CHAPTER 14

Father McIntyre’s cassock draped over his thighs as he pulled his legs uphill, the exertion laboring. The evening descended and the sky turned indigo. A thin slice of moon paled above the steeple like a lizard’s eye.

Growing winds reminded him the ocean was near. Father McIntyre focused on his stilted breathing, surprised by how out of shape he had become. His black shoes navigated the rocks, temporarily flattening any long grass that grew between. A small wool blanket swayed in his arms. He crossed the line on the path between comfort and vertigo, but he huffed through it, knowing if he stopped he’d lose his nerve. He owed the child at least this much.

Father McIntyre found the little girl sitting against a gnarly gum, her head buried in her arms. He stilled for a moment to calm his breath and then approached, gently covering her shoulders with the blanket. “It’s all right, dear. I’ve got you now.” He picked her up into his arms and tucked her head into his neck. She was light as a feather.

Father McIntyre carried her away from the cliffs and the vertigo lifted. A few stars peeked through the darkest line of sky as he brought her into the church and settled her into his office chair.

“James told me what happened,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry, Leonora. Children can be cruel. Deeply cruel.” They were words that would mean nothing and he struggled for inspiration, swept his mind for words that could console. He lifted her chin. “Leonora?”

Her pupils rose slowly and met his and his heart pulled. He stared into aged eyes that had seen too much sorrow for one lifetime—old, sad eyes trapped in a beautiful sweet face that held no hate, though it had every right to. Father McIntyre knew those eyes, knew them so well that he saw himself in their reflection. A deep sadness overcame him and tears formed. Memories trickled to the surface and he could not pull away from her pain, his pain. He knew what he had to do, even if it meant opening a part of his past long locked away.

He fell into thought for several moments, his features grave as he gathered enough strength to proceed. He sighed, found the key tucked in the desk drawer. He took down a long wooden box from a shelf and brought it back to his desk, unlocked it. He hadn’t looked inside since he was a child, but he never forgot for a moment what it held.

His bottom lip twisted as he held his jaw tight and pulled out a square photo. The paper, sepia with age and ripped slightly in the corner, had creases marking years of folds. His thumb covered one of the faces and he moved it slowly, uncovering his face as a young boy. Father McIntyre placed the photo on the desk. “This is a picture of my family—my mother and father, my two younger brothers. That’s me with the hair sticking up.” He pointed without joviality.

The sound of a rifle fired in his mind and he jumped invisibly. His nostrils flared; he could almost smell the smoke. “I was just a little older than you.”

Leonora, still as a statue, stared at the picture.

“About a year after this photo was taken . . .” He paused. The rifle blasted again and he closed his eyes. “My parents . . . passed away.” He swallowed the lump filling his throat, but it didn’t pass. He remembered the feel of the gun as he tried to push it out of his father’s hands; the coldness of it and then the enormous heat as it smashed his mother across the wall. An icy rush washed over him. He had watched paralyzed as his father turned the gun on himself and fired. “They went to Heaven,” he said softly.

Father McIntyre pushed the gun, the faces, away and spoke clearly. “We were all alone, my brothers and me. We had nothing. No money. No food. No parents.”

Her eyes were on him now, watching him closely from under lowered lids.

“I was sent to live with my uncle and his wife. My two little brothers were sent to an orphanage.” Fresh pain stabbed as he remembered seeing their tiny, scared faces—two faces he promised to protect and never saw again.

“In less than a week, I had lost my parents and my brothers. In a matter of a week, my world crumbled.” His gaze bore through her and fell far away. “I didn’t understand. My whole world, my life, my family, swallowed up. I wanted it all to stop . . . the insanity to just stop. I didn’t want to move. Didn’t want to breathe. Didn’t want to speak.” He looked at her intently and said softly, “So I didn’t. I folded into myself and I stopped talking. I just stopped.”

Leonora’s tiny hands tightened on the blanket folds.

“It wasn’t something that I chose to do and my life was much harder because of it, but I just couldn’t. Every time I wanted to speak, something closed. My uncle would scream at me to talk, hit me. The kids at school tormented me to no end. The more I was abused, the deeper my voice hid. I wanted to disappear, to fade away.” He stared above her head as he spoke, as much to himself as to the child.

“I suffered greatly until that was all I had left in my life—suffering. I didn’t want to exist anymore, Leonora.” His face twisted and his eyes burned with restrained tears eager to fall. “And I almost didn’t.” He remembered the razor, the sharp pain from its blade and the calm. He remembered the bright blood and the hope, the flow of death. “I almost disappeared.”

His gaze carried to her face, the sadness weighing in his dark eyes. “I don’t want you to suffer as I did, Leonora.”

Their eyes locked and a communion forged that went beyond age or gender—went below skin and resonated to the organs and blood. Beyond his pain and the memories, something screamed in victory. For this was what he had lost, the soul’s connection to another, and the fire lit and spread across him to the parts that had begun to numb and take him over, and it overshadowed the blood and the pain and the death.

A tear filled the corner of the girl’s eye where it sat heavily before releasing down the side of her nose, over her cheek, and then swept to her neck. It was the first time he had seen her cry and he smiled gratefully, for if she allowed herself to feel she could heal.

Father McIntyre rose from his desk and knelt, taking her little hands in his. He worked through a constricted throat and pleaded, wanting her to understand the significance of his words. “I know your story, Leonora. I know what happened to you in the desert. I know things have happened to you that should never happen to a child. Things that shouldn’t happen to anyone.”

Panic entered her face and he was afraid she might try to flee. He held her hands tighter. “I don’t know why you were left, but I do know that it was no fault of your own. Only God knows why people make the decisions that they do. What’s important is how you deal with the pain. Don’t let it consume you. Don’t let it turn to hate and consume those around you.” He smiled weakly. “You have better days ahead of you, Leonora. This I promise you.”

Warm tears fell from her face onto his hands and he squeezed her fingers gently. “I know you feel alone, Leonora. But you are not! You weren’t even alone in the bush. God was and continues to be with you at every moment, protecting you, watching over you. Don’t you see? You were meant to survive; you were meant to be found.”

The warmth of truth seeped through his veins. “You were meant to survive. There is so much light in you, Leonora! I don’t want you to fade into the darkness; God doesn’t want you to fade into the darkness.

“You are loved, Leonora.” His eyes rimmed with tears as he emphasized each word. “You . . . are . . . loved.”

As he held her hands, something broke inside of her. A cry, almost inaudible, released from the depths of her soul. Father McIntyre’s chest burned as he pulled her to him, holding her in his arms while her body shook with the force of sobs, her tiny body crumpling. In choked whispers, he repeated over and over in her ear, “You are loved, dear. You are loved.”

Time did not move as they held together in the small and cluttered office. Only after her shoulders had stilled and her eyes no longer spilled heavy drops upon his sleeve did he pull away from the embrace. He put his hands on either side of her face and tilted her head until her exhausted eyes met his. He smiled. “You’re still here, Leonora.”

When he thought she was ready, he rose and held out a hand. “Come with me. There are some people who want to talk to you.” Wearily, she took his hand, and they walked into the hall. The sky was fully black through the windows and the only light came from the open door of his office and the wider ones opened in the rectory. He brought her to the doorway. She froze and would not go farther when she saw the boys sitting in the pews, their backs toward her and heads down but for one.

“It’s all right, Leonora. Trust me.” He squeezed her hand and moved her down the line of pews. “Michael,” he ordered fiercely, “stand up!”

Michael stood and turned around, his head bent. “I’m sorry, Leonora.” He raised his head quickly, revealing a bloody nose and swollen left eye.

Thomas rose next. His left eye closed nearly shut and he missed a front tooth. “Thawwy, Leonowa.”

Patrick stood, tried to blink beneath his bruised and cut left eye. “Sorry, Leonora.”

“Go on to bed now!” Father McIntyre snapped. “You’ll be doing Leonora’s chores for the next month.”

Leonora sat next to the boy in the last pew. His right hand was bandaged from fingers to wrist. A line of red bled through the gauze at the knuckles. And she leaned in and placed a small kiss to James’s temple.