The Elements Sweetly Rest

By Kaki Olsen

“Fishing is preaching, and the Lord appears to those who labour at it.”  -Saint Anthony of Padua
—-
The last shepherd at Saint Anthony’s church found himself assigned to a new flock twelve years ago over strong objections, but he refused firmly and quietly.  The only witness to this fact was the office secretary whose job it was to type the order of service, organize volunteers, and keep things running according to Father Rimini’s instructions.

Eleanor Baker had just drafted the message for the announcement board when the priest raised his voice above the weary murmur that she had tried not to overhear.  “And I have other sheep, that are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will heed my voice. So there shall be one flock, one shepherd.”

With that off his chest, Rimini slammed the phone back into its cradle and Eleanor politely pretended she hadn’t heard.  There was nothing wrong with her hearing—she was only twenty and in excellent health—and she decided that her boss had reasons for quoting the Word of the Lord as a stone rebuke.

By the time she had listed the services, confession hours, and a citation for Psalms 21:4, the office was empty and the only thing he seemed to have left behind was a sheet of loose-leaf on his overcrowded desk, containing a handwritten quote from the patron saint of lost things:  “You, fish of the river and sea, listen to the Word of God because the heretics do not wish to hear it.”

What that had to do with other sheep, she didn’t know. He didn’t return by the end of business. As the office manager, she hadn’t let that stop her.  That night, she opened the doors to the Interfaith Outreach Center across the street, but not a single soul entered for the free food or a friendly conversation. Across Forest, no trains were expected; it had been months since any commuters paid for a zone 7 ticket and some said the MBTA had cut the line short. Since the internet had been on the fritz and all calls beyond the 978 area code were insisting that they couldn’t be connected, there was no way to verify why Aldrich Central had stopped seeing trains to or from South Station.

She had closed the IOC at 9 as always and trudged west on Forest Drive to head for home.

The next morning, she put a psalm on the church billboard and mentioned AA and choir practice.  When neither the priest nor the choir turned up that day, she was tempted to cancel the meeting, but there were nine regulars who needed a meeting come hell or high water and that night was no exception. Eleanor saw five of them shuffle in around six and decided to mind her own business on the church steps.

The lake wasn’t visible to the northeast, but it was unmistakable in the distance. As a child, she would sometimes see an explosion of avian activity or hear sounds of others having a good time on a Sunday morning. These days, no birds dared to dive for fish, and she preferred the silence to what a growing number of people considered to be recreation.

That night, she heard nothing while she minded her own business at the IOC, but the clouds that gathered did so with such speed and purpose that she immediately abandoned her plan to stay out of the Center and began battening down hatches as if a hurricane were in store.  She didn’t need to turn her eyes to the lake to gauge how close to tempest-time they were. There was no timer set for calamity and her nerves jangled with the certainty that the lowering of the clouds would summon something from the depths.

The lake was out of her line of sight on that night, but she huddled in the church while the winds and wayfarers caught out of doors screamed and the world seemed to crack along long-established fault lines.

At the end of a sleepless night in which she had no company and heard no words but her own halting prayers, the sun forced its way over the horizon and illuminated the window showing the miracle of Aleardino’s glass. She had not dared to test the electricity lest one of the storm wanderers take it as an invitation, but a friendly breeze caused the maple beyond the window to lazily wave for a half minute, and she dared to flick a light switch to bring light to the altar. By the time she made her way to the entrance, the entire church was flooded with light and only that spring morning dared to outshine it.

By the end of that day, the first of the missing person posters had gone up. Two of the men who came to AA never made it home.  Three regulars at the All Nations Community Choir that had inexplicably stayed home were unaccounted for.  By Friday morning, there were seventeen missing from Aldrich Lake, and perhaps it was Eleanor’s anxiety and self-preservation that had kept her from being the eighteenth.

Father Rimini was considered number eighteen in her stead.  On Friday, someone found that he left his worn-out penny loafers on the southern shore of the lake.

Presumably, he would have been replaced, but no clergy arrived, and the phone rang less frequently as the days passed.

It never mattered to the daughter of Frank and Lucy Baker.  She made a bedroll on the floor of the office and paid the phone bill on time. Even if their wayward priest never called, she had faith that someone would be crying out for help one of these days.
——-
No one would admit to putting up the flyers, but you could find at least one of them in each of the Aldrich neighborhoods. Communities in the beyond would advertise missing pets or offer rewards for information on a missing child.

In Aldrich Lake, it was a fact of life that if you lived here, you were lost to someone, perhaps yourself. The flyers, rain-dappled and faded on some telephone poles or freshly posted at the long-closed pharmacy, offered a haven for The Chased. 

Persecutus
Let us find you a safe harbor
“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is kingdom of heaven.”

The kingdom of heaven had no place among the Aldrich, but there was no shortage of those who were persecuted.
——
The same questions were so frequently asked that Eleanor was tempted to have the answers tattooed on her forehead, but whenever a newcomer found their way to a safe harbor, she tried to smile and answer patiently.

Are you the guys from the flyers?
Are you a priest?
Aren’t you from Saint Anthony’s?
What am I supposed to do?
What are you doing here, anyways?
What can you do for me?
When do you expect him back?

The answers were just as standard.

Yes, welcome.
No.
Yes.
Worship if you like, hide if you need, fellowship if you feel up to it.
Worshiping, hiding, and hoping for the best.
What kind of help are you looking for?
If you mean the priest, I expect he’ll feel called back to us any day now.
——
Thursday was widely known among The Chased as “office hours.”  It was a misnomer, since Eleanor stayed away from the office and there was no set schedule.  But if extant members had non-emergent matters to bring to the community, they would leave a note on Father Rimini’s desk before sundown on that day.

Their food donors made an accounting of what had been collected; people who were truly frightened of leaving a haven couldn’t very well run to the store and Eleanor would arrange deliveries before the next office hours.

The Dunthorpe matriarch had been caught in what they called The Net, making Benita the 329th to disappear and the first in six weeks. It was reported by her husband and verified by four people who hadn’t bothered to intervene.  In the next lowering of The Net, one of those four might become the 330th, and she wondered how many would dispassionately take notice of that event.

And for the second time that year, someone dangled a Rimini Lure.

Persecutus had always been under the stewardship of a nervous young woman whose hesitation about higher education had led to her being one of the thousands under siege at Aldrich Lake. The number of people at Persecutus who had known her at the time of the first disappearances was shrinking.

At the other “church,” too many knew that she had been the first to notice Joshua Rimini’s absence.

A Rimini Lure always offered a meeting with her long-vanished mentor and attempted to imitate his style.  Two years ago, the correspondent had matched Rimini’s style so closely that it was only when they missed the intention of the sign off that she lost hope.

Today came nowhere as close. She took comfort in the fact that he was inimitable, since there was little else to celebrate.

That night, one of the friends of Bill W. who still came reported disappearances 330 and 331.

“Went to the store and never came back,” he said. “One left his cart in the checkout line.  But that’s not the worst of it.”

Eleanor was in no mood for gossip, so she simply asked, “Who?”

“Lincoln Allen.”

And Lincoln was one of the food coordinators, which meant that her informant was more worried about the stockpiles than he was about a fellow believer. Eleanor waved him towards the coffee, too tired to feel disappointed in human nature.

“You missed one.”

A clammy hand pressed a piece of paper into her hand and she turned to identify the speaker, but another person called for her attention and she slid the paper into her pocket.

The Dunthorpes were the focus of that night’s outreach. With Benita having been caught in The Net and extended family showing more interest than compassion called for, members of Persecutus had discreetly found ways to take the family in. The details were unimportant when there was a safe house to arrange and a community to rally. The blow of losing Lincoln and a man only known as “Mr. Chevy Driver” was softened by a need for unique humanity.

It was not until she had personally signed off on clothing allocations that she remembered the other piece of paper that she had been asked to review.

“You missed one.”

It was so rare for someone to anonymously approach her that she should have found it odd before now. She had never meant to be a figurehead and the thought embarrassed her when she gave it any thought, but it meant that she was given the kind of attention a guest of honor should receive in every meeting.

“You missed one.”

But this was impossible. The desk had been bare at  close of office hours.  It was a brazen approach and an anonymous point of contact.

And she recognized after the third reading that this could only have been written by Father Remini.
——
“What is there left for us poor wretches to do but go and die with him? Draw us forth from the mire, Lord Jesus.”
-Saint Anthony of Padua
——
PBS 9 was the closing line of the billboard on Friday morning and Eleanor, keeping watch at the office window, saw each of the council members drive east one block and then west before flashing their lights once.  It was only the fourth time they’d had to call an all-hands meeting, but that signal of consent was reassuring.  She set to work finding a safe haven for their meeting.

At 9 p.m., she ushered the last of the councilors into the Aldrich Lake HS chemistry lab and followed them to the supply room.  Protocol demanded that they begin with some prayer, but she bypassed any sacred practice as a matter of urgency.

“Have we seen any calls to gather the storms?”

The PBS had been a call to respond to Aldrich storms, natural or otherwise, in the spirit of reason.  The lord they defiantly followed had commanded the seas, “peace, be still” and every person here sought that stillness. It was easier said than done.

“Not in a week,” Isaias de Leon answered.

“I saw prowlers the night before the disappearances at the store,” Miriam Schneider added.  “I didn’t think to—“
She broke off at the admission and her cheeks flushed. The remaining five reported variations on the same news, but Miriam still kept her gaze on her hands, having let a sense of shame slip.

“You were the only one of us to see prowlers,” Eleanor prodded a moment later. “Have you seen any since then?”

Almost breathless, Abram Stokes asked the question that was suddenly in the eyes of every councilor, Miriam included. “Have you?”

Eleanor placed the latest Lure on the table. “This was hand-delivered, but I didn’t see them.  I believe a prowler sought out our gathering last night to send me this message.”

It was said at Persecutus that if they stayed, they starved. In other words, having a fixed headquarters would leave them vulnerable to a siege. They hadn’t fixed the gathering place until just before office hours, which meant that someone had been stalked or someone had informed.

“You wouldn’t call us here for another false alarm,” Phillip Caldwell guessed.

“I called this council because I do not believe this to be false, but it is alarming.”

The letter was passed, and she knew they were looking for familiar touches such as her nickname or the brief homily on what message she conveyed with a typo that week.

It was Isaias who found the crucial note. “We keep in our prayers Saint Hippolytus?”

“Father Rimini hired a person with little interest in religion,” Eleanor said. “With each note, he would name someone or mention a date, and it would help me educate myself on events of significance.  No other writer has thought of that and this is a reference to a man who reconciled with the church after a schism.”

There were some appreciative nods, but the one attorney on the council spoke up. “And you believe that this reference is a sign that this is a legitimate message?”

“And I believe that this reference invites me to wait for more correspondence,” she said.  “When it comes, what do we resolve to do?”

As she expected, all opinions poured out at the same time.

Some of The Chased spoke of a summoning and anyone who had lived in Aldrich Lake for some time could relate to this. There were dates where The Net was cast and disappearances were marked in the dozens instead of the isolated instances. But Eleanor had staunchly resisted the restlessness that she sometimes felt when walking on dry land.

“Remember Odysseus and the sirens?” Phillip asked.

“We’re not tying her to a mast until the danger has passed,” Abram said. “And the call will not be shouted.”

No, it would be a persistent dream that threatened or lured.  Twice this week, she had awoken from a feeling of suffocating in an oxygen-rich environment and felt a clammy grip on her wrist.  After both of the nightmares that were difficult to articulate, but easy to recall, she had flopped on her leaking mattress like a fish out of water and screamed until her throat was raw.

“I will feel the call,” Eleanor interrupted Isaias’ next suggestion, “and I will not be moved. But I feel it more likely that Remini or his associates will seek me out.”

“They haven’t yet,” Isaias protested.

Even had she not been in possession of a genuine Remini Lure, she would not have been able to silence the message from the unseen courier.

“You missed one.”

“They have and they will again.”

“Then we will stand as sentries,” Miriam responded.

“No.”

As certainly as she knew that the courier was not to be the last, she was certain that the chasers would welcome a last stand. It was her aim to make this stand anything but their last.

“They will come, but I expect you all to obey my direction to not stand in their way.”
—-
“Whether the wrath of the storm-tossed sea
Nor demons nor men nor whatever it be
No water can swallow the ship where lies
The master of ocean and earth and skies.”  -Mary Ann Baker
——
There were many ways to protect a place from evil influences, but knowing the form of the influence didn’t signal the intention of the visitor. Salt was ineffective against beings whose ultimate authority found its abode in the seas.  Blood of a lamb protected people in ancient times, but livestock were in short supply. Miriam performed a smudging, but on Abram’s advice, they spent a tense afternoon anointing the IOC and St. Anthony’s with oil.

There was no date set, but a gathering malice and an increase in disappearances led them all to think that the appointed time would be on June 29. The cheerful  calendar Eleanor had been using for the length of her stewardship over Persecutus decreed it to be the feast of Peter and Paul.  Of course, she would be confronted on a day solemnly recognizing martyrs.

Phillip was the last to leave St. Anthony’s on the 28th and held her hands for a long moment before simply saying, “Psalms 91, verse 7.”  Eleanor ushered him out with no promises of seeing him later, but looked up the reference in one of the Bibles lying forgotten in the sanctuary.

 “A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand; but it shall not come near you.”

It was doubtless meant to be uplifting thought, but it promised no protection, only that she would see the slaughter of others.  She set the book aside and crossed the threshold of midnight in prayer.

In the midst of asking that she be sealed for protection against any clinging, familial, familiar or retaliating spirits, the howling of the winds began. Thunder drowned out the moments when she cried out in song and the ground quaked beneath her bent knees.

And in the silence that followed, Remini returned.

The years had bent him, and he seemed bloated, a soul straining to shed its mortal coil, but the keen eyes burned in their sockets with intensity and purpose, but not bellicosity. He arose from some unknown depth without crossing the doorstep of the church, his feet still bare beneath the sodden cassock.

Lest she be seen bowing to him by man or god, Eleanor stood and moved into the shadow of the pulpit.

“It is good to see you found something to put your faith in.”

The same voice that had chided her for doubt and encouraged her curiosity now found something admirable in her desperation and she felt a boiling anger in her veins, but stood her ground.

“You have no place here.”

The laugh was almost a gargling sound. “The same could be said of the girl who had faith only because it paid the rent.”

He quoted her own insecurity, but Eleanor had buried that part of herself on the day that the first seventeen Aldrichers had disappeared.

“You abandoned that girl, but god did not.”

Again, that laugh that seemed to come from the flooded lungs of a dying man and his eyes narrowed to scrutinize her.

“‘Listen to the Word of God, for the heretics do not wish to hear it,’” he quoted.  “I know you have heard the call of older gods than the one you invoked to protect this place.  You were blind to the mercies of god when I first knew you and you are deaf to the invitations that can save you now.”

She was not deaf. The same sense of summoning was now a keening in her ears only outmatched by the pounding in her skull that began when an unholy messenger arose from the stones of this church.

“The invitations are for those who wander and seem lost,” she asserted. “You persist in hunting us because we have not wandered. We need no invitation to join a flock.”

There was no way of knowing how distant her allies were or if they were following the plan, but she would speak on their behalf until they came to tell her otherwise.

“A school,” he corrected mildly as she heard the tempest resume in support of his mission. “And I am not here for a multitude of the blind.  I am here to bring one wandering child home.”

She childishly wanted to protest that her only home was now the scene of his invasion, but she found no words would come to her lips.  Peculiarly, he advanced no further than the first pew, but the doors at the far end, locked so many times against his kind, lazily swung open. She stood alone in the house of god and watched sky-splitting lightning illuminate water that entered the church as if asking permission of the master of the house.  Her throat still closed around words, while her mind screamed them.

“Deliver me, O Lord,
from death eternal on that fearful day,
When the heavens and the earth shall be moved.”

“Carest thou not that we perish?”

“I will not be converted,” she struggled to say, her voice clawing it’s way out of lungs that refused to fill.

“The god who calls you home has no need of converts. I bring you to his salvation, and you will praise his name for that mercy in times to come.” 

“I will not be moved.”

“You speak of only what you will not do,” Remini noted.

“I put my faith in the god who would never smite his people with a flood.”

Remini nodded with a look of deep sympathy.  “A god who restrains the flood has no power to overcome it.”

As the water that had flowed mildly between the columns was overtaken by an impatient torrent, Eleanor found her knees buckling in the current and would have gasped for breath had it been possible.  Still steady, never wrathful, Remini strode to the floundering martyr and seized her by the throat.

“Peace, be still,” he commanded before forcing her bodily beneath the sudden waves.

Her mouth opened in a reflexive scream, and she struggled, hands clawing at his arms and legs scrambling for purchase on the once-holy ground.  She finally remembered to hold her breath and fire in her lungs was set against the water that was becoming more welcoming and warm. The arms pushed her deeper and the murmurs of summoning voices thudded dully in her ears.

Lungs searing, she gasped again and inhaled water once more. All tension left and while the waters that enclosed her were as relentless a current as before, a calm took hold of her. As simple as falling asleep.

And then the voices that snarled and howled at her at  times whispered as a doting mother might. She blinked in surprise and whispered words that she herself could not understand.

The god who calls you home.

Calls you home.

The water, the merciful life-giver, allowed her to break the surface, but the suffocating air caused her to plunge, panicked, into the depths.

Out of the depths I have cried unto thee.

She didn’t know when Remini had released her, but he extended a hand to her, and she remembered a plea of the patron saint of lost things.

Draw us forth from the mire.

At peace in the waters, she went still in the home of Aldrich Lake.