A new voice came, a child's voice, small and lost. "It's okay, Mr. Bondurant. We forgive you."
"Forgive," he said. Only the Lord's forgiveness mattered. Sins weren't measured on earthly scales, only by He who judged. No mere child had the right to feel sorry for Bondurant.
"For the spankings," said the child.
Bondurant felt as if a sock were stuffed in his throat. He only spanked in those instances when he knew he wouldn't be reported. Like all successful predators, he chose his victims carefully. And now some stupid little snot-nose was telling him it was okay to bend the sinning little shits over his desk.
Well, he knew it was okay, because the Lord had assigned him the mission. Who cared what the Department of Social Services thought when he had higher authorities to please? The rod and staff comforted. He turned their other cheek until they howled for mercy.
Because, beyond everything else, Bondurant was merciful. He'd learned that from the Lord, and from the Scriptures. Mercy tempered all acts, though sometimes you had to be righteous and vengeful.
"You need to open up," the scratchy woman said.
"Open up?" Bondurant didn't know what frightened him more, sitting in a room with people who didn't exist or being put on the spot.
"Don't be afraid," whispered the child, and now his voice was very close, so close that Bondurant should have felt the exhalation on his face.
Bondurant recognized the voice. Sammy Lane, the boy who had died in that botched restraint hold two years ago at Enlo. That was the home's most shameful moment, bringing the Social Services storm troopers into Bondurant's life. Sammy became the poster child for reform, his grinning photo splashed across the newspapers for weeks until another controversy pushed the death to page five. Then he was gone, nothing but a black mark on the system's record.
Until now.
Sammy was back, offering Bondurant forgiveness.
"I didn't have anything to do with it," Bondurant said. "I wasn't even there when you died-I mean, when it happened."
"They said you gave the order," Sammy said. "And I wasn't being mean or anything, this girl pulled my hair so I kicked her, and the counselor twisted my arm behind me and took me to the time-out room, and of course I hated it because nobody likes to be locked in the dark, so I shoved the counselor and he wrapped his arms around me and told me to calm down and I couldn't breathe but he wouldn't let go and I didn't have enough breath to tell him to stop and the next thing I knew I was dead." Little Sammy paused. "But it's okay now."
Bondurant wept, the salt stinging his bloodshot eyes. He was innocent. The investigation had cleared him. Even the counselor had gotten off, taking a plea agreement that barred him from ever working in child services again. Everyone was satisfied with blaming it on the system instead of individuals. Enlo's financial support had suffered a little, but Bondurant waxed his smile and faced the storm and then the storm blew over. And Bondurant took the director's chair at Wendover. Everyone had forgotten.
Except Sammy.
"We all have problems," said the scratchy woman.
The man said, "My shrink asked me all these questions, but she was a woman so I couldn't answer. Reminded me too much of my mom. Later, I wrote the answers on little pieces of paper and slipped them in the back of the television in the rec room."
"That's crazy," said Bondurant, glad he didn't have to respond to Sammy.
"They said / was crazy but I was only in love," the scratchy woman said. "Love is nothing but internal bleeding."
"It's not my fault," said the man from the darkness.
"I didn't love you, I loved the doctor. They took away my cigarettes so I chewed tin foil. I pulled the staples out of magazines and swallowed them. Then I found some loose nails in the paneling and ate them. By the time they opened me up, it was too late."
"I don't want to be opened up," Bondurant said.
The woman who was standing too close behind him said, "Let out what's inside."
A cold touch like the end of a frostbitten finger trailed down the back of his neck. "I'm scared," Bondurant said.
"We're all scared."
"We're all scared," whispered Sammy, in his tiny voice.
The gray around the window had grown lighter. Bondurant closed his eyes. The sun was climbing over the mountains outside, and soon he would be able to see the things that were talking to him in this empty room.
"Well," came a new voice, a strong and confident man's. "That's enough for one session. We don't want to solve all our problems, or I'll be out of a job."
Bondurant forced his eyelids to stay shut, trembling with the effort. The room was as cool as December, and Bondurant caught a faint whiff of dirt and decaying leaves.
Sammy's voice was at his ear. "Bye, Mr. Bondurant. See you around."
One of the chairs fell over, then silence.
After ten minutes, Bondurant opened his eyes, his cheeks wet with tears. In the dim light of daybreak, he looked around the circle of vacant chairs. He reached into his pocket and touched the flask, swearing for the hundredth time that he was through. Then he looked at the door.
Against its metal face he saw an image of the old man in the gown. The man's lips moved, but no sound came out. As the shape dissolved under the sunrise, Bondurant thought he knew what words the ghostly lips had formed We 're getting closer.
TWENTY-NINE
"Are you comfortable, Miss Rogers?"
Starlene nodded at the mirror on the wall. An apparatus that looked like a high-tech chandelier lowered from the ceiling, stopping several feet above her head. The humming rose in intensity, vibrating the cot to which she was strapped. Her skin itched beneath the electrodes stuck to her temples. The pinprick of pain had faded where Dr. Swenson had injected the radiopharmaceutical that would allow Kracowski to track her brain's chemistry and blood flow.
Randy had fastened the restraints, ignoring her questioning eyes. Now she was alone in the room. She gripped the sides of the mattress and waited for Kracowski to flip the switches that would send the currents racing through her brain, the weird waves that would oscillate through her molecules and send her into the unknown.
Kracowski's voice came from the speakers again. "Remember that this is strictly voluntary."
"I know," she said. "Just like it is for the kids."
"This is not a good time for a debate on the merits of traditional counseling versus Synaptic Synergy Therapy. My results speak for themselves."
"Are you talking about your therapeutic results or… you know, all that other stuff?"
"Ah, the phantasmagoria effect. Don't you Christians believe the souls of the dearly departed are immediately vacuumed off to hell or heaven?"
"Only people who actually have souls."
"You are a doubter, Miss Rogers. I've had many doubters. In that respect, I am not unlike your beloved Jesus of Nazareth."
"Except Jesus did what He did for the good of others, not to boost his own ego."
Laughter crackled over the speakers. "If Jesus had computers and a better understanding of electromagnetic fields, He would have invented SST himself."
The lights in the room dimmed, and Starlene tried to relax. Her sleep had been short and interrupted by nightmares. Each time she had awakened in her cottage, sweaty and tangled in sheets, she prayed the fear away. The Miracle Woman had drifted through her fleeting dreams, holding out those tragic eyes. The dread of the treatment had also kept her restless and anxious.
But it was too late to back out now. If she wanted to understand what Wendover's children were going through, she had to endure the same treatment. She stared at her reflection in the mirror and told herself to be brave.
"Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Kracowski," she whispered to herself, "I will fear no evil."