mouths of babes. Hadn't he just been lamenting having to endure the mass when he could have been with Val? That reminded him, he still had to pick up condoms...
"Oh, hey, Joe," he said, "Where did Al go?"
Joe frowned. "Al?"
"Yeah, he was just here a minute ago."
"No he wasn't," Lauren said. "We've been here the whole time, and we haven't seen him. He'd be tightrope walking with us now if he was."
Johnny blinked in surprise. That was true, wasn't it. But Al had said he'd stick around in case what he'd suggested to Johnny hadn't worked.
Only it had.
So, if Al wasn't here now, where had Al been? For that matter, where had Johnny been? And why had Al been there too?
A chill ran down his spine, but he couldn't think on it any longer, because to think on it would be to question his belief in the solidity of the universe and the linearity of space and time, and he wasn't smart enough to parse out the nuances that might exist out there, nuances it would take a Nobel laureate to explain, probably with a chalkboard full of equations.
Not a pavement full of murder confessions.
Johnny shook his head and said, "Never mind. I've got to go."
Joe nodded and said, "Going to see your girlfriend?"
"Yeah, what of it?"
It was then that Mom turned to him and said, "You be home by dinner, Giovanni."
"Dinner?" Johnny whined. "Come on! How am I supposed to--"
"Hey!" Mom barked. When she did that, he capitulated, every time.
"Okay, Ma," he said, and ran down Lawrence Street, fully intending to break that curfew; he just had to make some kind of excuse for why he would be late. Heavy traffic? Flat tire?
Maybe stepping through a door into another dimension?
That excuse would never hold water, but just so he'd never have to use it, he went through the front door of the church and up the aisle to the back whenever he served at the altar from then on.
He never went through the vestry door as an altar boy again.
Thanks for reading this far! Were you surprised to see those chalk drawings show up in Johnny's flashback? And what was up with Al and the weird way he was behaving? You'll need to read on to find the answers. If you liked what you read so far, hit "Vote" to send this title up the ranks. Leave a comment and let me know what you think!
Let's return to the present day, with Lauren remembering a way to get more information on the author of those chalk drawings, and having an awkward conversation with her daughter, by clicking on "Continue reading."