Boys in the Valley

by Philip Fracassi

“If you can sacrifice this life for the other, you will know more joy than you can possibly imagine. A joy that will last for eternity.”

“All of life is a great gift,” he says. “Not because of what it gives us, but because of what it allows us to give others.”

When you’re hungry, goodness is forgotten until you’re not, and the guilt lives in your stomach along with the meat and bread.

“My name is Legion,” Andrew mutters, quoting the passage from the Book of Mark. “For we are many.” In the story, Jesus commanded the demons out of the man and cast them into a herd of two thousand pigs. Driven mad, the pigs rush into a nearby lake and drown.

Even the snake in the Garden of Eden—Satan in disguise—is Basil’s favorite character in the Bible. Not that he’d tell the priests that …

“The discovery of Christ is not found in a darkened room, Peter,” he says solemnly. “It’s found in the light. God is not found through escape from a distant place, but through the arrival of where you already are.

So much of religion is ceremony that I sometimes wonder if priests like Poole have become so entwined with the process that they’ve forgotten the spirit behind it.

“Credis in Deum Patrem omnipotentum, Creatorem caeli et terrae?” “Credo. Good,” Andrew says, concentrating on my words, waiting for the next mistake. “Credis in Jesum Christum Filium ejus unicum, Dominum nostrum, natum, et pasum?” “Credo…” “Credis et in Spiritum Sanctum, santam Ecclesiam Catholicam … Sanctorum communionem, remissionem pecatorum, carnis res…” I

One reason tragedy exists is to teach us how to help others, help others learn how to find a way through their own dark time, through a journey of growth.

Ahead, I focus on the thin bar of light beneath the closed dormitory doors. As I get closer, I hear muted voices, and take comfort in the idea of being back with the other orphans. I place a hand on the cool handle and pause, thinking about my conversation with Andrew, the struggle between light and dark. If embracing the light makes me a man of faith, what would embracing the dark make me?

“As believers in God,” he intones solemnly, “we do not fear Death’s sting. Like birth, it is but part of life, a gift from Jesus Christ, and the beginning of our eternal…”

“His soul was poisoned, if that’s what you’re asking,” Andrew says finally, cautiously. “I won’t go into the details of his troubles, Peter. It won’t help us through this.” “Father, please. Tell me who he was. Why did the sheriff bring him?”

“Andrew, tell me the truth about one thing,” Peter says, and Andrew finds himself forced to look directly at the boy, to meet his questioning stare. “Was the man possessed?”

Sometimes you just know the kind of person someone is, especially when they’re lowly and selfish. You find they rarely disappoint.

Bartholomew lets out a breath, then the smile returns. “To be fair, it didn’t help that she did her business right there in your dumpy, shitty little house. As a matter of fact, she’d fuck strange men on the same bed where she’d once slept with your dead father. What do they call that? Oh, right. A marriage bed. Well, that was shot to hell, wasn’t it?”