5. Concrete

Iris is right. My face looks like a piece of fruit that’s started to go bad. It’s black and blue and swollen and soft. I look at it in the mirror of the small bathroom at the back of the room.

Turns out, this is another inn that Iris is staying in. She tells me it’s in the middle of Solitary, but I refuse to believe her because I’ve been in the middle of Solitary and have never seen this place. There’s the bed-and-breakfast that Lily was staying in, but Iris says this is different. This is just behind the sheriff’s office and Brennan’s Grill and Tavern, but I say it can’t be.

She uses the words haven and refuge a lot when she talks about this little room and this inn. It’s only for those who need a safe place to come and heal.

There are so many things I want to ask her, but she tells me I need to leave. She says I can come back, but I can only bring myself, and I have to be careful who sees me come this way.

We open the door to the garden outside, and I’m surprised to find that the temperature feels like a warm spring day. The birds are still chirping away. I see some squirrels running around playing. A cocker spaniel is lounging by a weathered bench under a tree. The garden surrounds us like a circling wall.

“It doesn’t feel like January,” I say.

She nods, smiles, then leads me over stone steps in the ground until she seems to walk right through a wall of shrubs higher than me. It’s only when I get closer that I see it’s somewhat of an optical illusion. The path takes a sharp left turn, then veers right through the shrubs until reaching a gate that comes up to my chest. Iris opens it and leads me out to the street.

Suddenly I feel the cold. The sun that was streaking through has disappeared, and I see thick gray clouds above us. I look back and see the same wall of shrubs behind us.

The gate’s nowhere to be seen.

“How did we just—”

Iris turns around, then puts a hand into the shrubs. She pulls open the gate.

“Just find the old church and make a left and head straight to here,” she says.

I’m about to ask what old church, but then I see it. A building that was once white and once opened its doors to guests. Now the windows and doors are bolted up, the paint is faded, and the landscaping looks like it’s been ignored for a decade. I’ve seen it before because I’ve noticed the old battered cross at the top of the steeple.

“What am I supposed to do now?” I ask.

“What I told you to do.”

“Pray?”

She nods. She’s still standing next to the opened gate. “Your bruises and cuts are already starting to heal. They will probably be gone by the time you get back home.”

“Is my mother still alive?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “But Chris, listen. ‘The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?’”

I want to ask why she’s suddenly spouting off Bible verses to me. I mean—yeah, great, fine. I’ll try to see if they help, but right now I need some concrete answers.

Maybe those are the concrete answers you need, Chris.

I see her slip behind the gate and then watch it turn back into an unmovable wall of shrubs.

I look at the church, then stare at the street heading downhill toward downtown Solitary.

Whom shall I fear? Well, the list is long—where should I start?

I make sure the motorcycle key is in my pocket, then start walking downhill to do battle with those I shouldn’t be afraid of.