The One Who Answered
Nobody had sent her.
Mara kept returning to that distinction, although the note in her coat pocket made it difficult to defend.
She had come to the village for Father Aldous’s funeral, the kind where you stand at the back and say the right things to people who don’t know your name. He was her mother’s cousin by marriage and the only relative who remembered her birthday without being reminded.
His last card was still on her kitchen counter. It had arrived three weeks ago, two days after Daniel collected the rest of his belongings.
Daniel had remembered the kettle. He had forgotten it was her birthday.
Aldous had left her no money or property. Only a note in the solicitor’s envelope, written in a hand she barely recognized.
The desk. Bottom drawer. When you’re ready.
She had gone to the parish house after the funeral. The drawer wasn’t locked. An iron key lay on top of a folded sheet of paper, leaving a rust-colored impression along its crease.
West chapel, Aldous had written.
Beneath it, in smaller letters:
You may leave him there. Whatever he tells you, you may leave.
Mara had read that twice.
Then she had taken the key.
The chapel had been closed for seventy-three years.
A brass plaque beside the entrance supplied the date.
CLOSED BY ORDER OF THE DIOCESE, 1953.
Underneath, someone had scratched a second message into the stone.
GOOD.
Mara stood in the rain and looked up. The bell tower was an empty shaft against the sky. Through the ruined slats, she could see the beam where a bell should have hung.
She could still go back to her car.
Instead, she fitted the key into the lock. It turned so easily that she stumbled when the door swung inward.
The chapel smelled of cold stone, old wax, and rain. Moonlight passed through the stained glass above the altar, laying fragments of red and blue across the floor. The saints retained their robes, their folded hands, the instruments of their suffering.
Every face was missing.
Mara took three steps inside before she understood that the gaps were too neat to be damage. Someone had followed the outline of each face.
“Nope.”
She turned.
The door slammed shut.
For a moment she stood with her hand half raised. Then she tried the handle. It moved freely, but the door wouldn’t budge.
“Of course.”
A man laughed somewhere beneath her feet.
The sound was low, warm, and close enough that she looked behind her.
“You’re taking this remarkably well.”
“I’ve had a difficult month.”
“And this was your solution?”
“I’m beginning to reconsider it.”
“Good. There may be hope for you.”
She found the stairs behind the altar. A current of warmer air rose from below, carrying the faint metallic smell of blood.
Mara looked back at the entrance.
“The door,” she said. “Can you open it?”
“Eventually it will let you leave.”
“Eventually?”
“It likes to be certain you’ve seen what you came for.”
“I didn’t come for anything.”
A pause.
“No?”
She put one hand against the wall and began to descend.
Sixty-three steps. She counted them because she didn’t want to think about how far beneath the chapel she was going.
At the bottom waited an iron gate.
Behind it sat a man.
He occupied a wooden chair with one ankle resting over the opposite knee. Black trousers. A white shirt folded neatly to his forearms. Bare feet on the stone. His dark hair brushed his collar, and there was a small amount of blood at the corner of his mouth.
Mara stopped several feet from the bars.
He was beautiful. It seemed an especially unhelpful thing to notice.
His gaze traveled over her face, dropped briefly to her throat, then returned to her eyes.
“There you are.”
“Do I know you?”
“No.”
“You sound disappointed.”
“I’d hoped you would arrive before it rained.”
“Why?”
“You’re cold.”
She was. She folded her arms.
“You’re the thing they locked down here.”
“Thing is unnecessarily hurtful.”
“Man?”
“Optimistic.”
“What are you?”
He considered the question.
“Are you opening the gate?”
“No.”
“Then we have time for a more flattering answer.”
There was no lock on her side. A brass wheel protruded from the wall beside the gate, polished along its outer edge.
She kept her hands tucked beneath her arms.
“Who’s been feeding you?”
His tongue touched the corner of his mouth.
“Something came through a drain.”
“What something?”
“You would prefer not to know.”
“That seems to be a theme.”
He smiled, and she wished he hadn’t.
When he stood, Mara stepped back.
He noticed. His smile faded a little, although she couldn’t tell whether that was courtesy or calculation.
He came to the bars and rested one hand around the iron.
“You’re afraid now.”
“I was afraid upstairs.”
“You were irritated upstairs.”
“I can manage both.”
His eyes lowered to her throat.
“Yes,” he said. “Apparently.”
Mara became painfully aware of her heartbeat.
“You can hear it?”
“I can hear the water in the walls. The mice beneath the stairs. Your car cooling beside the road.”
“And me.”
“Especially you.”
He was close enough now for her to see the scar crossing one knuckle. There was nothing corpse-like about him. His skin held color. His eyes followed the smallest changes in her expression.
Her body warmed despite the wet clothes.
His attention sharpened.
“Oh, that’s unfair,” she muttered.
He had the grace not to answer.
She moved farther from the gate.
“Maybe I’ll leave you down here.”
“You may.”
He returned to the chair and sat.
Mara waited for the threat. When none came, she looked toward the stairs.
Aldous’s note seemed to press against her through the lining of her coat.
“You knew Father Aldous.”
“Yes.”
“Did he come here?”
“For years.”
“What did you do to him?”
“Mostly argued.”
“He left me the key.”
That brought his gaze back to her.
“Did he?”
“You didn’t know?”
“I knew he was dying. I didn’t know what he would decide.”
“Decide about me?”
The man leaned forward, forearms on his knees.
“Ask your questions, Mara. You should have answers before you touch that wheel.”
She went still.
“I haven’t told you my name.”
“No.”
“How do you know it?”
For the first time, he appeared to consider lying.
“Three weeks ago,” he said, “you were sitting on your bathroom floor at two fourteen in the morning.”
The chamber seemed to recede around her.
“You’d left the tap running because you didn’t want the neighbors to hear.”
“Stop.”
“You put your hands over your face.”
“Don’t.”
He closed his mouth.
Water moved somewhere inside the walls. Mara could hear herself breathing too quickly.
She couldn’t hear him breathing at all.
Her gaze dropped to his chest.
The white shirt lay still.
“You’re dead.”
“No.”
“Then breathe.”
“I don’t need to.”
“Breathe.”
He watched her for a moment. Then his chest expanded.
Fell.
Expanded again.
He was doing it carefully, with the concentration of someone performing a task he hadn’t practiced in years.
Mara wished it hadn’t helped.
“What did I say?”
He let out the breath he had taken.
“You asked for someone who would choose you.”
She looked away.
Daniel had sat on the edge of their bed with his shoes already on. He had spoken gently. That was what she remembered most clearly: how gently he had explained that loving her had become difficult.
She had apologized before she understood he was leaving.
“You asked,” the man continued, “for someone who would look at every possible life available to him and choose the one containing you.”
Mara pressed her tongue against the back of her teeth.
“I was upset.”
“Yes.”
“People say things.”
“Yes.”
“I wasn’t asking for you.”
“No.” His voice had lost its amusement. “You asked anything that might be listening.”
She looked at him then.
“And you heard.”
“I did.”
Mara took the note from her pocket. The paper had softened where rain had reached it.
“He knew?”
“Aldous came the following morning. I asked whether you were all right.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked how I knew you.”
“And you told him?”
“Enough.”
Mara looked down at the cramped handwriting.
You may leave him there.
“He should have told me.”
“Yes.”
“He should have told me what was here.”
“Yes.”
She folded the note along its worn crease.
“Why didn’t he let you out himself?”
The man glanced toward the brass wheel.
“Because he knew what opening the gate meant.”
“And you’re going to tell me.”
“If you’ll stay long enough to listen.”
She didn’t move.
He rose, but this time he stopped well short of the bars.
“The gate requires a willing hand. Whoever opens it binds me to them.”
“Binds you how?”
“I cannot abandon them. I cannot refuse them protection. If they call my name, I must come.”
“For how long?”
“Until one of us dies.”
“You don’t die.”
“Not easily enough to be useful to you.”
Mara’s fingers tightened around the paper.
“So I would own you.”
“No.”
“Those sound like ownership rules.”
“They were written by men who preferred that arrangement.”
“And what would you call it?”
His eyes held hers.
“A reason to be careful.”
She studied the wheel. Even now, knowing what it did, some small, exhausted part of her wanted to touch it.
That frightened her more than the locked door upstairs.
“If I open it, you wouldn’t be choosing me. You’d have to stay.”
“I would have to return when called. I would have to keep you alive. You could bind something that hated you, Mara. The gate makes no promises about affection.”
“And you?”
“I’ve been listening for you for three weeks.”
“Because I might let you out.”
“Yes.”
The answer hurt more than a lie would have.
He saw that too.
“And because,” he added, “I wanted to know whether you were still leaving the tap running.”
She looked down at Aldous’s note until the handwriting blurred.
“You don’t get to use that.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He was quiet for a moment.
“I’m trying to.”
She put the note away.
“There are other catches.”
“Several.”
“Let’s hear them.”
“I am possessive.”
“I’d gathered.”
“I am violent.”
“That also seems likely.”
“I have eaten men.”
Mara blinked.
“That one probably should have come earlier.”
“I disliked them.”
“You can’t just eat everyone you dislike.”
“I’ve had seventy-three years to reconsider that philosophy.”
“And?”
“I remain unconvinced.”
She laughed.
It escaped before she could stop it, a startled, unsteady sound.
He went still.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re staring.”
“Nobody has laughed with me in a very long time.”
There was no performance in the way he said it. She found that inconvenient.
Her eyes moved to his bare feet, the solitary chair, the chamber without a window.
“No,” he said.
Mara looked up.
“Don’t make that your reason.”
“What?”
“Feeling sorry for me.”
“I wasn’t.”
“You were beginning to.”
“You’re insufferable.”
“And you’re standing close enough to the wheel to reach it.”
She moved away from it at once.
He let her.
“What did you do?” she asked. “To be put here?”
His hand closed around the back of the chair.
“I loved someone.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“No.”
She waited.
“Men came for her. I killed them.”
“All of them?”
“Yes.”
“Was that necessary?”
He looked at the floor.
“Not by the end.”
The water behind the walls continued its slow, persistent movement.
“What happened to her?”
“She lived long enough to become afraid of me.”
Mara watched his fingers against the wood.
“Did she put you here?”
“She helped.”
“And you let her?”
His gaze lifted.
“I had already given her enough reasons to be afraid.”
For a while, neither spoke.
Then Mara said, “Would you do it again?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve had seventy-three years.”
“I know exactly how long I’ve had.”
The words came sharply enough that she flinched.
He released the chair.
“There,” he said quietly. “You should see that too.”
Mara turned toward the stairs.
He didn’t stop her.
She climbed six steps before sitting down. From there, she could see his hands through the bars but not his face.
Her phone had no signal. The time glowed against her wet fingers.
She could wait upstairs until the door opened. She could drive home, put the key in a drawer, and spend the rest of her life pretending this had been grief or exhaustion.
Behind her, the chair creaked.
“Will the chapel let me go?”
“Yes.”
“Even if I leave you here?”
“Yes.”
She rested her elbows on her knees.
For three weeks, she had imagined Daniel returning. In every version, she had become easier first. Calmer. Less likely to ask what he meant when he went quiet. Someone who didn’t need reassurance after being told she needed too much reassurance.
She was tired of the woman she kept inventing for him.
Below, the man waited without calling her back.
Mara stood and descended the six steps.
He rose when he saw her, then seemed to think better of it and remained beside the chair.
“What’s your name?”
“Vale.”
“Vale what?”
“Just Vale will do.”
“Is it the name that makes you come when called?”
“Yes.”
She repeated it silently.
Then she walked toward the wheel.
“Mara.”
Her fingers rested on the brass. It was warmer than the wall.
“I haven’t decided.”
He said nothing.
“Would you hurt me?”
“Yes.”
Her hand stopped.
He took a breath. Deliberately. She could see him remember to do it.
“Eventually, I probably would. I may misunderstand something human. I may be angry and say something I cannot take back. There are habits I have had longer than you’ve been alive.”
“You make a terrible case for yourself.”
“You should have the terrible case.”
“And if I told you to stop?”
“I would listen.”
“That isn’t the same.”
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
She studied him through the bars.
“If I became difficult?”
“You’re already difficult.”
“Vale.”
“No. I would not leave because you were difficult.”
“Old?”
“No.”
“What if I wanted to be alone?”
“Then I would have to learn how far away to stand.”
Despite herself, she almost smiled.
“And if someone else were easier?”
His face changed. The amusement left it completely.
“Mara, there are easier ways out of this room than listening to a woman ask whether growing old would make her disposable.”
She swallowed.
“You waited for me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I wanted you to come.”
She looked at his hand where it rested against the iron.
“That sounds dangerously simple.”
“It hasn’t felt simple.”
The wheel resisted her at first.
Vale stepped toward the bars.
“You can still go.”
“I know.”
She turned it once.
Metal groaned inside the wall.
For the second turn she needed both hands. Rust fell onto the stone, and somewhere beneath them a mechanism shifted with a sound like a heavy body being dragged.
The third turn released the gate.
It opened six inches.
Mara let go of the wheel.
For several seconds, she could think of nothing at all.
Vale looked at the gap. His fingers flexed once at his side, but he stayed where he was.
“What now?” she whispered.
“You step back.”
She did.
He pushed the gate open from within.
That frightened her: how easily it moved now, how little stood between them.
He crossed into the passage and stopped with room still separating them.
Up close, he was warm. She felt it before he offered his hand.
“You don’t have to,” he said.
“I seem to have done the important part.”
“Yes.”
Mara looked at his palm.
Then she put her hand in his.
His fingers closed gently around hers.
Above them, the bells began to ring.
Mara looked toward the stairs.
“There aren’t any bells.”
“I know.”
The sound rolled through the stone, deep enough to feel in her teeth.
Vale tilted his head.
“They know.”
“Who?”
“Everything that watched me go in.”
She would have liked him to explain that differently.
He looked at the stairs, then back at her.
“After you.”
“Is that another rule?”
“No. You know where we’re going.”
Sixty-three steps. He followed one behind her, giving her room on the narrow turns. At the top, she stopped so suddenly that his hand loosened to keep from pulling hers.
The saints had faces.
They pressed against the stained glass from the other side. Mouths open, eyes wide, cheeks flattened against panes that should have been too thin to contain them.
Every face was turned toward the stairs.
Mara gripped his hand again.
“They were there?”
“Yes.”
“The whole time?”
“They were set to watch the entrance. It was easier for the parish to close the chapel than explain why the windows moved.”
One of the faces turned as Vale stepped beside her.
Then another.
Mara remembered the word scratched beneath the plaque.
GOOD.
Whoever had written it had been relieved.
She had opened the gate anyway.
“Are they afraid of you?”
“Yes.”
“Should I be?”
Vale looked at her.
“I think you are.”
The chapel entrance stood open. Rain blew across the threshold, and beyond it she could see the road and the pale shape of her car.
She led him toward it.
At the door, he stopped.
Mara turned. For the first time, his attention had left her completely. He was looking at the wet grass beside the path.
“What is it?”
“I don’t remember how it smells.”
“The rain?”
He nodded.
She waited while he took a breath.
This one sounded less careful.
“Does the binding keep you from going out?”
“No.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
His gaze returned to her.
Mara understood with an uncomfortable tenderness that, after all his warnings, he wanted to be invited.
She let go of his hand.
His fingers stayed curled for a moment before he lowered them.
Outside, the air was cold against her face. Water ran from her hair into her collar. She stepped onto the gravel and turned.
“Well? Come on, Vale.”
He crossed the threshold.
The bells stopped.
In the sudden silence, with him standing close enough for her to feel his warmth again, something struck once beneath his shirt.
He looked down.
Mara heard it a second time.
A heartbeat.
“Is that supposed to happen?”
He pressed a hand to his chest. The expression on his face was almost enough to make her forget the windows.
“I don’t know.”
For the first time that night, she believed she had surprised him as much as he had surprised her.
“Oh no,” she whispered.
His eyes lifted to hers.
A slow smile touched his mouth.
“Oh yes.”
Behind him, the faces began to withdraw from the glass.
On the road to her car, his fingers loosened around hers. She could have taken her hand back.
She didn’t.
Mara slowed where rain had gathered in the broken gravel. Vale slowed with her, without looking down, without asking what was wrong.
By the time they reached the car, she was no longer counting the reasons she should be afraid. She was wondering what he would say on the drive home.
The change should have frightened her.
She hoped it meant something good.