Degrees of Freedom
Book 2–The Patua’ Heresy
© 2025 Mary C. Simmons
Jayzu
In the morning before he was to boat Jayzu to Ledford, the Captain and Charlie watched the sunrise from the Sanctuary. From the cliffs above, they could hear Charlotte singing—the same song she sang every morning as she looked across the river. Not at the sparkling jewel of Downtown upriver, but directly across, where the water gave way to the dense green of a small forest. A small stream, one of many, found its way to the big river and over the years had managed to carve out a swampy entrance to a steep ravine.
Atop the ravine, a person could go to the right and find the ritzy neighborhoods of the well-to-do (such as Henry and Minnie Braun, now known as Gabrielle duBois). To the left miles and miles of cornfields, mostly owned by AgMo, the farm conglomerate eating up the historical family farms. Straight ahead a person would find the highway that led west to more cornfields, or to the east toward the river and the city of Ledford, and cornfields.
Up on the cliffs, Charlotte liked to watch the waterbirds sailing into the swamp across the river to feed. In the mornings as the sun rose, she looked into the distance, beyond the river, beyond the cornfields…and sang. The words drifted down to where the Charlie and the Captain sat, not speaking. The Captain whistled the tune softly as Charlotte sang:
And we’ ll all go together
To pick wild mountain thyme
All around the purple heather,
Will you go, Lassie, go?
Another human might’ve wept at the sweetness of Charlotte’s voice mingling with the melancholy tones of the Captain’s whistling. Charlie did not weep, but sensed the depth of the Captain’s grief. He remembered the day the Captain was dumped on the bank by Sam who somehow managed to navigate the river. Deeply wounded, the crows, and Sam had nursed him back from the death he had raved to embrace.
Charlie and the Captain remained silent for a few minutes after Charlotte had stopped singing.
“Suppose we take Charlotte to the Treehouse,” the Captain said as he chewed on a blade of grass. “She’d be more comfortable there than on these cliffs. Might jog her memory, eh?”
Charlie tilted his head to one side for a moment. “It could. Perhaps just a walk away from the cliffs would help also. She’s not afraid of dark forests. Only her brother.”
“Hmmmph,” the Captain grunted. “What if we arranged Jayzu to show up? He doesn’t look anything like her brother. As long as he’s not wearing his priest costume.”
Charlie nodded and scratched the sand with one foot. “That might just work.”
“We’d be right there with her,” the Captain said, “in case she flips out when she sees him.” He tossed the blade of grass to the ground.
“She might,” Charlie said, “She hasn’t seen Thomas for more than twenty years, so she probably remembers him as someone who looks young, like Jayzu, except fatter and shorter.”
In the end, they decided to ask Charlotte if she’d like to see the Treehouse. She agreed immediately, at which point Charlie said: “The Treehouse was where you spent your first night on the island. I live in that tree also, with my wife Rika and—”
“Kreegans,” I whispered, as visions of baby crows flitted and played on a wooden deck high up in the branches of a tree.
“Yes,” Charlie said. “Kreegans. Mine and Rika’s.”
“Jayzu fixed it all up,” Andy said, “So you’d be comfortable with Charlie nearby. We know Jayzu—he will not harm you.”
“But what if—” I said, sort of wanting to meet this Jayzu, but…fear stopped me. What if this is a trick? What if—it’s really Thomas?”
“I will protect you,” Andy said. “If your brother shows up, I’ll take care of him—though it won’t be necessary.”
“We will not allow anyone—not Jayzu, not your brother—no one—to harm you,” Charlie said.
“Okay,” I said after a long sigh.
It wasn’t that hard—Charlie I had known and trusted my whole life. Andy I knew only at school, though we hardly ever spoke. Except that one time when some of the kids were teasing me and chasing me around the playground flapping there arms and screaming “Caw! Caw! Caw!”
They stole my lunch box and were tossing it between them daring me to get it from them. I was taller than all of them, but I didn’t dare move or make a sound. Just as they started to run away with my lunch box, Andy stepped in from out of nowhere.
“I’ll take that,” he said as he grabbed my lunch box from one of the bullies hand. “Get lost!”
Andy was bigger than all the boys, and most everyone was afraid of him. I was not though—everyone knew I ‘made crow sounds’ but they never knew about Andy. But I did.
“Thank you,” I whispered in the crow language, as the bell rang.
Andy just smiled and tipped his baseball at as we walked toward the building.
*
Jayzu sat at his table next to the window in his cottage, staring out into the forest. The funeral mass he was supposed to deliver the next day should included a short sermon about Henry Braun’s life in Christ. What could he say that might be positive yet still be the truth? Mrs Braun had told him Henry was an atheist, but he Jesus never pays any attention to such nonsense.
Jayzu did not know much else about Henry, other than his greed and dislike of crows. He searched the Internet with the spotty coverage he had on the island, looking for something, anything…
Henry had not done anything for the poor, nor did he fund hospital expansions, nor purely community-driven projects whose purpose was not to make money. Henry seemed to be completely self-centered.
A breeze blew through the window, ruffling the curtains and causing the hazja to swing at the end of a chain beneath the overhead lamp. He reached for it and held it in his hand. He had found it when he had first come to the island, beneath the bones of Brother Maxmillian Wilder in the hermit’s chapel.
He remembered that Jade had a hazja as well; she had said it belonged to her mother, and that Chloe, the woman who had actually raised Jade told her so. If only she was not afraid of him—he could take it to her. Perhaps it would help her regain the memories she had lost after eating mildornia berries.
Jayzu had been told by the young crows that followed Charlotte nearly everywhere, that she went into his cottage when he escorted Russ and Jade to the inlet where the Captain waited for them. He glanced at the portrait on the wall. What if Charlotte knew that Jade had painted it? but how could she? Unless she overheard them talking…but she would need to understand English for that to happen.
Sighing, he went back to work on his sermon. He wrote Henry’s name on his yellow pad. What did he ever do other than make a ton of money with which he had only enriched himself?
Mrs Braun however had actually given a substantial amount of money to St Sophia’s orphanage fund, as well as the food bank the church ran. With Henry’s money no doubt, so Jayzu could give him credit for that. And for marrying Mrs Braun in the first place. And, he did give his wife a comfortable life…so there was that.
He managed to write a short, sweet, entirely true sermon for Henry’s funeral that mentioned his generosity to his wife. As he re-read it for the second time, a shadow appeared at the window.
“Yo, Jayzu!” JoEd said and hopped onto a chair back facing Jayzu.
“Grawky, JoEd!” Jayzu put his pen and pad down. “Is it time for me to bring backpack of food for Charlotte—to the Treehouse?”
“Yep,” JoEd said. “Fact is, the Captain and Charlotte are waiting for you there.”
Jayzu’s mouth hung open for a few moments. He stood up suddenly, knocking his chair over backwards. “Charlotte wants to see me? She remembers me?” A broad smile bloomed across his face.
JoEd cocked his head to one side. “Well, yes she does, and no she doesn’t.”
Jayzu frowned. “She does but she does not? What does that mean?”
“Just answering your questions, Jayzu,” JoEd said. “Yes she does want to see you. And no she doesn’t remember you.”
Jayzu picked his chair up and set it right. “But she still wants to see me.” He shook his head. “Why?”
“Well see, my zazu and the Captain have told her you are not her her brother,” JoEd said. “And that you don’t even look like him. So she asked what you look like and the Captain told her and they promised her you would never hurt her or tell her brother where she is and she said okay she would meet you.”
JoEd paused to breathe.
“At the Treehouse,” Jayzu said, raising his eyebrows. “I guess that is the best place. She spent a night there, and you and your weebs and zazu live in the tree. Maybe she will remember being there.”
Overjoyed that Charlotte wanted to see him, Jayzu started to bolt out the door.
“Hoy there, Jayzu,” JoEd said, and stuck a wing out—as if he could stop him from leaving. “You need to bring food for Charlotte—membo? And water.”
“Right,” Jayzu said and turned on his heel back into his cottage.
He moved to the kitchen area and began filling a sack with an apple, and chunks of cheese and bread, a few carrots, and water. “I do not have much. I plan to get more food in the city after the Bunya’s funeral.”
Jayzu again started for the door. On impulse, he reached for the fob hanging from the lamp over the table. Jade has one of these—she said it had been her mother’s. Perhaps—
He stuck the hajza in the backpack, slung it over his shoulder and stepped outside. Closing the door behind him, he left his cottage with JoEd on the other shoulder. He could not help quickening his steps in his excitement and hesitation to see Charlotte.
“Slow it down,” JoEd said as Jayzu broke into a jog. He dug his talons into Jayzu’s shoulder, nearly falling off. “We gotta give Charlotte time to be at the Treehouse for a bit before you show up.”
Jayzu slowed to a walk and said: “I just do not want to miss her before I have to go into the city this morning.”
“Not gonna happen,” JoEd said as he regained his balance on Jayzu’s shoulder. “You just gotta chill, man. We got this.”
Before Now
“Seems Charlotte remembers her life before now up until she was taken to Rosencranz.”
I had heard Andy say that to Charlie last night.
Before now.
For the first time I wondered about what was ‘before now’—Charlie says I was at a place called Rosencranz. He says I was there a long time, many years. I don’t remember anything before being here on this island. And I don’t know how old I am.
But what was before now?
Running through the trees with Charlie overhead—like I was flying a kite. Sleeping in a tiny bed in a tiny room. Looking at stars on a rooftop. An odor of Old Spice.
Charlie and Andy both describe in great detail how I got here, with Jayuz’s help—and the repeatedly said it was Jayzu who wanted me out of Rosencranz, but I remember none of that. Charlie thinks I forgot everything before Rosencranz because I ate a mildornia berry a few days ago. I don’t remember doing that either.
Andy and Charlie escorted me to the Treehouse—they said an old hermit named Bruthamax built it and lived in it over a hundred years ago. Charlie told me other stories about Bruthamax—that he and his ancestor Hozey the Great first built a chapel at another place on the island. They said it looked like an upside-side down bird’s nest and that Bruthamax went inside every day to pray.
And then they built the Treehouse…high up in the branches of a gigantic tree, where you had to climb up a sort of spiral staircase to get up to it.
“Jayzu fixed the Treehouse all up for you,” Charlie said as he rode on her shoulder. “Got it all cleaned up and stocked with food—and clothes for you. Matter of fact, what you wear now, Jayzu brought to the Treehouse for you. On the Captain’s boat.”
“For a fact!” Sugarbabe shouted from the Captain’s shoulder. “We hauled everything on the boat, and the Captain helped Jayzu drag it all to the Treehouse. I was there!”
“For me?” I frowned, looking down at my coveralls. “But why, Charlie? Why did he do all that? He doesn’t even know me.”
“Well, he didn’t before he came to the island,” Charlie said. “I told him about you and because you speak Patua’, he visited you at Rosencranz several times because he felt sad that you were there and could not get out. He was the only person you ever spoke to—as you were not speaking the yoomun language even though you lived amongst them.”
The yoomun language. English. I know it well enough, but there is no reason to speak it here—all the crows speak Patua’, as does Andy.
Charlie says he visited me a long time ago at Rosencranz, and he pecked on the window to my room and I tapped back, but I do not remember this.
“But why was I at Rosencranz”
“Some people think that yoomuns who speak the Patua’ have a mental illness, “Charlie said. “So they put you in Rosencranz. That’s why Jayzu wanted to get you out of there. You don’t have mental illness.”
“But Andy speaks Patua’ too!” I said, turning to him. “Why didn’t they ever put you there?”
He glanced at Charlie and then grinned at me. “Probably because they can’t catch me.”
“You can’t catch me!” I hollered over my shoulder at Tommy, who was chasing me.
I could outrun him, being that I was outside almost all the time, running, jumping playing…while Tommy spent his time inside. Our mother forced him to read the Bible for two hours every day and he was always in a really grumpy mood.
I ran and ran, first laughing at them shouting “Stella! Stella!”
I laugh and keep running, but it seems so hard, like I weigh a ton.
The voices got louder, and I ran faster. Faster! Calls of “Stella!” grew angrier. Fasterfasterfaster…Gasping for air. Each breath hurts all the way down.
Suddenly Tommy is on top of me…pinning me. I can’t move.
“I caught her!” he yells.
“No!” I scream, writhing trying to get away.
His big fat hand covers my mouth. I bite it. He lets got, cursing me. But two others dive on top of me and tie me into a shirt so I can’t move my arms. And the stuff a handkerchief in my mouth.
I am on the ground. Charlie’s beak is in my face. I hear someone say: “Charlotte?”
Opening my eyes, I see Charlie on my chest, and Andy kneeling over me. “Charlotte?” he says again and picks up my hand.
“I-umm, yeah,” I mumble and try to move.
“What happened?” Andy asked after helping me to sit up
“Uh…I…Tommy was chasing me!” I cry out and gasp. “He—he—he caught me!” And I burst into tears.
Andy took both my hands and Charlie leapt to my shoulder.
“Well, no one caught anyone,” Andy said. “And your brother, he ain’t here. Just you and me and all these crows!”
He waves his arm overhead. I look up and see hundreds of crows circling overhead underneath the forest canopy, and more on the ground, or perched in trees. All of them watching curiously. I laughed, and my tears stopped, though not the gnawing fear in my stomach. “Tommy really hated crows.”
“We hate him too, MizCharlit,” a young crow piped up.
“Yeah, well, Tommy still ain’t here,” Andy said. He stood up and pulled me to my feet. “And he ain’t gonna be here. Now, we gotta meet Jayzu.”
I felt even more hesitant about meeting Jayzu, though Charlie and Andy have mostly convinced me that Jayzu would not harm me.
“He’s the good guy,” Andy had said. “And he’s not a traitor.”
I had to remind myself that whoever was chasing me a couple days ago was yelling “Charlotte!” And not Stella—as Tommy used to call me.
“That was Jayzu,” Charlie told me, again and again.
We walked in silence, on a hidden path that led through the dense woods. I got lost in the colors and smells and sounds of the forest, as if I was seeing it all on the first day of creation. Flowers of every hue amid a thousand different shades of green and brown waved in a soft breeze. Every once in awhile, the branches overhead allowed pieces of the bluest sky to peep through their leaves.
We came to a small clearing where an old gnarly tree grew, with its branches loaded with golden apples. Andy picked two as we walked by, and handed me one.
“Bruthamax planted this tree,” I said and bit into the apple. I don’t know how I know that but it seems as true as the grass I walk on.
“That is so,” Charlie affirmed as sweet tart juice exploded in my mouth and dribbled down my chin.
I tossed the core into the bushes when I finished and wiped my face with my sleeve. I heard a rustling where the apple core had landed, and imagined a mouse or other small creature taking a chunk off with its tiny hands and nibbling it down, its whiskers quivering.
We walked on, stepping over small streams that streaked through the grass. We stopped at spring that burbled out of a small pool to take a drink. I don’t know if I ever truly experienced the actual taste of pure water until that moment.
“The Treehouse is just ahead,” Charlie said, his voice in my ear.
A few minutes later I suddenly noticed the huge tree in front of us. Looking up, I saw thick branches holding up a platform made of smaller diameter, impossibly straight branches. “This must be the Treehouse!”
“Sure enough!” Andy said. He ducked under the lower branches and ascended the spiraling step, made from intricately cut branches embedded somehow in the trunk, as if the tree had grown them that way.
I followed in sheer delight. “I always dreamed of living in a Treehouse when I was a little girl!”
Charlie waited for us, perched on a railing made of branches stripped of bark. I looked around—a small cabin took up most of the room—the door was ajar. I could see a small table and a chair. And a shelf of pots and plates and cups.
“Is Jayzu here?” I asked, wondering if he was inside, watching.
“Not yet,” a voice from the branches above said.
A crow dropped out of the branches and onto the railing next to Charlie.
“JoEd’s bringing him along,” the crow said.
“Charlotte, meet my wife Rika,” Charlie said. He stretched out both wings. “And our kreegans
Rika extended a wing. I took a step closer to her and brushed my hand across it. “Grawky, Rika!”
Rika gave me the once over, eyeing my every fold, wrinkle and freckle as if I were naked. Before I could ponder whether crows understood the nakedness of yoomuns, her voice echoed through my head
“…there are things you can’t unsee.”
Several more crows dropped out of the branches onto the railing and the deck. “There are our kreegans,” Rika said. “There’s Coalie, Hank, Jenn, Wink,”—she waved a wing at the little ones milling around, causing her to give up name theming for Charlotte.
I laughed at their silliness. “I’ll figure it out, I am sure, Rika!”
“Jayzu! Jayzu!” one of the kreegans cried out, leaping up and down on the railing. “There’s Jayzu! Just came out of the woods…coming across the meadow!”
“Ya!” another said, pointing a wing. “There he is! And JoEd, riding along!”
I wanted to run away. I looked wildly over the edge at the ground below. Too far to jump.
“Don’t,” Andy said as if he had heard my thought. “You’ll break your legs. Or worse.” He took my elbow and steered my to the bench that surrounded the deck.
“Jayzu would never hurt you,” Charlie said, jumping to my side.
“He loves you,” Rika said, her head nodding up and down. “Yesireebob, dearie!”
My mouth drops open. How can this be? Jayzu loves me yet I have no idea who he is.
The kreegans took up their mother’s words and danced around the deck, leaping into the air with each “yesirreebob!”
I smiled in spite of my fears at their antics. Everyone here trusts Jayzu.
My heartbeat quickens as I hear JoEd call out, “Yo! Zazu! Here we are!” Seconds later I watched him flutter to a precise halt on the railing next to Rika.
Heavy footsteps scrape against the tree trunk. I see a head of dark black hair appear through the opening, followed by a slender figure dressed in blue jeans and a t-shirt with a large cartoon of a mouse flying through the air—its red cape flapping behind.
That is not Tommy!
I exhale slowly, not afraid…but who now is Jayzu?
Andy and I stood up, my eyes riveted on Jayzu. Charlie, Rika, and JoEd perched on the railing, while the kreegans raced around the deck squealing and leaping on one another’s back, oblivious to the expectant silence that had bloomed among the yoomuns.
Jayzu took a step toward me. I would’ve taken a step back, but the bench behind my legs prevented me.
“Grawky, Charlotte,” he said, smiling but not moving any closer to me. “I am Jayzu.”
I exhaled the breath I didn’t know I was holding and felt Andy relax ever so slightly.
“Jayzu,” I whispered as a cascade of images flooded my thoughts.
Shattered bits of a broken mirror lying in the grass. Gray stone walls. Clocks, hundreds of clocks. A red rose morphs into blood.
No one else spoke for what seemed like minutes. Suddenly JoEd jumped off the bench and ran toward me. “Jayzu’s brought food!” he said as he skidded to a stop at my feet. “Big Time Food!”
Andy laughed and stepped forward. “Big time food is welcome everywhere!” He turned toward me, took my hand and brought me gently forward. “Charlotte, meet Jayzu.”
I managed a weak smile and stepped toward him. Gazing up at his face, into his black eyes, for an instant, I wanted to fall into the depths of warm affection, as if I were being held. The moment vanished, and I frowned. Tommy has blue eyes.
“I know you and I don’t know you, Jayzu.”
Jayzu smiled and said, “I know you and I don’t know you, Charlotte.”
He didn’t move any closer to me, just returned my gaze. I don’t know how long we stood there as I studied his face, his hands, the shape of his mouth. A shock of white hair streaked through the black on one side of his head. His dark black eyes warm, forgiving…inviting. Disarming.
“I know you aren’t Tommy,” I said, my face breaking into an actual smile. “Thank you.”
Jayzu laughed. “My pleasure.”
Here and Gone
The kreegans broke into Jayzu’s backpack, and pulled out a bag of cookies before their mother flew down upon them, flapping her wings and scolding them as she shooed them away.
Andy picked up the bag and the backpack and set them on the bench. “They ain’t stupid,” he said. “I’d steal Jayzu’s cookies any time.” He grinned as he opened the bag and pulled out a cookie. He sat on the bench and took a bite, then tossed bits to the kreegans, who went crazy over the morsels.
“Now don’t you go teaching them bad manners!” Rika scolded the Captain. She was far from serious so he just winked at her as he tossed more chunks to the deck.
The tension seemed to break as the kreegans jostling over crumbs took all the attention away from Jayzu and Charlotte.
Jayzu supposed he ought to tell her that while he was not her brother Tommy, he fact answered to him as the Provincial Father Superior. His boss. But why ruin this wonderful moment, where Charlotte remembers him a little—a fragile connection he dared not sever with such truths.
There would be no opportunity today to speak with her, and perhaps she was not ready anyway, but he wished he did not have to leave her so soon. But he had to go into the city for Henry Braun’s funeral, and more dreadfully, to actually meet with Charlotte’s actual brother. Thomas.
No way he could tell her that…though again, his omissions tread dangerously close to outright lies. But if Charlotte were not in such…delicate shape…he could tell her everything. But not now. She needed more time.
Relieved that Charlotte remembered him—at least somewhat—gave him hope. The burden on him lightened, though not enough. He still had to lie to Majewski’s face today. No amount of praying at the hermit’s chapel had enlightened him as to how to get out of the dilemma he had created for himself.
No ideas came to him.
He had spent a restless night torturing himself with the things Majewski might know. Assuming he knew everything, what would Majewski do? The worse scenario would be transferring Jayzu to another place in the world, far, far away—and sticking Charlotte into Kafka Memorial. Or invite the police to have him arrested at the cathedral.
Jayzu cursed the circumstance that again, so soon—too soon—after reuniting with Charlotte, he must leave her. But this time he was not at all certain he would return.
When it was time to go, the Captain stood up and said, “We gotta hit the river,” Jayzu.”
Charlotte and Jayzu also stood. He wanted to take her hand and draw her close, hug her deeply and promise he would be back in a couple hours. But she gave him no indication that she wanted that; she just stood rooted to the spot on the deck, hands at her sides.
“Good-bye, Charlotte,” Jayzu said. “I will see you soon.
She nodded—a faint smile on her lips. But she said nothing.
*
On the river, Jayzu restlessly walked to and fro on the Captain’s boat. He wanted to turn around and go back to the island. He contemplated leaping over the side of the boat, and swimming to the island as Maxmillian Wilder had done.
But Brother Max had courage, while he, Jayzu, was just a coward. Not sticking up for Charlotte in any meaningful legal way, he had chosen the worst possible route to achieve her freedom. While he had few regrets that he had successfully liberated her from Rosencranz, only that he had great fear that the worst possible ending was upon him. And her.
Majewski would send him far away, or perhaps prison—the law does not allow priests to commit capital crimes and get away with it. Then Charlotte would live out her days in a mental institution.
“Captain,” Jayzu said, standing at the boatman’s side. “I have no idea what will happen to me today—but I must meet with my superior who is also—”
“Charlotte’s brother,” the Captain said. “Charlie told me.”
“I see,” Jayzu said and looked out on the river. “I fear he knows where she is, and that I engineered the whole escape—which means the police know too. I also do not know if he or the police know of your involvement with getting Charlotte to the island.”
Jayzu paused to rake his hand through his hair and gaze wildly at the river. “I do not know if I will be returning, so I need—” He stopped, his hands trying to tear his hair out. “That is—Charlotte. I mean I know she barely remembers me. She is in great danger too but she needs to understand. And I need you to hide her. Make sure no one finds her.”
“We’ll take care of Charlotte,” the Captain said. “I will protect her from her brother and the cops.”
“How will you do that?”Jayzu asked, in near despair. Whatever could the Captain do with his puny little boat?
“That is my concern, Jayzu,” he said. “Sam is nearby; as is Kate. And Jade. We will keep her safe and hidden. The less you know, the more you can claim innocence about her whereabouts.”
“But what if—”Jayzu said, “what if after they capture me, the come after you?”
Sugarbabe guffawed.
The Captain grinned.
“I never get caught.”
Into the City
The Captain pulled into the dock at the Waterfront, and Jayzu hopped out. “I should be back here in a couple hours or so,” he said. “Hopefully. I will send you a text when I am on my way back here.”
The Captain said nothing, but tipped his hat and pulled away from the dock.
“Yessirreebob, Jayzu!” Sugarbabe shouted from her perch. “We’ll be right here, and won’t budge til you come back.”
That wasn’t entirely true—the Captain had no intention of being a sitting duck as it were, for the police to nab him—if Jayzu’s fears proved valid.
But Sugarbabe took off almost immediately for the Park—a favorite hangout for the Downtown crows. She always wanted to swoop in, peruse the rubbish bins, and get caught up on all the smack around town. Crows are consummate gossipers. Sugarbabe was the Queen. She’d locate him on the river if he wasn’t at the Waterfront.
Jayzu walked the three blocks to St Sophia’s and entered the building through the back door. Inside, he went down a short hallway to the changing room behind the sacristy. As he placed the basket of wafers in the cupboard, Majewski appeared.
Jayzu’s heartbeat quickened. Adrenaline shot through him like needles. He kept his face impassive—like a corpse.
“Good morning, Alfredo!” Majewski said. “It’s good to catch up with you, finally! I’ve got to catch a plane back to D.C. at noon. I thought after the funeral, we’d chat in the car on the way to the airport. I’ll have coffee and pastries. My driver will bring you back here.”
“Of course,” Alfredo said, his voice dead level, his smile genuine enough.
Feeling panic rise, Alfredo could neither refuse nor protest. I need to get a message to the Captain. The funeral service was to start in a few minutes—he still had to change clothes. There was no time to go outside and look for a crow to carry the message.
Perhaps when the Mass was over…the front steps were always well populated with crows. He could send a quick message to the Captain.
*
Father Manzi put his wallet and cellphone on a cubbyhole marked with his name He donned the priestly garb in preparation the funeral Mass, doubting that Henry had ever darkened the doorway of any church. But that was no matter. God would undoubtedly want him to still officiate Henrys funeral Mass, even had been a saint.
Anxiety had crawled into his being when Majewski had shown up with the plan to ride to the airport with him. Something deep within, older than the Jesuit veneer encasing him in corpse-like calm, sounded an alarm: Do not go.
On the altar, though his thoughts were across the river with Charlotte and the island, Father Manzi was able to perform his priestly duties without paying much attention. One funeral was much like the next. All one really needed to do was mention the name of the particular deceased. Henry Braun. Charlotte’s sad face haunted his every thought, however—her fear and dread almost palpable—during the service he nearly invoked her name instead of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church.
Henry Braun’s widow barely heard any of the Mass that Father Manzi said over the closed casket that people assumed held Henry’s body—it didn’t. The one concession she had made to Henry, was to honor his wishes to be cremated, and his ashes placed in the family vault in the Ledford Cemetery.
The Catholic Church frowns on cremation. They frown on eating meat on Friday also, long after anyone knew why. So Henry got his wish to be cremated without her being accused of violating Church doctrine. And she got to force a public Catholic funeral on her atheist husband.
Beyond the revenge satisfaction, it was unimportant to her that Henry have a Catholic funeral. She didn’t care about his immortal soul. Father Manzi saying the Mass didn’t inspire her the way the Mass used to. The shelter that the Church had provided seemed too small somehow.
Henry is gone.
A whole new life lay before her. As if she had been reborn.
Jules Sackman had not entered a house of worship of any denomination since his sister’s wedding forty some years ago. She’d had to convert to marry the man, horrifying both her Catholic mother and his Jewish mother. He could not have cared less. Religions are stupid, including the Jewish one.
At least they weren’t as stupid as the Catholics, though. Celibacy, for instance; the Catholics really shot themselves in the foot on that one. Of all the things they didn’t steal from all the religions before them, how ever did they miss the great interest that healthy humans have in sex? Although lopping off the tip of infant boy’s penis in the name of God could certainly take first place for stupidity.
The celibacy thing, though—the biggest lie in the history of the Catholic Church. Here it was again, right before his very eyes. The big lie. The good Father Manzi and the woman from the nut house. He envisioned them in naked embrace, the priest’s fingers searching out her most private and intimate wet places. Her smiling in insane ecstasy as he touched her. How very disgusting.
The idea of two lonely people finding each other in this vast wilderness of human suffering was utterly repugnant. And it made him angry. Father Manzi illegally taking what had had been denied Jules all his life infuriated him. He fantasized about harming the priest, searching out the most cunning and intricate ways in which to stick it to him.
That was mere sport, however. As much as Father Manzi irritated him, Jules regarded him as a gift from the heaven he did not believe in. Just when it had seemed his financial wherewithal was coming apart. Julia’s gambling debts threatened to consume him. He needed the steady flow of money he’d had with Henry.
But now there was Majewski! Jules already knew what he wanted. Whatever was in that vault was on the back burner, now that the Rosencranz offer had been bested. On the front burner was the old fart’s idea of removing Manzi to some secret place, where the police would not find him.
“Until this all blows over,” Majewski had said.
Jules snickered softly.
Though Majewski has no money of his own; he’s basically the CEO of the North American Jesuits— a significant, powerful position in the Church, and undoubtedly has much control over finances. A perfect scenario for as long as Jules could hold that Manzi over Majewski’s head.
Straight blackmail is so crass, though, Jules thought. You don’t blackmail the Jesuits. You make them pay, willingly, for something they want. Jules needed Majewski to want something from him, to need his help for something.
He wants that island also, Jules mused as he ignored Father Manzi’s attempt to memorialize Henry Braun. Recalling Majewski’s complaints about being unable to reach the island without the person known as the Captain—and that no one but Manzi seemed to know how to contact him, an idea started to form in the fertility of his greed.
Sitting in the splendor of St Sophia Cathedral in downtown Ledford, Jules could not help but be inspired by its opulence. As a non-member, he was neither required nor encouraged to participate in the holy secrets of the Mass, leaving him free to sit back in the pew and ponder the new way in which he might extract large sums of money from the Catholic Church.
*
After the funeral service, Father Manzi stood on the steps of the cathedral and shook hands with a hundred strangers and a few parishioners leaving the funeral. The former Mrs Braun stood next to him, a charming smile plastered on her face as she assured people that she would miss Henry terribly, though she knew he was in a better place.
The chatter was inane.
Gabrielle wanted to take Father Manzi to lunch after the funeral, but he had declined. “I must meet with my superior, Mrs Braun,” Father Manzi said. “But next time I come in, I will take you up on that!”
“Oh, I hope soon, Father,” she said. “But my name is no longer Mrs Braun.”
“Oh?” he had said, his eyebrows went up.
“Yes, I have resumed my maiden name, duBois. And I am no longer Minnie, but officially Gabrielle—which is my middle name.”
“Ah, yes, Gabrielle!” Father Manzi said, nodding. He took her hands in his. “Congratulations! I wish you all happiness in your new life.”
“Thank you, Father,” she said, not wanting to let go of his hand.
But Gabrielle had her duties to glad-hand or hug the few folks that had actually liked Henry. Like that smarmy bastard Jules Sackman, who hovered in her periphery like the hyena he was.
Finally after everyone left, Gabrielle said good-bye to Father Manzi, and got into the back seat of the Bentley. “Take me home, Robert, please.”
The hearse took the empty casket back to the funeral parlor, being that there was no need for a funeral procession to the cemetery. Henry’s ashes already inhabited an urn in the niche in the Braun family vault, next to his ancestors, Henry Braun numbers I, II, III, IV.
Long may they rest.
And so will I. She floated down on the bed and fell asleep.
Mary C Simmons ... Art and Word 
Thanks Mary. I’m embarrassed to say I haven’t had time to read lately. I’m going on a flight to Texas and back next weekend to see my Dad so I hope to get caught up while traveling. Thanks for keeping me going!
-Cathy
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Oh stop it–
But you’re welcome!
You can read whenever you want to
–I’m not all the speedy about posting chapters…so I’m glad you’re not sick of waiting for me.
😀
-m.
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