NORTH
The Past
Kingsley ate dinner with the other boys in silence, keeping his mouth occupied with food so as not to let any smirks and smiles betray his knowledge of English. He wasn’t entirely sure how long he could keep up the ruse, wasn’t entirely sure why he even tried. But as he sat in the dining room at a carved, black oak table, the boys on the left, the priests on the right, Kingsley tried to decide what sin he’d committed that had earned him this ice-cold hell on earth.
He wanted to blame Carol, head cheerleader at his old school. Blonde girls were a weakness of his. Or Janice, who sang the National Anthem at every home game. Sopranos with red hair could do no wrong in his book. Susan…Alice…and his blue-eyed Mandolin, the long-haired daughter of unrepentant hippies…. He’d started in August and had fucked three dozen girls at his small Portland high school by Thanksgiving break. But he couldn’t blame a single one of them for sending him to this prison.
He blamed the boyfriends.
Naturally strong and quick, Kingsley knew he could take on any boy in the school who came at him. But seven boys all at once? No one could have walked away from that. And he hadn’t walked away.
He’d crawled.
He’d crawled a few feet before passing out in a puddle of blood that had come from a cut over his heart. The cut had likely saved his life. He remembered little from the beating he’d taken behind the stadium, but he did remember the knife. When the knife came out even the other boys who’d been kicking him, punching him, spitting on him as he fought to get back to his feet, took a step back. The boy with the knife—Troy—hadn’t been a boyfriend. Worse, he’d been a brother—Theresa’s older brother—and he took the protection of his sister very seriously. The knife came out and slashed at Kingsley’s heart. And that’s when the other boys had dragged Troy off and left Kingsley bleeding on the ground, broken and bruised but alive.
And as he looked around the dining hall and saw nothing but other boys—boys aged ten to eighteen, tall and short, fat and thin, handsome and unfortunately not so—he wanted to go back to that moment behind the stadium and step into the knife instead of away from it.
He sighed heavily as he took a sip of his tea, dreadful stuff, really. He missed the days when his parents had given him wine with his dinner.
“I know. Tastes like piss, doesn’t it?” Father Henry’s voice came from over his shoulder.
Kingsley almost nodded in agreement, but remembered that he didn’t understand English. Turning toward the voice, he composed his face into a mask of confusion.
Father Henry pointed at Kingsley’s tea and mimed a vicious grimace and a gag. Kingsley allowed himself a laugh then. Everyone spoke the universal language of disgust.
“Come with me, Mr. Boissonneault,” Father Henry said, pulling out Kingsley’s chair and motioning for him to follow. “Let’s see if we can’t find you a translator.”
Translator? As Kingsley stood up his heart started to race. Father Henry had said no one at the school spoke French but Mr. Stearns. And every student in the school seemed to be in the dining room, huddled over steaming bowls of tomato basil soup. Every student but Stearns. Not that Kingsley had been looking for him, watching the door, scanning the room between every sip of piss tea.
Father Henry led him to the kitchen and through a wall of steam. By a hulking black oven a young priest waved a spatula as he repeated a sentence over and over. He seemed to be conducting himself—the words his music, the spatula his baton.
“And now you, repeat this…Você não terá nenhum outro deus antes de mim.”
“Si, Father Aldo.” The words came from a table a few feet away from the stove. “Você não terá nenhum outro deus antes de mim.”
Kingsley almost shivered at the sound of the voice—an elegant tenor, rich and educated, but also cold, aloof and distant. The voice belonged to Stearns, the blond pianist, he saw, when he took two steps forward and peered around a refrigerator. At Stearns’s feet lay a black cat curled up in a tight ball, glaring at Kingsley with bright and malevolent green eyes. He watched as Stearns rubbed the cat’s head gently with the tip of his shoe as he recited the words in a language Kingsley didn’t recognize.
“Muito bom,” said the priest, crossing the spatula over his chest and bowing. “Father Henry, what are you doing in my kitchen? We’ve had this talk.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, Father Aldo, Mr. Stearns.”
“No. You are not sorry. You always love to interrupt. It is what you are best at,” Father Aldo scolded with a broad smile on his face. Kingsley tried to place the accent. Brazilian, maybe? If so, it would mean the language he was teaching Stearns was Portuguese. But why would anyone in Nowhere, Maine, want to learn Portuguese?
“Father Aldo, I only interrupt you because you talk so much. I have to interrupt if I’m going to say my piece before sundown.”
“The sun is down, and yet you are still interrupting.”
“You’re interrupting my interrupting, Aldo. And I am very sorry to interrupt Mr. Stearns’s lesson. But it’s his language faculties we need. This is Kingsley Boissonneault, our new student. He doesn’t speak any English, I’m afraid. We’re hoping Mr. Stearns could be of some assistance. If he would oblige…”
“Of course, Father.” Stearns closed the book in front of him and stood up. Once more Kingsley was stuck by the blond pianist’s height, his face so unbearably handsome. “I will be happy to help in any way I can. Of course, Monsieur Boissonneault doesn’t need my help. After all, he speaks English perfectly. Don’t you?”
Kingsley froze when Stearns directed the last two words at him.
Father Aldo and Father Henry both looked at him with raised eyebrows.
“Mr. Boissonneault?” Father Aldo said in his accented English. “Is this true?”
“Of course it is.” Stearns stepped over the black cat and stood before Kingsley.
Kingsley should have been afraid, should have been embarrassed. But that one step toward him, that look of penetrating insight, inspired other feelings in him, feelings he immediately shoved down deep into himself.
“He laughed while you two were arguing. He knew exactly what you both were saying. If he’s a French speaker in Maine he’s either from France, where he would start learning English at age seven or eight, or he’s Quebecois and therefore at least passably bilingual.”
Father Aldo and Father Henry continued to stare at him. Stearns studied him with penetrating, steel-gray eyes.
“I am most certainly not Quebecois,” Kingsley finally said, the pride in his Parisian blood trumping any desire to remain silent and anonymous. “I’m from Paris.”
Stearns smiled and Kingsley felt that smile in his blood like a shard of ice.
“A liar and a snob. Welcome to Saint Ignatius, Monsieur Boissonneault,” Stearns said. “So pleased to have you here.”
For the second time that day, Kingsley fantasized about stepping into Troy’s knife and letting the blade sink into his heart. Surely a blade of real steel would hurt less than the steely judgment in Stearns’s eyes.
“I didn’t want to come,” Kingsley protested. “I’m here against my will. I shouldn’t have to talk if I don’t want to.”
“You have a bright future with the Cistercians,” Stearns said, crossing his arms over his chest. “They take vows of silence, too. Although for reasons of piety and not obnoxious attention seeking.”
“Mr. Stearns,” Father Aldo gently chided. “We may be Jesuits, but we do practice the rule of Benedict here.”
Stearns exhaled heavily. “Of course, Father. Forgive me.” He didn’t sound particularly contrite to Kingsley, but neither Father Aldo nor Father Henry raised any further objections. They seemed as cowed as Matthew had earlier. Who was this Stearns person?
“Perhaps you would show Mr. Boissonneault the dormitories. Give him more of an introduction to the school than young Matthew did,” Father Henry said. “If you have the time.”
Stearns nodded, took one more step toward Kingsley and looked down into his eyes. Down? Kingsley had been measured in the hospital and stood at exactly six feet. Stearns had to be six-two at the least.
“I have the time.” Stearns gave him another smile. “Shall we?”
Kingsley thought about saying no, demurring, protesting that Matthew had given him a thorough introduction to the school and he needed no other, but merci beaucoup for offering. And yet, although Stearns already seemed to dislike him, loathe him even, Kingsley couldn’t deny that everything in him wanted a moment alone with this mysterious young man who even the priests deferred to.
“Oui,” Kingsley whispered, and Stearns’s sculpted lips formed a tight line.
Kingsley followed him from the kitchen. As soon as they were out of the door and alone in the hallway, Stearns turned and faced him.
“Père Henry est un héro,” Stearns began in flawless French. Father Henry is a hero. “You’ll have to forgive him for knowing very little about France. During World War II, he was in Poland smuggling Jews to safety and hiding women and girls from the Russian soldiers. I only know this because another priest here told me. Father Henry does not talk about the hundreds of lives he helped save. He talks about Italian food and mystery novels. Father Aldo is Brazilian. He and twelve others were held captive by guerrillas in 1969. Father Aldo was twenty-nine years old and, despite being from a wealthy and politically connected family, was the last captive to be
released—by choice. He would not leave until the others were safely freed. He forgave his captors and publicly asked the court to show them leniency. Now he cooks for us.”
“Why are you telling me all this?” Kingsley asked in English, feeling for the first time since his parents’ death that he could easily start crying.
“Father Henry asked me to introduce you to Saint Ignatius. That is what I’m doing. Coming?” he asked, still speaking French.
Kingsley said nothing, but followed him down the hall.
Stearns paused in the doorway to the dining room. Only two boys remained at the table, eating and talking.
“Ton ami Matthew,” Stearns said, inclining his head toward the small redheaded boy who had first given him a tour of the school, sitting next to a slightly taller boy with black hair and glasses. “He came here a year and a half ago. Although eleven years old when we saw him first, he looked hardly older than eight. His parents had neglected him to the point of starvation. A wealthy Catholic family in the neighborhood where Matthew was found digging through garbage cans is paying his tuition here. The boy he’s sitting with is the son of the people paying Matthew’s tuition. Neither of them knows that. They became friends on their own.”
Kingsley swallowed, said nothing and followed Stearns from the dining room.
“I think Father Henry meant for you to tell me what time classes start, that sort of thing.”
“Breakfast is at seven. Chapel is at eight. Classes start at nine. Tomorrow you’ll meet with Father Martin, who will set your class schedule.”
“I suppose Father Martin is a hero, too.”
“Father Martin is an astronomer. He discovered three comets and invented a formula for calculating the expansion of the universe. Retired now. His eyes aren’t strong enough to keep searching the heavens. So now he teaches math and science to us.”
Stearns led them from the dining hall, outside and to the library. The main room was empty but for three boys about Kingsley’s age huddling by the fireplace on the west wall. Stearns picked up an abandoned book off a table, glanced at the spine and headed to a bookcase not far from where the boys sat and talked.
“Stanley Horngren—he’s the one wearing the jacket,” Stearns
said, inclining his regal blond head toward one of the boys. “He has twelve brothers and sisters. He works two jobs every summer in order to pay his own tuition here and not burden his family with the extra expense. James Mitchell, sitting next to him, is here on a full academic scholarship. Rather impressive considering he is completely deaf and never had access to a school for the deaf. When you speak to him, speak clearly and make sure he can see your lips. And speak only in English,” Stearns said, giving Kingsley a dark look. He slipped the book onto a shelf in what was no doubt the correct spot. “The boy on the sofa is Kenneth Stowe. He spent two years in an institution because his teachers thought he was mentally deficient. In reality he has a minor learning disability and a genius IQ. He is now a straight-A student. The library closes at nine. If you need to stay later, you can ask Father Martin for a pass.”
Stearns turned on his heel and headed back outside. He paused outside the door to the church.
“Weekend Mass is at 5:00 p.m. on Saturdays and 10:00 a.m. on Sundays. It’s a traditional Catholic mass. Are you Catholic?”
Kingsley shook his head. “We’re descended from the
Huguenots.”
Stearns exhaled through his nose. “Calvinists.” He said the word like a curse before continuing on. “You are encouraged but not required to attend chapel. You will not be asked to cut your long hair. You will be asked to wear the school uniform, but for no reason other than it helps foster an environment of equality. None of us here is better than any of the others. You do understand that, yes?”
Kingsley stared at the floor. “Yes.”
Stearns took them to the dormitory building, stopping outside long enough to gather an armful of logs. Kingsley picked up some firewood as well, thinking they would be carrying it up to their dormitory room on the second floor, but instead Stearns went into the room where the youngest boys slept and piled the wood neatly next to the hearth.
He took the wood out of Kingsley’s arms and added it to the pile.
Several young boys sat on their beds reading. Only one managed to mumble a muted “thank you” as the two of them walked out. Stearns said nothing, only tapped the boy lightly on the forehead in a gesture almost brotherly. All the boys in the room followed Stearns with wide, awe-filled eyes.
Kingsley trailed after Stearns to the top floor of the dormitory, where the oldest boys slept.
“Lights-out is at nine,” his guide continued in his shockingly fluent French. Had Kingsley not known otherwise, he would have assumed Stearns was a native. “If you have homework that keeps you up later, you can work in the common room downstairs. As Father Henry says, ‘Firewood does not grow on trees.’ Please replace any of the wood you use.”
“Bien sûr,” Kingsley said, but knew he wouldn’t have thought to replace the firewood without someone telling him.
“Eighteen of us sleep in this room. Nineteen now that you’re here. Nathan Weitz has night terrors for reasons he hasn’t chosen to share with anyone yet. At least once a week he wakes up screaming. Ignore it. He will go back to sleep in a few minutes. If you see him sleepwalking, follow him. Last winter he wandered outside and nearly developed hypothermia. Joseph Marksbury is in charge of the chore list. I suggest you talk to him before he comes to you, unless you want nothing but bathroom duty for the entire semester. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to my Portuguese.”
“You’re learning Portuguese, too?” Kingsley asked. “How many languages do you speak?”
“Eight.”
“I’m bilingual. What do they call someone like you?”
Stearns arched an eyebrow at him. “Intelligent.”
Kingsley started to laugh, but then realized Stearns hadn’t been joking.
“Eight,” Kingsley repeated. “I would go crazy with so many words in my head. I have enough trouble keeping my French and English separate.”
“A few students here speak a little French, but since Father Pierre died, I’m the only one fluent at the school. If you need to speak French, speak it to me. And as you’ve seen, this place is full of kind and courageous priests and intelligent and hardworking young men, many of whom have had to overcome great obstacles to be here. If you ever feel the need to lie again, tell your lies to me.”
Kingsley blushed and crossed his arms. “I’ll apologize to Matthew.”
“A very good idea, Mr. Boissonneault,” Stearns said.
“You can call me Kingsley. That’s my name.”
Stearns seemed to mull the invitation over.
“Kingsley…” He nodded, and Kingsley tensed at the sound of his name spoken by the blond pianist who seemed to own the school. “This school has been my salvation. I would appreciate if you at least pretended to show it some respect.”
Stearns turned and started to walk from the dormitory room.
“Merci,” Kingsley said, before he was gone. “Thank you.”
“For what?” Stearns asked from the doorway.
“The Ravel today. Mon père aimait Ravel.”
For a moment Stearns only stared at him. Kingsley wanted to shrink from his penetrating gaze, but held his ground and didn’t blink, didn’t look away.
“Aimait? Your father is dead?”
Kingsley nodded. “Et maman. A train crash last May. You play piano beautifully. I’ve never heard Ravel like that before.”
Stearns came back into the room and stood before him. Kingsley felt his eyes on his face again and found himself suddenly shy. Shy? At age sixteen Kingsley had slept with nearly fifty girls already. No, not just girls—women, too. Even the wife of his late father’s business partner.
“I was named Marcus Stearns,” Stearns finally said. “No one ever calls me Marcus.”
“Why not?”
“Because Marcus is my father’s name, and I am not my father’s son.” He spoke the words slowly, deliberately, as if imparting a threat instead of just information.
“Can I call you something other than Stearns? It seems very formal.”
Stearns seemed to ponder the question.
“Perhaps someday.”
“Anything else I need to know?” Kingsley asked, intimidated by him, but for some reason not wanting to let him go yet.
Stearns fell silent and looked at Kingsley’s suitcase sitting at the foot of a bed. “Your bed is the one next to mine,” he finally said.
Kingsley’s hands tingled at the mention of the proximity of their two beds. He didn’t know why he was reacting to this young man the way he only ever reacted to a beautiful girl. He couldn’t stop staring at him, couldn’t stop wondering what secrets he kept, and what it would be like to hear those secrets whispered across a pillow at night.
“How did you get stuck sleeping so far from the fireplace?”
“I volunteered. I stay warm enough. A word of advice,” Stearns said, turning to stare Kingsley in the eyes, “do not wake me up at night.”
Kingsley barked a laugh. “What? Will you kill me?”
Stearns turned and headed toward the door again.
“Or worse.”