Summer’s Silence

Sister Julia closed her bible and looked up at the stained-glass window at the back of the church. A streetlight outside the building cast an orange glow over the image of Mary, cradling the baby Jesus in her arms, and gave the cross before Sister Julia a golden halo. If only it would give her answers. Sister Julia knew what she should do. Everyone who sins comes from the devil, and the crimes detailed in Cassidy Long’s confession were among the most heinous crimes a person could commit.

If the allegations were true.

Sister Julia had no reason to believe Cassidy was lying, but any evidence would be almost forty years old. Even if the police investigated the events, the likelihood of obtaining a conviction was infinitesimal. Normally, she would turn to Father Roberts for guidance in such matters, even though he was twenty years her junior, but the circumstances of Cassidy’s account gave her pause. Rising from her place before the altar, Sister Julia crossed herself and hurried down the aisle, searching her memory for clues that would lend weight to Cassidy’s claim before approaching Father Roberts about his predecessor, Bishop Atkins.

Father Atkins, as he had been when Sister Julia moved to Chilton as a newly ordained sister in nineteen-seventy-three, had greeted her with a warm welcome to Bishop Lane High School. She remembered his awkward smile, all jaw, as if it hurt to move his cheeks, and the way his glasses always sat crooked on his round face. He had a reputation for being a harsh disciplinarian, but no more so than the other teachers. Always kind, with a good word to say about everybody, the man Sister Julia remembered did not align with the man Cassidy described.

Stood in the church office, waiting for the phone to connect, Sister Julia wondered what became of Father Atkins after he moved to the city and became a bishop. Richard Carmichael would know. He had been a junior officer when Sister Julia arrived, working his way up the ranks to become the town’s chief of police. He would know how best to handle Cassidy’s claims.

Voicemail. Sister Julia considered hanging up and driving over to his house as the recorded greeting played. It wasn’t much of a detour and in the same general direction as her home.

‘Hello, Richard, this is Sister Julia,’ she said after the tone. It was likely he would be taking his young daughter trick-or-treating by the time Sister Julia arrived at his house. ‘Could you come by the church tomorrow? I need to talk to you about Father Atkins.’

Sister Julia paused, deciding whether to say more about the accusations, but couldn’t bring herself to commit the words to a recording without consulting somebody first. Tapping her foot. She ended the voicemail and dialled the number for Felicity Grisham, the only teacher from Father Atkins’ tenure that still lived in town. With each ring, Sister Julia wondered if she was overreacting. It was one claim, from a woman she hadn’t seen or heard from in four decades, against a man held in high regard within the community.

Ending the call when Felicity did not answer, Sister Julia shook her head and left the office. If the accusations were true, no good could be done tonight. After thirty-eight years, what difference would another night make?

Sister Julia looked across the parking lot at the school building as she stood on the front step of the church. Lost in her memories, the size of the building amazed her, having grown from a two-classroom building on the church grounds when she first arrived to a three-storey preparatory school with all the facilities needed to provide the most robust education money could buy. Sister Julia sighed at the reversal, the school dwarfing the church that had once been the focal part of their community but now struggled to fill a quarter of its pews.

The blast of a car horn made Sister Julia jump as she stood next to her car, fiddling with the key fob. Spinning around, she saw a black muscle car hurtling away from the church as two rolls of toilet paper sailed over the cross at the car park’s entrance, bouncing towards Sister Julia and leaving white streaks over the outstretched arms of the Lord.

‘No respect,’ Sister Julia muttered with a shake of her head as she pulled the paper from the cross and wound it back around the rolls before looking up at the beatific face of Christ. ‘At least you saw fit to give them decent aim.’

Making a note to replace the key fob’s battery, Sister Julia dropped the toilet rolls onto the passenger seat and started her car. Most of the trees along the main road were burdened with white pennants as she made her way home, watching the children dressed as ghosts and goblins as they darted from door to door, expecting one of them to run out in front of her slate-grey station wagon in their quest for more sugar. Fortunately, the only child to collide with her vehicle was the one that slapped his hands against the passenger window and pressed his nose against the glass after she had parked the car on her drive.

‘Trick or treat,’ the boy shouted, angling his head and poking out his tongue as Sister Julia opened her door.

‘You could at least wait until I’m in the house, Jackson,’ Sister Julia said as she pressed hard on the lock button and waited for the central locking to respond. ‘Where’s your mother?’

‘At home with Violet. She’s been sick.’

Sister Julia frowned as she ascended the steps to her front door. Jackson’s mother was Sister Julia’s niece, and she hadn’t mentioned Violet was feeling unwell when they spoke at lunchtime. ‘Does that mean she won’t be having any candy?’

Jackson held up a carrier bag in each hand. ‘Mom said I need to share.’

‘And right she is,’ Sister Julia said as she opened the door and reached into the bowl that stood ready on a stand next to the door. ‘We become richer in spirit when we share with others. Now, what are you supposed to be?’

Jackson looked down at the plain white shirt and jeans that constituted his costume. ‘A serial killer.’

‘Aren’t you supposed to have a hockey mask or something?’

Jackson smiled as if he was about to reveal a secret that only he knew. ‘That’s silly. Real serial killers look just like everyone else. That’s why they are so hard to catch.’

Sister Julia frowned, unsure if she should be impressed or alarmed at a ten-year-old boy being so knowledgeable about serial killers. Too much time in front of the television watching true crime documentaries.

‘You take care, now,’ Sister Julia said as she dropped a handful of candy into each bag. ‘Only go to the houses of people you know.’

‘I will,’ Jackson said as he turned and bounded down the steps.

‘And tell your mother to call me.’

Jackson yelled back that he would as he banged on the door of Sister Julia’s neighbour. Releasing a sigh, Sister Julia shut the door and kicked off her shoes. After the day she’d had, she wanted to run a hot bath and let the water wash over her, but Jackson was just the first of many kids that would be knocking her door, knowing that Sister Julia gave out homemade cupcakes with her candies. Resigned to several more hours of community service, she went to the kitchen, removed the lid from a plastic box filled with cakes she had the foresight to prepare the evening before, and reached for the handle of the cupboard that contained her mixing bowls and scales. Releasing the handle when a tiny detail registered in her brain, she turned back to the box and lifted out the empty paper case that had contained a cupcake when she left for work that morning.

Holding her breath, Sister Julia listened to the sounds of the house. The steady click of the second hand on her kitchen clock, the muted drone of her refrigerator out in the pantry, and the gentle tinkle of water circulating through the filter of the fish tank in the living room. Her hand drifted to the drawer under her kitchen island and the rolling pin within. Her eyes darted to the back door, its chain on the latch and the blind drawn down over the window. Positive she had opened the blind that morning, Sister Julia curled her fingers around the rolling pin and edged towards the living room.

‘Is there anybody here?’ she called out, hand on the doorknob.

The door swung open. Decorated with shadows cast by the light of the fish tank, the living room felt cold and uninviting. Shuddering, Sister Julia peered around the living room door before creeping over to the table that held her phone and wireless router. Casting a nervous look through the living room window, she lifted the handset and dialled Chief Carmichael’s number. The street looked as quiet as one could expect for Halloween. Candles glowed within pumpkins on porches as the parents geared up for the wave of children sweeping through town from the elementary school in the north, where the mayor began festivities with the annual burning of the witch’s effigy, to the stadium at the south side of town. The phone chimed, waiting for a connection. A car passed. Sister Julia studied the street for anything out of the ordinary, waiting for the chief to pick up.

‘Hello? Richard,’ Sister Julia began, thinking the call had connected. Realising the line was dead, she looked back at the finger holding down the plunger in the handset’s cradle.

Summer’s Silence is released on 31-Oct-2022. Pre-order today on Amazon.