Page 101 of The Reformatory

Thunder outside mingled with the happy amens and applause inside the church, most loudly from the employees’ pews. The grown-ups stared at Warden Haddock as if he were Jesus in the painting hanging above him—except Mrs. Hamilton, who could barely keep the scowl from her face on her organ bench. Maybe she had expected him to talk about God. Maybe she didn’t know yet that Warden Haddock wasn’t fit to speak God’s name.

“So on this Sunday, during this moment of reflection and prayer…”

Warden Haddock’s voice retreated into a tunnel, muffled noise, when Robert smelled smoke so strong that it stung the lining of his nose. His eyes followed thin wisps of smoke twirling beneath the pulpit and then to the left end of the altar. There, on his knees, sat a grimy white man with smoke rising from the back of his faded blue groundskeeper’s uniform. His hands were clasped in prayer as he stared up toward the ceiling as if he could see the sky.

Robert couldn’t help gasping loudly enough for Redbone to hear and stare at him with confusion. Robert gestured toward the praying man: Don’t you see? Redbone leaned over slightly to look, but he only shrugged and frowned: What?

Robert checked again to make sure the man in smoking clothes was still there. The back of his head was peeling and burned in patches as smoke rose from his scalp. His ear was burned away. Robert squeezed his eyes shut to see if the white man’s image would fade away, but the smoky smell was only stronger. A cough forced itself from Robert’s throat. Then Robert whispered his name: “Robicheaux.”

The man snapped his head around so fast that Robert jumped and coughed again. The man’s face was shadowed beneath his forehead, so Robert couldn’t see his eyes or tell if he had eyes at all. Still facing Robert, the kneeling white haint rose to his feet, more than six feet tall and growing as he straightened his spine one bone at a time. Was he seven feet? He looked like he could fill the church! The man’s mouth dropped open in an accusing O that could be rage or anguish, or both. Robert tried to back up so fast that his legs caught on his pew’s seat, and Redbone had to hold him steady so he wouldn’t fall.

“Cut it out,” Redbone hissed. “Boone’s lookin’.”

Robert glanced toward Boone, who was studying him with eagerness, then Robert looked back at the altar: the white man was gone, only his smoky odor left behind. Robert glanced around the rest of the church to be sure the giant white man wasn’t hiding behind him.

“What?” Boone mouthed when Robert looked his way again.

“Haint,” Robert mouthed back.

“Where?” Boone mouthed, massaging his leather pouch.

Thunder boomed above. A window in the rear rattled. A young boy whimpered, and Robert heard the thwack of a ruler as a watcher corrected him.

“… our shared mission to carry out God’s duty to right the paths of troubled boys…” Warden Haddock’s voice floated at the edge of Robert’s awareness.

Robert raised his finger and pointed to the farthest left corner of the altar, near the gold-colored vase holding artificial flowers faded gray from time. Robert could still see the haint when he closed his eyes and remembered. Yes, he’d been standing next to the flowers.

“Altar?” Boone mouthed.

Mrs. Hamilton followed Boone’s gaze and realized he was talking to Robert. A frown soured her face. Robert nodded to Boone, ignoring the questions in Mrs. Hamilton’s eyes.

Boone jumped to his feet, making his way through his row to get to the left side of the altar. Robert hadn’t expected him to move so fast or to try to catch a haint in the middle of the Sunday service. Mrs. Hamilton watched Boone with interest, trying to guess what communication was flurrying between them. From the pulpit, Warden Haddock noticed Boone’s sudden motion too, but he never missed a word of his talk.

“… through discipline and that God-given feeling of self-worth from a job well done…” Boone posted himself at the end of the altar as if he were only listening to Warden Haddock’s talk with enthusiasm, but Robert noticed him pull out his leather pouch. Gently, like salting his food, he shook powder to the floor, checking with Robert again. Robert pointed to the space directly in front of the potted plant, and Boone sprinkled dust there too, inches to the left.

Too late, Robert remembered the boys he’d seen playing with the candle at the altar’s opposite end. They were gone now, but had they been close enough to be caught in the haint trap too? He barely had time to wonder before a horrible SCREECH circled the room. Robert stared with amazement while the giant haint appeared in the rear of the church on the carpeted center row, pulled backward toward the altar as if a truck were dragging him, arms flailing. His charred fingernails caught the rounded edge of Robert’s pew, clasping hard, and for a horrible moment Robert thought he might climb up to sit beside him. His face was charred to the bone.

Robert pushed himself against Redbone, away from the long, scrabbling fingers. Could no one else see? Not even Boone? The warden? Robert checked the faces around him, and no one else seemed to see the terrible spectacle of the man being pulled toward Boone and his trap.

With another terrible SCREECH, the man’s fingers wrenched loose and he tumbled to the front of the church with a THUNK, THUNK, THUNK on the floor as he turned end over end before he vanished to nothing. The row of candles at the altar whiffed out at once. Warden Haddock stopped in mid-sentence, and people did look at the aisle after they heard the thumping that might have been running footsteps, but now nothing was left to see. Except…

Boone was grinning. Robert followed Boone’s gaze to the altar cushion, where sunlight streaming through the stained glass showed a small cloud of ash, as if someone had beaten a rug, but it swirled a spiral pattern like the one in the kitchen, all of the ash clinging and settling.

Warden Haddock was looking too from the pulpit. His face turned chalky white. “Hallelujah!” Warden Haddock said, fevered, raising his arms. His voice was so loud that some of the employees in the front row jumped. “A new day is arriving before our very eyes!”

“Hallelujah!” Boone echoed.

Robert was afraid Warden Haddock would ask him to stand up and point him out to the entire congregation as the new haint catcher, and then how would he meet Mrs. Hamilton’s eyes ever again? But Warden Haddock just stared at the little sparkling ash cloud most of the people in the church could not see. Warden Haddock’s face wrenched as if he might cry.

“Children, say ‘I believe!’ ” Warden Haddock said.

Everyone repeated the warden’s words except Robert, who could not make his lips move. “Say ‘The past belongs in the past. I rebuke evil spirits who dwell in history!’ ”

Robert felt unsteady and had to sit down although everyone else was still standing. He was trembling like he had when Blue locked him in the freezer.

Warden Haddock whipped the congregation into a frenzy of amens and “Yes, Jesus.” But Mrs. Hamilton stared at Robert, still trying to guess what was troubling him. She didn’t play the organ again. The rest of the service passed in a blur until the congregation showered Warden Haddock with applause. The colored woman got up to make announcements.

“The following students should report to the recreation hall at two for Visiting Day…” Robert was so eager to leave the church that he almost didn’t hear her say his name.