The Rule of Sebastian Read online

  “You can appreciate the splendor of a rose without plucking it,” Brother Giles had once told him when he’d returned to Mt. Ouray to stay. For what reason the older monk had spoken those words, Sebastian never comprehended. Perhaps sage advice for a contemplated lifetime behind abbey walls.

  The father had even given JC a statuette of the Virgin Mary, a gift reserved for postulants and established brothers. Sebastian had noticed it on the wall shelf inside JC’s cell the last time he’d interviewed him. The story went he’d dropped it when the father had handed it to him, nearly breaking off the head. The plush carpeting in the abbot’s private office saved it from smashing to pieces. Sebastian had experienced it in civilian life. Gifts to entice, lure, mislead. The misuse of power for one’s own gain.

  The father’s possession of JC had made it difficult for Sebastian to interview him. With his curiosity about how and why JC had come to their fortress mounting, he’d wanted nothing more than to sit with him for hours, chiseling away at his mind until it cracked open like a piñata full of information. But his inquisitiveness would have to die on the vine like grapes in a cold snap, for by Sunday morning, he learned JC’s visit would soon end.

  It was after breakfast, while the brothers lined up outside the chapel for Lauds, waiting for the abbot to lead their way in, when JC, against the silent custom, announced his plans.

  “You guys should probably know,” he said, his voice ricocheting off the walls. He wore his street clothes without his cowl, which had the brothers gaping. “I already made it clear to Father Paolo. Being cooped up here is getting to me. I plan on leaving now that those storms passed. I won’t bother with calling the forest service or a helicopter to come for me since it costs too much and they’ll ask too many questions. I’m going to borrow some snowshoes and hike out down the road. You’ve been real cool and all that, but I need to take off.”

  “When?” Brother George whispered.

  “Sometime next week, I hope, after I figure out more where I’m going and what I’m going to do.”

  “But you don’t even remember where you’re from,” Brother Rodel said. “Or even your name.”

  “What difference does it make? I’d rather be lost and confused down there than up here.”

  “What about why you came?” Casey asked. “You had to have a reason to come here.”

  JC yawned. “If I ever find out, maybe I’ll come back.”

  Brother Jerome screwed up his forehead. “How did the abbot take your decision?”

  “He got kinda mad. Said I’m wasting all my talent. He thinks I’m a real good singer. But I told him I’m not cut out for all this monk stuff. No offense.”

  “It’ll be near impossible for you to make it all the way to Monfrere,” Brother Hubert said, fixing his glasses over his big red nose. “You’ll have an all-day hike in this snow.”

  “Maybe I’m an expert, like Sebastian said. Who knows? Don’t worry. I’ll be out of your way soon.”

  They sealed their mouths when Father Paolo made his way down the corridor, the train of his lengthy cowl sweeping across the terracotta floor to hush them. His hands were tucked inside the cowl’s folds, and his eyes remained fixed to the floor. He glimpsed at no one—not even JC in his shameful street clothes—when he turned for the chapel’s entrance. Normally he would nod them along. That morning he entered without gesturing for them to follow.

  The brothers looked confused. Sebastian cleared his throat and motioned those before him to head in.

  Inside the chapel, the father conducted service as if it were any other Sunday. The brothers chanted the Rosa vernans and the psalms. All except JC. This time, he refused to sing. His defiance proved his intention to leave the abbey as soon as possible.

  Sebastian was unsure, but many of the monks’ chants sounded louder than ordinary, their voices pushing against the wooden beams and opening the ceiling to the dawn.

  The brothers’ enthusiasm for JC had waned; Sebastian was certain of that. The abbot’s possession of him had steered him from their grasps. Unofficially, he was off limits. And JC’s own alteration, one that had changed from a complacent awe to a restless indifference to abbey traditions, left the brothers avoiding him, rather than whisking him around the abbey in the manner they’d done after he’d first awakened.

  According to a few of the brothers, he’d even muttered curses while others were around to listen, although Sebastian had never heard them. Clearly, the stranger lacked the religious fortitude that Father Paolo had imagined.

  “He called me a fat loco,” Brother George had grumbled two days before while they’d plated their breakfasts and JC slept. Steam from the fried potatoes had coated his eyeglasses. “No one has ever ridiculed me inside the abbey.”

  Sebastian still craved to solve JC’s mystery, but perhaps it was best if he did leave by next week, taking with him his secrets, no matter how dangerous it was for him to descend the mountain. Sebastian raised his chanting voice to match those around him and decided he longed for nothing more than to return to their normal, humdrum abbey lives. Forget that they had ever discovered JC lying unconscious in the blizzard.

  The abbot ended service with, “We praise you, God,” and the monks responded with an elongated, mellow, “Amen.”

  The morning pressed on, and the day left Sebastian frazzled and yearning for the privacy of his cell. He watched the clock between morning work and Compline for the hour to strike seven thirty so he could take care of his personal needs and retire for the night. He was tired of the whispers, and although the brothers seemed happy JC was about to leave them, his rash decision left a lingering agitation.

  Alone in his cell at last, he sat at his desk under a single lamp’s light and listened to the flute notes flowing from Casey’s room three doors away. Upon the emergence of another Grand Silence, he had allowed Casey’s music to seize him and carry him away. He knew he should spend his solitude in lectio divina. What difference did one more daydream make?

  Guided as if by God’s hand, he stood from his desk and stretched his lanky form over his lonely bed. With his eyes fixed on the ceiling, Casey’s music called to him, mesmerized him. The young novice spoke to him through the finger holes of his instrument. Playing just for him. His tune sounded as glum as Sebastian’s mood.

  Where had he heard that melody before?

  Claps of thunder accompanied Casey’s gentle flute playing, along with the incessant winds blowing off the San Juan Mountains. Above the rattling of his windowpane, the squeaking of Brother Giles’s wheelchair emerged somewhere in the corridor. Sebastian suspected he was using the bathroom to drain his catheter.

  He longed for the spring thaw, when his work responsibilities shifted to more manual labor outdoors and his muscles would ache again, beyond the rawness in his fingers from stringing rosary after rosary in the stuffiness of the sacristy each day, and he’d forget what the abbey’s walls trapped inside. In warmer days, he’d trim the large lawn with the ride-on mower, take turns weeding the gardens with Brothers Hubert and George, allow the soft breezes to carry away his indecision and worries. And in the autumn, splitting the hundreds of cords of logs they’d purchased from a local wood provider for their three wood-burning fireplaces, preparing for the long winter.

  That was when he understood abbey life the most. When God smiled upon him from above the perpetually snow-covered peaks. Winters often brought dubious wonderings. Had the abbey life been right for him? Should he have left everything behind in Philadelphia, so much of it unresolved? Would he one day profess before the abbot?

  He squeezed his eyes to let Casey’s somber music weave through his head and relax him. Then it stopped. More thunder broke above the unremitting winds. He waited. Casey must’ve settled in for the night. Father Paolo did not permit music playing past eight thirty, when Retire officially fell over Mt. Ouray.

  Pulled into a ball, Sebastian succumbed to fitful dreams of unfulfilled tragic lovers and raging forest fires that chased him through the
night.

  “BROTHER JC has left, just like he promised,” Brother George whispered to the brothers in the corridor outside their cells upon Rise the next morning. “I knocked four times and he never stirred. So I peeked. He’s not in his cell.”

  “Are you sure?” Sebastian took two steps to JC’s assigned cell next to his own, and looked inside. The bed was made, and what few possessions he’d brought with him—the yellow knapsack and his thin parka—were gone. The room appeared completely cleared out. Vacant. Returning to the others, he said, “Has anyone looked for him?”

  “I searched the bathroom and the kitchen, even the pantry where we found him before,” Brother George said. “He’s nowhere.”

  “Where could he have gone off to this time?” Brother Rodel said.

  “He said he was leaving,” Brother Micah said.

  “Good riddance, that’s what I’ve got to say,” Brother Jerome grunted. “He was a busybody. Just the other day I caught him in Brother Augustine’s cell, looking about like he wanted to take something. He said he’d mistaken it for Brother Sebastian’s and that he kept getting turned around. I think he was looking to rob from a feeble old man.”

  “Why would he want to speak with Brother Sebastian in his cell?” Brother Micah asked.

  “I was helping him try to uncover his memories,” Sebastian mumbled.

  “Uncover memories?” Brother Lucien snorted. “Is that all?”

  “He wasn’t quite how I expected him,” Brother Giles said from his wheelchair, where he wrung his hands over his lap. “Not at all what I expected. Quite a disappointment. And imagine I considered giving him a sacramental to wear around his neck.”

  Brother Lucien locked his arms across the front of his cowl. “I heard him ask the father for money yesterday after Mass. I didn’t hear the father’s reply. I was afraid to ask him if he’d given him any, he’s been so sour lately.”

  “It would’ve been the Christian thing to do, regardless of how badly he’s behaved among us,” Brother Rodel said.

  “I still don’t believe he’s gone so soon after telling us he was leaving,” Brother George said. “He told us he wanted to wait until next week.”

  “It is next week.” Brother Micah grimaced. “It’s Monday. He’s gone, you can be sure.”

  “Why would he leave in pitch darkness with all that blowing snow?” Casey said. “I saw him retire to his cell last night. Why wouldn’t he wait, like he said?”

  “I’m glad he’s gone. I’m glad,” Brother Jerome repeated.

  “At least he worked hard,” Brother Rodel said. “You have to give him credit for that.”

  “What’s all this chatting?” Father Paolo strode down the corridor from the bathroom, his eyes screwed up into fierce slits behind his glasses.

  “Brother JC has already left, Father,” Brother George said. “We were discussing it. Forgive us for speaking during the Grand Silence, but we were concerned.”

  “There’s nothing to be concerned about. He’s gone. We knew he was leaving.”

  “But in the middle of the night with all this wind?” Brother Eusebius shook his head.

  “It didn’t stop him from coming,” Father Paolo growled. “Keep quiet now. Let’s remember who and where we are. Come, it’s time for Vigils.”

  They marched behind Father Paolo to the chapel, and when JC failed to show for Vigils, Sebastian suspected it was true. JC had left for good. The brothers seemed to sigh a collective relief in their chanting, knowing that they no longer had to worry about whether JC might turn on them. A mere three weeks before, they’d embraced him as a welcome change to their dull abbey lives. But at breakfast the brothers seemed to fall into a strange malaise. Brother Micah was in a snit about the mess everyone had been leaving in the kitchen. Brother Hubert took ill and refused to eat. Brother Eusebius grunted and sighed. Brother Rodel retreated deeper into his world. Brother Lucien and Father Paolo remained distant in his office. Sebastian, too, wanted only to plate his food and disappear. No one dared utter JC’s name.

  After the Eucharist, Sebastian peered out the front door and along the footpath toward the parking lot. Under a wan sun that crested the mountains, the winds continued to rage. The back and sides of the abbey revealed the same whipped cream smooth landscape. Seemed the mystery of JC culminated even in his absence. Sebastian shook his head, staring into the white expanse.

  Sebastian decided to put the ordeal behind him and accept that he’d gone. For good. Swept away by the whistling and rushing winds off the San Juan Mountains. Father Paolo had confirmed his departure. That was that. No further need to think of him, the father had said. A strange illusion had punctured their serene winter, with no trace of him coming or going. He’d entered and departed their lives the same way.

  Sebastian and Brother Eusebius toiled in the sacristy with less tension budding around them. Their industrious hands filled velvet sack after velvet sack of the brown-beaded rosaries, ready for the abbey’s gift shop come summertime. Sebastian kept his ongoing wonderings about JC to himself.

  The abbot’s private office on the other side of the shared wall remained silent. One time Sebastian heard Brother Hubert’s voice, later, Brother Lucien’s. Typical, since they both provided the occasional administrative function for the abbey.

  For siesta, Sebastian retreated to the library, where he gazed out the arched window. The winds had settled, leaving a clear enough view of the snow-draped spruces and aspens. And Mt. Ouray loomed in the distance, a faint outline under the milky white canopy of sky. The first time in more than two weeks he’d been able to see it reach heavenward.

  Try as he might, lingering speculation on JC continued to paw at his brain. Why would he have departed down the mountain before daybreak after he’d said he wanted to wait and decide his destiny?

  Despite everything, Sebastian prayed he had found a safe passage. Yet his departure seemed unimaginable. Most likely he wouldn’t have survived another attempt to win over the elements. The Rocky Mountains gave only one chance. He should probably suggest Father Paolo inform the authorities to search for a body in the morning.

  He was about to imagine hiking the mountain in such harsh conditions when someone pulled a chair out next to him. Sebastian could not help but grin when he shifted to see Casey sitting beside him, his eyes, brown and droopy like Delores’s, shimmering in the subtle sunlight.

  “Am I disturbing you?” Casey asked.

  Sebastian was surprised how much his grin grew as he shook his head. “Not at all. I’m glad to see you. You’ve been keeping yourself scarce. What have you been up to, Casey?”

  “Daydreaming, mostly.”

  He chuckled. “I thought only I did that.”

  “I do it too often, I’m afraid. Sometimes my prayers turn into daydreams, and the guilt chews me up.”

  “Hard to tell daydreams and prayers apart at times, I suspect. Don’t worry over things too much. I’m sure God understands the musings of our minds.”

  The sound of Casey’s chuckles, the gentle ringing of a Sanctus bell, brought a delightful shiver along Sebastian’s neck. He suppressed the urge to simply lay his hand over Casey’s, which rested on the oak tabletop.

  Sebastian turned back to the window, hoping to suppress the unexpected heat in his lap. The landscape outside seemed to glow brighter.

  “I wanted to apologize if I’ve seemed evasive,” Casey said.

  “Things have been crazy around here, that’s for sure,” Sebastian said, facing Casey again. “All of us have been preoccupied.”

  “With JC, you mean?”

  Sebastian nodded. “He brought us excitement and confusion.”

  Casey rubbed the tabletop with his fingertips, making a subdued squeaking noise. “I suppose it’s good he’s gone. He made me feel strange.” Then he looked penetratingly into Sebastian’s eyes. “Had he done that to you?”

  Sebastian stretched over his chair. “I was mostly curious about him. Still am, to be honest. He’s unlike anyone I’
ve ever met. A living and breathing mystery.”

  “I guess many of us felt that way.”

  Casey’s voice, suddenly faraway and dull, forced Sebastian to sit straighter. He peered at him, deciphering his mood. He had sat next to him, cheery and submissive. Now a cloud eased over his features, grayer than the ones outside. Yes, there was envy behind that shadow. His rich brown eyes confessed as much. But was it for Sebastian or JC?

  He wanted to clarify his statement when Casey stood with a skid of his chair on the floor. “We probably shouldn’t be speaking. I’ll see you later at dinner.”

  Sebastian watched the flow of his tunic mold around Casey’s physique from his quick exit. Resembling JC in many ways, Casey embodied a strange mix of intrigue and melodrama. A result of their generation, perhaps. Reared on unrestrained mawkishness, which pushed them to extremes, like hiking along precarious mountains in the dead of winter.

  Casey wasn’t that much younger than Sebastian. Thirteen, fourteen years. Sebastian too had been raised in the post-modern culture with its fondness for fantasy and sentimentality. But the real world—one filled with violence and death most see confined to their televisions—had shaken Sebastian long ago. Romantic ideals had left his heart in the fury of fight or flight. He no longer worried about love. But he did care for Casey, more than he ever imagined he would when he’d first encountered him last summer.

  He continued to dwell on both Casey and the oddity of JC into the evening. By Retire, the quiet of the abbey had never penetrated his ears so heavily while his thoughts compacted one on top of the other. To appease his nerves, he went to warm a cup of cocoa in the kitchen before concealing himself in his lonesome cell for the night. Brother George had just left the kitchen with an apple, leaving him and Delores alone. The pour of the milk, the strike of the match to the gas stove, the puff of the blue flames filled him with a hushed calm. Weren’t those some of the gentle reasons why he’d chosen the life of the Trappists?