Chapter Thirty-six

Leland stared down at the message.

Burn the book and I'll kill you too.

It wasn't enough.

The knowledge that his father's book was in his brother's hands had tormented him for decades. That it was now in the possession of someone who might destroy it was intolerable. His father's writing was the word of God. If it was destroyed, Leland would do far worse than kill the person responsible. Even the suggestion of damaging it demanded punishment and suffering beyond imagination.

He put the phone away, his hand shaking slightly.

Then he turned and walked down the corridor to see Christopher Shaw.

And as he did so, his thoughts turned to fire.

It is July 6, 1985.

Leland is in church when he understands what he must do. As the last note of the organ music fades away, the congregation is silent for a moment. There is no soft sound of shuffling feet. No throats being discreetly cleared. If Leland were to close his eyes, it would be possible to believe the room is empty. But, of course, it is crowded. Because many people loved Charlotte Mary Hobbes.

But none more than him.

His gaze fixes on the coffin that rests at the front of the church, which houses the remains of the woman who was meant to be his. In a different world, she would have been—should have been. In this one, he is reduced to sitting at the back of the room. An interloper.

This is not right.

The thought throbs in his head.

This is not what was intended.

Glancing around, even the architecture of the church feels wrong. The corners where the walls met; the angles of the pews; the timber of the wooden beams in the rafters. To Leland, everything seems to be straining, tilting somehow, as though the entire building—God's own house—is attempting to distance itself from the blasphemy unfolding within it. Candles line the periphery of the room, but while the flames burn brightly, there is even an oddness there too. The people here are motionless, the air entirely still. And yet every flame is flickering as though buffeted by an unseen, angry breeze.

And then the silence is broken.

At the front of the church, a baby begins crying.

A gentle murmur runs through the crowd at that, more emotion than sound, and a moment later a man stands up. He is cradling a tiny infant in his arms, rocking the child gently. Alan Hobbes wears a mask of absolute grief—a week's worth of tears staining his sallow face—but somehow he is fighting through the pain and loss that appears to have racked him, cooing quietly at the baby in an attempt to soothe it.

Leland stares at his brother. It has been more than ten years since he first watched Alan and Charlotte laughing together at the dance, and while he is now married to Eleanor, with a month-old child of his own, he has never been able to forget the fact that Charlotte was meant to be his. He has always believed that, over time, the universe would correct its course and bring her to him. A part of him has been waiting patiently for the day. And so the news of her death was impossible for him to accept when he first heard it.

The grief was insurmountable.

Then the anger at what Alan had done.

At the future Alan had stolen from him.

And that emotion is rage now. It fills him from one burning side of his body to the other, and he has to force himself to watch the revolting pantomime playing out before him. How can Alan bear to show grief—especially here of all places? He must have known what was going to happen. He must have known what would come about as a result of his tampering. Or else he had steered the world onto this terrible course with neither care nor concern beyond for his own benefit.

Either way, Charlotte's death is Alan's fault.

But not just Alan's.

Leland's gaze settles on the baby's sobbing face and feels his own expression harden at the sight of it. Joshua Hobbes—although it has no business even having a name. No right to comfort or soothing. It deserves to cry. Its very existence is an abomination in the eyes of God, the unnatural product of his plan being interfered with.

It should not be in this world.

And that is when the idea arrives.

Sitting there, staring at the baby with his fists clenched hard against the trousers of his suit, Leland realizes that while not everything can be put right, there are some things that still might be. And that rather than waiting for the journey to correct itself, it is within his power to help it on its way.

His duty even.

He relaxes his hands.

And at the front of the church, the baby stops crying.

As the ceremony progresses, Leland pays little attention to the words of the priest, and makes no attempt to join in with the hymns that are sung in this black parody of genuine loss. His thoughts have moved elsewhere.

He knows where Alan Hobbes lives now. The home they both grew up in is an old, dilapidated property in which accidents can easily happen—or be made to. It will take time to organize if he is to do it right.

There is no rush.

Even so, he makes a series of calls as he is driven back from the funeral. By the time he arrives home, he has already established there is a local man named Michael Hyde, with a history of burglary and arson, who will be perfect for the task he has in mind.

Inside the house, he finds Eleanor is drunk. She often is. It was as though she too recognized that the life they have found themselves living was not what should have been. Nathaniel is unattended and crying. Leland lifts the baby from his crib and attempts to soothe it, the same way Alan did back in the church.

Hisactions are sincere. And yet Nathaniel continues to cry.

Leland suppresses the anger he feels. The truth is that he loves his son deeply. Even if Charlotte had been his—as she should have been—surely there would have been room in the world for Nathaniel too. And as he holds his son's small body against his own, Leland imagines all the secret things he will teach him as he grows.

The ways he will shape him.

A few minutes later, Eleanor appears in the doorway, disheveled and unsteady on her feet. Nathaniel has been soothed into silence now, and Leland is rocking him gently against his chest, staring down at a small face that not only resembles his own but which reminds him of his father as well.

"Was he crying?" Eleanor sounds confused. "I thought I heard him crying."

She leans against the doorway. Leland says nothing. There was a time when he thought a marriage might be helpful as a facade—a veneer of normality and acceptability—but he wonders how long it will be before he is compelled to add her to the burgeoning collection of angels in his secret garden at the back of the house.

But for now, he ignores her.

Nathanielmatters though. And as Leland continues rocking the infant in his arms, he knows the situation can't continue as it is. There are times when he needs to be away for work, and if Eleanor's attention cannot be relied upon, he will have to find another way to make sure his son is properly cared for.

That should be simple enough, he thinks.

They can find a babysitter.

Leland stopped outside the door.

There was an endless moment in which he could feel nothing but the blood pounding in his temples. When he could think of nothing but what the babysitter he hired, Peter Leighton, had ended up doing to Nathaniel.

Thirty years might have been expected to dull some of the hatred and loss, but they had not. Time held little meaning once you understood its true nature. Past, present, and future existed as one. The Edward Leland who had once walked down a long corridor to see what had been done to Nathaniel existed just as surely as the one standing here now.

But also the one who would put things right.

The one who will carry out God's will.

He used the thought to anchor himself. A few short hours from now, there existed an Edward Leland who would right the wrongs that had been done and correct the blasphemous course the world had been set upon.

He unlocked the door before him and opened it.

Christopher Shaw was where Banyard had deposited him upon their arrival: slumped against the bare wall, bound and gagged. His face was scarred down one side, and now badly bruised on the other. As Leland walked slowly across to him, Shaw tried to flinch backward, but he was already pressed hard against the stone wall behind him and there was nowhere for him to go.

"Look at me," Leland said.

The boy didn't move.

"I said look at me."

The boy did as he was told, raising his face and looking up at Leland. His eyes were wide and scared. There was pleasure to be taken in his fear, but Leland forced himself to remain impassive, leaning down and peering carefully at the boy's features.

Searching for another glimpse of what he had seen at the café.

He leaned back. Sure now.

"I spent such a long time looking for you," he said. "I always knew I'd find you eventually. I knew Alan wouldn't be able to stay away from you forever—that he would want to look after you. That he would need to. Because you are abhorrent. You should never have been born. And deep down, I think you know that, don't you?"

He reached down and brushed a strand of Shaw's hair away from his face. The boy was so terrified that he didn't even flinch. But there was something in his eyes that suggested Leland's words had resonated with him. That on some level, Leland was only confirming a truth the boy had known his whole life.

He looked at Shaw's scar. At some point, the boy had been badly injured. Someone else must have laid eyes on him and recognized that he was an abomination. Someone else had been driven to remove him from existence.

"I can see God has made his own attempts to erase you over the years," Leland said. "Now he has brought you to me. And I'm going to enjoy finishing that job for him."

Leland crouched down in front of Shaw. And once again, he thought that while the boy might not understand exactly what he was being told, he recognized the truth of it.

He knew what he was even if he didn't know who.