The Dark River

There was only one way to go-through another oak door. Holding the candle in his left hand, he pushed the door open and entered a much smaller room. Gabriel felt like he had come to a morgue to identify a loved one. A body lay on a stone slab, hidden under a sheet of cotton muslin. He stood beside the body for a few seconds, then reached out and pulled the muslin away. It was his father.

The door creaked on its hinges as Maya and Mother Blessing entered the room. Both Harlequins carried candles, and their shadows mingled on the walls.

“What happened?” Gabriel asked. “When did he die?”

Mother Blessing rolled her eyes as if she couldn’t believe such ignorance. “He’s not dead. Put your head on his chest. You can hear a heartbeat every ten minutes or so.”

“Gabriel has never seen another Traveler,” Maya said.

“Well, now you have. This is the way you look when you cross over to another realm. Your father has been this way for months. Something happened. Either he liked it there and remained, or he’s trapped and can’t get back to our world.”

“How long can he stay this way?”

“If he perishes in another realm, his body will decay. If he survives but never returns to this world, his body will die of old age. It wouldn’t be a bad thing if he died in another world.” She paused for a moment. “Then I could leave this nasty little island.”

Gabriel spun away from his father and took a step toward Mother Blessing. “You can leave the island right now. Get the hell out of here.”

“I’ve guarded your father, Gabriel. I would have died for him. But don’t expect me to act like his friend. It’s my responsibility to be cold and completely rational.” Mother Blessing glared at Maya and stalked out of the room.

GABRIEL HAD NO idea how long he remained in the cellar staring at his father. Traveling all this distance to find an empty shell was so disturbing that part of his mind refused to believe it had really happened. He had a childish impulse to do everything over again-entering the hut, pulling up the trapdoor, climbing down the steps to reach a different conclusion.

After some time had passed, Maya took the end of the muslin sheet and pulled it over Matthew Corrigan’s body. “It’s getting dark outside,” she said gently. “We should probably find the others.”

Gabriel remained beside his father. “Michael and I were always looking forward to the moment when we would see him again. It was what we talked about before we went to sleep at night.”

“Don’t worry. He’ll come back.” Maya took Gabriel’s arm and coaxed him out of the room. It was cold outside and the sun was falling toward the horizon. They walked down the path together and entered the cooking hut. It was warm and friendly there-like someone’s home. A plump Irish nun named Joan had just finished baking a dozen scones, and she placed them on a serving tray along with different kinds of homemade jam and marmalade. Sister Ruth, an older woman with thick eyeglasses, bustled around the room putting away the supplies they had just brought up from the dock. She opened the stove and tossed a few chunks of peat into the fire. The compressed vegetation glowed with a dark orange light.

Vicki hurried down the staircase from the upper floor. “So what happened, Gabriel?”

“We’ll talk about it later,” Maya said. “Right now, we’d like some tea.”

Gabriel unzipped his jacket and sat down on a bench near the wall. The two nuns were staring at him.

“Matthew Corrigan is your father?” Sister Ruth asked.

“That’s right.”

“It was an honor to meet him.”

“He’s a great man,” Sister Joan said. “A great-”

“Some tea,” Maya snapped, and everyone stopped talking. A moment later, Gabriel was holding a cup of hot tea in his cold hands. There was a tense silence until the two other nuns entered the hut carrying one of the storage boxes. Sister Maura was the small nun who had been praying outside the chapel; Sister Faustina was from Poland and had a strong accent. As they unpacked the supplies and inspected the mail, the nuns forgot about Gabriel and chatted happily.

The Poor Clares owned nothing but the crosses dangling from their necks. They lived without modern plumbing, refrigeration, or electricity, but they seemed to find great joy in the small pleasures of life. On the way back from the dock Sister Faustina had gathered some pink heather. She put it on the edge of each blue china plate like a splash of beauty, along with a dollop of Irish butter and a hot scone. Everything looked perfectly arranged-as if in a gourmet restaurant-but there was nothing artificial about this gesture. The world was beautiful to the Poor Clares; to ignore that fact was to deny God.