A Fountain Filled With Blood

Traffic was light on Main Street, but he had to stop and go for the pedestrians jaywalking left and right as they went from art gallery to antique store to ice-cream shop—or SHOPPE, as the fake-old sign proclaimed. When he was a kid, the upper end of Main Street had had real stores, like Woolworth and Bilt-Rite Shoes and Biretti’s, which his mom had always referred to as “the Eye-talian bakery.” Then, while he had been traveling from post to post, building his career in the military police, one by one the old stores closed, victims of the Aviation Mall and the shopping centers that sprang up on Route 9. In the late eighties, while he had been looking at the world through the bottom of a bottle, the Board of Aldermen had gotten a major grant for downtown revitalization. Now the street was full of folks again, at least in the summer. You could buy pastries and etchings of Fort Ticonderoga and fancy clothes just right for a garden party in Saratoga during the racing season. What you couldn’t buy was a razor or a pair of shoes or a cheap sandwich.

He turned onto Church Street, where the shops were older, considerably less glamorous, and the pedestrian traffic a lot lighter. The thought of Biretti’s put him in mind of his mother. He hadn’t even called her to see if she had gotten home all right. His sister Janet had reached him that morning at the station, and she had given him an earful before letting him know she would be picking Mom up at the courthouse. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and scowled, causing the man who was in the crosswalk in front of the cruiser to sprint across to the other side. All he was trying to do was his job, as best as he knew how, and every woman in his life was dumping on him for it.

He swung around the small park at the end of Church Street and drove onto Elm. The rectory was dark, but a few of the stained-glass windows of St. Alban’s Church were glowing, the ones farthest from the door. He frowned. He didn’t think there were any services on Monday.

He parked the cruiser in Clare’s drive and walked back down the sidewalk to St. Alban’s entrance on Church Street. He decided not to think about the fact that he knew the Episcopal church’s worship schedule, even though the last time he had attended any religious services regularly was back in junior high. And then only because he had had a crush on a girl in the Methodist Youth Group.

He pushed against one of the great wooden doors and it swung open silently. He stepped through the narthex into the body of the church and paused to let his eyes become accustomed to the dimness. The sky outside was still orange and red, but the twilight glow couldn’t pierce the stained-glass windows that punctuated the stone walls. There wasn’t a single electric light on anywhere. He walked forward in a few more steps, hesitant about trespassing in the middle of a service. But there was no one sitting in the rows of pews. His eyes followed them, rank on rank, to the front of the church. Past the gilt and mahogany altar rail, past the plain rectangular table draped in embroidered linens, past the choir’s gleaming pews and Gothic arches was Clare. White-robed, on the steps leading up to an ornately decorated high altar, where a mass of candles provided all the light in the world. Her back was to him, her head bent over what he guessed was a book.

“Be present, O merciful God, and protect us through the hours of this night, so that we who are wearied by the changes of this life may rest in your eternal changelessness; through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.”

Her voice wasn’t pitched to carry, but whoever had shaped the space had known what he was doing. In the cool silence of the empty church, Russ could hear her as well as if he were standing next to her.

“Keep watch, dear Lord, over those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous, and all for your love’s sake.”

He walked up the center aisle quietly, as the place seemed to demand, although not trying to hide his presence. He wondered if she really believed in angels swooping around, watching over people, or if that was just the company line.

She started singing in a clear alto voice: “Lord, you now have set your servant free, to go in peace as you have promised; for these eyes of mine have seen the Savior, whom you have prepared for all the world to see….” It wasn’t a song exactly, more like a chant, rising and falling from one line to the next, even though there wasn’t any rhyme and only scant rhythm. She dropped back into speech to conclude, “Guide us waking, O Lord, and guard us sleeping; that awake we may watch with Christ, and asleep we may rest in peace. The almighty and merciful Lord, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”—he could see the movements of her arm as she crossed herself—“bless us and keep us.”