Page 42 of Borrowed
I didn’t look at Mother.Didn’t look at Father Elliot either.Just followed the sound of Toby’s voice like a dog off-leash.
Through the side doors, past confessionals that still smelled like tears and sweat, down into the dark hallway where the baptismal font lay waiting like a grave filled with mercy.
The chapel was colder here.
It was empty, with just some candles along the corners and a large bowl of water.The light from the top of the flames looked like stars.The ripples in the water reflected like little suns.
Toby was already stripping his shirt off, revealing the faint, ridged scars of bruises that never healed.Scars I never remembered giving him, but he claimed I did.
Or maybe they were from her.
“You remember when she locked me in the closet?”he said, grinning as he stepped backward into the glow of the stained glass.“I pissed myself.You cried harder than I did.”
“I thought she’d kill you,” I whispered.
“She did.And now look…” He opened his arms, laughing, “Resurrected.How’s that for divine?”
I dropped to my knees beside the water.It was still.
Pale.
Beautiful.
“Touch it,” he breathed.“Let it remind you what you really are.”
So I did.
I dipped my fingers in and gasped.
Toby dropped behind me.His chest against my back.His hands slid down my arms like he was smoothing out wrinkles in a dress.
“You’re mine, Sister,” he whispered, mouth brushing the shell of my ear.“Even here.Even now.”
I shuddered.“Tell me again.”
“You’re mine.”His hand slipped down the front of my dress.“Only mine.”
He pressed me forward until my face hovered over the water, my breath rippling the surface.
“You remember the first time?”he said.“You said it didn’t feel wrong if I was dead.You wanted me forever.”
I giggled.
The chapel hummed like it was holding its breath.
That little baptismal font sat under the stained glass like a secret, full of still, glistening water, moonlight trapped in a bowl.I stepped toward it on bare feet, the air sharp and cold enough to raise goosebumps along my arms.
Toby’s voice followed me, thick as honey and twice as dark.
“Take off that little dress, Zusje.”
I looked over my shoulder, smirking.“Why?”
“Because I want you naked in the water.Like something born wrong.I want to see your sins shine under God’s light.”
The silence between us stretched.
Long.
