Shut your eyes tight

The computer screen showed Scott Ashton coming in through the chapel’s rear door behind the groupings of pews and closing it behind him with a heavy thump, the small remote unit still in one hand. The girls filled most of the space in the pews—some sitting normally, some sideways, some in cross-legged yoga positions, some kneeling. Some seemed lost in their own thoughts, but most were engaged in conversations, some more audible than others.

The surprise for Gurney was the ordinariness of these girls. They looked at first glance like most self-absorbed female teenagers, hardly like the inmates of an institution ringed by razor wire. At this distance from the camera, the malignancy of the behavior that had brought them here was invisible. Gurney assumed that only face-to-face, with their expressions in sharper focus, would it become obvious that these creatures were more than ordinarily self-centered, reckless, cruel, and sex-driven. Ultimately, as it was with his murderer mug shots, the sign of danger, the ice, would be in the eyes.

Then he noticed that the students were not alone. In each of the pew triangles, there were one or two older individuals—probably teachers or counselors or whatever Mapleshade called their providers of guidance and therapy. In a rear corner of the room, almost invisible in the shadows, stood Dr. Lazarus, his arms folded, his expression unreadable.

Moments after Ashton entered, the girls began to notice him, and the conversational din began to diminish. One of the older-looking, more striking girls approached Ashton as he stood at the back of the center aisle. She was tall, blond, almond-eyed.

Gurney glanced over at Hardwick, who was leaning forward in his chair, studying the screen.

“Could you tell if he called her over?” Gurney asked.

“He may have gestured,” he said. “Sort of a wave. Why?”

“Just curious.”

On the super-sharp screen, the profiles of Ashton and the tall blonde were clear to the point that their lip movements were visible, but their voices were indistinct—words and phrases merging with the voices of a group of students near them.

Gurney leaned toward the monitor. “Do you have any idea what they’re saying?”

Hardwick focused intently on their faces, tilting his head as though that might heighten the discrimination of his hearing.

On the screen, the girl said something and smiled, Ashton said something and gestured. Then he walked purposefully down the center aisle and stepped up onto a raised portion of the floor, presumably the area the altar had occupied in the time of the building’s liturgical use. He turned to face the assembly of students, his back to the camera. The murmur melted away, and soon there was silence.

Gurney looked inquiringly at Hardwick. “Did you catch anything?”

He shook his head. “He could have said absolutely anything to her. I couldn’t pick the words out of the background noise. Maybe a lip-reader could tell. Not me.”

On the screen, Ashton began speaking with a natural-sounding authority, his chocolate baritone composed and satiny—and deeper than usual in the resonant Gothic nave.

“Ladies,” he began, inflecting the word with an almost reverential gentility, “terrible things have happened, frightening things, and everyone is upset. Angry, frightened, confused, and upset. Some of you are having trouble sleeping. Anxiety. Bad dreams. Just not knowing what’s really happening may be the worst part of it. We want to know what we’re facing, and no one is telling us.” Ashton radiated the angst of the mental states he was referring to. He had turned himself into a depiction of emotion and understanding, and yet at the same time, perhaps through the steady richness of his voice, its almost cellolike timbre, he was managing to communicate at some unconscious level a profound reassurance.

“Man, that’s good shit,” said Hardwick, in the tone of one admiring the legerdemain of a superior pickpocket.

“Definitely a pro,” agreed Gurney.

“Not as good as you, ace.”

Gurney screwed up his face into an uncomprehending question mark.

“I bet he could learn a thing or two from your academy gig.”

“What do you know about my acad—”

Hardwick pointed at the screen. “Shhh. Let’s not miss anything.”

Ashton’s words were moving like clear water over polished rocks. “Some of you have asked me about the progress of the criminal investigation. How much do the police know, what are they doing, how close are they to catching the guilty person? Logical questions, questions a lot of us are wondering about. I think it would help if we knew more, if we each had the opportunity to share our concerns, to ask what we want to ask, to get some answers. That’s why I’ve invited the key detectives working on the case to come here to Mapleshade tomorrow morning—to talk to us, let us know what’s happening, what’s likely to happen next. They’ll have questions, we’ll have questions. I believe that it will be a very useful conversation for all of us.”

Hardwick grinned. “What do you think of that?”

“I think he’s—”

“Smooth as a greased pig?”

Gurney shrugged. “I’d say he’s good at managing the way people see things.”

Hardwick pointed at the screen.

Ashton was taking a cell phone from a clip on his belt. He looked at it, frowned, pressed a button on it, and put it to his ear. He said something, but the girls in the pews had resumed talking to one another, and his words were again lost in the background chatter.

“Are you catching any of that?” asked Gurney.

Hardwick watched Ashton’s lips, then shook his head. “Same as before, when he was talking to the blonde. He could have said anything.”

The call ended, and Ashton replaced the phone in his pocket. A girl far in the back was raising her hand. Unseen or ignored by Ashton, she stood and waved it side to side, and that seemed to get his attention.

“Yes? Ladies … I think someone has a question, or a comment?”

The girl—who happened to be the almond-eyed blonde to whom Hardwick had just referred—asked her question. “I heard a rumor that Hector Flores was seen here today, right here in the chapel. Is that true?”

Ashton appeared uncharacteristically flustered. “What … Who told you that?”

“I don’t know. People were talking in the stairwell in the main house. I’m not sure who it was. I couldn’t see them from where I was standing. But one of them said she saw him—that she saw Hector. If that’s true, that’s scary.”

“If it were true, it would be,” said Ashton. “Maybe the person who said she saw him can tell us more about it. We’re all here. Whoever said it must be here, too.” He looked out at the assembly in an expectant silence, letting a protracted five seconds pass before adding with an avuncular tolerance, “Maybe some people just like to spread scary rumors.” But he didn’t sound entirely at ease. “Are there any more questions?”

One of the younger-looking girls raised her hand and asked, “How much longer do we have to stay in here?”

Ashton smiled like a loving father. “As long as the process is helpful and not a minute longer. I would hope that in each of your groups you’re sharing your thoughts, concerns, feelings—especially the fears that have naturally been triggered by Savannah’s death. I want you to express everything that comes to mind, to take advantage of the help your group facilitators can provide, the help you each can offer one another. The process works. We all know it works. Trust it.”

Ashton stepped down from the raised platform and began circulating around the room, appearing to offer a word of encouragement here and there but mainly observing the group discussions in progress in the pews. Sometimes he would appear to be listening carefully, other times withdrawing into his own thoughts.

As Gurney watched, his attention was drawn again to the fundamental weirdness of the scene. Deconsecrated though it might be, the building still looked, sounded, smelled, and felt very much like a church. Combining that with the wild and twisted energies of Mapleshade’s current residents was disconcerting.

In the chapel scene on the screen, Ashton was continuing his leisurely stroll among the students and their “facilitators,” but Gurney had stopped paying attention.

He closed his eyes and rested his head against the velvet back cushion of his chair. He concentrated as best he could on the simple feeling of his breath passing in and out through his nostrils. He was trying to clear his mind of what felt like an incoherent tangle of debris. He almost succeeded, but one little item refused to be swept away.

One little item.

It was a comment by Hardwick that had been gnawing at the edge of his consciousness—the comment he’d made when Gurney had asked him if he could tell what Ashton was saying to the girl who’d walked over to him when he entered the chapel.

Hardwick had replied that Ashton’s voice, amid all the others in the chapel, was indistinct, the words indecipherable.

He could have said absolutely anything to her.

That notion had been bothering Gurney.

And now he knew why.

It had triggered a memory, at first below the level of consciousness.

But now it came vividly to mind.

Another time. Another place. Scott Ashton in earnest conversation with a young blonde on the broad sweep of a manicured lawn. A conversation that could not be overheard. A conversation whose words were lost in the undertone of two hundred other voices. A conversation in which Scott Ashton could have said anything to Jillian Perry.

He could have said anything. And that single fact could change everything.

Hardwick was watching him. “You all right?”

Gurney nodded slightly, as if any greater movement might jar apart the infinitely delicate chain of possibilities he was considering.

He could have said anything. There really was no way of knowing what he said, because the actual voices couldn’t be heard. So what might he have said?

Suppose what he said was, “No matter what happens, don’t say a word.”

Suppose what he said was, “No matter what happens, don’t open the door.”

Suppose what he said was, “I have a surprise for you. Shut your eyes tight.”

Good God, suppose that’s exactly what he said! “For the biggest surprise of your life, shut your eyes tight.”