The Saint(87)

“There is no room in this house we did not defile. But our favorite room to play in was the library.”

“Why the library?”

“Sometimes we would read to each other. It made us feel normal, I suppose.” Søren smiled then, a smile so pained it hurt to even see. She closed her eyes and buried her face against his leg. Every muscle in his body had gone tense. “But all horrible things must come to an end. At the end of the summer, we knew our father would be returning again. Elizabeth sometimes shook in my arms from the terror of knowing what would happen to her once Father returned. I told her we had to leave the house. We had to run away. I ordered her to pack, to call her grandparents, to find all the money she could so we could get as far away from this house as possible. She didn’t obey me. She thought he would find us wherever we went. She should have …” Søren’s voice trailed off a moment. “She should have obeyed me.”

“Why?”

“Because our father came home early. And he found us together.”

“Jesus Christ …” Eleanor breathed.

“We were lost children by then,” Søren said. “We knew what we did was wrong but were powerless to stop ourselves. Despair brought us to depravity and we couldn’t find a way out again.”

“How did it stop?”

“Our father stopped it for us.”

Eleanor pulled back and raised her hand.

“I need a minute.”

“I warned you.”

“I know you did. But I didn’t know.”

She leaned forward and rested both arms in his lap. He ran his hand over her back as if to comfort her when all she wanted was to comfort him.

“If God was in the world that day, He wasn’t in that room when my father came home. He saw us together and he threw me against the wall. I remember the blood on the golden wallpaper—red on yellow. And he started to rape Elizabeth, to re-mark his territory. I found the fireplace poker and struck him with it. He moved. I missed his head. But it got him off Elizabeth. He came after me instead. He hit me, breaking my arm. I don’t remember much from that day, but I do remember him tying me to a chair and telling me he would kill me. ‘You’re dead,’ he said, and I knew he meant it. Then he was down, unconscious. Elizabeth had struck him over the head with the poker to save my life. I passed out to the sound of her laughter. I woke up in the hospital.”

Eleanor tasted copper in her mouth. If she wasn’t careful she would vomit from her horror at what Søren had suffered so young.

“What happened to Elizabeth?”

“Her mother heard her laughing and came to investigate. When she saw the scene before her, she could no longer deny the truth of who and what her husband was. She took me to the hospital and took Elizabeth away. She and my father divorced quietly and split all assets equally. Better to pay him off and keep things quiet than go through a messy public court battle.

“Question six was why does everyone think my name is Marcus Stearns and I told you my name is Søren? Søren is what my mother named me. Magnussen is her last name. I’ve tried for years to reject my father, his money and his world as much as I can. So I reject his name—at least in private. I wanted you to know the real me. To know the story of my name is to know me. There are few people who I want to know me.”

“I want to know you.”

“Now you do.”

“Is what happened between you and your sister why you became Catholic?”

“Yes. My father came to his senses a few days after the incident. He remembered I was his only son, but he didn’t want me in the house. I think he feared my retribution. I wanted to kill him, so I can’t blame him for sending me away to a Jesuit boarding school in rural Maine. I felt polluted by what had happened between my sister and me. When Father Henry taught us about confession and reconciliation, about forgiveness … I knew I needed that. I converted to Catholicism and started studying to join the Jesuits.”

“That’s where you met Kingsley, right?”

“Kingsley … He was a gift from God. I kept away from everyone but the priests at Saint Ignatius. I didn’t want to hurt anyone. I did … but I didn’t. I wanted to but I didn’t want to want to. When I lose control, it’s not a pleasant sight.”

“I trust you.”

“You’re in love with me. Of course you trust me. I hope I never betray that trust. I cannot promise you I never will. And now after all that, I can answer your remaining questions quickly. Question five—you asked whose feet should you sit at. I hope the answer is mine. Question four, you asked me why does a priest have his own handcuff key. Eleanor, I’m a sadist and for the sake of my own sanity I must inflict pain on someone every now and then. It’s a powerful need and it grows maddening if I deny myself too long. You saw at Kingsley’s house the sort of parties he has, the company he keeps. I haven’t had sexual intercourse since I was eighteen. I do beat someone at least once a month, sometimes once a week.”