DON'T MISS THESE CHILLING NOVELS
BY JOHN SAUL
SUFFER THE CHILDREN
PUNISH THE SINNERS
CRY FOR THE STRANGERS
COMES THE BLIND FURY
WHEN THE WIND BLOWS
THE GOD PROJECT
NATHANIEL
BRAINCHILD
HELLFIRE
THE UNWANTED
THE UNLOVED
CREATURE
SECOND CHILD
SLEEPWALK
DARKNESS
SHADOWS
CO
bi
o
equals tilde to
O greater-than
Initiation Rite
Peter Balsam sank deeper into the trance. His
senses sharpened, he felt the searing flame from each
candle; he heard the voice of the devil catling out
to him in his head. He felt the heat of hell glowing
around him and as his discomfort grew he became frightened.
. . . Then he was being drawn downward and he felt
angelic hands caress him. He was suddenly
cooler, calmer. He began silently repeating the
Acts of Faith and Contrition, as his ecstasy
grew.
He was joined at last to the Society of Still Peter
Martyour.
Only later did he make the awful discovery:
On Peter's back, from his shoulders to his waist,
were angry red welts. The marks were swollen and
stood out in painful relief from the pale whiteness of
his back. "My God," Margo breathed, as
she slipped the robe from his shoulders, "What
happened?" And then the full horror of it struck
him. He began to shake andwiththe trembling came the
terror. "I don't know," he sobbed. "And that's the
worst of it. still don't know where they came from."
By John Saul:
SUFFER THE CHILDREN
PUNISH THE SINNERS
CRY FOR THE STRANGERS
COMES THE BLIND FURY
WHEN THE WIND BLOWS
THE GOD PROJECT
NATHANIEL
BRAINCHILD
HELLFIRE
THE UNWANTED
THE UNLOVED
CREATURE
SECOND CHILD
SLEEPWALK
DARKNESS
SHADOWS
Punish the Sinners
John Saul
A DELL BOOK
Published by
Dell Publishing
i division of
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group,
Inc.
1540 Broadway
caret ew York, New York 10036
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be
aware that this book s stolen property. It was
reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher
md neither the author nor the publisher has received
any payment for this "stripped book."
For Linda and Jane The Grey Ladies with the Red
Roses
Copyright [*copygg'1978 by John Saul
backslash 11 rights reserved. No part of this book
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form
or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including shotocopying, recording or by any information
storage and retrieval system, without the written
permission of the Publisher, except where jermitted
by law.
Fhe trademark Dell[*reggg'is registered in
the U.s. Patent md Trademark Office.
ISBN: 0-440-17084-2
Printed in the United States of America
fwo Previous Editions ufteen printings
August 1986
[0 39 38 37 36 35
Prologue
He reached up and grasped the doorknob carefully,
half-hoping it would be locked. When it wasn't, his
eyes widened in anticipation, and he began pushing the
door open very slowly. When you are four years old,
and you are going to do something that you are not sure you should do,
you try to do it either very slowly or very quickly. The little
boy was doing it very slowly.
He pushed the door to his parents' bedroom open just
far enough for his small body to slip in, then closed it
again behind him. He looked around, though he already knew
the room was empty. On the other hand, when you are
four, very few rooms are truly empty.
He tiptoed across the room to his mother's closet,
and again half-hoped the door would be locked. When he
found that it wasn't, he made up his mind to go ahead
and do it. He pulled the door open and stepped into the
closet. There they were: his mother's shoes.
He had seen a picture in a book once-a little
boy, all dressed up in his mother's clothes-his
tiny feet lost in the immense high-heeled
shoes, his body swathed in the folds of a red
dress, and his face just barely visible peering out from
under the brim of a large sunbonnet. His mother had
thought the little boy in the picture was adorable.
So now he stepped into a pair of his mother's shoes,
and tried to balance his weight on those tiny little
heels. It was difficult, but he managed it.
Then, while he was trying to figure out how he was
going to get to the hatbox perched almost out of sight on
the shelf far above his head, he heard the sound.
It was the click of a doorknob, and even before he
heard the next sound, he knew that someone had come
into the room. He turned quickly; the closet door
was almost closed. Maybe, if he held very still, and
stayed very quiet, whoever was in the bedroom wouldn't
notice the closet door at all ...
He crouched down on the floor of the closet. More
sounds. Footsteps, and two voices. It was his
parents, and they were both in the bedroom. He heard the
bedroom door close.
"I just don't like doing it now," he heard his mother
say. "It seems so-so dirty, I guess."
"You mean you don't like doing it in the light." His
father, angry. "The trouble with you, Ruth, is that you're
prissy. You need a touch of the whore in you."
The little boy wondered what "the whore" was.
There was a scuffling noise, and then his mother's voice:
"What about the children?"
"What about them?" his father rumbled. "Elaine's at
school, and the kid's outside somewhere doing God knows
what."
The little boy sank farther back into the depths of the
doset. Suddenly it was very important that he not be
iiscovered. He wasn't sure why, but he knew
it was imxatant.
He listened to more scuffling sounds, and heard conome
words that he couldn't quite make out. He began cono
wonder what was happening on the other side of the
beloset door, but he was afraid to peek out and
see.
When his mother began to moan, the little boy con-
PUNISH THE SINNERS 7
quered his fear. He crept to the crack where the door
stood slightly ajar, and pressed his eye close.
He could see the foot of the bed, but that was all. His
mother moaned louder; he decided to risk pushing the
closet door open a little more. And then he saw them.
They were on the bed, and they didn't have any clothes
on. His father lay on top of his mother. She was crying
or moaning and struggling with his father. But she had
her arms around his neck, and between the moans she was
saying, "Yes . . . Yes . . . Oh, God,
yes!"
As he watched the strange scene on the bed, the little
boy became frightened. He thought maybe he ought
to help his mother, but he was scared of his father. His father had
hit him before; he didn't want to be hit again. And
he wasn't really sure that his mother wanted any
help. Still, her cries were getting louder, and now she
really did seem to be struggling. But her arms were still
around his father, and she was kissing him.
The little boy's eye was caught by another movement in
the room, and he realized that the bedroom door was
opening again. He held his breath, then let it out again
when he saw Elaine standing in the doorway. She would
know what to do, he thought. She was sixteen years
old, and almost all grown up. If his mother needed
any help, Elaine would be able to provide it He
watched as Elaine moved toward the bed, waiting for
her to say something, do something. But she didn't. She
just stood there by the bed-watching.
Just as the little boy was about to call out to his sister, he
saw her suddenly raise her hands above her head.
He saw the meat cleaver from the kitchen clutched in
her hands.
And he saw the cleaver flash down, and heard the
greater-than und as the hard metal slashed through his
father's aill.
He heard his mother cry out, and he watched in consion as
she tried to struggle free of his father's weight, e
wondered why Elaine didn't help his mother, now at
she had stopped his father from doing whatever he as doing.
He realized that Elaine wasn't going to help his
other. He watched, horrified, as his sister raised
the saver again, and brought it down into his mother's ce.
He thought he heard his mother scream, but it was
0 quick for him to be sure. Frozen, he watched as
his ster raised the cleaver-again and again-bringing it ishing through
the air. Long after they had both jpped moving, the
knife continued to flash until all he mid see was
silver and red.
Terrified, the little boy huddled in the closet,
wonring if his sister was going to find him and start
hitLg him, too. But she was standing still now, looking
at lat she had done. And then she started moving again.
disence dropped the bloody cleaver on the bed, and
knelt wn on the floor, as if looking for something
he uldn't see.
She stood up again, and pulled a chair to the center the
room, directly below the light fixture in
the ceil;. She climbed up onto the chair and
began tying tnething to the light fixture. It was an
electrical cord,
1 kind his parents used when they needed something lger
than the cords that came on the electric things. i
wondered why she was tying it to the light fixture,
erybody knew that electric cords have to be plugged
for them to work.
He saw his sister tie the other end of the cord around
r neck, and he realized what she was going to do.
s'd seen this before. She was going to hang herself.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 9
He'd seen pictures of it. But if she hung
herself, who would take care of him? He had to stop
her. The little boy finally found his voice.
He screamed and as the wail escaped his throat, the
girl on the chair spun around and lost her footing.
As the chair fell away from her, the closet door
swung open, and their eyes met. And then her neck
snapped. It was over.
The little boy watched helplessly as his sister swung
slowly back and forth. Finally he moved toward her,
and reached out to touch her. She felt strange. She
didn't feel like his sister anymore. He wondered
what to do.
Much later-he didn't know how much later-he heard
a scream. He didn't respond to it. He was
huddled in the corner of the closet, his knees drawn
up under his chin, his arms wrapped around his legs. He
thought he heard some other noises too, and even
later, he was aware that the closet door was being
pulled open. It wasn't until a pair of arms
reached down and picked him up that he started crying.
When he started, he cried for a long time.
They kept him in a hospital for the first day after the
discovery of the gruesome scene in the bedroom. The
nuns took care of him, and asked him a lot of
questions, but he couldn't answer any of them. He
wanted his mother and his father. They didn't come to see
him..
On the second day they took him to the convent. He
didn't know what a convent was, only that it was a
big building, and there were lots of nuns there who
fussed over him a lot. And there were other children there,
children who lived there. The little boy wondered if he,
too, was going to live there.
As he went to sleep the second night, he
wondered if
his parents would come to see him. And Elaine. He
wondered what had happened to Elaine. As
he drifted off to sleep, he thought he saw her.
She was looking at him, and there was something wrong with
her. Her neck looked funny-stretched out and
tilted at an odd angle. When the little boy
screamed, a nun hurried into the room and put her
arms around him. The nun held him until he went
back to sleep. backslash
On the third day they took him to church and the little boy
realized that his parents weren't going to come and get him.
He realized that they were in the boxes at the front
of the church, and that after the boxes were taken away, he
wouldn't see them again.
He asked if it would be all right if he looked at
his parents before they were taken away, but he was told that
he couldn't. He wondered why.
During the funeral service the little boy kept
looking curiously around the church, and shortly before the
service ended, he tugged at the black folds of the
habit the woman next to him was wearing. He knew
she was a nun, and that she would take care of him. He
tugged again at her habit and she leaned down to put
her ear close to his lips.
"Where's Elaine?" he asked. "Isn't she going
to be here?"
The nun stared at the little boy for a moment, then
shook her head.
"She can't be here," the nun said finally. "You mustn't
think about her anymore, or talk about her."
"Why not?" the little boy asked.
"Never mind," the nun admonished him. "Your sister
was an evil child, and she has sinned. You mustn't think
about her."
PUNISH THE SINNERS 11
The funeral mass ended, and his parents were taken from the
church. He watched them go, and wondered what had
happened to them.
And what had happened to his sister.
And why he was by himself.
But, of course, he wasn't by himself. He was in the
convent, but no one would tell him why. He heard
someone-one of the sisters-say: "He'll get over it.
He'll forget. It will be better that way."
The little boy did not forget. Not while he was
small, and not while he grew up. Always, he was
aware that something had happened. Something had happened
to his parents, and to his sister. And his sister had
caused it to happen.
His sister was evil.
She had sinned.
He knew that God forgave sinners.
But who punishes them?
By the time he was ten, he had stopped asking.
Nobody had ever told him the answer.
M
3NO XOOS
Peter Balsam trudged to the top of Cathedral
Hill and stared up at the forbidding stone facade of the
Church of St. Francis Xavier. The desert
heat seemed to intensify, and Balsam could feel
sweat pouring from his armpits, and forming rivulets as it
coursed down his back. He sank down on the steps
in front of the church, and stared at the vista below him.
The town was called Neilsville, and it lay
shimmering in the heat of the Eastern Washington desert
lite some dying thing writhing in agony with each
tortured breath, unable to end its misery.
There was an aura about Neilsville, an aura that
Peter Balsam had felt the minute he had
arrived but had not yet been able to define.
A word had flashed into his mind the moment he had
gotten off the train two noun earlier. He had
put it immediately out of his mind. It had kept coming
back.
Evil.
It covered the town like the stink of death, and
Peter Balsam's first impulse had been
to run-to put himself and all his possessions on the
next train east, and get away from Neilsville
at fast as he could.
But the next train would not be until tomorrow, and so,
reluctantly, he had gone to the apartment that had been
rented for him, He had not unpacked his suitcases,
caret
n i -- n n
n n tilde
H
aot put his name on the mailbox, not tried to order
a shone, not done any of the other things that one nornally
does to settle into a new home.
Instead, he had tried to tell himself that the pervadng
sense of foreboding, of something desperately wrong n
the town, was only in his imagination, and had set nit
to explore the place.
After two hours he had climbed Cathedral
Hill, and low he was about to present himself to the man
who lad brought him to Neilsville.
He slipped into the gloom of the church, dipped his
Singers into the holy water, made the sign of the
cross as tie genuflected, and slid into a pew.
Peter Balsam began to pray.
He prayed the prayers the nuns had carefully
taught liim in the convent, die prayers that had always
before brought him peace.
Today there was no peace. It was as if fingers were reaching
out to him, grasping at him, trying to pull him nto
some strange morass that he could feel but not see.
Balsam concentrated on his prayers, repeating the
faniliar phrases over and over again, until the
rhythms of lie rosary overcame the fear within him.
"Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinters
. . ."
In the study of the rectory next to the church,
Monsimor Peter Vernon paced slowly back and
forth. He had watched Balsam's slow progress
up Cathedral Hill, and lad expected to hear the
faint tinkling that would anlounce his visitor. Now
he realized that Balsam must lave stopped to catch
his breath after the long climb.
The priest went back to the window, and stared out once
more, taking in the familiar dry vista of
Neilsville, then focusing on the five girls
who were playing on the
PUNISH THE SINNERS 17
tennis courts below him-four of them together, one alone.
As he continued to stare down at them, each of
them, in turn, glanced up at him as if they had
felt his disapproving glare. One of them waved
impudently, and the priest quickly stepped back from the
window, embarrassed at having been discovered watching
them, and angry at his own embarrassment.
He resented the girls, resented the way they acted
so respectful in his presence, then sneered at him from
a distance. When he had been a child, such impudence had
not been tolerated. The nuns had demanded respect
all the time, and the boys in the convent had given it,
unquestioningly. But times had changed, and these girls
didn't live at St. Francis Xavier's,
didn't have the constant supervision he himself had had
at their age. This year, he told himself, things would be
different. This year, with the help of Peter Balsam,
he would take a stronger stand. This year, he would teach
them respect, and humility. It was for this purpose
that he had summoned Peter Balsam
to Neilsville.
It had not been an easy thing to do. From its inception,
the parish school had employed only nuns on the
teaching staff, and they had resisted when Monsignor
had told them he was bringing in a layman to teach
psychology. Psychology, they had told him, had
no place at St. Francis Xavier's.
It should be left to the public school. And as for a
man-and not even a priest at that-teaching at St.
Francis Xavier's, it was simply unheard of.
Monsignor Vernon had explained to them: he had
been unable to find anyone else who could teach both
psychology and Latin. Then, when they still resisted,
he had invoked his authority as their religious
superior. They, like most others, had wilted under the
brooding stare of the Monsignor. The priest had
invited Peter Balsam to come to Neilsville.
n i less-than not n
Knowing Balsam's background, Monsignor
Vernon had felt it unlikely that his old friend would
refuse. Balsam hadn't
Peter Balsam emerged from the church, recoiling from
the hot blast that assaulted him as he stepped into the
fierce sunglare. He told himself once again that the
fear the town instilled in him was only in his mind. It
was just that it was all so different from what he had grown
up with, so dry and parched-looking.
He told himself that he should stay, should give
Neilsville a chance. He had lived with fear too
long, and this time he should overcome it. As he walked
to the rectory next to the church, he told himself that the
discomfort he was feeling came only from his own
imagination. But he didn't believe it, for as he
climbed the steps to the porch of the rectory, he again
felt something pulling at him, something from outside
himself. Something in Neilsville.
He glanced around for the doorbell as he crossed the
porch. He was about to knock on the door when he
saw i neatly lettered card taped to the inside of the
glass "anel in its center. "Please come in," the
card read. Balsam obediently tried the
doorknob, and entered the ioyer of the rectory.
To hii right stood a small table, ind on the table
rested a silver bell. Balsam picked up lie
bell, and shook it gently, sending a clear, tinkling
iound through the house. A silent moment passed
beccore he heard the click of a doorlatch somewhere
down lie hall and saw a figure emerge from a
room. Then Pete Vernon was striding toward him,
tall, purposeful, greater-than ne hand stretched out
in greeting.
"Peter Balsam," he heard the priest*ness
voice boom. "How long has it been?" A moment
later, even before le had a chance to say hello,
Balsam found himself
PUNISH THE SINNERS 19
being propelled down the hall and into the room
from which the priest had appeared a few seconds
earlier.
"Pete-was Balsam began tentatively, as
Vernon closed the door of what was apparently his
study. Suddenly Balsam realized that he was even
more nervous than he had thought. Something in his old friend
had changed. He seemed taller, and more confident, and
there was a brooding quality in his eyes, a darkness that
Balsam found unnerving. "It's been a long time,"
he finished lamely. "Thirteen or fourteen
years, I guess."
"Sit down, sit down," Vernon said. He
indicated two large easy chairs that flanked a
stone fireplace, and settled into one of them before
Balsam had reached the other. As he sank slowly
into his chair, Balsam became acutely aware that
Pete Vernon was examining him closely.
"I'm afraid Fm a bit rumpled," he said,
grinning uncomfortably. "It's quite a hill you have
here."
"You get used to it," Vernon said. "At least I
have. Welcome to Neilsville."
The Monsignor saw Balsam's grin fade, and
his own brows furrowed slightly. "Is anything
wrong? The apartment not satisfactory?"
Balsam shook his head. "The apartment's fine. Fm
not sure what it is. It's hard to explain, but ever
since I got oft the train, I've had this strange
feeling. I can't really put my finger on it. I
keep telling myself it's only my imagination, but I
keep getting the feeling that something's-was He broke
off, trying to find the right word. He hesitated over
using the word "evil," though that was the word that kept coming
to mind. "comt something's not right here."
He felt a sudden chill coming from the priest, and
realized he'd said the wrong thing. Neilsville had
been the Monsignor8ness home for nearly fifteen
years, and the
n n n
U
first thing Balsam had done was insult the place.
He tried to recover from the blunder.
"But Tm sure Til get used to it," he said
quicldy, and only then realized that he had committed
himself to stay. The priest seemed to relax again, and
smiled at
"And your wife?" he asked smoothly. "Linda,
isn't it? When will she be joining you?"
Tm afraid she won't be joining me at all,"
Balsam said carefully. Tm afraid
we're separated. Sometimes things just don't work out."
"I see," Vernon said in a tone of voice that
told Balsam he didn't see at all.
"Well, that's most unfortunate."
Balsam decided to try to make light of it. There
was no point in trying to explain what had gone wrong
and do sympathy in the priest's steely gaze. "That
depends on how yon look at it," he said, forcing
a smile. "From (ur point of view-Linda's and
mine, that is-it was he marriage that was unfortunate,
not the separation."
Balsam's smile faded as he watched Vernon
stiffen. le had made another mistake: Pete
Vernon was a Hiest, and a failed marriage was
nothing to make light greater-than from.
"I shouldn't have said that," he said quickly. "Of iourse
the whole thing has been very painful, and I'm ifraid
it will take time." A lot of time, he thought
to limself, but the priest seemed mollified.
"Of course," Vernon said, his voice suddenly
taking less-than a a fatherly quality Balsam had
never heard before.
11 there's anything I can do ..." He trailed off
and hen he suddenly shifted in his chair. When he
spoke gain, it was with annoyance.
"I wish you'd told me all this before," he said.
"Such hings make a much bigger difference in towns like
PUNISH THE SINNERS 21
Neilsville than they do in bigger cities. It
isn't going to make things easier for either of us."
My God, Balsam thought, is he going to fire
me before I even get a chance? Aloud he said, "I
don't really see why my marital status is
anyone's business but my own."
Vernon smiled tolerantly at him. "I'm
afraid you have a lot to learn about Neilsville.
Here, such matters are everybody's business.
Well, I don't really see that there's anything
to be done about the situation. I mean, here you are, and
Linda isn't here, and that's that, isn't it?"
Balsam hoped his sigh of relief wasn't
audible.
"Pete," he began, but broke off when the priest
held up bis hand.
"Since we're talking about the less pleasant
aspects of Neilsville, there are one or two more
things I should tell you right now. First, while we're
old friends, and it's perfectly natural for you
to call me Pete, in this parish we tend to be a
bit on the formal side. Everybody, and I
mean everybody, calls me Monsignor. It may
seem stiff to you, but there are reasons for it. So
I'd suggest that you try to get into the habit of using
my title yourself." He smiled wryly at the look
of stupefaction on Balsam's face. "I wish it
weren't necessary," he said, "but I'm afraid it is.
If people overheard you calling me Pete instead of
Monsignor, they'd take it as a sign of
disrespect."
"I see," Balsam said slowly, hoping he'd
matched the tone that Vernon had achieved earlier with the
same phrase. "Doesn't that sort of thing tend
to isolate you from everyone?"
Vernon shrugged helplessly. "What can I do?
That's the way things have always been done here, and that's the
way the people here like it. We have a duty to our
flock, don't we?" Before Balsam could reply,
the priest stood up. "Suppose I take you on
a little tour?" he suggested. "We might as well
get you used to the lay of the land." He smiled
warmly, but Peter Balsam suddenly wondered just
how much of that warmth was real.
Monsignor Vernon led Peter Balsam from the
rectory across the tennis courts to the school
building. The four girls who had been
playing doubles stopped their game and stared at the two
men. Peter Balsam grinned at them
self-consciously, while the priest studiously
ignored them.
The fifth girl, absorbed in trying to serve balls
against the wall of a handball court, didn't seem
to notice them at all.
"They really gave me the once-over," Balsam
cornmented when the two men were inside the school
building.
"It was me they were staring at," Monsignor Vernon
said stiffly. "They do it on purpose. They think it
embarrasses me."
"Does it?" Balsam asked mildly, and was
surprised when the priest grasped his arm and turned
to face him.
"No," he said, his dark eyes boring into Peter's.
"It doesn't bother me at all. Will it bother
you?"
"Why should it?" Balsam asked in confusion, wondering
why the priest was reacting so strongly.
The Monsignor dropped his arm as quickly as he'd
grasped it. "No reason," he said shortly.
"No reason at all."
But as they began their tour of the school,
Peter Balsam was sure that there was a reason. He
told himself it was nothing more than a function of their
common background. Growing up in the convent, neither of
them had ever learned how to deal with teen-age girls.
And now, in their mid-thirties, it was probably
too late
PUNISH THE SINNERS 23
for either of them to learn. So, in their own ways, each of
them coped with his discomfort-Balsam by grinning
foolishly, and Vernon by ignoring them completely.
As they began their tour of Still Francis Xavier
High School, Peter Balsam put the entire
incident out of his mind.
On the tennis court the four girls gave up their
game and gathered together. Judy Nelson, a few
months older than the other three, was snickering.
"We really bugged him that time," she said. "He always
tries to pretend we don't exist."
"Only during the summer." Penny Anderson
shuddered. "During the year you can't get away from
him." If any of the girls heard her, they didn't
respond. They were still watching the two figures as
they disappeared into the school building.
"Did you see what happened when I waved to him?"
Karen Morton asked. "I thought he was
going to freak. I hate the way he stares at me."
"Everyone stares at you," Judy replied, trying
to keep the envy out of her voice. "And the way you
flash your body around, who can blame them?" Judy
was pleased to see her friend blush.
"She can't help it," Janet Connally defended
Karen. "We can't all afford to get new clothes every
week."
Karen Morton flushed again, unsure whether her
overdeveloped figure or her poverty was the most
shameful, and wishing someone would change the subject
To her relief, the fourth girl in the group did.
"That must have been the new teacher with Monsignor,"
Penny Anderson said. "My mother picked him up at
the train this afternoon and took him to his apartment. She
says he's weird."
"Then he'll fit in here just fine," Judy commented.
n n
less-than i greater-than .-Were
M
"If you ask me, this whole town's weird." She
shuddered a little, but the other three girls ignored it:
Judy had hated Neilsville as long as they could
remember.
"Are you going to take his course?" Penny
asked Judy.
"I wouldn't miss it," Judy said, a
conspiratorial look coming over her face.
"Let's all take it."
"I don't know if my mother will let me," Penny
said doubtfully. "She doesn't think they ought to be
teaching psychology."
"Nobody does, except Monsignor,"
Janet put in. "And I keep wondering why he
wants it so badly. I mean, it seems like the last
thing he'd want us to know anything about."
"Maybe he had to put it in," Karen suggested.
"Maybe the Bishop insisted."
"Oh, who cares?" Judy Nelson said
impatiently. "The point is, if we can all get
into that class, and they ion't split us up like they
usually do, we can get away ivith anything. I
mean, a new teacher, who isn't even a lun?
It'll be too much. After the first week he won't
mow what hit him."
"It would be fun," Penny agreed. "But Til have
to rork on Mother."
"And speaking of mothers," Judy cut in with a
griaace, "I have to meet mine down at
Osgood's to buy a lew dress. You
want to come along?" The question was ddressed to the group,
but only Karen Morton reponded:
"I'll come. Well find you something sexy to wear
to le party Saturday."
"As if she'd let me buy something sexy," Judy
roaned. "She thinks I'm twelve years old."
The two of lem wandered off, leaving Penny and
Janet alone on ie court. After a moment,
Judy spotted the fifth girl
PUNISH THE SBWERS 25
still silently serving balls to herself on the handball
court. She nudged Karen, then turned and called
to her friends, loudly enough for the other girl to hear, "You
coming, or are you just going to stand there and watch the
elephant play?"
Janet Connally's eyes widened in surprise at
her friend's meanness, but she said nothing. She just tugged
at Penny's arm, and began walking away. At the
other end of the court Judy Nelson was giggling at
her own wit.
The object of Judy's wit, Marilyn Crane,
wanted to shrink up and die. She'd heard the
crack, as she knew she was intended to, and she
tried to hold back her tears.
It wasn't her fault she was clumsy, she
told herself. It was just the way things were-the way things
had always been. All her life, ever since she was
small, she'd been too big, and too homely.
All her life her mother had read her the story of the
ugly duckling, and tried to convince her that someday
she'd grow up to be a swan. But Marilyn knew
it wasn't true.
She tried to swat another ball neatly against the
concrete wall, but missed. She glanced quickly
around, relieved to see that she hadn't been observed.
She scooped up her balls and stuffed them into a can.
She would have done it much earlier, but the foursome had
arrived, and Marilyn hadn't wanted them to think she
was leaving just because they were there. Staying had been even
worse, since what little skill she had developed
over the summer had immediately escaped her with the arrival
of an audience. With the stoicism she had developed
over her fifteen years of life, she had stuck it
out. Now, finally, she was able to make her escape.
i
n i -- n n
t less-than
She decided to go into the church. It would be cool in
there, but more important, in the church she knew she
could find solace from her confusion. It was
only there, sitting in the chilly gloom, that
Marilyn felt she belonged, that no one was laughing
at her, or making cruel remarks just loudly enough for
her to overhear.
In church, Marilyn would be close to the Blessed
Virgin, and the Blessed Virgin always brought her
peace.
Indeed, when she sat in the church, staring up at the
statue of the Madonna, it was almost as if the Virgin
were alive and reaching out to her. Marilyn wanted to reach
back, to touch that presence who brought her peace.
But each day, for Marilyn Crane, there was less and
less peace. One day, she knew, there would be none
at all. And on that day, she would finally touch the
Sorrowful Mother, and her own sorrow would be
transferred to the Mother of God.
Marilyn slipped into the church, and silently began
praying for forgiveness of all her sins.
As they moved from room to room, exploring St.
Francis Xavier's High School, Peter
Balsam began to feel increasingly uncomfortable.
Most of the parochial schools he had seen had begun
to take on the same casual flavor as the public
schools, emphasizing secular subjects rather than
religious training. But here in
Neilsville, the classrooms were stark,
decorated only with a small statue of the Blessed
Virgin, placed in identical niches in each of the
rooms. As the tour progressed, Monsignor
Vernon became aware of Balsam's discomfort.
"I told you we were formal around here," he said with a
tight smile. "I suppose you think we are a
bit backward."
Once again, Peter tried to make light of his
feelings. "I was just wondering how St. Francis
Xavier himself would feel about all this," he said. "As
I recall, the old boy was pretty famous for his
lack of formality. In fact, he tended to be
pretty merry about most everything, didn't he?"
Monsignor Vernon paused a moment, his hand
resting on the doorknob of the only room they hadn't
yet inspected. He looked at Balsam for almost
a full minute, and when he spoke it was obvious that
he was choosing his words carefully.
"Let me put it this way," he said. "Despite
the fact
n n
*PHM-THAT
that St. Francis Xavier was a Jesuit, this is
obviously not a Jesuit school. The
fact of the matter is that Neilsville, and the people of this
parish, myself included, tend to feel much more at home
with the Dominicans than with the Jesuits. Do I
make myself clear?"
Balsam tried to keep his smile genuine, and his
voice easy. "Perfectly," he said. "Although I
have to admit that I tend to associate the
Dominicans with the Inquisition. HI do my best
to get over it."
Monsignor Vernon stared at him once more, then a
smile began playing around his lips. "I hope you
will," he said, his voice taking on a warm
heartiness. He unlocked the door of the last
classroom, then stood aside to let Peter enter.
"This room is going to be yours."
Balsam looked around the room with more curiosity
than he had felt in any of the others. It seemed the
same: square, overlooking the schoolyard, a
blackboard on one wall, desks perfectly lined
up in five rows of six desks each, with his own
desk squatting forbiddingly in one corner, so placed
that none of the students could ever be obstructed from his
view. At the back of the room, as in all the other
rooms, there was a niche for the ever-present statue of the
Virgin Mary. But in this room the niche
contained a different statue. Balsam stared at it
for a moment, then turned to Monsignor Vernon.
He was surprised to see that the beginnings of a smile
had grown into a full-fledged grin.
"I don't get it," Balsam said finally, moving
closer to the statue and examining it carefully. "Who
is he?"
"That," Monsignor Vernon replied in the
jovial voice Peter Balsam remembered from their
college days together, "is St. Peter Martyour."
When Balsam still looked blank, Vernon continued,
"That's the Dominican you're going to have to get used
to. While St. Francis Xavier may have been
famous for
PUNISH THE SINNERS 29
his merriment, St. Peter Martyour was equally famous
for his vigilance in the matter of heresy."
"Heresy?" Balsam repeated, still not seeing the
point.
The grin faded from Monsignor Vernon's face.
"My idea of a joke," he explained. "I thought,
since you're going to be teaching pyschology, and some
of the modern psychological theories seem pretty
heretical to the Church, that it might be amusing to put
St. Peter Martyour in here. To keep an
eye on you."
Balsam shook his head sadly, then looked
closely at the man who had once been his friend,
trying to determine if the priest really had thought it
would be amusing to put the statue in his room, or
whether he was trying to say something to Balsam, to warn
him about something. It was impossible to tell.
"Well," the Monsignor said finally, breaking what
was fast turning into an embarrassing silence,
"suppose we go back to the rectory for a few
minutes? There're a few things we should talk about,
and I have some excellent sherry. If it isn't too
early?"
"Fine," Balsam agreed distractedly, not really
hearing the question.
They returned to the rectory in silence, Balsam
wondering how his friend could have changed so much in so few
years. He had remembered Pete Vernon as
someone who tended to take life as it came, and make
the most of it. Now he seemed to have turned
completely around, and taken on an odd stiffness,
almost an awkwardness, he'd never had in their school
days. Well, Balsam told himself as they reentered
the study, I shouldn't have expected him to be the
same. We all change, and he has a
lot of responsibilities. Balsam decided
he was simply going to have to change his perspective with
respect to Pete Vernon. Then he smiled to himself
slightly
as he realized that the change in Pete would certainly
make it easier for him to remember to call him
"Monsignor."
The priest handed him a glass of sherry, then picked
up a folder from the desk that sat in one corner of the
room, bringing it with Mm when he returned to the chair
opposite Balsam. The two men sipped their
sherry in silence for a moment, then the priest spoke.
"I have something here that intrigues me," he said,
tapping the folder. Balsam looked at him
inquiringly.
"The synopsis of your thesis," Vernon continued.
"I keep going over and over it and I get the
distinct impression that whoever wrote the summary
left a lot out."
Suddenly Balsam relaxed: he was on familiar
territory.
"I can well imagine," he said. "You have no idea
how much trouble that thesis caused. For a while there, I
thought I was going to be tossed out of St.
Alban's."
Vernon fingered the folder. "I can well imagine."
He read the title of the thesis aloud: was
"Suicide As Sin: An Investigation of the
Validity of the Doctrine." It almost sounds as if
you were challenging the Doctrine. were you?" He looked
pointedly at Peter.
Balsam shrugged his shoulders. "That depends on
what you mean by "challenge." All I set out
to do was take a look at the Doctrine of the Chruch
in light of what psychologists now know about the
phenomenon of suicide."
"And that's not challenging the Doctrine?" the priest
asked.
"Not in my mind," Balsam said. "But Fm
afraid at St. Alban's they didn't see much
difference between my investigation and an actual
challenge."
PUNISH THE SINNERS 31
"I don't suppose they did," the Monsignor
cornmented. "In fact, neither do I."
"Well, I suppose the best way to explain it
is in terms of a trial. What I was doing, I
thought, was conducting a preliminary hearing to see if
there was enough evidence for a trial."
"And was there?"
Balsam shrugged. "Who knows? I found a few
conflicts between the Doctrine of the Church and the science
of psychology. As to the resolution of the conflicts,
Til leave that to better minds than mine."
Monsignor Vernon suddenly leaned back in his
chair and seemed to relax. For the first time, Balsam
realized that the subject of his thesis had disturbed the
priest. He decided that a little explanation was in
order.
"It's just always seemed to me that the Doctrine of the
Church with reference to suicide is a bit
inhuman," he began.
Monsignor Vernon smiled thinly. "The
Doctrines of the Church are concerned with God," he
said. "That which may seem inhuman isn't
necessarily un-Godly."
Balsam's brows arched. Spoken like a true
Inquisitor, he thought. Aloud he said: "It just
seems to me that anybody who is deranged enough
to want to kill himself can't be called rational, and
certainly deserves the same considerations the Church
gives to what we like to call "morons and
savages.""
"Your analogy doesn't work," Vernon replied
stiffly. "Morons and savages are not
responsible for themselves, not because they are morons and
savages per se, but simply because they have no
capacity for understanding the Doctrines."
Balsam decided not to press his point. "Well,
as I said, it's going to have to be left to better minds
than mine to decide whether or not the Doctrine should
be
n i * n
1 -T
u
changed. I took no stand whatsoever in the thesis, which
is probably why it passed."
"And you came to no conclusions of your own?" the
Monsignor pressed.
Balsam shook his head. "As far as I'm concerned,
all I did was raise more questions. I don't think
I'm qualified enough in either psychology or theology
to come up with any answers."
Monsignor Vernon nodded bis head slowly, as
if digesting what Balsam had just said. When he
spoke again, it took a moment for Balsam to see the
continuity.
"I should tell you that there has been a lot of concern
expressed in the parish about the course you're going
to teach," he said. "I'm afraid there's a
strong feeling that psychology has no place in a
religious school. Frankly, I had some doubts
about whether or not I'd chosen the right man for the job."
"And?" Balsam prompted him. Monsignor
Vernon smiled grimly. "Let's just say I
feel a bit better about it now. A few minutes
ago I was about to give you a strong warning against teaching
our students anything that is contrary to the
Doctrines."
Which warning you have just given me, Balsam said to himself.
"And you don't think you have to now?" he asked, trying
to keep his voice level.
"I think you'll do just fine," Vernon said, standing
up. "But I think I was wise to put St. Peter
Martyour in your room," he added. Balsam
wondered if he saw a light in Vernon's eye.
He decided he didn't.
"Maybe I'd better study up on St. Peter
Martyour," he said. "Since we're going to be
roommates."
Vernon clapped him on the shoulder and Balsam
felt himself being steered toward the door. "Maybe you
should," the priest agreed. "He was a fascinating
man. Believe me when I tell you that he never had
any trou-
I
PUNISH THE SINNERS 33
ble at all in determining what was, and what was not,
in conflict with the Doctrines of the Church. If you ever
have any doubts about what to teach your class, consult
St. Peter Martyour. Or me, for that matter. The
sin of pride aside, I have almost as fine a sense
of right as Still Peter did."
"I'll keep it in mind," Balsam said dryly,
and wondered if the priest had heard him. They were
near the front door now, and Monsignor Vernon
seemed lost in thought
"You know," he said, as he opened the front door,
"I was just thinking. I have a study group-pretty
informal, for Neilsville-that you might be interested in
joining. Particularly if you want to find out more about
Peter Martyour. He's our favorite saint.
Or have you drifted completely away from such things?"
He looked with a sudden intensity into Peter
Balsam's eyes. Balsam met the priest's
gaze for a moment, then broke away from it
"Not completely," he said uncertainly. "But I
think it'll have to wait I've got a lot of
preparing to do for my classes."
"More than you know," Vernon said in a tone that
made Balsam look inquiringly at him. Seeing
the confused look on Balsam's face, the priest
continued. "We decided it should be the junior class
that got first crack at the psychology course," he
said. "And in the junior class we have four girls
who will undoubtedly all want to take your course."
"The four who were playing tennis?" Peter asked,
acting on intuition.
"Those are the ones," the priest said darkly.
"Should I be worried about them?" Balsam asked.
"That's up to you," Vernon replied. "But a word of
warning. They've been almost inseparable since they were
tiny, and most of the sisters have found the only way to
n
indie them is to split them up. Otherwise they band
gether, and your class becomes nothing more than a
tssip and note-passing session. A drawer in my
office mtains nothing but the notes that have been
conflated from them over the last nine or ten years.
Someiy I'm going to read them all, just to see what
they ways think is so important that it can't wait
until after ass."
Balsam felt a twinge of concern run through him.
sen-age girls had always made him uncomfortable,
id the prospect of confronting a
close-knit band of iem terrified him. But he
wouldn't let his fear show.
"Thanks for warning me," he said, "but my instincts
'31 me it should be interesting to have all four of them i
a psychology class."
"And you always follow your instincts?" Monsignor
ernon asked.
Balsam looked at him steadily. "No," he said
quietly. "Jot always."
"Good," the priest said. "Then you should fit in well
are." And before Balsam could reply, the priest had
lietly closed the rectory door. For a long time,
Peter Balsam stared at the closed or of the stone
house. What did he mean by that? But there were no
answers in the stone facade of the contory. Slowly,
Peter Balsam started down the slope at would
take him back into the heart of Neilsville. As
walked, he didn't see the town at all. All
he saw was
image in his mind. An image of the statue in his
issroom; the statue of St. Peter Martyour. It
was a warnj, he was sure. But of what?
From his window in the rectory, Monsignor Vernon
itched Peter Balsam make his way down the
hill. It raid be all right, he decided.
He hadn't been sure, but
PUNISH THE SINNERS 35
now that he had talked to Balsam, he knew. Now
that Peter Balsam was in Neilsville, everything was
going to be all right again.
As he made his way down Main Street, the sense
of foreboding that had come over Peter Balsam on his
arrival in Neilsville rose again, and he
wondered what had happened to his resolve. He
had intended to tell Pete- "Monsignor," he
corrected himself-that he wasn't going to stay. But he
had not done it. Instead, he had let himself be led by the
priest, just as he had always let himself be led. Ever
since they had been boys together, it had been like that
Ahnost as if Pete Vernon held some kind of
power over Peter Balsam.
As if the slightly older Vernon knew something that
Balsam did not
Once, indeed, Pete Vernon had said something that
had stuck in Peter Balsam's mind: "Our
lives are entwined," he had said. "They always have
been, and they always will be." Balsam had dismissed it
at the time, told himself that the older boy was only
trying to get his goat. But now, nearly twenty
years later, here they were, together in
Neilsville . . .
He became acutely aware of people staring at him as
he walked along the sidewalk, and he resisted the
impulse to return their stares. He concentrated,
instead, on looking the town over.
Perhaps without the heat and dryness of the desert,
Neilsville could have been pretty. Its frame
buildings, which would have been attractive set among
the maples of the Midwest, looked only stark here in
the arid country between the Cascades and the Rockies.
They seemed to be waiting for something, some force of
nature that would weld them together into a community. But it
hadn't happened. Each store, each house, stood
uddled into itself, and as Peter Balsam walked among
lem he wondered if it was only he who felt the
odd bense of rejection that seemed to personify the
town. Surjptitiously, he began to examine the people
of Neilsille.
There was a sameness to them that he had seen nohere
else. They all seemed to be of a type, slightly
Ider than their years-not a healthy kind of age, a
wise ind of age, but rather a tiredness. A fear? The
same ariness that he had perceived in the buildings was in
te people-as if they were waiting for something to appen, and
whatever it was, it was not going to be leasant.
He caught several of them staring at him. They
didn't irn away in embarrassment when he
confronted them, nstead, they met his eyes, and their
lipt tightened. Only len would they turn and whisper
to their companions, alsam wondered what they were saying
to each other, at he could not hear.
He stopped at the corner of First and Main to wait
less-than that Neilsville's lone traffic light
to change, and realized at he was standing in front of the
office of the telelone company. He went in. Behind
the counter, an elsriy woman sat pensively at
an empty desk. She looked were at him.
"I suppose you'll be wanting to order a phone?"
she ked.
Surprised, Peter nodded. "How did you know?"
"Around here," the woman drawled, "everybody lows
everything." She pulled a form out of the top awer of her
desk. "It's Balsam, isn't it?" she asked,
ster nodded. Without asking him any more questions, e
woman began filling in the spaces on the order
*rm. Finally she pushed it toward him for a
signature.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 37
As he checked over the information she had gleaned from
God-knew-where, she suddenly spoke.
"You used to be a priest, didn't you?"
He looked up, startled.
"Not actually," he said. "I started studying for the
priesthood, but didn't finish."
"One of those," the woman muttered. Then, as Peter
signed the order for the telephone, she spoke again.
"I understand Margo Henderson got off the train with
you."
Peter decided to ignore the disapproving note in
her voice.
"Yes, she did. Very pleasant woman." More than
pleasant, he remembered. Beautiful. And at the
same time he remembered Margo Henderson with
pleasure, he remembered the woman Pete
Vernon had sent to meet him at the station with
annoyance. Anderson, her name had been. Leona
Anderson.
"Divorced," the woman behind the counter said, jarring
Peter back into reality. He realized she was still
talking about Margo.
"Well," Peter said, smiling, "there are worse
things to be."
"Are there?" the woman said, not returning his smile.
"We're mostly Catholic in Neilsville, you
know."
"But not entirely," Peter said. "I understand there's
a public school as well as St. Francis
Xavier's. And I think I noticed a few other
churches, too."
The woman behind the counter looked him up and down, and
Peter felt her gaze taking in his curly brown
hair. Apparently she didn't approve of that,
either. "There's room enough in Neilsville for everyone.
If they behave themselves." Her tone said she didn't
think Peter would.
"That's strange," he said. "Someone else said the
n
was were'
i
I .
,T
II
same thing to me earlier today. A woman named
Leona backslash nderson."
"Leona's a very wise woman."
Tm sure she is," Peter agreed dryly. She
had also truck him as a very unpleasant woman, who
had made ter distaste for him plain, from the look in
her eye as he introduced herself to the moment she
delivered him
0 his apartment. "When will the phone be put in?"
"Four days," the woman said without consulting a
conalendar. "That's how long it takes to process the
orler."
Since there seemed to be no room for argument, Peer
thanked the woman for her services and left the
ofice. She watched him go. When he was out of sight
she jicked up the telephone on her desk and quickly
dialed
1 number.
"Leona? That man Balsam you told me about.
He ras just here, ordering a phone. I think you're
right, nd you'd better talk to Monsignor. I
don't know what : is, but there's something wrong about that
young lan. If you ask me, trouble just came
to Neilsville."
Four days later Peter Balsam was beginning
to feel a little easier about Neilsville. He had
created a space for himself: his books were neatly
arranged on the bricks and boards that nearly covered
one wall, and he had spent more than he had intended
on the plants that now hung from hooks in the ceiling
and brackets on the walls. And, of course, there was
the telephone. He stared at the green instrument on
his desk, and wondered why the installation of the
phone that morning had made him feel "connected."
It wasn't as if he had anyone to call, nor was
there much likelihood that anyone would call him. And
then, surprisingly, the telephone rang. He stared
at it uncomprehendingly for a moment, then picked it
up and spoke a tentative hello, ready for whoever
had called to discover he had dialed a wrong number
and hang up.
"Peter Balsam?" A woman's voice,
vaguely familiar, somewhat shy.
"Yes," Peter answered, wondering if he should
recognize the voice.
"It's Margo Henderson," the woman continued.
"From the train?" Balsam felt a surge of
pleasure run through bis body.
"Hello," he said again, this time with warmth.
I
P R n
his
"That's better," Margo said. "For a minute I
thought out didn't remember who I was."
"I didn't," Balsam admitted. "Actually,
I thought it ras going to be a wrong number. I just
had the phone greater-than ut in this morning. It
usually takes a few days before nybody can
get the number."
"Not in Neilsvffle." Margo laughed. "You're the
most iteresting thing to happen in years." She paused
for a econd, and Peter was about to respond when she
lunged ahead. "I was wondering if maybe you'd like
to ake me out for dinner tonight," she said.
Peter was momentarily nonplussed, then recovered
limself.
"I'd love to," he said. "But I have a problem.
No conar."
"That's no problem. I happen to have a very serviceble
Chevy. If you're not too proud to allow yourself to e
picked up by a woman, I'll see you about
seveniirty."
"Well, fine," Peter said, not really sure if it
was fine r not, but willing to give it a chance. "Do you
know here I live?"
"Let me see if I can figure it out," Margo
replied. "If au don't have a car, you must be within
walking dismce of St. Francis Xavier's. So you
must live in that
2w apartment building on Third Street, just off
Main."
"A regular Sherlock Holmes," Peter said.
Margo chuckled. "Not really. See you at
sevenlirty."
Balsam was about to say something else when he reized
he was holding a dead phone in his hand. He ared at
it, wondering why she had hung up so abiptly, then
decided she had probably been calling from ork, and
someone had been waiting for her. With a mig, he
turned his attention to other things.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 41
An hour later, Peter Balsam found himself
walking slowly up the hill to St. Francis
Xavier Church. As he walked, he noticed that
Neilsville, though still bleak, no longer seemed as
threatening as he had originally thought. Familiarity,
he thought: he was getting used to the town. He was no
longer seeing only the strangeness of the structures in
Neilsville. Now he was noticing their uniqueness
as well. Some of the houses, he was beginning
to realize, were rather interesting in their own way. Yards
were, for the most part, neat and well tended, as if the
people of Neilsville, knowing that the surrounding landscape
was always going to be barren, had decided to create some
green oases within the desert. But it wasn't until
his third day in Neilsville, when he had decided
to venture away from Main, that Peter had discovered this
softer side of Neilsville. Now he
walked purposefully along, enjoying the shade of the
tree-lined streets and enjoying, too, the privacy
the side streets afforded him. On Main Street,
he had been too aware of the constant stares of the people of
Neilsville as they tried to size up this stranger
in their midst. But on Elm, if people watched him from
their windows, Peter Balsam was blissfully
unaware of it.
He reached the top of the hill and made his way into the
cool, dark church. Just inside the entrance he
dipped his fingers in the font and genuflected, then
moved down the aisle, genuflected once more, and
sank into a pew. For a few moments Balsam
simply sat, absorbing the serenity of the church,
letting his eyes adjust from the glare of the summer afternoon
to the soft light filtering through the stained glass of the
clerestory windows.
Slowly he became aware that he was not alone. A
few pews ahead of him, near the alcove dedicated
to the Blessed Virgin, a girl sat motionless, her
head bowed.
n n n n
, backslash
He recognized her as the girl who had played
alone on the handball court.
Her lips moved silently in prayer, and her fingers
worked at the beads clutched in her hands. Balsam
watched her for a few minutes, then began to feel as
if his stares were intruding on her privacy.
Selfconsciously, he forced himself to concentrate on
his own meditations, and ignore the lonely presence of the
girl.
Thirty minutes later they met at the door of the
church. He hadn't seen her rising from her pew at
the same time as he had risen from his own, and he had
almost forgotten her presence. But as the two of them
emerged from the shadows of the church into the whitehot afternoon,
and the somnolence that he always felt in church left
him, Balsam smiled at the girl. She looked
at him uncertainly, and seemed about to hurry away,
so he spoke.
"Hello," he said.
Marilyn Crane looked at the man mutely, and
tried to find her tongue.
"You seem to come here as often as I do," Balsam
continued. "It makes a nice break from the heat of the
day, doesn't it?"
Her eyes widened, and Balsam wondered if it was
possible that the girl hadn't noticed him yesterday
and the day before, as the two of them silently sat
in the church. Apparently she hadn't.
"I'm Peter Balsam," he said, offering her his
hand.
Marilyn Crane stared blankly at the proffered
hand. Then, as if coming out of a daze, she grasped it
and introduced herself.
'Tomorrow Marilyn Crane," she said. "You're the
new teacher, aren't you?"
PUNISH THE SINNERS 43
Balsam nodded. "Are you going to be one of my
students?"
She smiled shyly and bobbed her head, almost as if
she was apologizing for her presence. "Latin
Three," she said. Then she added, as an afterthought:
"And the psychology course, I hope."
"You hope?" Peter repeated. "All you have to do is
sign up for it"
"I don't know if I can," Marilyn said softly.
"I asked my parents if I could take it, but they
said they'd have to talk it over."
"Well, you can tell them for me that I promise not
to put any crazy ideas in your head," Balsam
said, grinning.
Suddenly the girl seemed to relax, and the two of them
began slowly walking back down the hill
toward town.
"How did you know that was what my parents were worried
about?" Marilyn asked suddenly, when they were
halfway down the hill.
Balsam tapped his head. 'Tomorrow a psychologist,"
he said darkly. "I have ways of knowing things."
Marilyn looked at him sharply, then, as she
realized he was kidding her, she laughed, a
hesitant, hollow sound. Listening to it, Balsam
was sure he knew the reason it sounded strange: this
child rarely laughed.
"You spend a lot of time in church, don't you?" he
said mildly.
Marilyn nodded. "I like it there. It"'8s cool, and
quiet, and I can be by myself but not feel lonely, if
you know what I mean."
"I know exactly what you mean," Balsam
replied. "I feel the same way."
Marilyn looked at him wonderingly, and for the first
t
m
time in her life felt that there might actually be
someone else in the world who understood how she felt
"I usually pray to the Sorrowful Mother," she said.
"For some reason, she always seems to make
me feel better."
Balsam didn't respond right away, and
Marilyn glanced quickly at him to see if her words
had put him off. But no, he merely seemed to be
thinking about something, so she continued walking beside him in
silence. It was a nice silence, she thought. Not like the
silences that so often fell over groups of her
acquaintances as she approached.
Had Peter Balsam been aware of the silence he
probably would have broken it. But he was thinking about
what the girl had said, or, more accurately, of the
way she had referred to the Blessed Virgin. The
Sorrowful Mother, she had said. It had been a long
time since Balsam had heard that appellation
applied to the Holy Mother. He wondered briefly
how she had happened to use it, but quickly decided not
to question her about it. Not yet, at least. The child seemed
nervous, like a rabbit on the alert, ready to shy
away at the least provocation. And Balsam felt
that it was important that she not shy away.
Important for him, and important for her.
"Well," he said finally as they approached the
corner greater-than from Third Street, "this is where
I get off." He pointed iown the street "I
live down there," he continued. "In he
new apartment building."
A look of comprehension came over Marilyn's
face, md she bobbed her head. Peter suddenly
realized that ihe had been afraid he was rejecting
her. He smiled at ler, saying, "Come over and
see me if you want to. I'm ilways home,
or most always, and my name's on the nailbox."
PUNISH THE SINNERS 45
"Oh," Marilyn gasped. "I-I couldn't do that-was
she stammered.
Balsam looked blank. "You couldn't?" he
asked. "Why on earth not?"
Now Marilyn appeared totally flustered. "I-I
don't know," she floundered. And suddenly Peter
understood. There had never before been a teacher in
Marilyn's life who didn't wear a habit or
live in a convent. What he had just suggested was so
totally beyond her experience as to be almost
incomprehensible.
"Well," he said briefly. "Don't worry about
it. And don't forget to give my message to your
parents. I think the psychology class is going
to be very interesting, and I'd like to have you in it."
As Marilyn looked dumbfounded, Peter smiled
at her once more, and started down Third
Street. After he had gone a few yards, he
turned and waved, and suddenly Marilyn waved
back. Peter Balsam continued down the street
toward his apartment
For a few seconds longer, Marilyn watched the
retreating figure of the new teacher, then continued
home. Suddenly the world did not seem so bleak
to her. She liked the new teacher, and she would talk
to her parents again about taking his psychology course.
Then she suddenly stopped, and there on the sidewalk
of Main Street, Marilyn Crane crossed
herself, and silently repeated a prayer of thanks to the
Sorrowful Mother for bringing Mr. Balsam
to Neilsville. Then she opened her eyes and
continued walking. Across the street, Judy Nelson
watched her from the drugstore window, and smiled.
The bell rang at precisely seven-thirty.
Peter Balsam opened the door to find Margo
Henderson smiling at him with a brightness that was almost
too cheerful. He
i , i
held the door for her to come in, and closed it
firmly behind her. As the door clicked shut, the
smile faded slightly, and she laughed nervously.
"I feel like a wicked woman," she said,
shrugging off the light jacket she had thrown over her
shoulders and glancing quickly around the apartment. "Do you
happen to have a spare drink around here?"
"Scotch or bourbon?" Peter said, wondering if
he should oflEer her wine instead, and wishing he'd thought
of a clever retort.
"Scotch, with about ten splashes of water." She
gave the room a more careful inspection while Peter
mixed two identically weak highballs. "I like
this," she declared as she took one of the glasses from
him. "Books and plants-the two things I can't
live without." She tasted the drink. "And you make
perfect drinks, too. Maybe we should get
married."
Peter choked on the mouthful of scotch-and-water he
had been about to swallow, then realized she had been
kidding. As his face reddened, Margo laughed again.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't mean
to kill you off." She patted him on the back
until his coughing subsided. He sank to the couch and
looked at her. And then, when he saw the twinkle in
her eye, he suddenly began laughing.
"I am jo glad to see you," he declared. "You
haven't any idea." Then he looked at her
quizzically. "What did you mean, you feel
like a wicked woman?"
"This is the first time in my life I've ever asked a
man for a date. Now, maybe you have women calling you
all the time, but for me this is a new and daring
experience. In fact, I'd give odds such a thing
has never been done in Neilsville before."
"Well, I'm glad you called," Peter said.
"If I sounded a little strained earlier, it was just out of
surprise that
PUNISH THE SINNERS 47
the phone rang at all. I'd been staring at it,
feeling very plugged into the world, when I realized
nobody in town was likely to call. And then it
rang, and here you are. Where are we going for dinner?"
"I'm not sure," Margo said, suddenly pensive.
"Fd thought about Clyde's, where the food is good and the
music isn't too offensive, but then it occurred
to me that it might be the better part of valor to go out of
town."
"Out of town?" Peter repeated blankly.
Margo nodded. "Maybe I'm being paranoid, but
considering you're brand new in town, and teaching at St.
Francis Xavier, and Fm divorced, and . . .
well, all things considered, I think we might do
better to go somewhere where neither one of us will be
recognized. If you aren't starving, I thought we
might drive over to Moses Lake. It's forty
minutes away, but I know a good Italian place
there."
Balsam started to protest, but then he remembered the
frown on Leona Anderson's face when he had
accompanied Margo off the train, and the remarks
Monsignor Vernon had made about the "formality"
of Neilsville. "Formality," he thought, was the
wrong word. He was getting the distinct impression that
Neilsville was downright narrow-minded.
"Tine," he agreed, finishing his drink. Then he
smiled at Margo mischievously. "Do you want
to meet me around the corner, or shall we risk walking
out to your car together?"
"Not to worry," Margo said sheepishly. "I parked
in the alley."
The restaurant hunched shabbily in the middle of an
asphalt parking lot, lit garishly by a sign
advertising the name of the place-Raffaello's-and, in
much larger letters, Olympia Beer. But inside it
had been decorated
n n n
ri .1
H
in checkered red-and-white tablecloths that somehow
managed not to be cute. And the food had been
delicious. Peter leaned back in his chair,
picked up the cup of cappuccino in front of him,
and looked at Margo. He decided she was really quite
beautiful.
"Feel better?" she asked him, winking over the
rim of her glass as she drained the last of her
wine.
"What makes you think I wasn't feeling good
to start with?" Peter countered.
She shrugged slightly. "I don't know," she
mused. "There was just a look about you. Like something was
panicking you. I supposed at first it was me, but
I've changed my mind. I think it was
Neilsville."
Balsam nodded guiltily. "You hit it right on the
head," he admitted. "I have to confess that Fve
been getting pretty nervous about the whole thing. At
least until yesterday. Yesterday I finally decided
to take a chance and walk on a street other than
Main. Behind the scenes, Neilsville doesn't
seem quite so bleak as it does on Main Street."
"I guess most towns are like that," Margo agreed.
"You don't really get a feel for them from the
downtown area. You have to see where the people live. And
even then, it's not easy. People in small towns aren't
as friendly as they're supposed to be. Unless you're a
native, of course. If you're not, forget it.
You're a newcomer for at least twenty years."
"I thought that only happened in New England,"
Peter laughed.
Margo shook her head. "Small towns are small
towns, wherever you go," she said. Then she changed the
subject. "How did you find your friend the
Monsignor?" she asked, and Peter thought he
detected a trace of acid in her voice.
"Not the same as I remembered him," he
admitted.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 49
"But I don't suppose I was the same as he
remembered me, either."
"Mmmm," Margo mumbled, avoiding his gaze.
"You don't like him, do you?" Peter said suddenly.
"I don't know." Margo was pensive. "I
suppose Monsignor is something of a reflection
of the town. And I'm not going to try to tell you that the
town hasn't been hard on me. At least the
Catholic part of it." She looked across the table at
Peter, wanting to say something more, but not
wanting to risk offending him. But he seemed different
from the rest of the Catholics she knew, and she
decided to take a chance. "There's something evil about
them," she said hesitantly. "Or maybe that's the
wrong word. But ever since I was divorced, and
pretty much excommunicated from the Catholic
community, I've noticed something. I can't put my
finger on it, but I'm sure it's there. They stare at
you. They talk about you. They make you feel like a
freak. And your friend Monsignor Vernon is the
worst of them. Every time I see him, I feel his
eyes on me, boring into me, as if he's examining
me, and finding me lacking. And the rest of them aren't
much different" She suddenly felt embarrassed, as
if she'd said too much, and tried to put on a
cheerful face. "I'm doing all right, though," she
added quickly.
Balsam shook his head in wonder. "I don't
know," he said slowly. "It all seems so strange
to me, almost medieval."
"It is," Margo said bitterly. Then she brightened.
"Let's talk about something more cheerful. Have you seen
your classroom yet?"
Balsam grinned crookedly at her. "I thought we
were going to talk about something more cheerful," he
said.
"Well, there must be something cheerful to talk about,"
Margo laughed. "Neilsville isn't all that
bad."
U
She paused thoughtfully, then brightened. "Let's not
talk about Neilsville at all. Why don't you
tell me about you?"
Peter hesitated a split second, then decided
there was no reason not to tell her about his childhood.
At least the part of it he could remember, the part after
he was taken to the convent.
He began telling Margo about growing up with the
Sisters, then deciding to enter the priesthood.
"And that, I suppose, was the first of the mistakes,"
he said.
"Mistakes?"
"Sometimes it seems like my life was a series of
mistakes. I only entered the priesthood because it
seemed the natural thing to do. But I soon found out
it wasn't for me, so I left the seminary and went
to St. Alban's." He grinned. "Remind me
to model my robes for you sometime."
"You still have them?"
"In the bedroom closet I guess
nobody ever throws things like that away. Anyhow, I
took a degree in psychology, and then went
to California on a counseling job. But it didn't
work out any better than the priesthood. So I
decided to go back to St. Alban's, and get a
master's degree. And I got married." A frown
creased Margo's face. "Didn't I tell you
that?" He hurried on. "I thought I had. Not that it
matters. I'm separated."
"Does Monsignor Vernon know?"
"I told him. He didn't seem too pleased."
*Til bet," Margo agreed. "What happened?
To your marriage, I mean?"
"I'm not sure. Looking back on it, I don't
think Linda and I ever should have gotten married in the
first place. I suppose we needed each other at
the time-we
PUNISH THE SINNERS 51
were both pretty lonely people. Anyway, she found
someone else not to be lonely with."
There was a note of bitterness in his voice, and
Margo decided not to press the matter. "What
brought you to Neilsville?"
"Monsignor Vernon. I got a letter from him,
asking me if I could teach both Latin and
psychology. When I wrote back and told him
I could, he offered me the job here. So here I
am."
"And you don't like it." It was a statement, not a question.
Peter moved uncomfortably in his chair. "I
don't know. I get what they call bad vibes from
the town. It's as if there's something going on here,
something under the surface, that's always about to erupt, but
never does."
Margo stared at him. "That's it, exactly," she
said. "That's exactly how I feel. But I thought
I was the only one."
"Well, now there's two of us." Peter smiled.
He reached for the check and stood up.
An hour later, when they pulled up in front of his
apartment house, he took her hand, squeezed it, and
opened the car door.
"Next time," he said, "it's going to be your turn.
I want to know as much about you as you know about me." Then
he got out of the car, closed the door firmly, and
turned to go into the building. Margo waited for him
to turn and wave. When he didn't, she felt
slightly disappointed.
As she drove home, Margo decided she liked
Peter Balsam. She liked him very much.
Next time, she would tell him about herself. And she was
sure there would be a next time, even if she had
to call him again. But she
n

U
didn't think she would. Next time, she was sure,
Peter would call her.
Later, as she was preparing to go to bed, Margo
suddenly remembered that there was something Peter hadn't
told her. On an impulse, she reached out to pick
up the phone, but it rang before she touched it. It was
Peter.
"I hope I didn't wake you up," he said.
"No. As a matter of fact, I'm glad you
called."
"I'm not really sure why I called."
"Maybe because I wanted to talk to you."
"You mean, you made me call you?"
"Maybe I did," Margo said mysteriously.
Peter chuckled. "I don't believe in that kind of
thing."
"Don't you? Maybe you should." Then: "Peter?"
"Yes?"
"I was wondering about something. When you were a
Md-how did you get to the convent in the first greater-than
lace?"
There was a silence, and then Peter's voice, sounding
ilightly hollow, came over the line. "I don't
know, eally. The sisters never really tell you where you
came rom."
Twenty minutes later, as Margo was trying to fall
isleep, she was still thinking about what he had said, ind
wondering where, thirty-some years ago, Peter
Balam had come from.
If the first day of school at St. Francis
Xavier High School did not engender the same
enthusiasm as the last, it was not only because the first day
marked the beginning of another nine months of
regimentation. It was, as far as the students were
concerned, much worse than that; it meant another nine
months of being reminded of their constant failure
to live up to the standards set by Monsignor Vernon
and the Sisters, another nine months of constant
invasions of their privacy as the Sisters swooped
down on them, demanding to know exactly what it was they
were whispering about, or inspected their lockers, or
suddenly seized their notebooks to determine
exactly what was being written in them, or
subjected them to any of the other minor or
major indignities that plagued then* lives.
And, of course, the first day was the worst, for they had
only just gotten used to the freedom of summer when it
was torn from their grasp.
And, of course, there was Monsignor Vernon,
everpresent, ever-watchful, constantly ready
to criticize, seldom ready to praise. He had
been there this morning, waiting on the steps of the
school, watching them return for yet another year.
There he would remain for the next nine months, if not
on the steps, then in the corridors, his
black-garbed figure looming over them, his
- n r
piercing black eyes boring into them, discovering in
them-each of them-minute flaws to be condemned.
As they walked together down the stairs to the first floor
of the school and made their way slowly toward Room
16, neither Judy Nelson nor Karen Morton
was in the best of moods. They stopped in front of
Judy's locker, and she began working the dial. As
usual on the first day of school, it took her three
tries before the metal door suddenly clicked open.
Judy pulled the door wide open and tossed her
history book inside. She stared at it bitterly.
"Do you suppose Sister Kathleen meant it
when she said we'd go through that whole thing in the first
semester?" she asked of no one in particular. The
three inches of history sat depressingly thick
on the floor of the locker.
"Who reads it?" Karen said, tossing back her long
blond hair. "All you have to do is glance at the
headings, and study the quizzes at the end of the
chapters. Everybody knows Sister Kathleen
hasn't made up a test of her own in forty
years."
"She gives me a pain," Judy groused. "Did
you believe her this morning? She thinks we spent the
whole summer 'bbing carnal," as she puts it. Is
that the same as screwing?"
Karen giggled, but her face turned red, and Judy
wondered if she'd touched a nerve. She decided
to press the point, and see what happened.
"I mean, the way she was talking, she must think we
ion't do anything except talk about sex, or
dream about sex, or have sex, for that matter. Well,
if you ask me, that says a lot about where her head's
at." By now, Fudy was pleased to note, Karen was
showing definite signs of nervousness. Now, she
thought, was the time to pounce. "Of course," she mused,
trying to sound as if
PUNISH THE SINNERS 55
she didn't have anyone in particular in mind, "some of
us do have a few sins to worry about, don't we?"
"I wouldn't know," Karen said sarcastically. "But
personally, if I have any talking to do on that
subject, I'll do it in the confessional. Not
to Sister Kathleen, and certainly not to you." Then, before
Judy could reply, Karen caught sight of
Marilyn Crane coming down the hall, and said, "You
know, maybe it wouldn't be so bad being like Marilyn.
At least the Sisters never seem to worry about her
"losing her soul in sin." his
Judy slammed the locker shut, and glanced down the
hall to the spot where Marilyn stood trying to work the
combination to her locker. "If I were her," she said
acidly, "Td really be in trouble." She smiled
wickedly at Karen. "After all," Judy purred,
"isn't suicide supposed to be the worst sin of
all?"
"Judy-was Karen breathed, her eyes widening at her
friend's cruelty. "That's an awful thing to say. I
mean, I don't like her any better than you do, but
still-was Before she could finish what she was saying, a sharp
scream interrupted her. She whirled to see
Marilyn Crane staring into her locker, one
hand clapped over her mouth to stifle the scream. If
she hadn't turned so quickly, perhaps Karen would have seen
the tiny smile that was playing around the corner of
Judy Nelson's mouth. It was not a pleasant
smile.
Twenty feet away, Marilyn Crane stared,
horrified, into the depths of her locker. There, where
earlier had been only a neat pile of books,
lay a frog.
Or at least what had once been a frog. The
creature was spread out on a dissecting board, its
legs pinned as if it had been crucified, the
contents of its belly laid artfully around the
corpse. Penned in neat letters across
n n n
and caret i
the bottom of the dissecting board was a message.
"Jesus Loves You-But No One Else
Does."
Marilyn felt a wave of nausea rise in her
stomach, and pressed her hand harder over her mouth.
Who could have done it? And why? It was crazy. It was
sick. She was sick. Then she got hold of herself.
No, she told herself. Don't get sick. That's
what they want. Don't give them the
satisfaction. She heard a noise behind her, and
turned to see three of the Sisters hurrying toward
her. Her first impulse was to wait for them, and show them
what was in her locker. But there would be a fuss. They
would question her. Eventually, they would find out who had
put the frog in her locker-and she would only get
blamed for being a tattletale. Thinking quickly, she
scooped up the dissecting board and shoved it into the
large carry-all that served her both as purse and
book-bag, praying the frog wouldn't make too much
of a mess before she could get downstairs to the girls"
room and get rid of it. She slammed the locker
shut and turned to face the three nuns who were now
gathered behind her.
"What happened?" The voice was cold, accusing.
Marilyn looked up at the cowled face of the nun
who had spoken, and recognized Sister
Elizabeth. Helplessly, she turned to the others.
Sister Marie's countenance seemed gentlest, so it was
to her that Marilyn directed her answer.
"Nothing," she said slowly. "I-was She cast around
for a likely-sounding excuse for her short scream.
"I pinched myself on the hinge of the locker," she
finished, holding up an undamaged finger as proof that
the accident had been more frightening than harmful.
Sister Elizabeth looked at her skeptically, and
opened her mouth to challenge the girl. But before she could
speak, the third nun, the same Sister Kathleen
who only
PUNISH THE SINNERS 57
moments ago had been the subject of conversation for
Judy and Karen, reached out and patted Marilyn
gently.
"Some day, Marilyn," she said softly, "you're
going to have to learn to be less clumsy."
Ordinarily such a statement would have hurt, but this time
Marilyn was grateful. For once, her reputation for
awkwardness had served her. She smiled sweetly
at the nun, and in her mind begged forgiveness for the
lie. Down the hall, she noticed that Karen
Morton and Judy Nelson were losing interest in
her plight.
"That's Marilyn," Karen commented. "She'll
probably slam her locker on her nose before the
week's over." The two girls laughed, and started
on down the hall toward Room 16.
At the end of the corridor a door shut softly as
Monsignor Vernon turned back into his
office.
Inside Room 16, Peter Balsam was
nervously awaiting the arrival of the psychology
class. So far, the day had gone remarkably
well. After all, Latin was Latin, and most of his
students had taken it before. They knew what
to expect. But the psychology class was different.
All morning he had felt a certain electricity
coming from some of the Latin students; he assumed these were
the ones who had registered for the new course as well,
and they were trying to size him up, trying, from the way
he handled the Latin classes, to figure out what the
psychology course would be like.
And, of course, there had been Sister Elizabeth,
the rather stern-looking nun who had stormed into Room
16 between first and second periods to inform him that in her
opinion his course was a mistake, and that, even before
it had begun, it was already disrupting the school. She was
having discipline problems, she declared, and he was
to blame. The students were so busy
n
backslash i
talking about him, and his new course, that they paid no
attention to her. Balsam, realizing that humor would be
useless with Sister Elizabeth, solemnly
promised her that he would see to it that his course
created no more disturbances. Sister
Elizabeth, carrying an air of skepticism with
her, had marched wordlessly out of his room. Then, between the
second and third periods, Sister Marie had
stopped in. In contrast to Sister Elizabeth,
Sister Marie had been all smiles. When he had
promptly called her Sister, she had held up a
hand in protest, and asked him to please, at least when
they were alone, just call her Marie. And, she had
confided in an excited whisper, despite what the
others might say, she herself thought it was about time they
started teaching something useful at St. Francis
Xavier's. Then her face had taken on a
slightly wistful look and, as if suddenly realizing
she might be on the verge of complaining, she had beaten
a hasty retreat.
Finally, just a few moments ago, it had been Sister
Kathleen. She had marched into the room, checked to be
sure it was empty, then closed the door firmly
behind her.
"It's my duty to speak to you about an unpleasant
subject," she had announced. Without waiting for
any response from Peter Balsam, she had
plunged ahead.
"I'm sure you are aware that it isn't easy for us
to maintain a suitable moral climate for the
children here," she said, looking him in the eyes. Then her
gaze shifted, and Balsam had the distinct feeling that
she was suddenly losing her nerve. He thought he
knew what was coming, and he wasn't disappointed.
"The modern world is not all I might wish it
to be," Sister Kathleen continued. "I'm afraid
the moral laxness that seems to have invaded the rest of the
world has succeeded in penetrating St. Francis
Xavier School, if
PUNISH THE SINNERS 59
you know what I mean." She looked at him darkly,
and Balsam looked right back at her, trying not
to reveal that he had, indeed, caught her meaning. She
decided he was obtuse, and she would have to be more
specific.
"What I'm trying to say," she went on
uncomfortably, "is that I hope you have no plans
to discuss anything-well, carnal is the word, I
suppose-in your psychology course." She spat
the word psychology out, as if it were extremely
distasteful.
"It's a psychology course, Sister," Peter
had reassured her softly. Then he couldn't resist
his impulse. "Not a course in sex education." He
almost chuckled out loud as the nun turned
scarlet and fled from the room.
A moment later he had heard the sharp scream from the
hallway, but by the time he had reached his door the
three nuns who had paid him visits that morning had
the situation well in hand. Also, he was sure, all
but Marie would resent his intruding into the matter. So
he had retreated back into Room 16, to await his
students. And one by one, they were drifting in. He
recognized some of them and noted that as they came into the
room they headed directly for the seats they had
occupied in earlier classes in Room 16. One
of these, Janet Connally, had started for the third-row
seat she had occupied earlier, then, as if
remembering something, moved up to the front rank, and
carefully set her books on one of the adjoining
seats, her sweater on the other. When Peter
Balsam caught her eye, she smiled at him, then
self-consciously glanced around the room, nodding in
recognition to her friends.
A moment later a pretty, dark-haired girl
came into the room, glanced quickly around, then went
directly to the seat on which Janet Connally's
sweater was resting, picked up the sweater, and sat
down. She handed the
n n
H
sweater to Janet, and whispered something in her ear. The
two girls giggled, and Balsam wondered what had
been said. Sister Elizabeth, he realized, would have
found out immediately, probably with an intimidating
look. Balsam had neither the assurance nor the
technique to make such a ploy work, so he simply
pretended not to hear the giggles.
A few minutes later Karen Morton and Judy
Nelson breezed into the room, waved at Janet
Connally and the dark-haired girl (who Balsam
decided must be Penny Anderson) and took two of the
remaining seats in the front row. The fifth seat,
next to Karen Morton, was stacked with Karen's
books. Balsam wondered whom it was being saved for.
Just before the bell rang signifying the beginning of the
class period, he found out.
Jim Mulvey, his hair a bit too long, and his
clothes looking slightly rumpled, slouched into the
room, shoved Karen Morton's books to the
floor, and sank into the last seat of the front rank.
While Mulvey fixed Balsam with a slightly
sullen look, Karen glared at her boyfriend and
retrieved her books from the floor. When Jim
turned to her, she was all smiles.
Peter Balsam picked up the roster and noted that
there was one more name on the list than there were students in
the room. Though he was already familiar with almost half
the class, he began railing the roll. Before he'd
even begun, he knew who was missing. Marilyn
Crane. He glanced at the list once more. Yes,
her name was on it. He looked out at the twenty-nine
faces in front of him. Marilyn's was not among
them. He began calling the roll, half concentrating
on matching names to faces, half wondering what had
happened to Marilyn.
When he was halfway through the list, the door to Room
16 creaked open, and Marilyn Crane crept
into
PUNISH THE SINNERS 61
the room and slid into the single vacant seat in the
back row. At the sound of the door opening, every head in
the room had turned. And then, starting from the point where
Judy Nelson and Karen Morton sat together, the
whispering and giggling began, rippling through the room,
swirling toward Marilyn. Balsam stopped calling
the roll, and stared out at the teen-agers, waiting for
them to notice the sudden quiet.
When the silence finally came, he fixed his gaze on
Karen Morton and Judy Nelson.
Judy regarded him steadily, with an almost challenging
look in her eyes. But Balsam was pleased to see
that Karen Morton had the good grace to blush and
quickly find something fascinating in her notebook.
He resumed calling the roll, taking care to give
Marilyn Crane a reassuring wink when he got
to her name. In another minute, he was done. He
set the list down on his desk, and looked once more
at the class.
"Well," he said, "I suppose we might as
well get to it. This class isn't going to be like
any of the others, so those of you who think you have me all
figured out from Latin classes can forget it." That
should throw them off, he thought, and was pleased to see the
looks of consternation he'd produced. There was a
rustling in the room, as thirty teen-agers suddenly
realized they were going to have to reassess things. The four
girls in the front row glanced nervously at each
other.
"As some of you know," Balsam continued, looking at
them placidly, "I generally seat my classes
alphabetically." An almost inaudible groan went
through the room, and several of the students began gathering
their belongings in preparation for the seating shift.
"However," Balsam continued, "this class
is different. In this class you can sit where you want,
and you needn't feel you have to use the same seats every
day. It may make
it a little harder for me to learn your names, but don't
worry about it. So, if any of you want to change
seats now, feel free."
About half the class began trading seats.
Nobody in the front moved, nor did Marilyn
Crane: the front row had already decided where
to sit, and Marilyn Crane had no reason
to move-no one had invited her to sit by them.
Balsam noticed, however, that the boy who eventually
did sit next to Marilyn-Jeff Bremmer, if
his memory served him correctly--smiled and
spoke to her. While they resettled themselves,
Balsam wondered how many, if any, of his students
had figured out that he had just gotten them to tell him
something about themselves without saying a word. He knew they
would continue to tell him about themselves as they rearranged
themselves through the term. It would be particularly interesting
to watch the front row, the four girls Monsignor
Vernon had mentioned to him, and the boy, Jim
Mulvey, who was apparently Karen Morton's
boyfriend.
When they were finally settled in their new
seats, Balsam began telling them what he hoped
to accomplish in the psychology course. He would not,
he told them, be spending too much time on the field
of abnormal psychology, though he would delve
briefly into some of the more exotic forms of madness. That
earned him an appreciative laugh.
But what he was most interested in, he told them, were
the possibilities the course offered for them all
to get to know themselves, and each other, better. In this
class, he announced, he intended to stay as far
away as possible from the formalized teaching methods that
were the norm at Still Francis Xavier's. Instead,
he hoped the students would learn from each other as much
as from him. At the same time they were teaching each other,
he told them, they would be teaching them-
PUNISH THE SINNERS 63
selves. K they all worked together, it should prove
an interesting and valuable year.
Balsam glanced at the clock, and saw that he had
only fifteen minutes left. Behind him, where it had
been for forty-five minutes now, a map of the Holy
Roman Empire covered much of the blackboard.
Balsam now directed the attention of the class to the
map.
"Behind the map," he told them, "there is a
picture. I'm going to raise the map for just a
second, then pull it down again. Then we'll talk
about what you saw."
Quickly, before the students could begin buzzing among
themselves, Balsam raised and lowered the map, exposing
for not more than a second a large black-andwhite
print, done with a pen in great detail.
"Well?" he said, turning back to the class.
"How about it? What did you see?"
In the front row, Judy Nelson's hand slowly
rose.
"Judy?" Balsam said, then, as she started to stand
up, he waved her down. "Not in this class," he
said, smiling. "Let's save the calisthenics for
Latin, shall we?"
Judy's eyes widened in surprise; this had
certainly never happened at Still Francis
Xavier's before. Not only she, but the entire class
seemed to relax. She sank back into her seat.
"Well?" Balsam prompted her.
Judy started to speak, then giggled
self-consciously, Tm sorry," she said. "It's
just not easy to answer questions sitting down. None of us
has ever done it before."
Again the class laughed, and Balsam was
pleased. So far, everything was going exactly as he
planned it.
"That's all right," he said easily. "You'll get
used to it. Now, if you haven't forgotten
completely, what did you see in the picture?"
"Well," Judy said slowly. "I think it was a
skull. At least that's what it looked like to me."
.11 R n
Balsam nodded. "Anybody else see a
skull? Raise your hands." All the hands in the
room went up, except one. Marilyn Crane
sat, her hands folded on the desk in front of
her, her face betraying the shame of having missed out
on something.
"We seem to have a dissenter," Balsam said, trying
to let Marilyn know with a smile that it was all right with
him if she hadn't seen a skull. "What did you
see, Marilyn?"
The girl looked as if she was about to cry. She
didn't want to be the only person who hadn't
seen what everyone else had seen. But she'd seen
something different, and she wasn't going to pretend she
hadn't.
"I-I suppose it sounds silly, but all I could
see was a woman looking at herself in a
mirror."
Another ripple of laughter passed over the
class, but it was derisive, not happy. Before it had
died away, Balsam had reached behind him and let the
map roll upward into its case, exposing the
picture. And then, as they studied it, the class
stopped laughing, for Marilyn had been right. A
second look revealed that the picture was,
indeed, a highly detailed drawing of a woman
peering into a mirror. It was captioned "Vanity."
Balsam let them absorb the lesson in silence
for a moment
"You see?" he said at last. "Nobody was wrong,
and nobody was right." The class looked at him,
baffled, and Balsam realized he had presented
something totally new to them-a situation in which there was no
wrong and no right.
"What you've just seen," he told them, "is what
we call an experiment in stimulus response.
As you may have noted, not everyone reacts to a given
stimulus with the same response. How one
responds to a given stimulus depends on one's
psychological make-up." And then, realizing that
only Marilyn Crane had responded
PUNISH THE SINNERS 65
differently from the rest, he decided to add something for
her benefit. "The fact that only Marilyn
didn't see the skull is interesting, isn't it?
You must be an awfully morbid group." He winked
at them, so they would know he was only kidding. But
he'd made his point; no one turned to stare at
Marilyn. Instead, they stared at each other.
Balsam glanced at the clock; there were still five
minutes left.
"You know," he said, directing his attention to the
class once again, "you all surprise me. For
fifty minutes now, I've had something carefully
concealed on the desk. And not one of you has asked me
what it is." The students looked at each other
uncomfortably. "I hope that will change by the end of the
term," Balsam continued dryly. "A little
curiosity may have killed the cat, but it never hurt
a student. So gather round."
He pulled a cloth away, and the students clustered
around his desk to see what it was that they should have asked
about. It was a wooden box, with a glass top, known
as a Skinner box. Under the glass was a white
rat. As the students looked on, Peter Balsam
flipped a switch on the side of the box, and the rat
began pounding at a small lever inside the
box. Each time it hit the lever, a small pellet
of food fell into the box. The rat promptly
gobbled it up.
"Conditioned response," Balsam told them. "The
rat has learned that the food will only come out when the
light is on and he presses the lever. So every time the
light goes on, he presses the lever." He
switched the light off; the rat sat still.
Around him, the students were talking among themselves, and
speculating on the possibilities of the experiment.
In the middle of their discussion, the bell rang.
Immediately, the discussion ended, and the students be-
m in r p
n com1
gan moving back to their seats to gather up their books
and notebooks.
"And that," Balsam said loudly enough to attract their
attention, "is another example of conditioned
response. See you tomorrow."
They stared at him for a moment, then burst
into spontaneous laughter. As Balsam watched them
drift out of the room, he decided it was going to work.
The psychology class was a success.
He pulled open the bottom drawer of his desk, and
took out the brown bag that contained his lunch.
Then, as he began slowly munching on a sandwich, a
vague discomfort came over him. At first he
couldn't pinpoint the cause of his anxiety, but as he
continued eating his lunch it all came clear to him.
It was the picture, and the way the class had reacted
to it. Why, out of thirty students, had all but one of
them seen the image of death? Why had only
Marilyn Crane, of all the students, seen a
woman and a mirror? The ratio was wrong-the class
should have been fairly evenly split in their initial
perception of the picture. But they weren't.
Inez Nelson heard the telephone ring, and glanced
toward her husband. His eyes remained fixed on the
TV. It rang again, and Inez glanced at the
ceiling, as if expecting to be able to see Judy
running toward the upstairs extension. When it rang
for the third time, Inez sighed, got up from her chair,
and walked into the kitchen, half-expecting it to stop
ringing before she could pick it up. It didn't.
"Mrs. Nelson?" Inez immediately recognized the
voice as Karen Morton's. "Is Judy there?"
"Just a minute," Inez said. She laid the receiver
on the kitchen counter and went to the foot of the stairs.
"Judy!" she called. "For you! Karen Morton!"
"In a minute," Judy's muffled voice
called back. Inez walked slowly back to the
kitchen and picked up the receiver. "She'll be here in
a minute," she said. She stood by the phone, idly
waiting to hear her daughter's voice before she hung
up.
"Karen?" Judy's voice came on the line. "I
was just going to call you." Her voice dropped
slightly, and her tone became confidential, "I
saw him today. I mean he spoke to me."
"Who?" Karen asked without much interest.
"Lyle," Judy said, as if Karen should have known.
"Lyle Crandall. Isn't he gorgeous?"
n n
i . -i
H
"H you like that type," Karen said. She was not about
to admit that she agreed that Lyle Crandall was,
indeed, gorgeous.
"I think he's neat," Judy went on. "He
looks just like
Nick Nolte, only better. Is he coming to your
party?"
"I suppose so," Karen said, sounding bored. "I
mean,
I guess he'll show up with Jim
Mulvey, and you better
believe Jim's coming."
"But he's not coming with any of the girls?" Judy
asked.
"It's not going to be that kind of party," Karen said.
Then, after a slight pause, she added, "At least
not at first. But you never know what might happen, do
you?" Judy felt a wave of anticipation run
over her, and wondered if the party was really going
to turn out the way Karen had implied. "What about
your mother?" she said. "Isn't she going to be there?"
A slight snicker came over the wire. "She
has to work Saturday night," Karen replied.
"At first she told me I couldn't have a party if
she couldn't be here, so I told her I was only
going to have some girls in. She thinks we're going
to make fudge or something."
"What if she finds out boys are going to be there?"
Judy wanted to know.
"She doesn't get off till midnight," Karen
said confidently. "By then we'll have gotten everybody
out of the house." Then, in a near whisper: "Did you
tell your mother you were coming over early?"
"Of course," Judy said. "You don't fhinic
I'm going to wait till everyone's there and
then change my dress, do you?"
Karen giggled. "That might be interesting," she said.
"Maybe for you," Judy said archly. "I'm a little
more modest."
"In that dress?" Karen said. "I didn't think you
PUNISH THE SINNERS 69
bought it because you thought it was modest. I thought you bought it
because you thought it was sexy."
"It is, isn't it?" Judy breathed. "Do you think
Lyle will notice?"
"How can he miss?" Karen said sarcastically. "With
that neckline, and the way it fits, everyone will notice
you." Then she paused a moment. "What if your mother
finds out which dress you bought?"
"She won't," Judy said confidently. "Besides,
even if she does, I can talk her into letting me
keep it." Then, remembering that her mother sometimes
stood at the foot of the stairs listening to her when she
was on the phone, Judy glanced down the stairwell.
No one was there, but she decided enough had been said about
the new dress.
"What do you think of Mr. Balsam?"'* she
asked, changing the subject.
"I guess he's okay," Karen replied, not
wanting to commit herself to an opinion until
she found out how her friends felt about the new teacher.
"At least he's different from the Sisters. But hell
probably change. In a week his class won't
be any different from the others."
"I don't know," Judy said, suddenly thoughtful.
"Janet says he's completely different in
Latin than he is in psychology. She says
it's like having two different teachers."
"Really?" Karen was suddenly curious. "What do you
mean?"
Tm not sure," Judy said. "I guess he
teaches Latin the same way the nuns do, making you
stand up to recite, and all that. Janet says she
thinks it's because he doesn't really know Latin very
well, and he's trying to cover up."
Karen giggled. "Maybe he's just crazy, and he's
trying to cover that up by teaching psychology. You
n
n
know what they say about psychologists-most of them
need one."
Now both girls laughed, but in the middle of the
laughter Judy thought she heard a click, as if
someone had picked up the other phone in the kitchen.
"Well, I have to go now," she said, cutting
into the laughter. She hoped Karen would pick up her
signal. "So m come over an hour earlier on
Saturday, and help you get ready, all right?"
There was a short silence while Karen tried to fathom
why Judy was breaking off their conversation so suddenly.
And then, with the antennae that teen-agers share, she
knew what was happening. "That'll be great," she said.
"If I can get Penny and Janet to come early
too, it'll almost be like having two parties. See you
tomorrow." She hung up the phone, congratulating herself
on how quickly she had caught on and helped Judy
fool whoever was eavesdropping on them.
Judy Nelson replaced the phone on its
cradle, then stuck her tongue out at the instrument,
as if it had been responsible for her mother'i violation
of what Judy regarded as a personal and
confidential conversation.
But the click she had heard had not been her mother
picking up the downstairs phone; rather, it had been
Inez finally replacing the receiver. Now she was back
in the living room, and she was fuming. She glanced at
her husband, and saw that he was still intent on the
baseball game. Well, there wasn't any use
in trying to talk to him anyway. He would simply
rebuke her for listening in on something that was
none of her business, then tell her that, since
tapping telephones it illegal, she couldn't use
anything she had heard against Judy. That, she thought,
is what I get for marrying a lawyer.
Purposefully, Inez moved to the stairway.
George Nelson glanced up.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 71
"Going upstairs?" he said.
"I have to talk to Judy," Inez said, certain that if
she told her husband what she was going to talk about,
he would stop her. "It won't take a minute."
"Tell her if she wants, I'll beat her at
backgammon in about a half hour," George said.
Then his eyes locked once more on the TV screen.
Inez stared at him for a moment, then shook her head
grimly. There would be no cozy games between father and
daughter this evening, not if she had anything to do with it.
She marched up the stairs, entered Judy's room
without knocking, and closed the door behind her.
From the bed, Judy looked at her mother, and was about
to complain about her having come in without knocking, when she
realized something was wrong. Her mother was angry. And
then she knew. The phone. The click hadn't been
her mother picking up the phone. It had been her mother
hanging up. She had heard the wrong part
of the conversation.
"I see you know why I'm here," Inez began.
Judy weighed the chances of bluffing it out. Just how much
had she said about the dress? She tried desperately
to remember. Too much.
"Do I?" Judy countered.
"I think you do," Inez could feel her temper
rising. "I heard you talking to Karen just now."
Judy stared defiantly at her mother.
"You bought that dress, didn't you?" Inez demanded,
her voice accusing.
"Which one?" Judy stalled.
"Don't talk to me that way, young lady," Inez
snapped. "You know very well which one. The one I
distinctly told you you couldn't have. You bought it, and
stashed it away at Karen Morton's, didn't
you?"
"Well, what if I did?" Judy blurted out.
"That dress
P Rin
n
you wanted me to buy made me look twelve years
old. And the other one looked nice."
"Nice enough to help you get into trouble with Lyle
Crandall? Well, it isn't going to work.
Tomorrow afternoon you're going to get that dress and return it
to the store."
"Oh, all right," Judy said, giving in on the
theory that simply returning the dress was a
comparatively mild punishment.
"And you can forget about going to that party," Inez added.
"Mother-was Judy began, but Inez cut her off.
"Don'tl" she said, holding up her hand. "If I
were you, I'd think more about my sins than how I could
get around my mother!"
Judy stared at her in bafflement. "Sins?" she said
blankly. "What are you talking about?"
Inez's eyes narrowed. "Do you want me to count them
out for you? You can start with the lie. You lied about the
dress."
"I didn't," Judy said defensively. "You
never asked me which one I'd bought." It was a
technicality, she knew, but she hoped it would work.
It didn't
"You would have lied about it, if I had asked you,"
Inez snapped. "There's a commandment about honoring your
father and your mother, you know."
Suddenly it was too much for Judy. She leaped up
from the bed, and stood staring at her mother. And then she
burst into tears.
"Don't say that," she screamed. "Wanting to grow
up doesn't have anything to do with you. It's something I
ivant to do for me, not to spite you! Can't you understand
that?" Then, as she saw that her words had had
10 effect on her mother, Judy fled to the bathroom
and ocked herself in. She felt the anger well in
her, and
PUNISH THE SINNERS 73
wished it would resolve itself into more tears. But, instead,
it turned into more anger, and she suddenly felt
trapped. Trapped like that rat in Mr. Balsam's
box. Well, she'd show her mother. She'd find a
way to get even, and her mother would be sorry.
Outside the bathroom, Inez Nelson stared at the
closed door. She listened for a moment, hoping to hear
a sound that would tell her what was happening inside.
But there was no sound, and she knew that Judy was
sulking again, something that seemed to be happening more and more
lately. Well, this time she wouldn't give in, and
she would see to it that Judy didn't find a way
to get her father on her side. But she hadn't
reckoned with her daughter's determination.
The thought had crossed Peter Balsam's mind that it
might not be a bad idea to give Margo Henderson
a call, and invite her out for a drink. Then
the call had come from the rectory, and he had found his
plans for the evening abruptly changed.
Monsignor Vernon-he was still having trouble with that;
he had almost called the priest "Pete"-had asked
him to come up to the rectory for a "chat." Something in his
voice told Peter it was a summons, not an
invitation; it was a command. So he had trudged up the
hill and arrived at the rectory at precisely
nine o'clock. Monsignor Vernon had met him in the
foyer, as before, and led him down the hall to what
apparently was his private den; at least, if others
used it, Peter Balsam hadn't seen them yet.
The Monsignor had closed the door behind them, and
offered Balsam a glass of sherry. This, Balsam
realized, was a ritual, and he wondered if he was
expected to decline the offer. Well, if he was,
it was too bad. The least the priest could do if he was
going to ruin Balsam's evening was give him a
drink.
n
m
Peter accepted the sherry and took one of the comfortable
chairs by the fireplace without waiting for an
invitation.
"Well," Monsignor Vernon said
amiably, sinking into the other chair and holding his
glass up to the light "This is nice." Balsam was
unsure if he was referring to the sherry, or things in
general. He grunted noncommittally.
"How did it go?" the Monsignor asked him
suddenly. "The first day of school, I mean?"
Balsam shrugged. "As well as can be expected,
I suppose." Then he grinned. "I mean, I'm
still alive, and nobody even shot a spitball at
me."
Monsignor Vernon smiled icily. "They
wouldn't," he said shortly. "We leave that sort of
thing to the public schools."
Balsam nodded somberly, a sudden image of
Sister Elizabeth flashing into his mind. With her
around, he imagined, discipline problems were kept to a
minimum at St. Francis Xavier's.
"I suppose I should get to the point," the priest
said, shifting in his chair. So I was right, Balsam
thought rhis was a command performance. He waited
quietly for the Monsignor to begin.
"I had a chat with Sister Elizabeth this afternoon,"
he priest began. "She seemed a little upset about
you. She thinks you have what she called a 'cavalier
attinide.""
Balsam smiled at the term, but when he saw that the
greater-than riest was not smiling, his expression quickly
sobered.
"And you agree with her?" he asked carefully.
"I'm not certain," the priest said pensively.
"That's vhy I wanted to talk to you this evening.
I've been tanking about the talk we had the other
day, about
PUNISH THE SINNERS 75
your thesis. It occurred to me that I'm still not sure
where you stand."
"Where I stand?" Balsam repeated, trying to fathom
the Monsignor's meaning.
"I suppose this will sound strange to you," Vernon
said, trying to smile, with very little success. "But I
must know exactly where you stand with reference to the teachings
of the Church."
"Well, I haven't left it," Balsam said.
"No, you haven't, have you?" Monsignor said
speculatively. "But then, there are various ways
of leaving the Church, aren't there? And it seems to me
that your thesis was certainly a step, however
tentative, in that direction."
He paused then, as if waiting for a response from
Balsam. When none was forthcoming he
continued. "Well," he said abruptly, "there's no
point in beating around the bush. We're here
to determine whether you do, or whether you do not, accept
the Doctrines of the Church. Since you seem to be
particularly well versed in at least one of them, we
might as well begin with that one."
Balsam's first instinct was to simply stand up, walk
from the room, proceed down the hill, pack his things,
and catch the first train out of Neilsville. Then he
thought about it, and decided that there was no point in
evasion. If the issue was so important to the
priest, he would face it.
"Fine," he said at last. "Where do you want
to begin?"
"I thought I just made that clear," the Monsignor
said. "Do you accept the Church's Doctrine that
suicide is a mortal and irredeemable sin?"
"I thought I told you the other day that I don't
think I'm qualified to make any judgments at
all about that."
. n u p His
i . i
jt
"Are you qualified to have faith?" the priest countered.
"I don't think it's a question of faith,"
Balsam replied quietly.
"Then let me put it in purely intellectual
terms," Monsignor Vernon said.
Unexpectedly, he stood and took Balsam's
glass. "More?" he asked. Surprised, Balsam
nodded. The priest refilled the glasses, handed one
to Peter, and regained his chair.
"There are reasons why we have the Doctrines, you
know," he said, and Peter could tell from his tone that he
was about to receive a lecture. He nodded anyway, on
the off chance that it might cut the lecture short It
didn't.
"The Doctrine against suicide exists for many
reasons," the priest said. "Most important, of
course, suicide is in obvious conflict with
natural law, since it involves the destruction of
natural order." Balsam was tempted to bring up
the phenomenon of lemmings hurling themselves periodically
into the sea. He decided against it. The Monsignor
would merely say there could be no comparison between human
self-destruction and subhuman self-destruction.
During this sequence of thoughts Balsam had lost
track of the priest's line of reasoning. He seemed
to have shifted from the subject of natural order to the
subject of absolution.
"You realize," Vernon was saying, "that one of the
greatest problems a suicide presents to the Church
is the problem of absolution . . ."
Not to mention the problems the suicide is causing
Eor himself, Balsam thought He went on listening.
"dis . . The very act of suicide, if it is
successful, preccludes the possibility of
confession and absolution for the sin. There can't be any
question but that the suicide
PUNISH THE SINNERS 77
has separated himself from the Mother Church, and, therefore,
from God."
"Extra ecclesium nulla salus," Balsam
muttered.
"Pardon me?" the priest said.
"Outside the Church there is no salvation,"
Balsam translated for him.
"I know the Latin," Monsignor Vernon said
dryly. "I simply didn't hear the words
clearly." Then he paused, and stared hard at
Balsam. "Do you have 'problems" with that Doctrine
as well?"
Balsam shrugged. "I hadn't thought about it," he
said wearily. He leaned forward in his chair, and
decided to try to explain his thinking to the
priest
"Look," he said, "I don't know what's been
going on here in Neilsville, but everywhere else,
at least everywhere I've been, a lot of people are
raising questions. And these aren't people who have left the
Church, or are contemplating leaving it. They're
simply some thoughtful people who would like to see the Church
bring itself a little closer to the twentieth century."
"And that includes challenging the Doctrines?"
Vernon asked darkly.
"Not necessarily," Balsam said. Was there no
getting through to this man? Pete Vernon had always
seemed so reasonable in school. What had happened?
He made one more try. "It's not really a matter
of challenging the Doctrines," he said. "It's
simply a matter of bringing the Church more in touch with the
needs of people."
"The Church is concerned with the needs of God,"
Monsignor Vernon said stiffly, his voice taking
on a coldness that almost frightened Peter.
"There axe those of us who don't think the needs of
God and the needs of man are any different And we
would like to see the Doctrines reflect that." After he
in n rather' *
Tl!
spoke he realized that he had taken a stand. The
Monsibbnor was glaring his disapproval.
"The Doctrines are infallible," Monsignor
Vernon leclared. "They do not need modification.
Or do you Jso challenge the Doctrine of
Infallibility?"
Balsam found himself suddenly angry. The man
ounded like a medieval Inquisitor. "The
Doctrine of nfallibility itself is only about one
hundred years old," ie pointed out, trying to contain
himself. "And, unless ay memory is way off, I
don't think there was any kind if unanimity when that
particular Doctrine was dopted."
Suddenly the priest was on his feet, glaring down at
ialsam with an intensity that frightened him.
"Peter Balsam," the priest hissed, his eyes
glinting, it is exactly the sort of thinking I have
heard from you might that is destroying the Church. We
will not tolerte it at St. Francis Xavier's.
I do not know, and do not articularly care, what your
private thoughts may be- bviously you are very dose
to failing from grace-but will not stand for your contaminating the
children of lis parish with your ideas. It has been my
duty and rivilege to protect my flock from ideas
such as those ou've expressed, and I will not
fail in my duty now. Do make myself clear?"
Now Balsam stood up, and gazed at the priest
levelly.
5fou do," he said tightly. "And I have to tell you
that hat I'm hearing sounds as if it came straight
out of the irteenth century."
Suddenly the priest relaxed a little, and moved away
om Balsam. When he turned to face Peter again,
there as a slight smile on his lips that could have been
genue. Peter doubted it was.
"If you've studied your history, you know that there ere
a lot more saints in that century than in this.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 79
Maybe we should consider that fact before we talk with
such self-satisfaction about our "modern times.""
"We know a bit more about human beings now,"
Balsam said.
"Perhaps," Monsignor replied. "But they
certainly knew something we've forgotten-how to deal with
heresy and sin." He paused, and when he continued it
was more to himself than to Peter. "Or at least some of us
have. Not all of us."
Ten minutes later, as he walked back down the
hill* Balsam was still trying to figure out what had
happened to his old friend, Pete Vernon.
Though a definite physical resemblance
remained, Monsignor Vernon had nothing else in
common with the Pete Vernon with whom Peter Balsam
had grown up.
As he was leaving, the Monsignor had urged him
once more to attend a meeting of the study group he
led. Perhaps he should, Balsam decided. Perhaps it was
the study group that had affected Monsignor
Vernon so strongly, and made his religion so
rigid. What was it the priest had said they called the
group? The Society of St. Peter Martyour. The
same saint whose statue stood in the alcove of
Room 16, keeping tabs on him. Peter
Balsam decided to attend the next meeting of the
Society. If he was still in Neilsville.
After Balsam left the rectory, and he had
carefully locked the front door for the night,
Monsignor Vernon returned to the den, carefully
locked that door as well, and lit the fire that was
already laid in the fireplace. Then, unaware of the
uncomfortably high temperature that was turning the
small room into an oven, he began to pray. He
prayed for a long time, and by the time he was finished, the
flames had died. All that remained in
: n n ri
n
i . -i ,-backslash
he fireplace was a bed of coals, glowing hotly
in the larkness. A bed of coals, he thought, that glowed
for he heretics and sinners. Smiling contentedly,
Monsipor Vernon took himself to bed. He would
sleep *eacefully tonight. Tomorrow he would begin his work.
The next day, a subtle shift had taken place
in the seating pattern of the psychology class. Though
the same five people still ranged across the front row,
Judy Nelson was not sitting next to Karen
Morton. Today she had moved herself to the end of the row,
and Penny and Janet had each moved in a seat.
Balsam had wondered, when he first noticed this, if
something had happened between Karen and Judy, or whether
the four girls were in the habit of changing places,
and sharing each other. That, he knew, was
unlikely-in many ways adolescents tended to be
much more rigid than adults.
Today, Balsam hadn't bothered to cover the Skinner
box. As he talked to the class, he occasionally
glanced down at the rat, which sat calmly gazing
back up at him, almost as if it knew it was going
to be called upon to perform, and was awaiting its cue.
Balsam was talking to the class about
frustration, and he had tried to put a capital
"From' on the word when he had first used it.
"Frustration," he had said, "might be defined as the
feeling one gets when one has to sit and listen to a
psychology lecture when one would rather be doing almost
anything else."
The class had chuckled nervously, as if they were a
little embarrassed at being caught out. But at least they
n r* ri i tilde i
were all paying attention; all that is, except
Judy Nelson, who seemed lost in her own world.
From what Balsam could observe of the sullen
expression on her face, it was not a pleasant world.
He was right. Judy was still sulking about the scene she
had had with her mother the night before. She had spent most
of an hour locked in the bathroom, waiting for the
slight tap at the door, and her mother's plaintive
tone asking her if she was all right-the signal that she
had won, that her mother had given in. But it didn't
come. Finally, Judy had given up the bathroom in
favor of a frontal assault She had gone
downstairs to play backgammon with her father. But he
had only looked at her coldly and announced that
he had changed his mind-there would be no backgammon
that night. Judy, bursting into tears, had
fled back to the bathroom. There she had waited. And
waited. Eventually she had heard her parents come
upstairs, and heard them call her a cheerful
good-night. Then she had heard their door close as
they retired for the night. Judy had considered throwing
another tantrum, but had discarded the idea. Instead,
she had taken her anger to bed with her, where she had no
trouble at all in transferring it to Karen Morton.
The "if onlies" had begun: H only Karen
hadn't called her. It only Karen hadn't begun
talking about the party. If only Karen hadn't
mentioned the dress. Ignoring the fact that she, too,
had talked about the party, bragged about the dress,
Judy had quickly decided that the whole thing was
Karen's fault. So, today, she had snubbed Karen in
the morning, then carefully seated herself two seats
away when they had arrived at Room
16. Now, as Mr. Balsam droned on, she
glanced across at Karen, and mentally criticized
everything about her, from her bleached hair and plucked
brows to the too-
PUNISH THE SINNERS 83
tight dress that was stretched across her too-large
bust It was all Karen's fault, Judy told
herself again. And then she saw all the students
standing up and moving to the front of the room, and realized
she hadn't heard a word Mr. Balsam had said.
Coming out of her reverie, Judy got up and joined the
group clustered around the strange box with the rat in it
"Now," Peter Balsam was saying, "watch
carefully. As you can see, I've arranged a maze
in the box. A simple one. Two correct
choices, and it's easy to get through. For you and me,
anyway. But it looks different to the rat, since
he can't see the whole thing, and wouldn't know what
to think of it, even if he could see it. Now, watch
what happens."
He dropped a pellet of food at one end of the
maze, and placed the rat at the other. Then he
replaced the glass top on the box. The rat
sniffed a couple of times, caught the scent of
food, and began snuffling around. It started through the
maze, came to a dead end, snuffled some more,
retraced its steps, and got back on the right
track. Then it missed the second turn, and came
up against another dead end. Unfazed, it
backtracked again. This time its efforts were rewarded.
"Let's try it again, and see what happens,"
Balsam said. He opened the box, lifted the rat
out, and put in another food pellet The
rat made it to the food with only one wrong turn.
The third time he repeated the experiment, the rat
went directly to the food. It had learned the
route.
"Okay," Balsam said. Tm Bure everyone
understands what's been happening. I've encouraged the
rat to learn by rewarding him with food. So far, so
good. Now let's try something else. He picked
up a small piece of wood from the desktop, and
held it up for the class to see.
r-less-than
"Let's add a new element," he said. "Let's
put this into the maze right here." He carefully added the
new barrier to the maze.
"But if you put it there," Janet Connally pointed
out, "he won't be able to get through at all."
Balsam smiled at her. "Exactly," he said.
"Now let's see how the rat reacts." He put
the rat back in the box, and quickly replaced the
glass top. The rat hurried through the maze until
it suddenly bumped into the new barrier. It sniffed
at the barrier a couple of times, and tried to prod
its way past The barrier held. Then the rat began
moving more rapidly, poking in every corner,
frantically searching for a way past the
barrier. When it found none, it leaped against the barrier
a couple of times, then strained upward and clawed at
the glass. Finally, it sat very still, trembling,
immobile.
"What happened?" a voice asked softly.
"I frustrated it," Balsam said. "And when it
couldn't find any outlet for its frustration, it threw
in the towel."
"You mean it just stopped trying?" Balsam
recognized the voice now. It was Marilyn
Crane. He glanced up at her, and saw an
expression of compassion on her face.
"That's right," he said. "It stopped trying. It will
probably try again in a few minutes, since it can
still smell the food. But it will stop again, and unless I
take the barrier away it will just give up
completely."
"But I still don't understand what happened." Penny
Anderson looked worried.
Balsam smiled at her. "I led it to expect
something," he said. "I taught it that if it went through
the maze in a certain way it could expect a reward
at the end. And then, just as it had gotten used to the
game, I changed the rules. All of a sudden it
doesn't know what to expect, and finds that
it isn't even in control of the situa-
PUNISH THE SINNERS 85
tion. So it's frustrated. Unless I relieve
the frustration, it will get neurotic. In fact, if
I tried, I could drive that rat completely
crazy. All I'd have to do is keep changing the
rules on it, let it learn the new rules, then
change them again. Mainly, it's a matter of being
inconsistent As long as the rat knows what
to expect, he's all right It doesn't bother him
that he can't get food when the light is out. He just
waits for the light to come back on, I set the rule
long ago, and never varied it. With the maze, I did
something different. I was inconsistent."
"I think I see," Janet said carefully.
"It's like with my parents. As long as they do what I
expect them to do, I feel safe. But every now and then
they do something unexpected, and it upsets me."
"That's it," Balsam said. "It's all a matter
of consistency. Lack of consistency leads
to frustration, and from there on it's a downhill
slide."
Just then the bell rang, and the class, without thinking,
began moving to their desks. One or two laughed
self-consciously.
"Conditioned response," Balsam heard Janet
Connally whisper to Penny Anderson. Then the two
girls were gone, disappearing into the hall with the rest of the
class. When he turned back to the rat, Judy
Nelson was staring blankly down into the box.
Balsam watched her in silence for a moment, wondering
if she was aware that the room had emptied. She
seemed to be lost somewhere in the depths of the maze, as
she had been lost somewhere in another world during his
lecture. When he finally spoke, she looked up
in surprise.
"Has he moved yet?" Balsam asked her.
"No," she said uncertainly. "He just sits there.
It's too bad, isn't it?"
"What is?" Balsam inquired.
"I'm not sure. I mean, it just seems like it's
too bad
the rat doesn't have more control over his surroundings.
It's like he wants to do something, but just can't do it."
"Exactly," Balsam said, moving closer to her and
looking down at the rat. The rat, still trembling,
stared balefully back at him, almost as if it were
reproaching him.
"That's one of the things that make rats nice for
experimentation," he explained. "Because they
don't have much control over their environment, it's much
easier to get dependable results. Or magnified
results."
Judy peered at him now, a puzzled expression
on her face.
Balsam began again. "H the rat were human it
wouldn't be nearly so easy to reduce it to a point of
total frustration. For instance, if the rat were a
person, it would have first gone over the entire maze,
making sure it hadn't taken any wrong turns.
Then it would have investigated the barrier, trying
to figure a way to get through. And then, if that
failed, it would have started figuring a way to break the
glass, so it could go over."
Judy nodded her head. "And if that didn't work?"
she asked quietly.
"Who knows?" Balsam shrugged. "If I were that
rat, I suppose I'd be busy tearing that cage
apart, or Fd kill myself trying." His attention had
wandered back to the rat again, but as he finished what he
was saying he glanced once more at Judy. There was
an odd look on her face.
"Is something wrong?" he asked her.
Judy shook her head negatively. "No," she
said shortly. "I-I'm fine, really."
She glanced at the clock. "I'm going to be late
if I don't hurry." She moved to her chair, and
quickly began gathering her belongings. As she was about
to leave the room, Balsam stopped her.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 87
"Are you sure you're all right?" he said.
She nodded quickly, and started for the door.
"If something's wrong, I wish you'd tell me what
it is," Balsam tried again. "Or maybe you should
talk to Monsignor."
At the mention of the priest, Judy suddenly turned
back, and stared at Balsam.
"Monsignor?" she said blankly. "You must be
kidding!" And then she was gone.
Balsam stared after her, her words echoing in Ms
ears. "You must be kidding!" And the look on her
face, a mixture of resentment, bafflement, and, it
seemed, contempt. And why not? Balsam
reflected. Why had he suggested she talk to the
Monsignor? Certainly the priest was the last
person Balsam would go to if he had a problem; why
should the students feel any differently? Perhaps he
should have tuggested one of the nuns. But which one? Sister
Elizabeth? Hardly. What about Sister
Kathleen? All Judy would have gotten was
a lecture, a warning about her sins. And, if she
had been sinning, a lecture wasn't what she
needed.
Then he came, in his mind, to Sister Marie. Of
course. Quickly, Balsam stepped into the hall and
looked up and down. But Judy was gone. He went
back into his room, fed the rat, and pulled his
lunch bag from his desk. He took one bite and
put his sandwich down. Maybe he could convince
Sister Marie to talk to Judy and find out what was
wrong. Because something was wrong. He was sure of it.
He found the nun in the library, deeply engrossed
in a copy of Christian Century, which she quickly
closed when she realized someone was approaching. Then,
when she saw who it was, she smiled and waved. As
Balsam drew nearer she laughed, and reopened the
r-i
i-1
magazine. Inside was another magazine. Balsam
saw that the nun had been engrossed in the theater
column of The New Yorker.
"Catching up on your religion?" he grinned,
sitting down across from her.
"It's terrible, isn't it? I always feel so
guilty about it, but I do love the theater,
there's no sense denying it."
Peter glanced once more at the magazine that was so
neatly concealed inside the Christian Century.
"Unlikely reading material for St. Francis
Xavier's," he commented.
Sister Marie nodded emphatically. "If you
promise not to tell anyone-and I mean
anyone-It1 let you in on a secret."
"Who would I tell?" Balsam said. **Well,
this is my own guilty secret. I've never told
anyone until now. But I think it'll be safe with
you." Her eyes were twinkling merrily, and Balsam
decided he'd been right. If anyone should talk
to Judy Nelson, it was Sister Marie. Her
voice dropped conspiratorially. "The library
gets The New Yorker every year as an anonymous
gift," she said. "From you?" Balsam said.
"Oh, no, I eouldn't," Sister Marie said,
horrified at the suggestion. Then she went on,
"My sister, however, could, and does. Every year, when
Monsignor gets the notice of renewal, he
talks about canceling it. But he's afraid to, because
he thinks it would get back to whoever donates it, and
they might cut off any other donations they're making
to the Church." "And would she?" Balsam
asked. "Heavens, no," Sister Marie said,
laughing happily. "That's the best part of it. My
sister happens to be a Baptist. She sends in the
subscription each year as a favor to me. She
doesn't give a nickel to the Church. In
PUNISH THE SINNERS 89
fact, she says I'm the only Catholic she can
put up with at all! Isn't it wonderful?" The
two of them laughed for a moment, then Peter grew
serious. He decided he liked Sister Marie very
much.
"I wonder if you could do me a favor," he said
slowly.
"Of course," Sister Marie responded. "Unless
it's something wicked. Then I'd have to confess afterward, but
Fd probably do it anyway."
"You're impossible," Peter said, smiling at her.
"I try." Then, as his smile faded, she grew
serious. "What is it?" she asked.
"I'm not sure, really. But I thought you might be
able to find out. It's one of my students, Judy
Nelson." The nun nodded shortly, acknowledging that
she knew Judy.
"Something's bothering her," Balsam continued, "and I
can't get her to tell me what it is."
Briefly, he told Sister Marie what had
transpired after his class and that he had suggested that
Judy talk to Monsignor.
"She wasn't too receptive to that idea," he
finished.
"No, I don't imagine she was," Sister
Marie said briefly, and Peter Balsam thought he
detected a bitterness in her voice. He thought she
was about to say something about the priest, then appeared
to change her mind. She smiled at him
reassuringly.
"I'll see what I can do," she said. "Mind you,
I'm not guaranteeing anything. Sometimes I think our
habits get between us and the children. I think we scare
them. But I'll find her this afternoon, and see if I can
find out what the trouble is. All right?"
Suddenly Balsam felt better. He smiled at
the nun, and stood up.
"I'm sorry to dump this on you," he began, but
Sister Marie held up a hand.
"Don't be sorry," she said. "Try to do what you
think
to R p
n
pSo!
is right, and try not to worry too much about the
consequences. If things go too far wrong, God will
take care of them."
Balsam started to reply, then changed his mind. He
smiled at her once more, then turned to go. Behind him,
he heard her voice.
"Mr. Balsam?" He turned around. The twinkle
was back in her eye. "There's something else you should
know. One thing you can count on with Judy-if she can
find a reason to be dramatic, she'll be
dramatic. Whatever it is, I'm sure it's not
serious."
Balsam nodded, then made his way back to Room
16. He finished his sandwich, sharing it with the rat, and
prepared for his next class. Latin in. By the time
the class convened, he was totally immersed in
conjugating irregular verbs in the past perfect
He had forgotten about Judy Nelson.
At a quarter to four that afternoon, Marilyn Crane
iurried down the hall toward the lockers. She was
late md she still had to stop at church before she went
lome. As she began spinning the dial on the lock,
hopng it would open on the first try, she was vaguely
iware of someone leaning heavily against the wall a few
eet away. She didn't look up; not enough
time. She urned to the last digit, and grasped the
handle of the ocker. It wouldn't move. Quickly, she
twirled the dial igain, until she felt a
slight click. She tried the handle greater-than
nce more, and this time it moved. Marilyn pulled the
ocker door, and started to put her books inside.
Then he gasped, and her hand flew to her mouth.
Inside was a crucifix, suspended upside down
from oe of the coathooks at the top of the locker. The
face f Christ had been smashed. She looked
frantically for a ote, some explanation, but there was
none. She stared
PUNISH THE SINNERS 91
vacantly at the dangling, obscenely defaced
crucifix, then slammed the locker shut and closed
her eyes tightly, but the image stayed before her.
Then, as she began silently praying, she felt the
eyes on her. She opened her own, and looked around,
recognizing the person of whom she had been
vaguely aware a moment earlier. It was Judy
Nelson, and she was leaning against the wall, staring at
Marilyn. Marilyn looked quickly away.
Judy Nelson! Would Judy have done something like this?
She knew Judy didn't like her. None of that
group did. Marilyn remembered the frog
yesterday. Was Judy in the biology class? She
could feel the other girl's eyes still on her.
No, Marilyn told herself, don't think that.
Judy wouldn't do something like that. It has to be someone
else; someone I don't even know. She wanted
to believe it, believe that only a stranger could be so
heartless. She forced herself to turn and look at
Judy Nelson.
It was then Marilyn realized that something was wrong.
Judy hadn't moved, nor had her expression
changed. It came to Marilyn that Judy wasn't
looking at her, but beyond her, at something off in the
distance. She wondered if she ought to speak to Judy.
Probably not. But she couldn't just walk away, could
she?
Why not? Hadn't Judy said mean things to her?
So had everyone else. And Judy seemed to need
help.
Marilyn closed her eyes again, and silently begged
the Sorrowful Mother to give her strength. And she thought
she felt strength flowing into her. She moved down the
hall until she was next to Judy.
"Judy?" she asked. "Are you all right? Is
something the matter?"
Judy Nelson seemed to come out of her
reverie. She
bar -i i-i tcomment
n
F*
looked coldly at Marilyn, as if she hadn't
noticed her before.
"I'm fine," she said; her tone told Marilyn
she wasn't
"Can I help?" Marilyn offered, determined not
to be put off by Judy's coldness.
Judy stared at her again, and Marilyn thought she was
going to walk away without saying anything. But then she
seemed to change her mind. Her face went slack,
and suddenly looked very tired.
"Nobody can help me," she said. Then she
turned, and silently walked away, down the hall.
For a moment, Marilyn was tempted to follow her, and
try to find out what was wrong. She watched until
Judy disappeared around the corner. Then, shrugging,
Marilyn walked down the hall the other way, and
left the school building to go into the church. As she
sat in the pew, silently praying to the Blessed
Virgin, she imagined she heard music in the
background. It was a singsong sound, like Gregorian
chants, and Marilyn wondered where it was coming
from. When it stopped, she realized that it hadn't been
coming from anywhere. It must, she was sure, have been coming from
inside her head. She left the church, and walked
down the hill toward home.
Inez Nelson heard the front door open and then
close, and wiped her hands on her apron.
"Judy?" she called. "Is that you?" She started
toward the front of the house, glancing at the clock
to determine how late Judy was. But before she had
gotten halfway down the hall she heard her
husband's voice.
"It's me," George Nelson called out. He
stepped into the hall, almost bumping into his wife.
"Judy not home yet?"
"No, she isn't," Inez said, suddenly worried.
Why
PUNISH THE SINNERS 93
would she have been calling Judy, if Judy were already
home? Didn't he think!
"Maybe she went over to Janet's or
Penny's," George suggested.
"She should have called if she did," Inez pointed
out, when, as if on cue, the phone began to ring.
George looked triumphant.
"See?" he said, and picked up the receiver.
"Nelson residence."
"Mr. Nelson?"
"Yes," George said, a little uncertainly. He
didn't recognize the voice.
"This is Mrs. Williams, at the emergency
room of the hospital."
"The hospital?" George repeated blankly.
"Neilsville Hospital," Mrs. Williams
repeated. "I'm afraid I have to ask you to come down
here. Your daughter's here." Then, when George
failed to respond, she continued, "You are the father of
Judy Nelson?"
"Yes," George said weakly, the color draining
from his face. "What's happened? What's wrong?"
He listened, trembling, then quietly dropped the
receiver back on the hook and turned to his wife.
"What is it?" she said. "What's happened?"
"I'm not sure," George said slowly. "She
says--" he faltered, then blurted out, "Judy
tried to kill herself."
r-i
Judy Nelson lay propped up in bed, glaring
at the nurse who was adjusting the bandages on her
wrists. In one corner of the room her bloodstained
clothes lay in a pile: she had refused
to allow them to be taken away, and rather than provoke
a scene the nurses had decided the clothes could
wait.
"Your parents will be here any minute now," one of the
nurses said gently, patting Judy on the hand.
"How are we feeling?"
"I don't want to see them," Judy muttered,
pulling her hand away.
"Of course you do," the nurse smiled. "We all
want to see our parents, don't we?"
Judy glared at the nurse. "still don't," she
snapped. "Why don't you leave me alone?"
The nurse didn't answer her, merely moved
to another chair, a little way from the bed. She ignored
Judy's sullen stare and occupied herself with several
unnecessary readings of Judy's chart.
In the reception area of the emergency room, Mrs.
Williams was trying to explain the situation to Inez
and George Nelson. George seemed to be
listening carefully, but Inez was tapping her foot
nervously, as if waiting for all the "nonsense"
to be over with, so she could see her daughter.
Fi
"We don't really know what happened," Mrs.
Williams was saying. "Or perhaps I should
say we don't know why. Judy won't talk
to anybody about it, and until she does, well . .
." Her voice trailed off, and she shrugged
eloquently.
"Could you tell me exactly what you do know?" Inez
asked sharply.
Mrs. Willams sighed. These things were so
difficult, rhank God they practically never
happened. Brusquely she began telling the story
to the Nelsons.
"Apparently Judy didn't leave the school this
afternoon. Instead, she went to the girls' locker room,
off their gymnasium, and waited until she thought
everyone had gone home. Then she found a razor
blade, and cut ier wrists." When she saw the
color draining from [nez's face she hastened
to explain. "It isn't as bad as it sounds," she
rushed on. "As a matter of fact, it's next
to mpossible to do enough damage to yourself with razor
greater-than lades to die, except under certain
circumstances. Mostly, it just hurts a bit, and
causes a lot of mess. Anyvay, Judy must have
gotten scared as soon as she cut lerself, because she
called the police right away. Of jourse the
police called us, but by the time our ambuance
got there, it was all pretty much over with."
"Over with?" George asked. "What do you mean,
greater-than ver with?"
"One of the janitors at the school found her,"
Mrs. Vffliams said. "Fortunately, he
wasn't the kind to get ipset at the sight of
blood, and he had her wrists banLaged before
anybody else could get there. It wasn't the test
bandaging job I ever saw, but it wasn't the worst,
dther. Doctor put in a few stitches and
rebandaged the prists, and Judy should be fine in a day
or so." Mrs. Villiams tried to smile
brightly, as if the whole incident vere no worse
than a scraped knee.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 97
"I want to see her," Inez said suddenly.
"Yes," Mrs. Williams began. "I . . .
I'm sure you do. But I'm afraid you'll have
to talk to the doctor first." Now she was showing
definite signs of discomfort.
"*The doctor?" George said. "Which doctor?"
"Dr. Shields," Mrs. Williams said
nervously.
"Shields?" George Nelson repeated.
"He's a psychiatrist, isn't he?"
"Yes-was She started to explain. Inez cut her
off.
"A psychiatrist? Just to bandage Judy's wrists?
I don't understand." Mrs. Williams was sure
she did understand; she just didn't want to face it.
"I'm sure you do," she said. Suddenly, since the
issue was met, she felt on firmer ground. "With
wounds like Judy's, calling in a psychiatrist is
standard procedure."
"Wound* like Judy's?" Inez said vaguely.
"I think she means self-inflicted wounds,"
George said quietly. Inez's face remained
blank. Shock, George realized; she must have
gone into shock and blocked out the details of what
happened. He signaled Mrs. Williams
aside.
"Is Dr. Shields around?" he whispered. 'Today
like to talk to him, and I think he should probably have a
look at my wife, too."
Suddenly understanding his meaning, Mrs. Williams
stole a glance in Inez's direction. She was gone.
Quickly she looked up and down the hall. Inez was
striding purposefully toward Judy's room.
"Mrs. Nelson," she called, but it was too
late.
Inez Nelson pushed open the door to the hospital
room, and stepped in. She didn't see Judy
at first but she heard her.
"Get her out of here," Judy screamed. "I told
you I didn't want her in here!"
Inez whirled, and saw her daughter propped up in
bed. She could barely recognize her. Judy's
face was contorted with anger, and she was tearing at the
bandages at her wrists. Inez started to move toward
the bed. Before she could get there Judy had pulled the
bandages off, and ripped at the stitches. Blood
spurted from her wrists. She began screaming at her
mother again.
"I hate you," she shouted. "Get out of here!
Leave me alone!"
Inez tried to put her arms around her daughter, but
Judy wriggled away, leaving Inez's blouse
bloodied. She stared down at herself, and the horror of
it washed over her. Inez, too, began screaming,
and a moment later, after she'd pressed the emergency
bell, the nurse began trying to separate mother and
daughter. It took her only a second to realize
that of the two, the mother was far worse off than the
daughter. Inez was hysterical; Judy, screaming and
struggling against her mother, seemed to know
exactly what she was doing. Just as the nurse herself was
beginning to panic, help arrived in the form of Mrs.
Williams and George Nelson, followed by a
press greater-than from orderlies and nurses, who
crowded into the room, Treating further confusion.
Three burly orderlies were ittempting to pull a
shrieking Inez Nelson away from he bed when Dr.
Shields arrived, sized up the situation n an
instant, and began issuing orders. Within minutes,
sedatives were administered to both Judy and Inez
Nelion.
"I'm sorry, Doctor," Mrs. Williams
said when the oom had been cleared, "I tried to keep
her away but I iouldn't."
"It's all right," Dr. Shields said calmly.
"I don't see hat there's much damage done."
"Keep her out of the room?" George Nelson
reteated, "Keep her out? Why did you want
to keep
PUNISH THE SINNERS 99
Inez-my wife-out of the room?" He looked from
Mrs. Williams to the doctor, then back again.
"It was my fault, really," Dr. Shields said.
"Judy said she didn't want to see her mother right
now, and I should have been here when you arrived
to explain it to you. I'm sorry. The whole thing was
really my fault"
But George Nelson hadn't heard the last
"Didn't want to see her mother? Why? I don't
understand."
Dr. Shields looked at him sympathetically,
seeing the man's confusion and helplessness. "Could you
wait a couple of minutes?" he asked George.
When George nodded mutely, Dr. Shields
patted him on the back. "Fine," he said.
"Mrs. Williams will get you a cup of coffee,
and by the time it's cool enough to drink, 111 be back.
Then I'll try to tell you what's happening, and
what's going to happen next." When a look of fear
came over George's face, the doctor felt
compelled to add: "It isn't as bad as it looks."
Then he smiled reassuringly, and disappeared down the
hall. George Nelson sank into a chair,
prepared to wait. He wondered why he suddenly
felt that this was just the beginning. He was sure that it was as
bad as it looked-and probably much worse.
Peter Balsam heard about Judy Nelson from a
very agitated Sister Marie, who called him as
soon as she heard about it from Sister Elizabeth-who
had gotten all the details from the
janitor. Sister Marie seemed to think the whole
thing was her fault-she had been unable to find Judy
during the afternoon. And now this had happened. Sister
Marie felt terribly guilty. Balsam
assured her that no matter what had happened, there was
no reason for the nun to blame herself. He did not
add, since he could see no reason to increase her
worries, that he, too, felt responsible for
Judy. Perhaps if he had
S
tried a little harder to talk to her, if he had spent
a little more time with her . . . On an impulse,
Balsam decided to go to the hospital.
Mrs. Williams looked up at the man who
hovered uncertainly over her desk, and put on her
best professional smile.
"Yes?" she said. The young man in front of Her
looked very uncomfortable. "Do you need to see a
doctor?" she added solicitously.
"Me?" Balsam said in surprise. "Oh, no
... no, Fm fine. I was just wondering if I'm in
the right place.**
"That depends on the problemea** Mrs.
Williams smiled. "What can I do for you?"
"I wanted to find out about Judy
Nelsonea** Balsam said. He was vaguely
aware that the two men who sat luddled together a few
feet away had stopped talking and vere staring at
him. "Is she still here?"
Mrs. Williams nodded. "Oh, yes," she said.
'Tomorrow ifraid she isn't allowed any visitors
yet." She paused, hen continued, "Are you a friend
of the family?" Dumb question, she admonished herself.
If he knew the amily, he'd be talking to Mr.
Nelson, not to me. In ront of her, the young man was
shaking his head.
"Not exactly," he was saying. "Fm one of her
teachsrs. My name is Peter Balsam. Why
don't you just tell udy I was here-**
He started to turn away, then stopped. The two men
pho had been seated were now standing.
"Mr. Balsam?" one of them was saying now. "The
*sychology teacher?"
Balsam nodded.
"I'm George Nelson," the man said, offering his
land. "Judy's father. This is Dr. Shields."
PUNISH THE SINNERS 101
Balsam took the proffered hand, and smiled an
acknowledgment to the doctor.
"Hello," he said. "How is she? Is
she all right?"
"She's going to be fine." The doctor answered for
George Nelson. "We were just talking about the
whole situation. Why don't you join us?" He
indicated the chairs, but Balsam waited until the
other two were seated before he sank into the third chair.
"What happened?" Balsam asked. The two men
looked uncomfortably at each other.
"That's just what we were trying to figure out," Dr.
Shields said. 'Tomorrow afraid we don't really
know."
"I heard the janitor found her in the gym,"
Balsam said softly. "With her wrists-cut." He
had almost said "slashed," but the word seemed too
graphic.
"It was in the locker room," Dr. Shields
corrected him, "and fortunately it isn't serious.
Now we're trying to figure out why."
"Why?" Balsam repeated the word bluntly.
"Why she cut herself," George Nelson said
miserably. "She just never seemed like the kind of
girl who would do something like that."
The word "dramatic" popped into Peter Balsam's
mind. Sister Marie had used it, at lunch time.
She had said Judy tended to be
dramatic. He wondered if he should mention it to the
two men. They seemed to be waiting for him to speak.
"Has she talked about it?" Balsam asked.
The doctor shook his head. "No. All she's said
is that she doesn't want to see her mother.
Frankly, I don't think the situation is all that
serious. In my experience, which I admit is very
limited, someone who really wants to commit suicide
doesn't call the police immediately after the
attempt."
"She called the police?" Balsam asked.
George Nelson nodded. "That's right. And the cuts
aren't deep. But we still think there must be a reason for
it. I mean, a sixteen-year-old girl doesn't
just do something like that, does she?" He looked from the
doctor to Balsam, then back to the doctor.
"Did you see her today?" the doctor asked
Balsam, ignoring Nelson's question.
"Yes, of course," Peter said. "She's in my
psychology course."
"Did anything seem to be bothering her?" the doctor
pressed.
"I'm not sure," Balsam began uncertainly.
He didn't want to raise any false alarms.
"I mean, I think something was on her mind,
but I haven't the slightest idea what it was.
She stayed for a minute or two after class, but when
I tried to draw her out, she wouldn't talk about it.
So I suggested she talk to Monsignor."
"Monsignor?" the doctor asked.
"Monsignor Vernon," George Nelson
filled in. "The priest who runs the school.
Did she talk to him?"
"I don't know. Frankly, I'd pretty much
forgotten about it until Sister Marie called me."
Dr. Shields looked at Balsam questioningly, and
Peter felt compelled to continue.
"After I suggested Judy talk to Monsignor,
I got to hinking maybe she'd be better off talking
to a woman. were tried to catch up to her, and suggest
that she talk to Sister Marie, instead. But she was
gone, so I found iister Marie, and asked her to try
to talk to Judy."
"And did she?" the doctor prompted him.
"I wish she had," Balsam said unhappily.
"But she lidn't. She said she looked for Judy
after school, but beouldn't find her."
"She must not have looked very hard," George Nelon
said bitterly. "Judy was there all afternoon."
PUNISH THE srNNERS 103
"What happens now?" Peter asked, deciding not
to pursue the question of whether or not Sister Marie had
made a proper search for the girl.
The doctor shrugged helplessly. "I'm keeping her
here for observation," he said. "Standard procedure.
But whether she'll start talking about what happened is
anyone's guess. With kids, sometimes it's hard
to get through."
Suddenly there seemed very little left to say, and Peter
Balsam began to feel uncomfortable-there must be things
the doctor would want to talk about with the patient's
father. He stood up uncertainly, grateful when the
two men also rose from their chairs. The doctor
extended his hand.
Tm glad to have met you," he said with a smile. "I
hope we see each other again."
"But in happier circumstances," Peter replied,
accepting the doctor's hand. He turned to George
Nelson.
"I can't tell you how sorry I am about this," he
said softly.
Nelson tried to smile at him, but found it
difficult "Thanks for coming," he said. "I'll
tell Judy you were here. Or someone will."
A few minutes later Peter Balsam
was walking slowly back through the streets of
Neilsville. As he approached his apartment, he
had a feeling of something left undone, as if there were
someone he should talk to. He glanced up toward
Cathedral Hill, and saw the short spire of St.
Francis Xavier Church. Monsignor. He
should talk to Monsignor. Peter Balsam
didn't stop at his apartment. Instead, he increased
his pace, and hurried up the hill.
He let himself into the rectory, and rang the silver
bell. He waited. When there was no response,
he rang
n
the bell again. Still no response. He was about
to leave when he noticed a thin band of light gleaming
from beneath the door to the den. Balsam made his way
down the hall. He stood quietly for a moment,
listening.
At first there was silence, but a second later he
heard the sounds of praying. An odd sort of
praying: not the steady rhythms of the rosary, but short,
staccato bursts of religious ejaculations. He
listened for a moment, and had started to move away from the
door when he heard another sound, a sound he
hadn't heard since his childhood days in
the convent. He stared at the door, wondering if he
was really hearing what he seemed to be hearing. It was
then that he noticed that the door was slightly ajar.
Before he quite realized what he was doing, he had pushed
the door partway open.
In the center of the room, kneeling on the floor,
Monsignor Vernon was praying. He was staring
heavenward, but from where Balsam stood, it almost
seemed as though the priest was praying to the chandelier that
glowed dimly above.
He was stripped to the waist, and sweating profusely,
whether from the heat of the fire that flickered on the
hearth, or from religious fervor, Balsam was
unsure. In one hand the priest held a rosary; in
the other was clutched the flagellum. With each
ejaculation, Monsignor Vernon was beating his
naked back with the whip, [t was not the soft,
symbolic flagellation the nuns Balsam had
grown up with indulged in. Monsignor Vernon
vas punishing himself, and the welts on his shoulders showed
vividly against the pale white of his skin.
Emjarrassed, Peter Balsam quickly pulled the
door closed ind backed away, wishing he hadn't
seen the strange jeremony within.
Then the praying stopped, and a strange
silence fell greater-than ver the rectory.
Balsam picked up the small silver bell
PUNISH THE SINNERS 105
and rang it once more. He thought he heard a
movement in the den, but he wasn't sure. He
turned away, about to leave the rectory, when he
heard Monsignor Vernon's voice.
"Hello?" The voice sounded muffled, and
uncertain.
"It's me," Balsam called. "Peter. I can
come back . . ."
"No," the voice came again. "I'll be right with you.
Just give me a moment."
Balsam wondered how the priest would look, if his
fervor and exertions would show in his face. But when
Vernon appeared a moment later, he seemed
relaxed, as if he had been doing nothing more strenuous
than reading a book. Looking at him, Peter
wondered if he could possibly have imagined the
strange scene of a few minutes earlier.
"Peter," Monsignor Vernon greeted him with a
joviality that Balsam had not heard since their
college days. "Come in, come in. I was just
praying, and didn't hear the bell."
In the den, the lights had been turned up,
and the fire, with another log thrown on it, was dancing
brightly.
"A little warm for that, isn't it?" Balsam asked.
The priest grinned self-consciously.
"I guess so," he said. "But every now and then I
want a fire, and it doesn't seem to matter how
hot it is outside." Then the brief flash of
joviality faded, and Monsignor Vernon's
face took on a serious expression. "I
suppose you want to talk about Judy Nelson?"
he asked in a tone that told Balsam that despite
what he might wish, the priest did not want
to discuss the matter.
"I just came from the hospital," Balsam said
tentatively.
The priest's brow arched. "Did you?"
"No one knows what happened. Judy won't talk
about it"
"I don't imagine she would," Monsignor said in
a disapproving tone. "But I imagine shell talk
to me about it."
"Oh?" Balsam inquired. The priest nodded,
almost imperceptibly, but did not explain.
"I was wondering," Balsam said carefully. "Did
you happen to talk to her today?"
"I did," the priest said, "but the conversation is
confidential. I heard her confession this afternoon." Then
he looked sharply at the teacher. "What made you
think I might have talked to her?"
"Because I suggested it," Balsam said nervously.
"I mean, I didn't suggest she confess, but I
told her I thought she ought to talk to you. Or
to someone."
"I see," the priest said. He folded his hands
carefully. "Was there a reason? For your suggesting
she talk to me?"
"I-I thought she needed someone to talk to, and since
she didn't seem to want to talk to me, I
suggested you."
The priest considered this for a moment, then asked what
had caused Peter's concern.
"It was her manner, more than anything," Balsam
tegan, trying to recreate the scene in his mind.
"She stayed after my class." He recounted as best
he could he conversation he had had with Judy. When he
was inished, the priest seemed to think it over, then
asked a question.
"Was there anything you said, anything at all, that
night have caused this?"
Balsam thought. He didn't think there
was. And then le remembered. It seemed so
insignificant. He hadn't
PUNISH THE SINNERS 107
meant anything by it. But now, considering what had
happened, he decided he'd better tell the
Monsignor about it.
"There was one tiling," he said carefully, trying not
to attach any great importance to his words, and
succeeding only in making them sound even more
important. "We were talking about an experiment I
conducted during the class today. It had to do with
frustration, and I was demonstrating a point with a rat
and a maze. Judy seemed a bit distracted during
the lecture, but when I started the experiment she
perked right up. Then, while we were talking, she
asked me what Td do, if I were the rat. And I
told her, I think, that Fd probably do what I
could to relieve my frustration, even if it killed
me. Or die trying. Something like that. I can't
remember my exact words."
The priest was staring at him coldly. "Let me
get this straight," he said. "Am I to understand that,
while talking to a student you knew was having a
problem, you talked about dying as a solution to the
problem?"
Balsam felt a knot form in his stomach, and his
mind reeled. No, he told himself, that's not what
I did. Or, at least, that's not what I intended.
"It wasn't exactly like that," he said aloud, but the
priest cut him off.
"Then exactly how was it? Exactly what did you
say?"
Balsam thought hard, and the words suddenly came back
to him, as if they were written in front of his eyes.
"I said: 'If I were that rat, I'd be busy
tearing that cage apart, or I'd kill myself
trying."" Suddenly the words sounded ominous.
"Kill yourself," the priest said. Then he repeated it
"Kill yourself. Well, I suppose that tells us
what put the notion into Judy's head, doesn't
it?" The priest shook
his head sadly. "Well," he said, "what's done
is done, isn't it? And when it comes right down to it,
the final responsibility rests with Judy herself, of
course." He smiled at Balsam, but Balsam
felt no warmth from the smile. "You shouldn't feel
guilty about it," the priest continued. "She may have
already had the idea. Still, it was an unfortunate
phrase to have used. If I were you, I'd be a lot
more careful in the future. Children can be
so-suggestible." He stood up, and Peter was
grateful for the signal that the conversation was over. He,
too, rose from his chair.
"You know," the Monsignor said as he walked
Balsam to the rectory door, "you ought to think about a
couple of things." Balsam looked at him questioningly.
"You might be wise to try to find a little more faith within
yourself. Faith in the Church." When Peter looked
puszled, the priest continued, "The Devil works in
strange ways, just as does the Lord. Granted,
talking about how a rat might react, given a chance
and some brains, certainly doesn't seem
particularly significant. Talking about suicide
is a different matter."
"I wasn't talking about suicide," Balsam
snapped, his anger rising. "I was only using a
figure of speech."
"So said many a heretic," Monsignor Vernon
said softly.
"Heretic? What are you talking about?" Balsam
cried. He gazed at his old friend, but nothing in the
priest's eyes revealed what was going on in his
mind. Tm sorry, but I can't see how any of this
could possibly be construed as heresy-or anything even
resembling heresy."
"Don't you?" the priest 6aid. "Pray,
Peter. Pray for guidance. You might try praying
to Still Peter Martyour. I find he can be very
helpfuLike" And then the door of the rectory closed,
leaving a furious Peter Balsam standing
PUNISH THE SINNERS 109
helplessly on the front porch. Fuming, he began
the walk back to his apartment
Peter Balsam closed the book slowly, and put
it back on the shelf. He had not taken
Monsignor Vernon's advice; had not prayed for
guidance to St. Peter Martyour. Instead, he had
looked the saint up, to see just who it was that
Monsignor seemed to think could be so helpful.
What he found was one of the old Italian
Inquisitors. St. Peter Martyour, it seemed,
had been one of the zealots who had dedicated a short
thirteenth-century life to the eradication of sin and
heresy from the Christian World. And, from what little
Balsam had been able to find out, St. Peter
Martyour had been personally responsible for the
imprisonment, torture, and death of hundreds of
heretics. In the end, though, he had lost: he had
been assassinated by two heretics, thus earning for
himself the title, Martyour.
Balsam sat for awhile, staring off into space and
wondering what it was about St. Peter Martyour that
appealed to Monsignor Vernon. What was it that had
made the priest into a fanatic?
Then Balsam paused. Maybe the priest wasn't
a fanatic. Maybe he, Balsam, was being
oversensitive. He didn't know. Suddenly, he
wasn't at all sure there was any way of finding
out.
There was a tension in the air of St. Francis
Xavier High School the next morning, the sort
of tension that can only be brought about by a particular kind
of shock. It was almost as if Judy Nelson were not
coming back; as if she had been kidnaped, or
murdered, or died in an accident. Perhaps, had
Judy been a student at the public high school,
the tension would not have been quite so great. There would have been
a certain relief that she hadn't died, mixed with the
horror at what she had done. But at St.
Francis Xavier's the attempt was as shocking as
the completion of the act would have been.
The Sisters sensed it immediately, and dealt with it in the
only way they knew how-they ignored it. Judy's
absence was noted in the records of attendance, but was
not commented about, at least not in the
classrooms. Of all the Sisters, Elizabeth
had the fewest problems in the classroom. Her
students, accustomed to her strict discipline, contained
their urge to talk; more conscious than ever of Sister
Elizabeth's sharp tongue and equally sharp ear, they
saved their whispers for the breaks between classes, doing
their best to vent their pent-up feelings in the five
short minutes they had to move from one classroom
to another.
Karen Morton was feeling the tension more strongly than
anyone else that morning. She and Judy had most
R
n
caret
of their classes together, and while Karen had often
resented the slightly edged comments Judy had been in
the habit of making about both her appearance and her
boyfriend, Karen missed her friend. And she was also finding
that she had become the object of the other students'
curiosity, as though her closeness with Judy made
her privy to the answer to the question that was on everyone's
tongue that morning: Why? Why had Judy done it?
And what was going to happen to her now?
Karen felt everyone watching her as she moved through the
halls. She lowered her eyes and wished
once more that she had dressed differently this morning.
Suddenly her sweater felt too tight, and she was
uncomfortably aware of the way her skirt hugged her
hips. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, something was
telling her that she should be in mourning. And then she
realized that was ridiculous-Judy was in the
hospital, not the mortuary. She turned the corner
into the hall where all four of the girls had managed
to be assigned lockers, and was relieved to see that
Penny Anderson and Janet Connally were waiting for
her. She tried to smile at them, but couldn't.
"Karen?" Janet said as her friend approached. "Are
you all right?"
Karen nodded mutely, and wondered for a minute if
she really was all right. "People just keep staring at me,"
she said. "I feel like Marilyn Crane."
"They stare at you for different reasons, though,"
Penny Anderson put in. Then she couldn't contain
herself any longer. "Why do you think she did it?" she
said. "I mean, if anybody was going to try to kill
herself, you wouldn't think it would be Judy." She
shuddered a little. "It's too weird."
"I don't know," Karen said. "But everybody
looks at me like it's my fault. And Sister
Elizabeth! She glared
PUNISH THE SINNERS 113
at me this morning! I wanted to crawl under my
desk."
"That's just Sister Elizabeth," Janet Connally
said comfortingly. "She glares at everybody. You should
have heard Sister Kathleen this morning. She spent the
whole hour talking about sin. She wouldn't mention
Judy's name at all. But she sure got her
message across. The way she was talking, Judy
might as well have-was She broke off, as she
realized what she had been on the verge of saying.
"I mean," she went on lamely, "Sister
Kathleen kept talking about how the intent is as
sinful as the act, and all that stuff. But I don't
see how it can be."
Karen Morton shrugged. "I don't understand half
of what they tell us. Sometimes I think they're
trying to scare us."
"Well, they certainly succeeded with Judy,"
Penny Anderson said. "My mother says they
probably won't let her come back to school."
It was a thought that hadn't occurred to either of the two other
girls, and they stared at Penny in dismay.
"Not let her come back?" Janet said softly.
"Why?"
"Mother says what Judy did was even worse than
getting pregnant," Penny said. "And you know what
happened to Sandy Taylor last year."
The three girls looked at each other. Sandy
Taylor had simply not been at school one day.
They had all been told that Sandy had "gotten
sick," but it hadn't taken much effort to figure out
the truth, especially when Sandy's boyfriend had left
school a couple of days later. It seemed to them that
there was, indeed, a strong possibility that Judy
Nelson might not be allowed to return to school.
It was then that Marilyn Crane appeared at the end
of the hall. Janet Connally started to wave to her, but
felt a nudge from Penny. Immediately, her hand fell

m
back to her side. Behind Marilyn, the figure of
Monsignor Vernon loomed, authoritarian and
scowling.
Marilyn, unaware who waa behind her, approached the
group excitedly. She had something to say that they would
want to hear; she was bursting with the story of seeing
Judy the previous afternoon, just before she had-Marilyn
couldn't say the words, even to herself. Before she did
what she did. She quickened her pace, but
then, abruptly, the three girl8turned away. The
look of eagerness fell away from Marilyn's
face, and she stopped. She tried to pretend she
hadn't been about to approach them at all, that she had
some other urgent business in this part of the school. She
spun around, and nearly collided with Monsignor
Vernon.
"Oh," she said in surprise. "I'm sorry.
I-I didn't know you were there." She looked
helplessly at the scowling priest, bracing herself for the
scolding she was sure was about to fall upon her. But it
didn't come. The Monsignor seemed not to notice
her. He merely stepped around her, and continued down
the hall. A few feet away, the girls who had
been clustered together scattered like leaves before a
breeze. She had been so hopeful. Now, again, she
was alone. Holding back her tears, Marilyn
decided she would skip lunch that day, and spend the time
in church, consoling herself under the comforting presence of the
Sorrowful Mother.
A few minutes later, Marilyn Crane
slipped into the one empty seat in the back row of
Room 16. She could see that there was also an empty
seat in the front row: the seat Judy Nelson had
occupied the day before. No one had sat in it
today, and she didn't think it was likely that anyone
would sit in it tomorrow, either.
Peter Balsam surveyed the class. The same
thing was on their minds that had been on the minds of his
last
PUNISH THE SINNERS 115
class, and the one before that But the psychology students
didn't stop buzzing among themselves when they came
into the room, as the other classes had. And he had
himself to thank-if "thank" was the word-for he had
certainly done his best to let them know that they were not
expected to behave here the same way they were
expected to behave elsewhere at St. Francis
Xavier. They had believed him. They were talking about
Judy Nelson, and they weren't making much of an
attempt to keep him from knowing about it. He decided,
on an impulse, to face the issue squarely.
"Well," he said, "I guess there isn't much question
what we're going to be talking about today, is there?"
His words silenced them. They stared at him, consternation
clouding their faces, a wariness passing over them, as
though they weren't sure what to expect.
"I know it's on all your minds," he said
calmly, "and I don't suppose you've had a
chance to talk about it in any of your other
classes. Since what happened to Judy Nelson
is definitely of a psychological nature,
let's talk about it, get it all out in the open, and
then maybe tomorrow we can get back down to business."
When the class continued to stare at him mutely,
Balsam was taken aback. He had expected a
flood of questions. Instead he was getting nothing.
Finally, almost tentatively, one hand rose. It was
Janet Connally.
"Yes, Janet?"
"Did-did Monsignor tell you to talk to us about
Judy?" Her voice quavered, and Balsam was
aware that she was almost frightened of her own question. He
shook his head, and smiled at them.
"This is between you and me. In fact, I have an idea
that Monsignor might prefer me not to mention the
subject at all. But this class is for you, not for
Monsignor. So why don't we get on with it?"
n! in
The ice broke. Immediately, five hands went up, and
Balsam was hard-pressed to decide whom to call
upon first. He chose Karen Morton, telling himself
that her hand had been just a shade faster than any of the
others. But he knew he had really called on her
first because she was one of Judy's friends.
"Karen?"
"I-I don't really know what I want to ask,"
she began uncertainly. "I mean caret there's so
many questions, I don't know where to start."
"Start anywhere," Balsam said gently.
"Well, can you tell us what happened?" Karen
asked. "I-well, we've just heard so many rumors
that we don't really know how bad it is."
"It isn't bad at all," Balsam said. "The
cuts aren't deep, and Judy is only in the
hospital now so the doctors can keep an eye on
her."
"You mean they're afraid she might do it again?" It
was Penny Anderson, and she hadn't bothered to raise
her hand. She had simply blurted the question out. That
pleased Balsam.
"No, I don't think anyone's afraid she'll
do it again. It's simply that whenever anyone
attempts to take his own life, he's kept under
observation for a few days. In fact, I think it's
a state law. Basically, ifs not so much out of fear
that the victim will try it again, as out of a desire
to let the person calm down, and try to find out what
led him to do it in the first place."
"Why did she do it?" This time it was
Janet Connally.
"Well, Judy might know," Balsam said. He
wondered if they would rise to the bait. Jim
Mulvey did, and Balsam was surprised.
Maybe he'd underestimated Mulvey.
"Might?" Jim said. "What do you mean? I should
think if anybody knows why she did it, Judy
would."
"That's what you'd think, isn't it? But what Judy
did,
PUNISH THE SINNERS 117
what anyone who tries to kill himself does, isn't
particularly rational. Usually it's an impulsive
act, and after it's over the person wonders why he
tried it in the first place. Unfortunately, all
too often, it's too late. Judy was lucky.
She's going to be fine."
"But what makes someone do something like that?" Balsam
heard the question, but wasn't sure who had asked it
"Any number of things," he said. "Haven't you ever
gone to bed at night and thought how nice it would be if
you just didn't wake up in the morning?" All of them
squirmed uncomfortably. "Well, sometimes people
decide not to take a chance. They decide to see to it
that they won't wake up. But more often than
not, what they're really trying to do is cry out for
help. They don't want to die. Not really. They
just want someone to help them. So they do something
to attract attention to themselves."
"But it's a sin," Marilyn Crane's voice said
softly from the back of the room. Everyone turned and
stared at Marilyn. She did not notice. She was
concentrating on Peter Balsam.
There it was: Ifs a sin. How was he to answer it?
And then he thought he saw an answer. "I'm not so
sure," he said carefully. "What I mean
to say," he continued into the shocked silence, "is that
I'm not sure that a suicide attempt should be
considered a sin. I mean, if the act isn't
completed, then where's the sin?"
"Sins thought and considered are no different than sins
committed, are they?" Again, Marilyn Crane.
"Well, that's certainly what we've all been
taught," Balsam began. And then he stopped.
It took a moment before the class realized what had
happened. Monsignor Vernon was coming slowly
toward Mr. Balsam, a scowl creasing his forehead,
his
conp n r
r?
backslash backslash
greater-than lack eyes flashing. A hush fell
over them. Something vas about to happen. When it came,
though, it seemed mticlimactic.
The priest reached the front of the room and turned o
face the class. He made the sign of the cross and
dessed them. Then he dismissed them. Monsignor
Verlon watched in silence as the room slowly
emptied. Hien he turned to Peter Balsam.
"We will go to the rectory," he said.
Inez Nelson hurried into the main entrance of
Neilsille Hospital, and glanced quickly at the
clock. She was ight on time, noon sharp.
Inez followed the green arrows to the psychiatric
irea, no more than three rooms, that served the
mentaltealth purposes of Neilsville. She
glanced nervously round, hoping not to see any
familiar faces. There rould be enough talk as it
was, without her being seen oing into this section of the
hospital.
No one seemed to be around at all, so Inez seated
erself in the small waiting area. A minute later
she eard a door open, and looked up. Margo
Henderson ras standing in the doorway, smiling at
her.
"Inez," Margo said genially, "I'm so glad
to see out." At the look of consternation on Inez's
face, largo continued hurriedly, "Of course, I
wish it could ave been under happier circumstances, but
Dr. Shields *lls me that Judy's going to be
just fine." She paused a loment, hoping there would be
some response. "Well," lie said, "Dr.
Shields will be with you in just a minute, sthy don't you
sit down?" Margo indicated the chair lez had
risen from, then seated herself at the desk. So, lez
wasn't going to speak to her. Margo tried not to be
itter about it. Of course Inez was under a strain, but
PUNISH THE SINNERS 119
still . . . And then Margo remembered that Inez
Nelson was Leona Anderson's best friend. And it
had been Leona who had been the prime force in
squeezing Margo out of St. Francis Xavier
parish. Leona and Monsignor Vernon. Well,
damn them both, Margo told herself. She picked
up a pen, and began moving some papers around on the
desk. She could feel Inez's eyes on her.
"It was an accident," Inez said suddenly in the
silence. "I want you to know it was an accident."
Margo looked quickly up at Inez, and saw the
desperation in the other woman's eyes. Who
was Inez trying to convince, Margo or herself? "Of
course," she said shortly, and returned to her work.
A moment later a buzzer sounded on her desk.
"Dr. Shields is ready for you now," she said, in
an even* professional tone. "Right through there."
She indicated the door she had recently emerged
from, and watched Inez until her former friend had
disappeared from view. Then Margo shook her head
sadly, and went back to work.
Inez Nelson felt no better when she left
Dr. Shields's office than she had when she
entered. She still wanted to see her daughter; she was not
to be allowed to do so. Instead, she had been forced
to listen to a lot of psychological doubletalk. She
was Judy's mother, and she was sure she knew better
than any of them what Judy needed. And yet, she
was frightened and feeling very unsure of herself. Maybe the
doctor was right. As she hurried out of the hospital,
Dr. Shields's words rang in her ears.
"Judy's being manipulative," he had said. And
he had been right. But Inez was sure there was more to it
conp n r
n
than that. There had to be something else. Eh-.
Shields, himself, must have thought so. If not,
why would he have said what he did?
"Always look for the reason. Somewhere, there will be one.
It may not make sense, but it will be there."
What was he talking about? What did that mean? Inez
Nelson felt more baffled, and more frightened, than ever.
Peter Balsam sat glumly in the den of the
rectory, and wished Monsignor Vernon would open
the window. He glanced around, and became aware that the
den, which he had thought comfortable so short a time
ago-only days ago-now seemed oppressive and
crowded. He glanced at his watch, wondering how
long this meeting was going to last; he had already been here
for most of an hour, and the priest had yet to say a
word. Instead, the Monsignor had alternately
prayed, then glowered at Balsam. Once,
Balsam had risen as if to leave. Monsignor
Vernon had curtly told him to sit down.
Balsam had sat, reluctantly at first, then
angrily, and finally with curiosity.
Then, with a suddenness that startled him, the priest
spoke.
"You're a stubborn man, Peter," he said. "But
so am L Except that I prefer to think of myself as
tenacious. Tenacious in my beliefs, tenacious in
my determination to do what is right, and
tenacious in my determination to see that those around me do
what is right."
"I was doing what I thought was right," Balsam said
softly.
"Right?" The priest almost shouted, "Right? Don't
deny what you were telling your class; I heard it.
Every blasphemous word of itl"
"R
to n p? r
r f tilde were r"1
"Don't be ridiculous," Balsam snapped.
Immediately he regretted his choice of words. The
priest was turning scarlet. "Fm sorry," he
went on, trying desperately to remove his anger from
his voice. "I didn't mean that quite the way it came
out."
"But you did mean it, didn't you?" Monsignor
Vernon said icily.
"I don't know." Balsam felt weary. "Let
me try to put it this way. I was brought here to teach
psychology, not the catechism. And today my students
needed to understand what happened to Judy Nelson, and
why it happened, and they needed reassurance. They
did not need to be told that what Judy Nelson
did was a mortal sin, and that her soul is
forfeit, and a whole lot of medieval nonsense!"
The priest was on his feet now, towering over
Balsam. "Let us say," he snapped, "that is
what you thought they needed. still say they needed something quite
different, and I am in a much better position than
you to define the needs of the students in this school."
Peter felt himself sink deeper into the chair as the
priest raged on. "The last thing hi the world my
students need is a lot of confusing,
self-contradictory, pseudo-scientific
claptrap. Perhaps, if these students were going on
to college, they might need a small dose of what
you call "psychology." But for the most part they
aren't going anywhere. What they need are the tools
to make their lives easier right here, in
Neilsville. That is what the Church is for.
To give people faith, and through faith, salvation." He
paused and Peter could see the priest's effort
to calm himself. "The world is a complex enough place without
confusing our children and undermining their beliefs. In fact,
it is exactly such talk as I've heard from you that
is responsible for the decay of our society. You
leave people nothing to cling to, nothing to console
PUNISH THE SINNERS 123
themselves with. And I will not tolerate it. Do you
understand me?"
"I think I understand you perfectly," Balsam
replied coldly. "And I think it might be best for
both of us if I resigned my position here
immediately. As it is, there is no way I can teach my
class effectively."
Something almost like fear flashed over Monsignor
Vernon's face, but was gone in an instant.
"That's a foolish stance," the priest replied, "and
I think you know it." The rage he had been displaying
only a moment earlier vanished, to be replaced by a
countenance that seemed almost genial. He took his
chair opposite Peter's once more, and leaned
forward, his elbows on his knees, his head resting on
his clasped hands. "Peter, why can't you understand that you
are not dealing with an enormous high school in an
urban area? Why can't you understand that the needs of our
students are not the same as the needs of students in,
say, Philadelphia? We are not dealing with
sophisticated people here. It isn't just because of me, and
what I'm sure you think is my narrow-minded
outlook. It's much deeper than that. It has much more
to do with the people who live here than it does with me. In
fact," he went on, a conspiratorial smile
taking form, "I don't know if you're
aware of it, but there was a great deal of pressure
put on the Bishop not to add your course to the
curriculum at all. All I'm asking you to do,
really, is exercise a certain amount of caution.
Surely there's enough material so that you can do a little
judicious picking and choosing, isn't there?"
"You mean censor my material?" Balsam asked
warily, feeling his resolution weakening and resenting
it.
Monsignor Vernon sighed. "Yes, if that's the
way you want to put it."
"So much for freedom of thought," said Balsam.
conp n r
"I didn't tell you to stop thinking," Monsignor
said. "All I've done is suggest you put some
limitations on what you say to your students."
"Isn't it the same thing? How can my students
think, if they're given nothing to think about?"
"Is it really so important? Frankly, what
our students need is a lot more faith, not a lot more
to think about"
"Ignorance is bliss?" Balsam remarked.
"In some cases, yes," the priest replied, his
voice taking on a softness Peter hadn't heard
before. "I know it sounds strange to you, but
it's quite true. Living here for twelve years has
opened my eyes to a lot. There was a time when I would
have agreed with you-I wanted to know the truth about
everything. But as I've grown older, I've
discovered that the truth, or what we try to tell
ourselves is the truth, is a very difficult thing to live
with. And I've discovered that Truth-God's Truth,
as taught by the Church-is a much better thing. It
gives me peace, and it gives peace to my flock.
If it all strikes you as a restriction on your
freedom, let me remind you that God puts many
restrictions on all our freedoms."
Listening to him, Balsam thought it all sounded quite
reasonable, put in those terms. But the bottom line
still read "repression." Repression of thought, of
ideas.
"Well," he said, standing up again, "I still have the
feeling I'm not the right man for the job here. I'm
sorry, but you'd better start looking for a
replacement. If there's one thing I've always
valued, it's freedom. Not only my own
freedom, but the freedom of those around me. People have
to be exposed to all kinds of ideas, and have the
freedom to choose among them."
"That's nonsense," Monsignor
snapped. "And, frankly, you surprise me. You
were raised to be a good Catholic, and I would have thought
your faith would be
PUNISH THE SINNERS 125
stronger." His eyes were flashing again, and Peter once
more wanted to draw away from the force of the priest's
faith. But there was no place to go. "It is faith and
belief in the word of the Lord that brings salvation, not any
kind of self-serving "science" that does nothing but
provide excuses for the worst kinds of immoral
behavior," Vernon was saying now, "and as for your
resigning your post here, if I were you I'd think
twice about that, and then twice more." He paused, a
weariness coming into his voice. "It wasn't easy for
me to bring you here, Peter, and one more failure on
your record is not going to help you. You have a
history of not finishing things, and I'm beginning to understand
why. You hide from reality. You refuse to face things
as they really are, and prefer to find what you call
evidence to back up your own weaknesses. If I were
you, Peter, I'd think about it, and pray about it, before
I made up my mind to leave Neilsville.
God had a purpose when He sent you here. You have
no right to turn your back on that purpose, and on the
Lord, until you have cornpleted whatever
task He sent you here to perform. And I think I know
what that task is."
"Direct line?" Peter said, but Vernon went
on, ignoring the sarcasm, his voice building as he
spoke.
"I thinic He sent you here to help me. This is not
an easy time to live in, and the Faith of the Church
is under attack from every direction. I think He sent
you here to me, not to turn and run again, but to be shown the
powers of the Faith, and be restored to the Church."
Balsam stared at the priest. "Yes," the
Monsignor intoned, as if he were no longer aware
of the other man's presence, "that is it. He sent you
to me to help me carry on the work of St. Peter
Martyour. To help me bring the heretics back to the
fold. To punish the sinners." And
conp n n
n
n n
suddenly he looked directly at Peter
Balsam, his eyes glowing. "Pray Peter," he
said urgently. "Pray for guidance, and stay here with
me. Together we will finish what was begun so long
ago."
Monsignor Vernon fell to his
knees, and began to pray. For a moment Peter
Balsam wondered if he was expected to join in the
prayers. But the priest seemed to have fallen into a
reverie, and Balsam suspected he was no longer
aware of his surroundings. He looked at Vernon with
concern, and pity. He would pray, and try to find some
guidance. And he would think.
Peter Balsam walked slowly down the hall, and
left the rectory. A minute later, he stepped
into the cool freshness of the church.
He sat quietly in the gloom for a while, trying
to gather his thoughts together, and make some sense out of the
confusion. What had the Monsignor been talking about
when he asked Balsam to stay and help him finish
what had been begun "so long ago"? And all the
talk of "bringing the heretics back to the flock" and
"punishing the sinners." It reeked of the Inquisition.
Had Peter Vernon, somewhere on the way to becoming a
monsignor, also become a fanatic? It
certainly seemed so. Still, some of what the priest had
said had made sense. Balsam had run away from
things, and did like to find what the priest had called
"excuses" for his failures. Except, Balsam
noted to himself with wry amusement, he preferred
to call them "rationalizations."
A figure suddenly brushed past Balsam.
Marilyn Crane. He glanced quickly in the
direction from which she had come. Yes, the had been
praying to the Blessed Virgin. Balsam hoped the
girl had found more comfort in the saint than he had been
able to give her in class. He glanced around the
church, wondering if others had sought sanctuary from the
sun and their problems. But
PUNISH THE SINNERS 127
the church was empty now. Peter Balsam began
wandering through the side aisles, looking at the statues
of the various saints.
It wasn't until he had paced almost to the altar that
he noticed it. Then, quickly, he crossed the nave
and examined the statues in the opposite alcoves.
It was the same. Except for the obligatory
statues of the Blessed Virgin and St. Francis
Xavier, for whom the church was named, all the other
saints, at least the ones he was familiar with, were
Dominicans of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries. There wai St. Dominic himself, and St.
Peter Martyour, and a statue of the Blessed James the
Venetian. And the Portuguese St. Sanchia,
who had originally welcomed the Dominicans
into Portugal. There were others, some of whom
Peter Balsam vaguely recalled. There was one
who was totally unfamiliar. Saint Acerinus.
Balsam searched his memory and couldn't remember the
saint at all. That was no surprise: there were so many
saints, and he had never been particularly interested
in keeping track of them. In fact, he was rather
pleased with himself for recognizing as many as he did.
What disturbed him was that they were all Dominicans,
all of the period of the Inquisition. And it had been the
Dominicans who had been primarily charged with
carrying out the Inquisition. Hadn't it crossed his
mind, just minutes ago, that Monsignor's
ramblings had "reeked of the Inquisition"? Balsam
stared around at the statues of the saints. Suddenly he
had an urge to get out of the church, to get away from the
sanctified visages that seemed to be glowering down
at him, accusing him.
He hurried out of the church, and back to his
classroom. A few moments later, at exactly
one o'clock, the bell rang. The afternoon was about to begin.
Peter Balsam was sure it was going to be a long
afternoon.
conp n p
n n
r
When the doorbell rang Peter Balsam glanced
up from the book he had been reading, but didn't
leave his chair. He looked at the clock: it
couldn't be Margo- she was just getting off work. The
doorbell rang again.
"Peter?" Margo's voice came through the door, a
bit muffled, but definitely Margo's. "Are you in
there?"
Now he jumped out of the chair and threw the door
open.
"You're early," he said. Then he reached out to take
the bag that seemed about to spill from her arms. "Let
me take that."
He peered into the bag. "Good Lord, are we
expected to drink all this?"
"That depends," Margo grinned. "It depends on
how serious your problem is, and how long it's going
to take to solve it. If there's any left over,
Fll think up a problem of my own for another
night" She winked at him, making the wink
seductive. "Besides, it might be a long night."
She had closed the door, and was taking off her
jacket. Peter watched her, watched the sensuousness
of her movements, and enjoyed the manner in which she
managed to be sexy without being lewd. He
felt desire growing in him. As Margo hung her
jacket in the closet, Peter's eyes never left
her.
"I took off early," he heard her saying.
"Whatever's wrong, you made it sound so serious when
you called that I decided Dr. Shields's
reports could wait." She looked around as if she
expected to see his problem lurking in a corner
somewhere. Then she surveyed Peter carefully.
"Well, the apartment's in one piece, and so are you,
so it can't be nearly as awful as you made it sound on
PUNISH THE SINNERS 129
the phone. Maybe I should reclaim those bottles
immediately."
Suddenly, now that she was in the room with him, the
problems didn't seem nearly so heavy. In
fact, the entire afternoon was already fading into a haze, like
a halfremembered nightmare. But it wasn't, it was
real. He had a decision to make, and he wanted
Margo's input before he made it.
"I'm thinking about quitting," he announced. He
moved into the kitchen and opened the wine she'd brought
while Margo digested this bit of information. When he
came back into the living room and handed her a
glass, she looked at him
speculatively.
"Aw, heck," she said cheerfully. "And you just got
here, too." Then she turned serious. "I don't
understand, Peter. What happened today?"
He told her about bis talk with the Monsignor, and
about the class session that had preceded it, and when he
was finished she looked at him blankly.
"I don't see what the problem is," she said.
"Oh, come on, Margo. You're bright Can't you
see? The man's crazy. He's a fanatic."
Margo considered his statement When she spoke, she
seemed to be making a very conscious choice of words.
"Peter," she began, "I don't know if
Monsignor Vernon is crazy, or a
fanatic, or what. But I do know that while what
he said to you this afternoon may have sounded fanatic, or
crazy, or whatever, it isn't. Not here. Now,
whether the town get its ideas from Monsignor
Vernon, or he gets his ideas from the town, I
can't say. The kind of thinking that goes on around here
actually gets scary sometimes. Do you know, there were
several times after my divorce when I actually thought
I should leave town? Really, it's true! All the
people
I thought were my friends-Inez Nelson for
example. I saw her today, at the hospital.
She'd hardly even speak to me, even when I was
working. She thinks I'm a sinner. Can you imagine
that? In this day and age? A sinner. But that's the way
things are around here." Then she flashed him a smile.
"Maybe you can help change
things"
Peter shook his head sadly. "Not me. Either I
fit in, or I run away. That's the kind of
person I am."
"You can change." Margo shrugged. "If I can
change, you can change. And let me tell you,
I've had to change a lot in order to survive the
last couple of years. Every time I hear Leona
Anderson make a crack loud enough for me to hear, I
just turn around and wink at her. I used to cry,
though." She stared into her drink, and swirled the
liquid around. Then she looked up at Peter.
"Winking is better," she said softly. "It
doesn't hurt so much when you wink. For me, it was
either wink or run. Learn to wink, Peter."
"I don't know," Peter said. "I'm just not sure
what to do. I don't like what Monsignor's doing,
and I don't like what his kind of religion is going
to do to the kids. But what can I do? There's
a little matter of obedience, you know. It's not like I have
a union to complain to. All I have is the Church,
and I'm sure you know they don't take kindly
to underlings griping about their superiors." "But what if
you're right?" Margo asked. "What if
Monsignor is crazy, or a fanatic?
Shouldn't something be done about it?"
"Sure, but how do you prove that someone who
professes total faith in the Church has too
much faith? It's self-contradictory."
Margo thought about it, and wasn't sure she grasped
his idea. So she changed the subject. They made
small talk, the kind of talk people make when they're
con-
PUNISH THE SINNERS 131
sciously avoiding something, and ate dinner. It
wasn't until they'd finished washing the dishes and
opened the second bottle of wine, that the subject
of the Church came up again.
"Have you ever looked at all the saints in the church?"
he said suddenly. Margo looked at him questioningly,
then shrugged.
"I wouldn't know one saint from another," she said.
"Why? Is something wrong with them, too?"
Peter chose to ignore the hint that he was
reaching a bit far to find fault with Still Francis
Xavier. Instead, he tried to explain his
misgivings.
"They're all right out of the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries," he said. "Dominicans. Which is odd
right there, when you consider that the church was named for St.
Francis Xavier, who happens to have been one of the
original Jesuits."
Margo frowned, as if she was trying to remember
something. "You know," she said finally, "it seems to me
that I remember a time, about five years ago, when
I noticed one day that we had different saints in the
church. As though the ones I was used to had suddenly
been replaced. But I didn't pay much attention
to it. At the time I told myself I just hadn't really
noticed them before. But maybe he changed them."
"Changed them? Who?"
"Monsignor Vernon. Five years ago, when
he became Monsignor. Maybe he changed them.
Didn't you tell me he's big on the
Dominicans? Which ones are they? The ones there now?"
"Mostly Italians," Balsam said. "St.
Dominic, and Monsignor's special
favorite, St. Peter Martyour, who also graces
my classroom, and a few others. Then
there's St. Sanchia, who wasn't Italian, but
helped the Dominicans establish themselves in
Portugal. And one I've
conp r r
n n n r
ti
never even heard of, someone named St. Acerinus. I
haven't any idea who he was, but he probably
fits right in with the rest of them."
"You don't sound like you approve of them," Margo
grinned. "Aren't all the saints supposed to be
wonderful, lovable people?"
Balsam chuckled. "That depends. For instance,
take St. Peter Martyour. I looked him up the
other day. If you check him out in The Lives of the
Saints, he seems to be a wonderful fellow.
Teacher, priest; spent a lot of time convincing
heretics that they should come back to the fold. Spent
hours and hours, arguing with them, showing them the error of
their ways." "What's wrong with that?" Margo asked.
"Nothing. Except it turns out that Peter
Martyour's idea of arguing with someone often involved
torture, imprisonment, or burning at the
stake."
"Good God," Margo breathed. "That's
horrible." Balsam nodded. "They were all like that.
Most of the saints in St. Francis Xavier
Church were part of the Inquisition. I haven't read
much about it, but what I have read chills my spine."
"The Inquisition," Margo said with a shudder. "And
"heretics." What a word! It sounds archaic."
"It didn't when Monsignor used it today,"
Peter said. "You know," he went on, "I get the
strangest feeling when I talk to Monsignor.
He doesn't seem the least bit worried about the
Inquisition. In fact, I get the feeling he
wishes it had never come to an end."
"Maybe it hasn't come to an end for him," Margo
mused. Then she brightened. "That saint you've never
heard of. Can't you look him up?"
"I already tried," Balsam said, smiling.
"Apparently I'm not the only one who never heard
of him." "What do you mean?"
PUNISH THE SINNERS 133
"See those books over there?" He pointed to four
thick volumes on his desk. Margo glanced at
them, and nodded. "Those are The lives of the Saints.
The nuns used to give them to us for Christmas. And as
far as I can tell, they've never heard of Still
Acerinus, either."
"You're kidding," Margo said.
"Look for yourself. The complete index is in the fourth
volume."
Margo picked up the book, and nipped through the
pages. When she couldn't find the saint she was
looking for, and was convinced that St. Acerinus, indeed,
was not listed in the index, her eye ran up and down a
couple of columns. Then she paused, startled.
"Hey!" she exclaimed.
"Oh, God," Peter groaned. "You found it."
"You're a saint!" Margo cried. "Here's your
name, right here. Saint Peter Balsam. What
does it say about you?"
"Never mind," Peter said. "He's an early one.
Third century." But she hadn't heard him. She
was busy picking up one of the other volumes, searching
for the entry headed "Peter Balsam." He fell
silent and watched her read the page devoted to the
saint whose namesake he was. When she finished, she
closed the book and grinned at him.
"Well," she said mischievously, "that settles
it."
"Settles what?"
"Your problem. You aren't going anywhere, Peter
Balsam. You're going to stay right here in
Neilsville." Her voice suddenly turned
serious. "Saint Peter Balsam didn't
knuckle under, and he didn't run away. He
stuck to his guns, and stood up for what was right."
Balsam smiled wryly. "And look what happened
to him."
conp fi p
"Well, of course he died, but that was a long time
igo."
"Was it?" Peter said. "When I talk
to Monsignor, lothing seems long ago."
But he knew she was right. He would stay in
Neilsille, as long as he could. He had a
feeling his students leeded him. And of course there was
Margo. She leeded him too. Or did he need
her? He decided not to rorry about it. Instead, he
opened another bottle of line.
"Here's to Saint Peter Balsam," he said, and
raised is glass. Margo did not go home that
night.

The rest of the week passed slowly in
Neilsville, almost as if the town were waiting for a
signal, something to tell it that a crisis had
passed. The signal did not come. Judy
Nelson was very much on their minds.
By Saturday her closest friends, Penny Anderson,
Karen Morton, and Janet Connelly, had all
been to visit Judy, first separately, and then
together. They had seen that she was not dying; indeed, she
seemed to them to be in fine shape-she questioned them about
classes, wanted to know what work she'd missed, and
made them promise to fill her in on all the
details of the party on Saturday that she would not be
able to attend.
The subject all her Mends wanted to talk about was
carefully avoided. No one wanted to be the first
to bring it up, and Judy herself didn't mention it. But
the bandages on her wrists kept it at the front of
all their minds.
Since that first day, Peter Balsam had resolved
to make no further mention of Judy Nelson's
attempt on her own life. For the moment, he told
himself, it was better to let it drop. He was sure
he had gotten his point across hi the few minutes
before the Monsignor had suddenly appeared.
Balsam had kept a careful eye on the class,
particularly on Judy's friends, with the intention of
talking privately with any who seemed overly
conp n r
*tilde backslash
n n n r
disturbed by the incident. But they all seemed to be
doing fine. Every evening he was seeing Margo, and that
helped. Monsignor Vernon had apparently
forgotten the stormy session earlier in the week, for
he treated Balsam the same way he had from the
beginning, with a formal cordiality that induced a certain
respect but no warmth.
Harriet Morton, Karen's mother, had considered
ccceling her daughter's party, but after consulting with
Leona Anderson had decided to let it continue as
icheduled. After all, it was only going to be the
girls, md they probably needed the diversion.
Canceling the greater-than arty, she and Leona had
decided, would only draw atention to a situation best
ignored. Now she glanced immediatetiently at her
watch.
"Karen?" she called up the stairs. She reached in
her mrse and fished for her keys, keeping one eye
on the tairs as she waited for her daughter to come
down. She eard Karen moving around on the floor
above, and ailed again. "Karen! I have to go now. Will you
come own here?"
"Coming," Karen called, and a moment later
apeared on the stairs.
"Now, is everything all set for the party?" Harriet
sked anxiously. Karen shrugged.
"Not yet. Penny's coming over early to help me.
Can use your punchbowl?"
Harriet sighed. "You'd better wash it first."
Karen looked as though having to wash the bowl ight
well dissuade her from using it. "Then don't wash was
Harriet said. "You can all get dust poisoning,
if there such a thing." The two of them laughed, and
Harriet alized with a rush how much she loved her
daughter, le gave Karen a quick squeeze and a
kiss, and hurried
PUNISH THE SINNERS 137
out the door. "Have a good time," she called over her
shoulder, "and I'll see you all later."
"By then it'll all be over," Karen said, waving. It
had better be, she thought with a twinge of guilt. No
telling what might happen if her mother came home
and found the boys there. She closed the door after her
mother, and went back upstairs, where she continued working
on the dress that Judy Nelson had intended to wear
that night. Just a few alterations, and it would fit
Karen perfectly.
An hour later, as she bit off the last
thread, Karen heard the doorbell. "It's
unlocked," she called down the stairs, and a moment
later heard Penny Anderson's voice.
"Hi! Are you upstairs?"
"Come on up. I just finished my dress for tonight, and
you can tell me if it fits right."
A minute after that Penny appeared in the doorway,
and gasped at the sight of the black dress Karen was
proudly holding up.
"Where did you get it?" Penny breathed. "It's
beautiful. But it must have cost a fortune!"
"It's Judy's, really," Karen told her. "She
wasn't supposed to buy it, but we snuck it over
here so her mother wouldn't find out. She was going
to return it to the store on Monday, so I just-was
She hesitated, then blurted out the truth.
"Well, I took it in at the hips a little, since
now she won't be wearing it at all. Do you think the
store will notice?" She offered the dress to Penny
for inspection.
Penny looked at the new seams critically. "If
they don't look at it too closely," she
decided. "The new seams are perfect. Of
course, you can still see where the old ones were. But why
should they even look? Put it on."
contion r r
Karen slipped into the dress and modeled it for
Penny.
"It's great," said Penny. "Really sexy. I
wish I had a figure like yours."
"Be glad you don't," Karen said. "Nothing fits
me right, and I always look like some ..." She
trailed the sentence off, unwilling to use the word
"tramp."
"Not in that dress, you don't," Penny assured
her. "And you know what? I'll bet if you take off
that makeup, and just let your hair fall, you'll
look really great"
Together, the two girls began experimenting with Karen's
hair and face. Half an hour later they
surveyed the results in the mirror, and Penny
giggled. "You know what? You look just like Judy always
wanted to look. If she could just see you in that dress
she'd die!" Then she realized what she'd said, and the
two girls stared at each other.
"Why do you suppose she did it?" Karen asked.
"Have you asked her?"
Penny shook her head. "I don't think I want
to know. It's creepy, if you ask me. And it must have
hurt like crazy."
"I don't know," Karen mused. "I guess if
you're feeling so bad you want to die, you don't
care."
Penny shuddered a little. "I don't think I could do
it I couldn't stand the pain." Then she smiled. "But
I could sure stand to get the treatment Judy's
getting. AH she does is lie there in bed, and
get waited on hand and foot, while she watches
television all day."
"Yeah," Karen said slowly. "But suppose she'd
died? What do you suppose that would be like?"
"Don't you ever think about it?" Penny asked her.
"I think about it all the time. I like to picture my
own funeral sometimes."
PUNISH THE SINNERS 139
The thought had never occurred to Karen. Now she saw a
picture in her mind's eye. "That could be kind of
neat," she said. "I think I'd want a very small
funeral. Just you and Janet and Judy, and my mother.
And Jim, of course. It would be horrible for bin, and
he'd probably throw himself on my coffin." The
prospect pleased her-a devastated Jim
Mulvey, his own lite forever destroyed by the untimely
death of the girl he had hoped to marry, prostrated
on the casket, crying openly over
his loss.
"My funeral would be much more dignified," Penny
said. "Of course, everyone would be there, and there'd be
masses of flowers. And my parents would be in the
front row. I don't think they'd cry. Instead,
they'd be helping everyone else get through it. You know
how my mother is; she'd be trying to take the
attitude that life goes on, but of course inside
she'd be a wreck. And it would kill Daddy, though
he wouldn't let anyone know it. They'd probably
be dead themselves within a year. After all, what would they
have left to live for?" Then, as the dramatic image
of her parents wasting away with unexpressed grief
faded, Penny snickered. "Can you imagine
Marilyn Crane's funeral?" she giggled.
"Three faded roses, and everyone there to make sure
she was
dead."
"Who'd even care if she was dead?" Karen said
flippantly. She began taking off the black
dress. "We'd better get started, or we'll
never be ready by the time everyone shows up." She hung
the dress up carefully, and pulled on a pair of
jeans. "Come on," she said. "You can help me wash
the punchbowl."
An hour and a half later, the party was in full
swing, except that so far, none of the boys had
arrived. Then, as Karen and Penny were joking about
having spiked
n
n n
the punch (they hadn't) the front door opened, and
Janet Connally arrived. With her was Jeff
Bremmer.
"Jeff was helping me out with a science project this
afternoon, so I invited him along," Janet
explained. Jefi looked around the room, and saw that
he was the only male in sight.
"I don't know," he said uncertainly. "Maybe
I shouldn't have come."
"Don't be silly," Penny said. "Everyone else
is corning. Someone had to be first. Just don't tell
anyone you were here. Karen's mother thinks this is a hen
party."
Now Jeff was really unnerved. "I think I'd
better go," he said. But a moment later a car
pulled up in front of the house, and Jim Mulvey
and Lyle Crandall appeared at the door.
Suddenly, Jeff felt better about the party.
"Hey," Jim Mulvey said, whistling at
Karen. "Now that's what I call a dress."
"You like it? It's the one Judy was supposed to wear
tonight."
"Looks better on you," Jim assured her. Then
he winked. "I got some beer here. Can I put it
in the ice box?" When Karen looked uncertain, he
reached out and squeezed her around the waist. "Come
on," he said. "It's only a little beer. Us guys
get thirsty." He pulled out a can of Olympia and
held it up in Lyle Crandall's direction.
"Want one, Crandall?"
"Sure," Lyle said. "And give me one for
Jeff." Jim Mulvey tossed him another can and
Lyle opened both of them. "Try this on for size,
Jeff," he said, handing him the can.
Jeff considered the possibility of giving it back.
Then he changed his mind. He held the can up to his
lips, and the bitter fluid choked him. He flushed
a deep red as the other two boys laughed at him.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 141
"So what's been coming down?" Jim Mulvey asked
of nobody in particular as he popped the tab on his
own beer.
"We were talking about Judy Nelson," a voice
said from somewhere in the background. "And
Trilling yourself in general."
There was a wave of laughter through the room. Judy
Nelson had become something to joke about.
"The guy next door killed himself years ago,"
Lyle Crandall put in.
"You're kidding," Jim said. "Who was that?"
"I can't remember their names anymore, and his wife
moved away right after it happened."
"What'd he do?"
Lyle laughed and began to tell the story but Janet
Connally cut him off.
"Ugh," she said with a shudder. "That's horrible.
Let's talk about something else."
"I think it's interesting," Jim Mulvey grinned.
"If you were going to kill yourself, how would you do it?"
Suddenly they were all talking about the best way
to commit suicide. Pills, it was decided, were
best, and after that gassing oneself. The more painful ways were
discarded, as either too scary or too messy. And
then, when they had exhausted that subject, they turned
to speculating upon who in their classes were the most
likely candidates for a suicide. No one mentioned
any of the people at the party. If anybody noticed,
nobody commented on it. When they were done, they agreed
that if anybody at St. Francis
Xavier's was actually going to kill himself, it should be
Marilyn Crane. As Jim Mulvey put it,
"She should do herself a favor." Everyone laughed, and
someone suggested that Marilyn could even invent a new
method-she could bore herself to death. Everyone laughed
at that, too, except Jeff.
P P! r
n n n r
m
He felt sorry for Marilyn, and decided that coming
to the party had been a mistake. He argued with himself
about leaving, but in the end he went to the refrigerator
and helped himself to another beer. By the time it was half
drunk, he felt much better about everything.
Just before nine o'clock; the telephone rang. Karen
motioned for quiet before she picked up the receiver, then,
after she had spoken into the phone, waved to everybody.
"It's all right," she cried. "It's Judy." As
the party resumed, Karen chatted with Judy
Nelson. When she finally hung up, she waved
again, until she had everyone's attention.
"Judy has a wonderful idea," she said. Then
she began explaining what Judy's wonderful idea
was.
At exactly nine o'clock the telephone
rang at the Crane home. Geraldine Crane
picked it up, and was pleasantly surprised when a
voice asked for Marilyn.
"For me?" Marilyn said curiously, coming into the
room. "Who is it?"
"Don't know." Geraldine shrugged. She handed the
phone to Marilyn, and sat back down in the chair
she had vacated when the phone rang. She picked
up the book she had been reading, but didn't open
it. Instead, she listened to Marilyn's side of the
conversation.
"I don't think so," Marilyn was saying. "It's
getting awfully late, and I think I'd better
stay home." There was a silence, then: "No,
really-I'm not feeling welLike Thanks anyway."
Then she hung up the phone and started out of the room.
less-than (who was that, dear?" her mother said.
"No one."
"Don't be silly. It was someone. Who was it?"
"Karen Morton," Marilyn said. She made
another at-
PUNISH THE SINNERS 143
tempt to get out of the room, but again her mother stopped
her.
"Well, what did she want?"
"Nothing."
"Marilyn, she must have wanted something. It sounded like
she wanted you to go somewhere. Where?"
"Over to her house."
"Really?" Geraldine was elated. Marilyn was
rarely invited to go anywhere, and almost never by people her own
age, except that nice Jeff Bremmer. "What
for?"
"She said it was a party. A come-z-y-are party. They
want me to come."
"Why that sounds wonderful," Geraldine said
enthusiastically. She remembered going to that kind of
party herself, years ago, and it had been lots of
fun. People had shown up in the most ridiculous
outfits.
"Well, I'm not going," Marilyn said quietly.
Geraldine decided to take the bull by the horns.
It was time Marilyn started mixing with the other children, she
thought. "Of course you're going," she said. "Why on
earth shouldn't you?"
"It's late," Marilyn said. "It's nine o'clock,
and I want to go to early Mass tomorrow."
"You can go to a later one, and sleep in,"
Geraldine replied.
"But Mother, look at me. I'm a
mess."
"That's what makes come-z-y-are parties fun,"
Geraldine said, more sharply than she had meant.
"Now put on your coat and 111 take you right over
to Karen's."
Marilyn surveyed herself in the mirror. She had
been about to go to bed with a book, and she was wearing a
flannel nightgown and an old pink bathrobe that
she had insisted not be given to the Goodwill. Her
hair was in curlers, and her face was covered with
cream.
P!
r*
n n n
"I don't want to go," she insisted. But
Geraldine was adamant She brushed Marilyn's
objections aside and packed her into the car.
Five minutes later, with a coat covering her
bathrobe, and slippers on her feet, Marilyn
Crane was deposited in front of the Morton
house. Without giving her daughter time to voice any
more objections, Geraldine Crane drove away.
She was sure that finally her uglyduckling daughter was
going to be accepted by the flock. Marilyn, sure that
the flock was playing a trick on her,
moved slowly up the walk to the door. The house
seemed dark, suspiciously quiet She reached out,
and tentatively rang the belLike
At ten-thirty Saturday night, Harriet
Morton glanced around the diner where she and one other
waitress had spent the evening with very little to do. Only
two tables were occupied, and they were both in the other
girl's station. And something was nagging at her. She had
a feeling that she should be at home. She glanced at
the clock, then heard the voice of the other waitress
behind her. "Why don't you call it a night?"
Millie was saying. "You've been jumpy as a cat
all night, and it's not as if I can't handle it
by myself." It was a tempting offer, but Harriet thought
about the tips she might miss. Millie read her
mind. 'Tell you what I'll do. Fll punch you out
when I leave, and well split any tips that come
into your station between now and closing. Which, if we're
lucky, should come to about twelve and a half cents
each. Go home, will you? I can tell you're worried
about something."
"It's probably silly," Harriet replied.
"It's just that Karen's having a party tonight, and it's the
first time I've ever let her have one when I wasn't
there."
"Afraid it's turned into an orgy?" Millie
grinned.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 145
"Go on, take off. Til handle the mob." She
looked sourly at the two lone diners who were poking
unenthusiastically at the mess of potatoes and
gravy that was billed as "real home cooking."
Five minutes later Harriet was in her car, and
ten minutes after that she was pulling into the driveway.
From the outside, the party seemed to be over-the house
was dark. And then, as she closed the car door, she
heard the music. Soft music, not the loud rock
she had expected. She tried the door.
Unlocked. As she snapped on the lights, she
heard the sounds of scuffling in the living room. And
there they were.
Harriet surveyed the guilty-looking teen-agers
who were scattered around the living room trying to look
as though they hadn't been caught-except that their
clothes were mussed and the girls" makeup had somehow
transferred itself to the boys' faces. Well, it was
bound to happen someday, Harriet told herself. They
are growing up. She steeled herself to give them the
lecture she knew her husband would have given them,
had he been alive. Of all the kids, it
was her own daughter who was staring at her with the most
resentment The others looked properly ashamed;
Karen, however, looked mad. It didn't occur
to Harriet that Karen's anger was not so much directed
at Harriet for the lecture she was giving, as at the
fact that Karen was afraid of what the other kids
might say when it was over. Karen could see her stock
slipping. Her mother, she had always said, let her do
what she wanted. Now the truth was coming out. Harriet
Morton was just as strict as all the rest of the mothers of
Neilsville.
Karen whispered into Jim Mulvey's ear. "We'll
sneak out when this is all over with," she said softly.
"Then maybe we can finish what we started." Jim
felt a sud-
n
n n n
den tightness in his groin. Was it really finally going
to happen? All of a sudden he was a little bit
afraid.
Peter Balsam steered Margo's car into her
driveway, and came to a stop. He turned and
smiled at her.
"Are you coming in for a nightcap?" Margo asked.
Balsam shook his head. He wanted
to accept, wanted to take her in his arms, but something
held him back. "Not tonight," he said, avoiding the
hurt look in her eyes. "I've got some reading
to do." Then: "You're sure you don't mind if I
take the car?"
Margo smiled. "Not if you bring it back in the
morning. And I figure the best way to guarantee
my seeing you in the morning is to loan you the car.
Somehow, you just don't strike me as a car thief."
She kissed him quickly, then got out of the car. "See
you in the morning. Shall I fix some breakfast?"
"That'd be great," Peter said. "And Margo?
Thanks for riding along with me."
She grinned at him. "I was just looking out for my
car. Next time you decide you have to drive
to Seattle, you can do it alone. Trip's too long
for me." She waved at him and disappeared into her
house. A moment later she heard him put the car in
gear and back out of the driveway. Five minutes
later, Margo Henderson was in bed.
Balsam made his way slowly through the back
streets of Neilsville. He didn't want
to be seen driving Margo's car. He suspected
there was already a certain amount of gossip and he
didn't want to fuel that particular fire.
He was only five blocks from home, and beginning
to relax after the trip, when he saw the figure
sitting forlornly on the curb. As he drew
abreast of the odd apparition, a face peered up at
him, and he recognized Marilyn
PUNISH THE SINNERS 147
Crane. His foot hit the brakes, bringing the car
to a fast enough stop to send the books piled neatly on
the back seat tumbling to the floor. Peter
Balsam backed the car up, and rolled down the
window.
"Marilyn?" he called. "Marilyn, is that you?"
She had been about to walk away, hoping to disappear
into the shadows, when she recognized his voice.
Uncertainly, she turned, and Peter could see that
she had been crying. She peered at the car, as if
unsure whether to come closer or run away. Peter
opened the door and got out. He started around the car.
"Marilyn? It's me, Mr. Balsam. What's
wrong? What are you doing wandering around in a
bathrobe?"
"I-Tin all right," she said, but it was obvious she
wasn't And then she remembered the day they had
walked from the church into town together, and how Mr.
Balsam seemed to understand her. Suddenly
her tears started flowing again. "No, I'm not all
right I'm terrible, if you really want to know. Can I
get in your car?"
"Of course you can." Instinctively, he reached out and
took her arm to guide her into the car. By the time he
shut the door firmly behind her, she was sobbing
uncontrollably. He hurried around to the
driver's side. Then, instead of driving away, he
pulled the car closer to the curb, and turned off the
engine. He reached out to touch the unhappy child, and she
clutched at his hand.
"What is it, Marilyn?" he said softly. "Can't
you tell me?"
"It-it was awful," she said. "They were all so mean."
She looked at him beseechingly. "Why are they all
so mean?"
"I don't know," Peter said gently. "Why
don't you start at the beginning?"
to n n r
n n r
Marilyn nodded vigorously, and did her best
to control the sudden fit of crying that had overtaken
her, as she told Peter Balsam what had
happened to her that evening.
"It was awful, Mr. Balsam," she said,
reliving the experience. "I stood there, and rang the
bell, and I knew it was some kind of horrible
joke, and I waited, but no one answered the door.
And then, when I was about to leave, Mother drove away,
so I didn't have any choice. So I rang the
bell again, and then I could hear them inside. They were
all giggling, and I knew they were giggling at me.
And finally Karen opened the door, and asked me to come
in. I wanted to run away right then, but I hoped
that maybe-well, maybe it wasn't a joke at
all, and that Karen had dressed up so that everyone would
look as bad as I did, and she'd be the only one
there that looked nice. So I went in. And they were
all waiting for me. All of them-Penny and
Janet, and Lyle and Jeff-all of them. And there
I was. And they were laughing at me. I tried
to tell Mother-I knew it was going to happen!" She
began crying again, and Peter let her cry, knowing that
nothing he could say could take away her humiliation.
He let her cry it out. Then, when her sobbing eased
off, he squeezed her hand.
"Would you like me to take you home?" he said softly.
Marilyn seemed terrified.
"No," she said. "Not yet I can't go home yet.
Mother'd be furious with me. She'd tell
me I was being too sensitive, and that I should have
laughed right along with everyone else, then stayed and had
a good time."
"Maybe you should have," Peter suggested gently.
"But I couldn't have. Don't you see? They didn't
inrite me because they wanted me. They only invited
me so they could laugh. Once the joke was over, they
didn't
PUNISH THE SINNERS 149
want me to stay. Oh, God, I wanted to die!
It was so
awful!"
"Til tell you what," Balsam said. "Why
don't we go somewhere, and 111 buy you a Coke?"
Marilyn looked at him hopefully, then her face
sagged in disappointment. "like this? I can't go anywhere
looking like this."
Balsam couldn't help grinning at her now, but he
was careful not to laugh.
"You managed to get here looking like that, didn't
your
"That was different. I just had to get away from
Karen's."
"How long ago was that?"
She shrugged listlessly. "I don't know.
A half-hour. Maybe an hour."
"Do you mean to tell me you've been wandering around like that
for an hour?" She nodded. "And you don't want to go
home yet?" She shook her head. "All right,
then, we'll go to a drive-in, and you can stay in the
car while I buy a couple of Cokes. How's that
sound?"
She looked at him gratefully. "Could we?" she
implored him. "I just don't want Mother to find out
what happened. She wouldn't understand at all, and
she'd just get mad at me, and tell me I did
everything wrong."
"It's all right," Balsam assured her. He
started the car, and a few minutes later he pulled it
into the back corner of the parking lot at the A and W.
He went inside, and felt curious eyes on him
as he bought two Cokes. When he returned to the
car, Marilyn had cahned down considerably.
"You don't know what it was like," she said, sipping
on her Coke.
"How do you know?" Peter said. "You're not the
conp n r
ni in
n n
"com*
only one who's ever been caught in something like that."
Then he proceeded to make up a story about his own
past, in which he was made to look as ridiculous as
Marilyn had been made to look tonight. He told
himself that it didn't matter that the story wasn't
true. What mattered was that Marilyn realize that
she wasn't the only person who had ever been
humiliated in public. She listened to him in
silence. When he finished, there was just the tiniest
trace of a smile at the corners of her mouth.
"That story wasn't true, was it?" she said.
"No," Balsam admitted. "But it could have been,
and the stories that are true are still too painful to talk
about." He thought about his wife, Linda, and the other
man. The man he had found her with. That, he thought,
was humiliation. But he couldn't tell Marilyn about
it. "What'Us I do now?" she suddenly asked him.
"I mean, how can I face them at school on
Monday?"
"Don't worry about it," Balsam said. "Just act
as if nothing happened, and m bet nobody will mention
it at all. And listen carefully in my class on
Monday. I think I'll have a special
lecture-a little talk about people who feel good by making
other people feel bad. With no names mentioned,
of course. And don't be surprised if I act like
you don't exist. I wouldn't want anyone to think you
and I had planned anything in advance."
It worked. Marilyn smiled at him now, and the tears
were gone.
"Thanks for finding me tonight," she said softly. "I
guess you're the only person in the world I really
needed to talk to tonight." She handed him her empty
paper cup, and Peter Balsam got out of the car
to throw it away, along with his own. Then he drove
her home, in a comfortable silence.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 151
"Marilyn?" her mother called from the living room as
she closed the front door behind her. "How was the
party?"
"Fine, Mother," Marilyn responded. She saw
no reason to let her good feelings be dissipated by a
lecture from her mother.
"Who brought you home7"
Before she could think of anything else to say, Marilyn
blurted out the truth.
"Mr. Balsam?" Geraldine Crane repeated.
"How on earth did that happen?"
"He-he was just driving by, and saw me walking,"
Marilyn said, stretching the truth only a
little. less-than cHe offered me a ride, and since
I felt silly walking dressed like this, I
accepted."
Geraldine Crane considered this for a moment. She
wasn't sure she approved. After all, the man was
practically a stranger. "Well, I wish you
wouldn't do things like that," she said. "If he ever offers
you a ride again, turn him down."
"Oh, Mother," Marilyn said. "For heaven's sake,
he's one of my teachers."
"But we don't really know him, do we?" Geraldine
asked darkly. "Better to be safe than sorry."
But Marilyn had already slipped up the stairs. She
didn't hear what her mother had said.
Leona Anderson wondered if she should call
Geraldine Crane that night, or the next morning,
or at all. It had been quite shocking. It was a good
thing her bridge game had run late, and that she had
happened to drive by the A and W just when she had, or
she wouldn't have seen it at all. There they were, just as
brazen as trash, that Mr. Balsam and Marilyn
Crane. And her in her
contion n n n
n n n
bathrobe, no less! And in Margd
Henderson's car. It really was too much.
And then, on reflection, Leona Anderson decided
not to call anyone that night. She would wait until
morning, and then tell Inez Nelson at church.
Between the two of them, she and Inez would be able
to decide what should be done. Leona had no doubt
that something should be done.
Peter Balsam glanced at the clock as he entered
the apartment. Nearly midnight. He was weary from the
long drive, but he'd gone all the way to Seattle
just for these books and they beckoned to him now. He
picked up the most formidable of them, Henry Lea's
The Inquisition of the Middle Ages.
He opened the book to the index, and began running his
fingers down the columns. Then he began leafing through
the book, reading a paragraph here, a page there,
consulting the index once again.
Peter Balsam did not sleep at all that night.
By dawn he knew much more about the saints that adorned
St. Francis Xavier church than he had at
midnight. What he had discovered wouldn't have let
him have much sleep even if he had gone to bed. As the
sun rose above Neilsville, and the intense heat
of the last days of summer baked the town, Peter
Balsam continued his reading. And every now and
then, as if it were winter, he shivered.

Karen Morton was walking up Cathedral Hill,
alone. Usually, on Sunday mornings, she waited
at the foot of the hill, at the corner of First and
Main, for Penny Anderson, Janet Connally, and
Judy Nelson. But this morning Judy would not be
coming. This morning Karen had no desire to see
Penny or Janet. Or anyone at all. She
wished she were home, closed comfortably into the
security of her bedroom.
It had not been an easy morning for Karen, and it was
not showing any promise of getting better.
She had thought of staying in bed, pleading illness, but
quickly decided that wouldn't work. She had sensed, even
before she saw her mother, that no excuse would be accepted
today. She was going to have to get up, have to face her
mother's anger, have to go to church. She was going to have
to confess her sins. That was what was frightening her, for
Karen knew she had a lot to confess. And so, even
earlier than usual, Karen had gotten up,
dressed, and gone downstairs. There just hadn't
seemed any point in prolonging it.
Her mother had been in the kitchen. She hadn't spoken
to her when Karen came down for breakfast.
She simply stared at her, then turned back to the
stove where she was frying eggs. Finally, her back still
to
disT P! r
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Karen, she had asked the question Karen hadn't wanted
to hear.
"What time did you come in last night?" she said
quietly.
"Fm not sure," Karen hedged.
"Well, I am," Harriet snapped. "It was after
two o'clock. Where were you all that time?"
"Jim and I went to-to the A and W," Karen
said. She knew immediately she had made a mistake.
"Did you?" It was an accusation, not a question. "Did
you, indeed? It must have been interesting, sitting there in
the dark. The A and W closes at midnight."
Karen sank into a chair next to the kitchen table, and
waited in silence for the onslaught of her mother's
wrath. But it didn't come. Instead, Harriet
Morton silently continued fixing their breakfast,
silently set the plates on the table, and silently
sat down. For Karen, the silence was much worse than
any lecture.
"I'm sorry," she had whispered finally.
Again, her mother stared at her. Then, at last,
Harriet Morton began to speak.
"I don't know what to say," she began, and Karen
had a sinking feeling in her stomach. Those were the words
her mother always used when she was about to invoke Karen's
father. She waited.
"If your father were alive," Harriet had gone on,
"I could leave this whole matter op to him. But he
isn't alive, and I have to deal with it I suppose,
when it comes down to it, that I shouldn't blame you. I
know it can't be easier for you, not having your father around,
than it is for me. But I'd hoped you were old enough
to be trusted by now. Apparently I was wrong.
Apparently all the things your father and I tried to teach
you went in one ear and out the other. Well, there isn't
anything I can do about it now. But there are a few things
I can do
PUNISH THE SINNERS 155
about the future. First, there won't be any more
parties. Since I won't be able to supervise them,
you won't have them."
"For how long?" Karen asked softly. She had been
expecting this.
"How long?" Harriet had said, looking at her
blankly. "Why, until you're eighteen,
of course. As long as you're my
responsibility."
Karen had gasped. "But Mother-was
"And of course you won't be seeing Jim Mulvey
any more," Harriet went on. She looked deeply
into Karen's eyes, and added, "Unless, of course, you
have to get married. I've been praying all night that
that won't happen. But if it does, it's a cross
we'll both have to bear."
Karen stared at her mother in dismay, and then burst
into tears and fled the table. Her mother found her lying on
her bed, crying.
"It's time for church, Karen," she said softly.
"I'm not going," Karen sobbed into her pillow.
"Of course you are," Harriet said. "Isn't it more
important for you to go this morning than ever before? You
need the church this morning, Karen. Now get off that
bed, change your clothes, and go."
She was nearing the top of Cathedral Hill. Other
worshipers were streaming toward the church of St.
Francis Xavier. Karen did not join in their
Sundaymorning chatter, and there was an air about her that
kept people from calling a greeting to her. Karen
Morton had something on her mind.
She made her way up the steps, and through the
foyer. Then she dipped her fingers in the font,
genuflected, and started down the aisle to the pew she
and her mother usually occupied. Behind her, someone
whispered a quick greeting. Karen didn't reply.
She
R
r
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sank to her knees, and began the prayers she
repeated every Sunday morning. Then she sat on the
pew, and tried to pay attention to the Mass.
An hour later, when the Mass was over, Karen
stood up reluctantly. Now was going to be the
worst time. Now she was going to have to go to the confessional.
She knew it was supposed to make her feel
better; she knew that her sins would be forgiven.
Until this morning, going to confession had always made
her feel better. But this morning was a special
morning. This morning she had a difficult confession
to make. Karen steeled herself, almost lost her
resolve, then slipped quickly into one of the
confessionals that stood to the left of the doors. She
clutched her beads, made the sign of the
cross-"In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the
Holy Ghost. Amen."-and knelt
"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," Karen began.
"It has been a week since my last confession."
Then she paused, wondering where to start "I am
guilty of the sin of lust," she said softly. She
heard the slightest intake of breath from beyond the
grille, and was immediately fearful.
"What are your sins, my child?"
Karen knew the voice. She had heard it in the
halls of the school for too many years not
to recognize it, even when it was pitched to the low
level of the confessional. It was Monsignor
Vernon.
"I-I-was Karen wanted to run from the tiny
confessional, run out of the church and down the hill.
She tried to get hold of herself. From the other side
of the grille the Monsignor's voice inveighed her
to begin.
"But it isn't easy . . ." Karen faltered.
"Nothing in this world is easy, my child," the priest said
softly. "But we must confess our sins. What have you
done?"
PUNISH THE SINNERS 157
She told him. She began telling him all that had
transpired during the week, and during the week
preceding. She confessed to being deceitful,
and told him first about helping Judy Nelson with the
dress. Then she began telling him about the party the
night before, and about being deceitful toward her mother.
She told him about the trick she had pulled on
Marilyn Crane, and the hurt she had caused
Marilyn. And then she told him about the last hours
of the night, when she and Jim Mulvey had sat in his
car, hidden in the darkness.
"I-I let him touch me, Father," she whispered.
She felt the heat between her legs once again, just as
she had felt it last night, and a wave of guilt
swept over her.
"You let him touch you?" Monsignor asked.
"Let him touch you where?"
"I-I'm not-was Karen stammered. Then she blurted
it out. "I let him touch me all over."
There was a long silence from the other side of the
grille. Then the Monsignor spoke again.
"Exactly what do you mean when you say you let him
touch you all over?"
In the darkness of the confessional, Karen Morton
flushed a deep scarlet, and wished for a moment that she
could die.
"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," she mumbled
again.
"I cannot forgive sins that have not been confessed," the
inexorable voice came out of the darkness. Karen
squirmed in embarrassment.
"He-I let him touch me on my chest. And between
my legs," she said miserably.
"And did you touch him?" the priest continued
relentlessly.
"Yes." The word was almost inaudible, and Karen
wondered if she had been heard. But she couldn't
bring
n r n
herself to repeat it. Then the voice began talking
to her. "Lust is a most grievous sin, my child.
Your soul is in grave danger, and you must be on your
guard against the evil that is within you."
"I am trying, Father," Karen said miserably. "The
Devil walks among us," she heard the priest
saying. "He is constantly with us, leading us out of the
paths of righteousness. Guard yourself against him, my child,
and be wary. He will appear as a friend, but he will lead
you astray." Then the voice fell silent, and Karen
wondered about the words. What was the priest trying
to tell her? Was he saying that Jim Mulvey was the
Devil? It didn't make sense. Then he
spoke again. "Is there anything else?" he
said. Karen searched her mind. It was almost over.
Soon, she would be absolved of her sins, and free
to go. She tried to remember if she had left
anything out of the confession, but the strain of it had left
her confused. "No, Father," she said finally. "Your
sins are many, child, and your penance must be heavy."
Karen felt her heart sink. Many times she had seen
people come out of the confessional and walk down the aisle
toward the altar. There they would kneel, and spend the
rest of the day. Often, she had wondered what prayers
they were saying. Now she was sure she was about to find out
"You will leave the confessional on your knees, and
approach the Holy Virgin. For your sins, say
one hundred Rosaries, and between each Rosary,
recite the Apostles" Creed. Do you understand your
penance?"
"Yes, Father." Karen wanted to cry. Leave the
confessional on her knees? She didn't remember
anyone ever having done that before. People would stare at her.
They would know that she must have done something
PUNISH THE SINNERS 159
terribly wicked. She wished she could die. Then
she realized the priest was saying the words of
absolution. Quickly, she repeated the Act of
Contrition. "Oh my God," she began,
the words coming automatically through her confusion, "I am
heartily sorry for having offended Thee, and I
detest all my sins because I dread the loss of
heaven and the pains of hell; but most of all because they
offend Thee, my God, who are all-good and deserving
of all my love. I firmly resolve, with the
help of Thy grace, to sin no more and to avoid near
occasions of sin." As she finished, she heard the words
of absolution.
"I absolve you from your sins, in the name of the Father,
and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. Go in
peace, my child." The shutter closed over the
grille, and Karen Morton was alone in the
confessional. She sat for a long time, wishing she had
the courage, or the cowardice, to ignore the penance,
to leave the confessional and walk out of the church into the
sunlight. But Karen Morton was in fear of her
Lord, so she grasped her beads firmly, pushed the
door of the confessional open, and, still on her knees,
crept out into the church. She stared at the image of the
Holy Virgin and kept her eyes firmly fixed
on that peaceful face as she made her pitiful way
down the aisle. By the time she reached the statue, and
began telling her beads, the pain in her knees was
almost as great as the agony in her mind. Her
lips moving silently, she began the Apostles'
Creed.
Peter Balsam stared out into the morning sunlight and
wondered what he should do next. His first impulse was
to call Margo Henderson, and he had already reached
for the phone when he realized what he must do instead.
He must go to church. He must pray. He
n R PI
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m
must make his decision for himself. He knew that, in the
light of what he had read last night, it was not going
to be easy to pray this morning, not going to be easy
to sit below the glowering countenances of the Saints of the
Inquisition-the Saints of Neilsville-and come to a
decision that made sense. But this morning, not much
made sense to Peter Balsam. His long night's
reading had shaken him to the core. Now, he had to find
out if his faith had withstood the shaking or if it had
crumbled.
He left his apartment, carefully locked the door
behind him, and began the climb up Cathedral Hill.
He entered the church just as Karen Morton came out
of the confessional and looked on in horror as she
slowly made her way down the aisle to the
alcove dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. For a
split second he had wanted to go to her. When he
saw the rest of the parishioners ignoring her, he
changed his mind. He was still staring at her when he
heard the voice behind him.
*Td hoped you'd be here earlier," Monsignor
Vernon's voice said softly into his ear. Peter
Balsam jumped back, startled, then turned to stare
at the priest.
"What on earth is going on here?" he demanded.
Monsignor Vernon looked at him
impassively, almost as if he hadn't heard the
question.
"Why did Karen Morton just go down the aisle on
her knees?"
The priest smiled calmly, a look of peace in his
eyes.
"That's between her and her Lord, isn't it?"
"Is it supposed to be some kind of penance?"
Balsam demanded.
"It doesn't concern you," the priest countered. He
turned, as if to move away, then turned back.
"Will I see you at the next Mass?" he asked
Balsam.
Balsam glanced again at Karen Morton,
who was
PUNISH THE SINNERS 161
now engrossed in prayer, before he answered. Then he
turned to the priest, and shook his head.
"I don't know," he said. "But I need to talk
to you."
"To me?" Monsignor Vernon asked. "Very
well. Shall we go to the rectory?"
"If you don't mind, Fd rather we went somewhere
else. How about my classroom?"
The Monsignor shrugged indifferently and led Peter
Balsam out of the church. A few minutes later he
put his key in the door to Room 16, and stood
aside to let Balsam enter first. Then he followed
the teacher in, and pulled the door closed behind him.
"Is something wrong?" The question was not so much an
inquiry as a prod. Balsam decided not to allow
himself to be prodded. Instead, he approached the
statue of St. Peter Martyour, and stood silently
staring at it for several minutes. Then he turned
quickly and spoke.
"He was a prize bastard, wasn't he?"
Balsam had intended the words to be shocking. He
succeeded. The priest immediately made the sign of the
cross. Then his eyes flashed angrily
at Balsam.
"I beg your pardon?"
"Tve been reading up on him," Balsam said
calmly. "On him, and on all the other saints
you've got scattered around here. Almost all of them
come straight out of the Inquisition, which I've also been
reading up on."
The priest sat down on the edge of Peter
Balsam's desk, arms folded in an attitude
of exaggerated patience.
"I have a lot of Dominican saints here, yes,"
he said pensively. "And I suppose you're right-a
lot of them do date from the period of the Inquisition.
But I don't get your point"
Balsam felt his resolve beginning to crumble.
"It's
n n
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1!
n n ?"be
just this," he said, suddenly uncertain. "I got
curious about the saints in the church and I decided
to do some research. And then, the more I read, the more I
realized that the kind of intolerance all these saints
represented wasn't much different from the
sort of thing we were talking about the other day. The day
we were discussing what I can, and what I cannot, teach in
my class."
The priest smiled dryly. "You think the
Inquisition's being revived, right here in
Neilsville?"
"In a word, yes, that's exactly what I think."
"Before I even argue the point with you," Monsignor
Vernon said wearily, "may I inquire what the
purpose of this meeting is?"
"Certainly," Balsam retorted. "This is
to tell you that I've changed my mind. I don't
think I can stay in Neilsville. In fact, after
the reading I did last night, I'm not even sure
I can stay in the Church."
Suddenly the priest looked stricken.
"You're not serious," he exclaimed. "You aren't
really considering leaving the Church?"
Now that he'd said it, Balsam was suddenly no
longer sure he meant it. He glanced nervously
at the Monsignor, then back to the image of St.
Peter Martyour.
"I don't know," he said uncertainly. "It's just
that I can't stomach the sort of thing people like him stood
for. And it seems to me that the Church
hasn't really progressed very far since his day."
"Of course it hasn't," the priest intoned. "Why
should it? Faith is absolute, and the Truth of the Lord
is absolute. There is room within the Faith for
differences of opinion."
As Balsam stared, the Monsignor's voice
softened and he returned to himself. He smiled.
"Peter, I know we've had differences of opinion.
They are not at an end. We have always had our
differences." He paused,
PUNISH THE SINNERS 163
as if weighing the prudence of what he was about
to reveal, then continued with a sigh, "I hadn't intended
to tell you this, but I selected you for the job here because of
those differences." He left the edge of the desk, and
began pacing the room, speaking as he moved.
"I've been following your career very closely,
Peter, much more closely than you ever knew. And
I've worried about you. Of all of us, you've
seemed to me to have had the most trouble, not only within the
Church, but within yourself. I suppose some of it has
to do with your childhood-was
"Forget that," Balsam snapped. "It has nothing
to do with all this."
"Doesn't it?" the priest said
quizzically. Then he smiled again. "Well,
maybe it doesn't At any rate, it's all
academic. If you wish, IT1 take the matter
of your resignation under consideration. I will do it
reluctantly, but I will do it. In the meantime, I
wish you'd do me a favor. I wish you'd examine
your own conscience, and I wish you'd make a greater
effort to understand what the Dominican saints were all
about Their methods may seem a bit harsh today, but
don't forget that some of the tales of that period have been
grossly exaggerated. Primarily, they helped people
to keep the Faith. And that, I think, is at the
root of your problems right now. I think you're having
a crisis of faith." He put his hand on
Peter's shoulder. "It happens to us all," he said
gently. "It's happened to me, since I've been
here. But I've come through it. Of course I had the
Society of Still Peter Martyour to help me. The
Society could help you, too."
Balsam looked at the priest curiously.
"Exactly what is the Society of Still Peter
Martyour?" he asked.
The priest smiled enigmatically. "Come and see,"
he said. "We meet tomorrow night" When Peter
seemed
in pi r n
m in
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caret SHALL
backslash backslash
hesitant, he added: "What harm can it do? It
might even help. If nothing else, at least
you'll understand us better. Then, if you still want
to leave, I'm sure we'll be able to arrange it."
Balsam sighed heavily. He had a feeling that
something was wrong-that the talk had not gone as he had
intended it to. He shrugged off the feeling and smiled
at the Monsignor.
"Okay," he said. "Tomorrow night?"
"Seven-thirty, at the rectory."
The two men left the classroom, and walked together
aut of the school. "Will I see you at Mass this
evening?" the priest asked.
"I don't know," Balsam answered honestly.
"But I suppose so. If I miss it, I can
always confess." He regretted the facetious
remark as soon as he'd made it, but the
Monsignor was not listening.
"Then if not before, I'll see you tomorrow
night." He turned and disappeared into the rectory.
Peter Balsam started down the hill. Then, as if
renembering something, he went back to the church,
["here, still on her knees in front of the Holy
Virgin, vas Karen Morton, her fingers playing
over the beads, ler lips reciting the Rosary. As
Balsam left the church ind started again down the
hill, he wondered how long he would be there.
If he had known Karen Morton would be in the
conhurch, praying on her knees, for the next eight
hours, te might have changed his mind once more, and
left Jeilsville that afternoon. But it was already too
late; hings had already gone too far, and Balsam was
aleady too enmeshed in it. The punishment was beginiing.
BOOK TWO
The Society of St. Peter Martyour
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Inez Nelson hurried up the steps, and through the
main doors of St. Francis Xavier School.
She was late, and she knew that Monsignor
didn't like to be kept waiting.
She turned into the reception room and glanced
nervously at the door that led to Monsignor's
private office, wondering if she should
tap at the closed door. Just as she decided against
it she heard the click of the latch and looked up,
relieved to see the priest smiling at her.
"Come in, come in," he said expansively.
"It's a good thing you're late-Mondays are always
my busy day. The work seems to pile up over the
weekend, even though there isn't any school. Or
maybe I just don't work hard enough on Fridays."
He closed the door behind Inez, and offered her a
chair. Then he moved behind his desk and sat down.
His smile had disappeared.
"I suppose you've been to the hospital?" he
asked.
Inez nodded. "I spent nearly an hour with that
Dr. Shields-was
"The psychiatrist?" Monsignor interrupted her.
"Yes." Inez paused, choking back a sob.
"Oh, Monsignor, I'm so confused and it's been
worrying me all weekend. He says Judy is
doing fine. But she won't talk about why she did it
All she'll tell him is that she's fine now, and that
it won't happen again."
Ti
"And what does she say to you?"
Inez squirmed uncomfortably. "Well,
that's just it, Monsignor. That's why I felt I
had to talk to you. About so many things. But primarily
about Judy. You see, she won't see me."
Monsignor Vernon's eyes opened in
surprise. "Won't see you? What do you mean,
she won't see you?"
"Just that," Inez said unhappily. "She
absolutely refuses to see me." She was fighting
tears. "And it's only me," she went on, her
voice beginning to quaver. "She sees everyone
else. Her father. Her friends. But she won't see
me. And everyone says she's fine."
"Do they?" The priest's tone suggested to Inez that
he didn't believe Judy could possibly be
fine. "If she won't see you, I wonder how
fine she could be?"
"That's exactly what I thought, too," Inez said.
Suddenly she felt much better. "But I don't
know what to do. If only I could talk to her, I
know I could find out what's the matter."
The priest shrugged. "Frankly, I don't see
what the problem is. Judy is only sixteen, and
you are her mother. If you want to see her, I don't
see how anyone can stop you."
Inez nodded vigorously. "That's
exactly what I've been saying. But no one
agrees with me. Oh, not that I can't see her if
I demand to. Everyone says I can do that. But they
all think it would be unwise. Dr. Shields, and
George-my husband-both seem to think I should just
wait. They say eventually she'll see me, and I
suppose they're right. But in the meantime nobody
seems to be taking my feelings into consideration. I
feel like-well, I feel like such a failure."
She looked guiltily at the priest. "Do you know
what I've been doing? I've been going to the
hospital every day at visiting hours,
PUNISH THE SINNERS 169
and visiting total strangers. Well, not total
strangers, of course, but people I wouldn't normally go
see in the hospital. Then I tell them that I was
there visiting Judy, and I just decided to drop
in." Now the tears came, and Inez stared
miserably at the priest. "I just don't know how
long I can stand it, Father," she said. "If it ever
gets out that all this time Judy has been refusing
to see me-well, you don't know what an awful
feeling it is."
Monsignor Vernon offered her a Kleenex, and a
smile. "It's difficult, I know," he
said softly. "Sometimes I think everything is
topsy-turvy these days, and we're expected
to give in to our children all the time."
"I know," Inez said, sniffling into the tissue and
trying to regain control of herself. "But I was beginning
to think I was the only one who thought so."
"You aren't," the Monsignor replied, "although
sometimes I think there are very few of us left who
refuse to be manipulated by our children."
Inez looked sharply at the priest.
Manipulated. The same word Dr. Shields had
used. "That's it exactly," she said. "I feel like
I'm being manipulated by Judy. As if she's
trying to punish me."
"And that's undoubtedly exactly what's going on,"
Monsignor Vernon said emphatically. "You have
no idea what it can be like here." He turned his
chair, gazing out the window as he talked. "I have to have
my guard up all the time. They're smart, you know.
Brighter than we were, when we were young. But it isn't
a good kind of brightness. It's a clever kind of
brightness. They're always testing me, pushing me, to see
how far they can go before I crack down on them. It
must be even worse in the public schools. They have
so few controls anymore. Thank God
the Church recognizes the function of discipline in
the raising of children! But it
"ets harder each year. Every year, they strain me more.
3very year, more of them try to corner me. Well,
I ton't intend to tolerate it! This year, the children will
ind out who runs this school, and they'll find out it
sn't them!" He suddenly spun the chair around again,
ind seemed almost surprised to see Inez Nelson
sitting opposite his desk. He had almost forgotten
she was in he office, and that it was to her that he was
talking, fow she sat very still, unnerved by the intensity with
rhich he had spoken. He broke the moment with a
[uick smile. Tm sorry," he said, chuckling
a little. Sometimes I get quite carried away. Well,
what were re talking about?"
"Judy-was Inez said distractedly. "We were talking
bout Judy. Which brings me to the other thing I ranted
to discuss with you. Dr. Shields tells me that
he'll be fine by the end of the week, and that she can ome
back to school a week from today. Next Monay."
"I see," Monsignor Vernon said carefully,
licking his ps nervously. Inez Nelson noticed
the gesture immeditely.
"Thafs right, isn't it?" she said quickly. "I
mean, lere isn't going to be any problem,
is there?"
"Actually, I don't know," Monsignor
Vernon said esitantly. "I mean, we've never
before been faced with greater-than mething like this, and I
haven't quite been able to ad out what to do about it yet."
"Do about it?" Inez asked blankly. "What's there
to a? I don't understand."
"Well," the priest said slowly, "it isn't really
the same be if she'd simply been sick, is it?
What she did comes ay close to sacrilege.
Judy will have to confess and be jsolved before she can
return to school."
"Before?" Inez asked. "Why before?"
PUNISH THE SINNERS 171
"Because of the nature of her sin. You must be aware that
suicide is one of the most grievous sins that a
Catholic can commit. Only God can forgive it, not
the Church."
Inez was suddenly alarmed. Was Judy to be
excommunicated?
"But she didn't-was she began. "I mean, she
didn't actually do anything, did she?" she asked
desperately. "I mean, yes, I suppose she
tried, but Dr. Shields says he doesn't think
she really meant to kill herself, and in any
case, she isn't dead, is she?"
Monsignor gave the distraught woman his most
tolerant look. "I'm afraid that isn't the
point. The point is that she did, indeed, intend the
sin. That she didn't succeed was only a matter of
luck, not intent. And I'm sure you're aware that a
sin intended is every bit as offensive to God as a sin
committed."
Inez Nelson stared at him helplessly. "But
what's going to happen to her?"
"I'm afraid I can't answer that. There are
grave philosophical and theological questions
involved. I simply haven't the answers yet.
But I intend to put the entire case before my study
group tonight, and I'm sure that among the six of us
we'll be able to find the answer. The Lord, through St.
Peter Martyour, will guide me."
He rose from behind his desk, and led Inez out of the
office. As she was leaving, he called to her, and she
turned back, her face pale and her eyes
beseeching him. He raised his hand in the sign of the
cross. "May the Lord bless you and keep you, may the
Lord make his face to shine upon you, and give you
peace."
But as she walked out of the school, and slowly
made her way to the parking lot, Inez Nelson
knew there was going to be no peace for her. For her,
or her daughter, or anyone else in
Neilsville. As she got into the car, a
H jp caret like
M i i
I backslash
cloud passed over the sun. Summer had come to an
abrupt end in Neilsville.
The final bell had rung, and the students had poured
rat of the classroom into the halls. All but
Marilyn Urane. She sat alone in the room,
except for Sister EU-ZIBETH, who was straightening
up her desk.
It had not been an easy day for Marilyn; if she
had tad her way she would not have come to school at
alLike Jut her mother had insisted, and Marilyn had
dragged terself up the hill. It had seemed
steeper today than ver before, and when she had finally reached
the chool she had had to force herself to go in. All through
he day she had heard the snickers, and the whispers, as
tie story of her humiliation on Saturday night
spread brough the halls. Everybody had heard.
Suddenly it rasn't just her own classmates who
snubbed her and nmed away at her
approach. Now the younger chilren, the children who had always
been at least a little espectful, were pointing at her
and giggling together.
She tried to ignore it all, tried to do as Mr.
Balsam ad suggested, and pretend that nothing had
happened, he had spent the entire day waiting for the
final bell, nd now it had rung. But she still
didn't leave her desk, ostead, she stared
miserably down at the paper that lay ccusingly in
front of her. It was a test and it was Larked
B-minus.
The grade itself wasn't really bad. What hurt
most ras the note penciled next to the grade.
There, in Sister lizabeth's flowing script, was the
real condemnation: This is very disappointing. I know you can
do better."
Marilyn wanted to cry. What did they want from
er? She tried, she knew she tried. But, once
more, she ad failed.
As she stared at the grade, and the note beside it,
PUNISH THE SINNERS 173
anger churned in her. She fought it back. After
all, who was there to be angry at, besides herself? She
was the one who had gotten the grade. She was the one
who hadn't lived up to Sister
Elizabeth's expectations. Her anger turned
to frustration. What did they want, anyway? And
even if she knew, why should she live up to their
expectations? Why should she?
Why should she do anything at all?
And then, realizing the magnitude of the thought that had just
gone through her mind, she quickly begged forgiveness. She
decided to go to church. Things were always better in the
church. The Blessed Virgin didn't demand anything
of her.
Marilyn gathered her things, and left the room. As
she did, Sister Elizabeth glanced up, looked
at her curiously, and decided something was wrong with
Marilyn Crane. She made a mental note
to discuss Marilyn with Monsignor Vernon.
Monsignor would know what to do. Sister Elizabeth
went back to her work and put Marilyn out of her
mind.
Peter Balsam arrived at the rectory
punctually at seven-thirty. He let himself in,
picked up the small silver bell, and rang it.
When there was no response, he walked down the
hall and tapped lightly at the study door. It was
opened immediately by a man he didn't recognize, but
who seemed to know who he was.
"Peter Balsam," the man said, opening the door just
wide enough for Peter to slip through. He held his finger
to his lips. "Monsignor is saying the blessing."
The study was dimly lit, and as Peter looked around
he realized that of the six men gathered in the small
room, the only one he recognized was
Monsignor Vernon. All the others were
strangers, but he had the distinct feeling that he was no
stranger to them. They
J?-9
stared at him and he felt as if he were being
measured-and found wanting. As he pondered the
possible significance of this, Monsignor Vernon
finished the blessing, and smiled at him.
"Peter," he said expansively, 'let me
introduce you to the Society." He took Peter
by the elbow and introduced him to the members of the
Society of Still Peter Martyour one by one. All
were priests, and all were from parishes outside of
Neilsville. But as the Monsignor introduced
them Balsam realized that, though they were all
considerably older than Vernon, they shared certain
traits with him. There was a tightness to their faces,
particularly to Father Bryant, whose expression
seemed frozen in disapproval. Father
Martinelli, the eldest of them all, peered out from
deep-set eyes that were almost invisible under bushy
brows. He grunted a greeting to Balsam, but there
was a note of displeasure in it, as if he felt this
introduction should not be taking place. Father Prine,
gnarled with rheumatism, extended his hand, but pulled
it painfully back before Peter could shake it The other
two, whose names Peter didn't catch, greeted him
formally, but offered no particular welcomes.
When the introductions were completed, Monsignor
Vernon invited Balsam to sit down. The chair
near the fireplace, the one he had occupied every time
he had been in the study, had been left vacant.
He wondered briefly whether this was by design or
coincidence, deciding that either way he was grateful
for the familiar touch.
"Fve heard a lot about you," he said to the group in
general. They stared. Just as the silence was becoming
uncomfortable, Father Prine spoke.
"And we've heard a lot about you." There was some-
PUNISH THE SINNERS 175
thing in the voice that told Peter that not all they
heard had been good.
"All bad, I suppose," he grinned. The
humor was lost on the old priest, who
turned dourly to Monsignor Vernon.
"You'll have to forgive us," the Monsignor said
to Peter. "We are a closed group, and we
observe strict rules about speaking. While you are
among us, you will observe them, too. But you are not
to consider yourself a member of the Society of St.
Peter Martyour. Not yet, at any rate. Whether
or not we decide to initiate you into our order will
depend on many things."
Peter was about to challenge the priest's use of the word
"order," but he remembered the sanction against questions.
He felt his temper rising, and had to fight down an
impulse to leave. He restrained himself. He had
come to the rectory for a reason. Here, he might find
out just exactly how it was that Monsignor Vernon
had changed from the rather casual student Balsam
remembered from the seminary into the rigid dogmatist
he had become. And if Balsam was to make any
kind of adjustment to St. Francis Xavier's, he
needed to understand his superior. He fought down his
impulse to leave and sat quietly in the chair by the
fireplace.
And the questioning began.
The questions seemed simple enough, at first, and Peter
soon began to feel like a child being put through the
Catechism.
He was asked to repeat the Apostles" Creed.
He was examined about his knowledge of the Immaculate
Conception.
But as the questioning continued, each of the priests taking his
turn, Balsam realized that they wanted more of him
than a simple statement of his knowledge of the beliefs of the
Church. They were trying to determine if
S-i-caret J3
m
there were flaws in his faith; if there were areas in which he
was not in agreement with the Doctrines.
"Do you accept the Church as the true vessel of the
Word of God?"
"Do you accept the Infallibility of the Pope?"
"Did you leave the priesthood because of doubts as to the
Faith, or only as to your vocation?"
The questions rang in his ears, and he began to find himself
agreeing with everything they asked, telling them what he
knew they wanted to hear, not because he wanted to please
them, but because, as they droned on, the questions lost their
meaning. He began to feel that they were not asking him for
his own responses, which would have been too complicated
and ambiguous to fit into the narrow structure of their
questions. Instead, they were inundating him with their
own beliefs, and taking reassurance as he
reflected those beliefs back to them.
An hour went by. Peter began to realize that he
was no longer hearing the questions, that they no longer made
sense to him. He held up a hand.
"Wouldn't it be easier if I just talked?" he
asked. "I know what you're driving at, but at this
rate we'll be here all night."
Father Martinelli glared at him. "You know nothing,"
the old priest quavered. "Answer the questions,
please. If we wish your comments we will ask for
them."
The questioning continued.
And then it was over. As if an unseen signal had
been passed among the priests, the questioning suddenly
stopped. Peter searched the faces, one by one, trying
to read in their expressions their reactions to his
answers. The faces were impassive.
Then he heard Monsignor Vernon speaking.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 177
"It's time we took up the discussion for tonight," he
said softly. "Which is, of course, the problem of
Judy Nelson."
Balsam was baffled. Judy Nelson? Why was she
to be discussed here? What possible concern was
she to this group? The answer came soon enough. For the
next ten minutes, as Peter listened in silence, the
priests discussed what penance should be placed on
Judy when she returned to school. The question of whether
or not she should be allowed to return at all was
disposed of very quickly; since she had not put herself beyond
redemption, she was to be brought back into the fold.
But the question of penance was not so easily resolved.
Finally, as the discussion seemed to be getting nowhere,
Peter interrupted.
"Don't you think it might be a good idea to talk
to Judy before you decide on anything?" he suggested.
Father Martinelli gazed at him with a detached
curiosity.
"Not relevant," the ancient voice crackled.
"Of what possible interest could anything she might
say be to us?"
Peter was astounded. "It seems to me that it might be
wise to find out why she did it, before you began handing
down penances," he said.
"Nonsense," Father Bryant snapped. "Her
motivations are of no concern to us. She has sinned,
and in the eyes of the Church, it is the sin that matters,
not the motivations of the sinner."
The five other priests nodded solemn
agreement.
Balsam started to get to his feet. "Then you really
have no need for me, do you? I'm a psychologist, not
a priest, and certainly not a judge."
"Sit down," Monsignor Vernon said. Peter
sat "You are here for a reason. We have found, over the
years, that a strictly structured examination of our
own faiths has often served to reinforce that faith. That
is what we
have provided you with. But you are also here to discuss a
specific problem that we don't feel qualified
to handle."
Six pairs of eyes bored into Peter's. No one
spoke until Peter broke the silence.
"What problem?" he asked.
Father Prine took over now.
"We are concerned for the safety of our children," he said,
his voice muted but steady. "We can see no reason
why young Judy shouldn't be allowed to return
to school, yet we feel that somehow the other children must be
protected from whatever-was He groped for the word, then
found one he seemed reluctant to use. "comwhatever
evil is lurking in Judy."
Balsam wanted to tell the old priest that he was
certain there was no "evil" lurking hi
Judy, that she was simply the victim of some
psychological problems. He knew it was useless.
It was not what they wanted to hear. He addressed
himself instead to the thrust of the question.
"I'm not sure what could be done," he said slowly,
"I mean, short of isolating Judy-and that would
simply focus attention on the whole situation. It
seems to me that the best thing to do is try to act as if
nothing had happened, and hope things settle down of
their own accord."
The priests appeared to be pondering the wisdom of this
course. Finally Monsignor Vernon broke the
silence.
"I wonder," he began. "I heard about something,
or read about it. Relaxation therapy, I think it was
called."
Peter Balsam's attention was suddenly riveted
on the priest. Where had he ever heard of relaxation
therapy? But the Monsignor didn't notice the
sudden tension in the teacher, and continued talking,
softly, reasonably.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 179
"I was just wondering if it could be of any possible
use in this situation. The students have been pretty
keyed up lately. Do you think there's any
way we could use this relaxation therapy to calm them
down? Before Judy comes back next week, I
mean?"
Balsam's mind was suddenly racing. There was danger
here, but he couldn't define it All he could put his
finger on was the incongruity of the priest's suggestion.
Of all people, Vernon was the last one Peter would have
expected to suggest the use of what was, at best,
an experimental process. His instincts told him
to move carefully.
"I don't know," he said honestly enough. "I'm
afraid I don't know much about the process, and from
what I've read, I don't think it would
accomplish much."
"But you don't know?" Father Bryant pressed.
"No," Peter said reluctantly. "I don't"
"In fact," Monsignor Vernon said, "it
might indeed help them, mightn't it?"
Peter felt suddenly trapped. "I suppose it
might," he admitted.
"Well, then," the priest said affably. "Why
don't we leave it at this? You sleep on it, and do
whatever you think best" He stood up, and Peter
realized he was being dismissed. "I want to thank you
for coming tonight I think it's been good for all of
us."
It wasn't until the door closed quietly behind
him that Peter was sure his part in the meeting was over.
Confused, he stood in the hallway for a moment, then,
as he began to walk slowly toward the front door
of the rectory, he heard the chanting begin. It was
soft at first, then grew louder. Gregorian
chanting, but somehow slightly wrong. As he left the
rectory, Peter Balsam attributed the
peculiar sound of the chanting to the fact
JtLGL
that the participants were old, and their voices had
weakened with age.
But as he walked slowly down Cathedral Hill,
the sound of the chanting stayed with him, ringing in his head,
imbedding itself in his mind.
He tried to figure out just what the Society of
St. Peter Martyour was all about. He was sure it
wasn't the simple "study group" Monsignor
had claimed it to be. No, it was something else. He
racked his memory. "Order." They had called it
an order. Surely, in this day and age, they weren't
attempting to begin a new order, one tied to the
memory of a thirteenth-century inquisitor? That was
absurd.
And there was something else that bothered him, something he
thought about long after he got home that night. As he
was drifting off to sleep, it came to him. The
Society of St. Peter Martyour had not acted like
any "study group" he knew of. No, the
Society of St. Peter Martyour had acted like a
tribunal.
Peter Balsam found it very disturbing. When he
slept, his dreams were filled with the sound of chanting,
and the strange, intolerant visages of the members of the
Society of St. Peter Martyour.

As his class began drifting into Room 16,
Peter Balsam realized that he had been
anticipating this hour all morning. His mind had
been on his Latin classes even less than
usual. The Latin students had sensed his
distraction, and had taken advantage of it, spending
the previous three hours mistranslating their
lessons, winking at each other every time he failed
to catch their deliberate errors, and passing the word,
one class to the next, that today was a good day in Mr.
Balsam's class- anything went! By fourth
period, the psychology students were looking forward
even more than usual to their offbeat class,
and they came into Room 16 carrying an air of
anticipation. It was almost as if they knew that
Balsam had been lax with the other classes because he
had something special planned for them.
Now, as the classroom slowly filled, Balsam
had a sudden feeling of trepidation, his first such
feeling since the decision had come to him. What he was
about to do was an experiment, and an experiment he was
unfamiliar with. He had gotten up early this
morning, filled with a sense of purpose, and
reviewed what little material he could find on the
subject of relaxation technique, quickly realizing
it was little more than a very light form of hypnosis, a
period of induced relaxation, using both music and the
human voice to put the subjects-a
R JjLJ
word Balsam hated-into a state resembling light
sleep. Almost light sleep, but not quite. The music
would be important and he had made his selection
carefully from his limited collection of records and
tapes. Feeling inspired, he had chosen
religious music, a recording of Gregorian
chants made by a small order of nuns in France.
If the chanting of the Society of St. Peter
Martyour the previous evening had put the
suggestion into his head, he was unconscious of it.
He busied himself setting up the record player as
the last of his students hurried into the room.
The last to come in were Karen Morton and Marilyn
Crane. Though they entered the room together, it was
obvious to Balsam that it was only a matter of
coincidence. Marilyn seemed almost unaware that
anyone else was in the room. And Karen completely
ignored Marilyn as she walked slowly toward the
front row of desks. This morning she didn't seat
herself immediately; instead, she piled her books on top
of the desk, and approached Balsam, a little smile
playing around the corners of her mouth. Balsam had
a distinct feeling that she was about to play some kind of a
game with him, and decided to end it before it got started.
"Take your seat, please, Karen," he said
shortly, not seeing the hurt look that came over her
at his rebuff. "We're already late getting
started, and there's a lot I want to accomplish
today." Then he turned his attention back to the
class, and particularly to Marilyn Crane, who
had moved lifelessly to her usual place at the
back of the room.
As he finished setting up the sound system,
Balsam began explaining what relaxation
technique was all about, without telling them what he
hoped to accomplish with it. He was afraid that if they
knew he was planning more for them than a simple
experiment, their
PUNISH THE SINNERS 183
guard would be up, and they wouldn't be responsive to the
technique. A hand went up in the front row,
Janet Connally's.
"Janet?"
"Tm not sure I understand," Janet said slowly.
Then she grinned mischievously. "I mean, it
sounds like I might fall asleep."
Balsam returned her grin. "You might," he
agreed. "But don't worry about it Today marks a
momentous event at St. Francis Xavier's.
Sleeping in class is permitted. In fact, a
lot of you might wind up snoring through this whole thing,
so let's get rid of the desks. Let's push them
all over against the walls, and make enough room so
everybody can lie down on the floor. If we're
going to relax, we might as well go all the way."
The class exchanged looks, startled, then quickly
began moving the furniture. When the job was
halfcomplete, the door suddenly opened, and
Monsignor Vernon appeared, his eyes
quickly taking in the activity in the room. The
activity stopped. It was almost as if someone had
suddenly thrown a switch, and the motion had frozen.
But instead of asking what was going on, the priest
simply stared at Balsam, smiled briefly, and
disappeared again.
When the door was safely shut, the clearing of the
furniture continued.
There was a lot of giggling and whispering as the class
settled itself on the floor, and Balsam didn't
try to stop it He wanted them to be relaxed, and if
giggling and whispering would help, that was fine with him.
"All right," he said when they seemed as settled as
they were going to be, "let's begin. I'm going to put
on some music, and I want you to let yourselves float
with it. As I said earlier, don't worry about
falling asleep.
[jLike JjLike r
There's no better relaxation than sleep, and that's
what this is all about."
He set the needle on the record, and the music
began. At the first notes, another wave of giggling
went over the class, but it soon subsided.
Slowly, one by one, each of the students succumbed to the
persistent rhythm and monotony of the
chanting. Balsam walked among them and saw that their
eyes were closed. One or two of them were displaying that
odd flutter of the eyelids that comes with light
sleep. He began talking to them, telling them
to become aware of their breathing, to imagine with each
breath that they were sinking into the floor. Deeper and
deeper into the floor. Breathe evenly. Listen to the
music. Sink into the floor. Deeper. Deeper. .
.
He went back to the front of the room and was about
to continue when once more the door opened, and
Monsignor Vernon came silently into the room.
This time he was not alone. Behind him, the Society of
St. Peter Martyour filed into Room 16. Almost
before Balsam was aware of what was happening, the six
priests ranged along the back wall, silent
observers of whatever was about to happen.
Balsam looked quickly at the class; none of them
had noticed the intrusion of the elderly clerics and their
young leader. Their breathing remained even and deep, their
eyes closed. Balsam began turning the volume
of the music down, until it was an almost
imperceptible background. And then, trying to keep his
voice on an even tone that wouldn't interrupt the
state of neartrance that had come over the
class, he began to speak.
"Relaxation," he began, "is a technique
designed to relieve internal pressures through the
release of physical pressures. Basically, it
helps us the way sleep does. But in simple
relaxation, we try to put our bodies in a state
almost resembling sleep while we let our conscious
PUNISH THE SINNERS 185
minds roam about, sorting out our anxieties and
dissipating them harmlessly. What we are doing today is
a little like lying in a hammock on a sunny afternoon,
daydreaming. Daydreams, which we may think are just
idle fantasies, are really much more. They're a
means of bolstering our own identities, or reinforcing
ourselves against the everyday pressures of life." He
glanced quickly over the class, noting that so far nothing
had disturbed any of the students. Jim Mulvey was
snoring gently. Vaguely amused, Balsam
wondered if any of the students were hearing him. He
glanced at the back wall, where the Society stood
impassively listening. Then he continued his
lecture.
"Though we may sometimes feel that daydreaming is a
waste of time, psychologists have known for years that
it's a very important means of releasing
pressures. It's a sort of safety valve.
The human mind, of course, has developed many
safety valves. One you're all familiar with is
dreaming. Dreaming is really the unconscious mind
clearing up the debris it has been otherwise unable
to cope with. Daydreaming is similar, except that it
occurs on the conscious level."
The class was still quiet, but the Society had
shifted its attention. Their interest had moved to the
class. They seemed particularly intent on two
of the girls: Karen Morton and Marilyn Crane.
Feeling strangely uneasy, Balsam stepped up
the pace of his talk.
"Occasionally," he went on, "the safety valves
the mind builds for itself fail to operate. When this
happens, we begin to see all kinds of things
happen, as the mind attempts to cope with its
problems. Things like nervous tics develop, or a
person becomes unable to concentrate. Or irrational
behavior can begin to occur. Some people, when their safety
valves fail to relieve in-
P JjL.
ternal pressure, begin scratching themselves, almost
uncontrollably.
Balsam heard a faint rustling sound in the
room and tried to pinpoint where it had come from. Karen
Morton seemed to be fumbling in her purse. Then
she settled down again. The members of the Society
of Still Peter Martyour still stood impassively against
the back wall, [f they were listening to him as
intently as Balsam suspected, they showed no
outward signs of it. He tried to pick up his
train of thought
"Sometimes," he continued, keeping his voice low,
'all of our safety valves malfunction, and when
this lappens the results can be very serious indeed. The
end result, of course, can be
self-destructiveness."
With a shock Balsam realized what he had just said,
md stopped abruptly. His eyes went to the dour
faces greater-than from the Society. Now, instead
of the almost blank expressions they had been wearing,
they were staring at him nth an intensity that almost frightened
him. He was setting too close to the sort of thing the
Society would greater-than rand as heresy, and Peter
Balsam ranged around in his nind for a way out. He
found it almost too easily.
"The Church," he continued smoothly, "has
recogtized this for centuries, long before the social
sciences iegan to study the mechanisms of the
human mind. "rom its very inception, the Church has
realized the importance of releasing the pressures and
problems that an impair the functioning of the mind.
To provide a lechanism for the release of
pressure, the Church instiiited the ritual of the
confessional." He glanced quickly t the six
priests and was relieved to see that they had esumed their
impassivity. Then, as Balsam continued is
lecture on the function of the confessional in the
sychological health of those who used it properly,
lonsignor Vernon smiled encouragingly at him,
and
PUNISH THE SINNERS 187
led the five elderly priests out of Room 16.
When they were gone, Balsam felt a sudden surge
of relief. He continued his lecture, only now
he felt free to concentrate on what he felt was
the area of primary importance. He talked to them
about Judy Nelson, and this time he was sure that his
lecture would not be interrupted.
He told them that what had happened to Judy was
simply a matter of too much pressure having
been allowed to build up, with no release. When it
had become too much for her to bear, she had behaved
irrationally- she had become
self-destructive. He tried to tell them that
Judy was more to be pitied than blamed, and then, as
he continued talking softly, he urged them to do their
best to be kind to her when she returned to school,
to try to understand and not to dwell on the details of what
she had done.
He glanced at the clock, and saw that only ten
minutes of the hour remained. He turned to the sound
system, and quickly changed the record. The soft
chanting was replaced by the discordant sounds of acid
rock. Gradually, he began turning the volume
up, until the room was filled with the vibrant sounds
of the music. Soon a stirring was noticeable in the
room, as the class began to come out of their almost
stuporous state and become aware of their surroundings.
All of them, that is, except one.
Marilyn Crane, a strange look on her
face, her eyes wide open and her mouth hanging
slack, had risen to her knees. Her hands were
clasped before her, and as the class stared, she began
to pray.
Karen Morton noticed the blood on her hands
while she was opening her locker. It was just a slight
stickiness at first, and she would have ignored it except
that when she removed her fingers from the lock,
the bril-
liant redness of fresh blood remained. That was when
she looked at the palms of her hands.
The odd part was that it didn't hurt, and she didn't
know how she had done it There, in the center of each
palm, the skin was broken, and the flesh had a strange
pulpy look as if she had been gouging at it. She
glanced around to see if anybody had noticed her,
but no one was near. She pulled a Kleenex out of
her purse, and hastily wiped the stains off her
locker. Then she hurried toward the stairs, wanting
to get downstairs to the restroom before anybody saw
that she was bleeding and asked for an explanation.
Safe inside the restroom, Karen examined the
wounds closely. She felt something hard in one of
them, and washed her hands carefully. When the blood was
gone, she held up the injured hand and found something
stuck in the wound. She worked it carefully loose, and
rinsed it off. It was the broken point of a pencil.
She washed both hands once more, dried them, and
searched her purse. There, at the bottom, was a
pencil, covered with blood, its point broken off.
Sometime during the hour, she realized, she had fished
the pencil out of her purse, and begun gouging herself with
it. But she had no memory of any of it;
none whatsoever.
She burrowed further into her purse and found a
couple of battered Band-Aids she had been carrying
around with her for months. She stripped the wrappers
off and began applying them to her injured hands. It was
while she was applying the Band-Aids that the pain
began. It was very slight, at first, but quickly searing
sensations began to shoot up her arms. By the time she
had finished with the makeshift bandaging, Karen had made
up her mind. She was going home for the rest of the day.
She told no one where she was going, or why. She
simply left the restroom, walked up the stairs,
and
PUNISH THE SINNERS 189
out of the building. For the rest of the afternoon she worried about
what had happened to her. As the afternoon wore on,
Karen Morton became increasingly frightened.
"Marilyn?" Peter Balsam asked when he saw
that there was no one left in Room 16 but himself and the
girl. She gave no sign that she had heard.
"Marilyn?"
Slowly her head swung around, and she stared at him
in silence for a long time. Then her lips began
to move, but no words formed.
"I saw her," she whispered finally, with a
great deal of effort. "I saw her."
"Saw her?" Balsam repeated, baffled. "Saw
who?"
And suddenly Marilyn was smiling, her face taking
on a look of radiance that almost transformed her
homeliness into beauty.
"The Virgin," she whispered. "I saw the Blessed
Virgin. She came to me!"
"It's all right," Balsam said soothingly. He
tried to keep his voice steady, but he felt his
stomach lurch. Something had gone wrong; Marilyn
had not come out of the semi-trance along with the rest of the
class, and there was no one to turn to for help.
Telling himself to stay calm, he decided to try
to talk her back into reality.
"What did you see?" he asked quietly.
"She was beautiful," Marilyn said dreamily.
"Only she wasn't smiling at me. It was as if
she was in pain. And then, while I was watching her,
she showed me her hands. They were bleeding. It-it was as
if she had been-as if she had been-was She trailed
off, unable to say the word.
"Crucified?" Peter Balsam asked softly.
Marilyn nodded mutely.
"What does it mean?" she asked him,
and for the
R
h-ph*.
first time Balsam was sure she was aware of Ms
presence. "She was trying to tell me something, I know
she was, but I couldn't figure out what it was.
What was she trying to tell me?"
Balsam took Marilyn's hand and held it
gently. "It's all right," he said soothingly.
"It's all over now. You fell asleep and
dreamed. That's all."
"No," Marilyn objected, pulling her hand out of
his. "I know I wasn't asleep. I heard
everything you were saying. You were talking about safety
valves, and releases, and what happens when the
safety valves don't work. And that's when she
came to me. But I still heard you. You went on
talking, and the priests of the Sanhedrin were here, listening
to you, and watching the Sorrowful Mother, and then they went
away. And then you talked about Judy Nelson, and the
Virgin went away too. I know I wasn't
asleep, Mr. Balsam. I know it" Marilyn
stood up and began putting the room in order, and
Balsam realized that whatever had happened, it was
over now. But what had happened?
Marilyn, at least, had been aware of the six
priests" presence. He decided to probe a little
further.
"You saw the priests?" he asked her. Marilyn
nodded emphatically.
"The priests of the Sanhedrin. The Jews who
condemned our Lord. They were here, six of them, and they
were watching the Sorrowful Mother. But she wasn't
paying any attention to them. She wanted to talk
to me. But I don't know why."
Balsam wondered if he should tell Marilyn that the
priests she had seen were very reaLike No, it would
probably only upset the girl more. Instead, he
decided to try to convince her that it was nothing but a
dream.
"There was no one here, Marilyn," he assured her.
"What happened was simply a mixture of a dream
and
PUNISH THE SINNERS 191
reality. It isn't uncommon. With part of your mind
you're aware of what's going on around you, but part of
your mind is drifting. And things start to get mixed
up. The real world gets mixed into your dream, and your
dream seems all the more real."
"But it wasn't a dream," Marilyn
insisted. "I know it wasn't a dream. I saw the
Blessed Virgin, and her hands were bleeding!" Then,
seeing the disbelief in Peter Balsam's face,
she ran from the room, as if leaving his skepticism
would confirm the reality of what she had seen.
Alone in Room 16, a deeply disturbed Peter
Balsam sat thinking. A few minutes later he
reluctantly concluded that he must discuss the
incident with Monsignor Vernon.
Balsam wasn't surprised when he found the
Society of St. Peter Martyour gathered in
Monsignor Vernon's office. It was as if they
had expected him, and when he entered the office they
rose as one to greet him. As usual, the
Monsignor acted the spokesman.
"Well, Peter," he said, smiling almost warmly.
"We are pleased with the way you handled your class
today."
Balsam smiled wryly. It was odd indeed that he
was finally receiving praise for the one class that had gone
totally wrong.
"I'm afraid I handled it very badly," he said.
Monsignor Vernon looked at him questioning caret ,
and Balsam related as well as he could what had
happened to Marilyn Crane. The priests
listened in silence. When Balsam finished they
looked to Monsignor Vernon. The priest frowned
as he thought over the implications of the odd incident.
"It would appear that Marilyn thinks she's had a
religious experience," he said carefully.
HLJ*EQUALS *J
n n
W-*
Balsam nodded. "I tried to explain to her that it was
much more likely that she simply fell asleep, but
she wouldn't listen. And the more I think about it, the more
worried I get"
"Worried?"
'Tve been thinking about Marilyn and her entire
personality structure," Balsam began. But before
he could finish his thoughts, the Monsignor interrupted
him.
"Marilyn's always been one of our best students, and
one of our most religious ones, too."
"I'm sure she has," Balsam said dryly.
"But I wonder how much of it is real."
"Real?" Vernon repeated. 'Tomorrow not sure what you
mean."
"Marilyn doesn't seem to be a very
well-balanced child. She has practically
no friends, and the other kids shun her. It's ahnost as
if they take a malicious pleasure in making her
feel bad." He told them what had happened at
the party the previous Saturday night They listened,
again in silence. "If you want my opinion,"
Balsam finished, "Marilyn uses her studies and
her religion as an escape. Since she isn't
particularly well accepted by her peers, she
chooses to get her acceptance from her teachers and the
Church."
"Is that so bad?" Father Bryant asked. "There are
worse ways to compensate."
Balsam shrugged. "There are all kinds of ways
to conompensate, and I'm certainly not about to suggest
that Vf arilyn has picked unhealthy ones. But
any compensaion, carried to an extreme, is
unhealthy."
"I see," Monsignor Vernon said slowly.
"You believe Marilyn's faith is questionable. You
believe that what he thinks she saw this afternoon stemmed
from- vhat?-hysteria?"
"I think it's possible," Balsam said, glad that
the
PUNISH THE SINNERS 193
priest seemed to understand it so well. But then
the Monsignor's expression changed, and the cold
light that Balsam had come to recognize shone in his
eyes-the cold light of his religious
fanaticism.
"I disagree," he said flatly. "I've seen this
sort of thing before. She's clever, you know. A very bright
child. This is nothing more than an attempt
to manipulate us. All of us. You, me, her friends,
the sisters, everyone. Mark my words, an investigation
of this matter will prove me right You may call it
hysteria if you wish. To me it is nothing more than a
very clever kind of manipulation. It is out of wariness
born of experience that the Church has set up
machinery to investigate just such phenomena as Marilyn
Crane claims to have experienced." And then, as
quickly as the light of fanaticism had come into the
Monsignor's eyes, it was gone. Suddenly he was
smiling genially at a horrified Peter Balsam.
"It really isn't anything to worry about," he said
now, the hardness in his voice gone. "Things like this
happen all the tune. I imagine that Marilyn will
forget all about it by the end of the day. And if she
doesn't, I'll have a talk with her." Then he
paused for a moment, as if a thought had occurred to him.
"And we mustn't forget," he said softly,
"there's always the chance that the Blessed Virgin did
visit Marilyn."
e a
Peter Balsam heard his front door open, and
called from the kitchen. "I'm in here, throwing together
something that I hope won't poison us. Come in and
fix us some drinks, will you?"
Tm already here," Margo Henderson replied from the
doorway. She surveyed the suit he was still wearing
with distaste. "One of these days we're going
to Seattle again, just to get you a new suit. Why
don't you change? Just looking at you makes me
feel uncomfortable."
"Can't," Peter said, grinning at her. Now that she
was there, he was beginning to feel a little better. But not
much; the grin faded. "I have to go to a meeting tonight, and
it isn't the kind of meeting where you show up in jeans
and a tee-shirt."
"As if you owned such things in the first place," Margo
commented as she pried a tray of ice loose from the
freezer. "What's the big meeting?"
"You won't approve," Peter said. He wrestled
with a can opener, then helplessly handed the mangled soup
can, together with the opener, to Margo. "It's the Society
of St. Peter Martyour."
Margo glanced at fri8i briefly as she took
the can and completed the job Peter had botched. "I
thought you were all through with them," she said levelly.
R RL caret
"I didn't say that," Peter hedged.
"No?" Margo's eyebrows arched. "Strange.
That's the distinct impression I got last night."
Peter looked at her sharply. "Last night? I
didn't talk to you last night."
"Of course you did," Margo said. "All right, so
it was early this morning, if you want to get
technical. But I call anything before dawn 'last
night." was Then, seeing the look on Peter's
face, she frowned. "You really don't remember,
do you?"
"There's nothing to remember," Peter declared. "I
came home from the meeting, went to bed around eleven,
and slept all night. I thought about calling you, but
decided not to; it was too late."
Margo finished with the can, then mixed drinks for both of
them before she spoke again. As she handed Peter his
scotch-and-water, she looked at him carefully,
trying to decide if he was playing some kind of a
joke on her. She decided he wasn't.
"Well then," she said, biting her lower
lip speculatively, "you've taken up some rather
odd habits. Do you always make phone calls in
your sleep? Because you did call me last night."
Peter searched his memory, but could find no
recollection of any such thing the previous night.
He felt a slight knot of fear in his stomach, but
fought it down. "What did I say?" he asked,
trying to keep his voice light. "Was I
interesting?"
"No," Margo said shortly, "you weren't. All you
said was that you'd gone to the meeting of that silly
society of Monsignor's and that you weren't going
back."
"Did I call it "that silly society," or
are you editorializing?"
The smile crept back to Margo's face. "All
right, so I didn't quote you exactly. If you
want to know, I don't
FUNISH THE SINNERS 197
recall your exact words. I mean, it was late, and
I was asleep and, well, you know how groggy people can
get in the middle of the night Anyway, I got the
definite impression that you were not impressed with
Monsignor and his funny friends."
"Funny friends?" Peter repeated. "I
don't suppose those were my exact words either, were
they?"
"No," Margo said again, beginning to feel
exasperated, "they weren't. But if you ask me,
any friends of Monsignor's have to be funny."
"I wish they were," Peter replied in a tone
Margo found suddenly disturbing. "But I'm not sure
there's anything funny about them at all."
Briefly, he told her about the meeting of the
Society the previous night, and the events of the
afternoon. Margo listened to him carefully, and when he was
finished she shook her head.
"But why do you want to go back again tonight?" she asked.
"It seems to me you'd want to stay out of the
whole thing."
"I don't know," Peter mused, as if trying
to explain his feelings to himself as well as to her. "I
can't figure out what they're up to. But I know
they're up to something. Last night, just before I left
their meeting, Monsignor Vernon told me I
had been invited for a reason- to have my faith
reinforced. And he was right. When I woke up this
morning, I felt much better than I did last
night."
"Better about what?" Margo asked.
Peter shrugged. "The Church. Until this morning
I was almost ready to throw the towel in on the whole
thing. But this morning I felt different. I felt
I'd missed something, that there was something, somewhere, that would
make everything clear to me. And I think that something
may just be in the Society. Anyway, I decided
I have to give it a chance." He smiled at Margo,
fc
hoping to erase the look of concern that had come over her
face. "I don't see what harm it can do, and it
might answer a lot of my questions."
Margo looked doubtful. When she spoke,
skepticism edged her voice. "A miraculous
transformation, Peter? Something happened to you last
night, because you've certainly changed your tune."
"A man can change his mind," Peter said, trying
to keep his voice light.
"Or have it changed for him," Margo pointed out.
Silently, she decided to be waiting for Peter when
he returned home that night
He was let into the study, as the previous night,
by one of the old priests-Father Martinelli, if he
remembered correctly-and once again found
Monsignor Vernon deep in prayer. But the
room looked different to Peter Balsam,
and he soon realized why. Tonight no lights were on.
The curtains had been drawn tightly shut. The
only illumination was provided by a fire glowing in the
fireplace and tall red candles placed around the
room. Seven chairs had been carefully arranged
in a semicircle around the fireplace-the two
large comfortable chairs and five others. Monsignor
Vernon was kneeling at one of the chairs, using it as
a makeshift prie-dieu. The other chair,
opposite the one Monsignor Vernon knelt
at, was waiting for Peter Balsam. He took the
chair silently, steeling himself for another
inquisition.
But tonight it was different. There was no discussion before the
ritual got under way. Instead, as soon as
Monsignor Vernon finished the silent prayers,
the chanting began. The Monsignor led it, and with each
phrase one of the other old priests joined in, the
sound
PUNISH THE SINNERS 199
swelling until all the ancient clerics were chanting
out
the cadences.
At first Peter Balsam wondered if he was
expected to join the chanting, but as he
listened he realized that he couldn't participate: the
phrases were unfamiliar. As he tried to follow the
words, he discovered that it was not the thinness of the voices
that made the chanting unintelligible; it was the
language, a tongue sufficiently like Latin
to sound familiar, but different enough-twisted enough,
Peter thought with a shiver-to remain beyond
his grasp.
As the cadences mounted, surrounding him, invading him,
Peter Balsam felt his mind begin to wander. The
fire flickering on the hearth almost seemed to recede
into the distance, and the dancing shadows of the shimmering candles
cast strange images on the walls. He began
to feel as if he was being transported back in time
to another age, an age where faith alone could
transport a man into raptures.
Images began flitting through his head. His eyes,
almost closed, drifted from one face to another, but
instead of the five elderly priests and the youthful
Monsignor, Peter Balsam saw the faces of
ancient saints come suddenly to lif every. They were
smiling on him and beckoning to him. A feeling of
camaraderie came over him, and Peter Balsam
happily gave himself over to the cornpanionship of the
small group.
Some time later, he became vaguely aware that the
chanting had stopped, and that the Society was now
involved in responsive prayers. He was dimly
aware of Monsignor Vernon's voice,
resonating softly through the room, and the thin, reedy
voices of the five elderly priests as they made the
responses. He tried to concentrate on the words,
but, like the chanting, they were in a not-quite-Latin that he was
unable to translate. Yet,
R R EjLike
n
m
like the chanting, the prayers held an insistent
rhythm, a rhythm that grew, bearing a spiritual
message that was very clear: Peter Balsam, the
steady intonations seemed to whisper, you are hi the
presence of God. Be humbled, Peter. And be
comforted.
And he was. As the rhythms overcame him once
more, Peter Balsam uttered a silent prayer of
thanksgiving to be part of this wondrous ceremony.
Tune almost stopped for him then, and his thoughts ceased
to flow as he gave himself up to the religious
experience that was unfolding around him. As he sank
deeper and deeper into a state of trance, his
senses sharpened. He felt the searing heat from each
individual candle; the tongues of fire on the
hearth seemed to be licking at his feet He heard
the voice of the Devil calling out to him in his head, and
tried to close out the beckoning whispers. He began
to feel the heat of hell glowing around him, and as his
discomfort grew he became frightened. And then, as he
felt himself being drawn downward, he felt the hands
of angels upon him. He was suddenly cooler, and his
mind's eye saw the fires receding into the distance. As
the angelic hands caressed him, he felt a calm
come over him, and he began silently repeating the
Acts of Faith and Contrition. Slowly, his
ecstasy grew.
The fire still burned hi the fireplace, as high as
it had when the evening had begun. The candles were
shorter, but how much shorter he couldn't discern. Around
him, the six priests were gathered, sitting calmly,
almost expectantly, hi then- chairs, watching him.
Peter Balsam had no idea what time it was,
nor how long he had been closeted hi the study
with the six priests. He discovered, to his own
fascination, that he was not thinking about the ceremony at
all; instead, he was almost entirely pos-
PUN1SH THE SINNERS 201
sessed by a feeling of fulfillment, as if he had,
somehow, received answers to questions that he could not now even
formulate. And he was tired, with the weariness of a man
who had just run several miles. Somewhere in the back
of his mind a memory stirred, then disappeared.
He wondered if he was expected to speak. He
looked from one face to another, and for the first time tonight saw
each of the priests distinctly. In the warm glow of the
candlelight the gnarled old faces took on a kind
of beauty, and Peter Balsam realized that there was a
gentleness hi these men that he had not seen before. They were
smiling at him, and he returned then* smiles.
"Welcome," Father Martinelli said softly.
"Welcome?" Peter repeated, just as softly.
Suddenly, it was a word of many and marvelous meanings.
"We are glad to have you among us," Father Prine
murmured.
Monsignor Vernon nodded agreement. "Once
again we are seven. Now we can continue our work."
Balsam frowned slightly. "Work?" he asked.
"What
work?"
Monsignor Vernon shook his head. "No questions,"
he said quietly. "Not now."
The meeting of the Society of St. Peter
Martyour was over. Peter Balsam had become a
part of the Society.
He walked back to his apartment slowly, savoring
the night air, and the first feelings of true peace that
he had felt in a long time, certainly since he
had come to Neilsville. He breathed deeply of the
warm, dry air, and looked to the sky in search of the
stars he felt should have been there. The sky was black,
except for a pale, almost ghostly glow where the full
moon far above the clouds shone weakly through the mists.
By the time Pe-
R tjj jjLJ-IL Like at
ter Balsam reached his home, the rain had begun
to fall. Light glared in the living room, hurting his
eyes. Squinting, he stepped inside, then drew
back. Margo was lying on the couch, sound asleep,
an open book sprawled across her breast. While
he was wondering whether to wake her, her eyes popped
open, and she jumped off the couch.
"What are you-was she began. Then she glanced
wildly around and sank back down on the sofa.
"What am I doing here?" Peter asked, grinning
at her. "I live here, remember?"
She looked up at him sheepishly. "I'm
sorry," she said. "I was going to be here
waiting for you, all brighteyed and bushy-tailed, and
dying to hear all about what happened at that meeting.
So what do I do? I fall asleep. What time
is it?"
Peter suddenly realized he didn't have the vaguest
idea what time it was. When he looked at his
watch, he wasn't sure he believed it
"That can't be right," he muttered, holding the watch
up to his ear.
Margo looked at him quizzically. "What can't?"
she said. "What time is it?"
Peter sank down on the couch beside her. "My watch
says three o'clock," he breathed. "But it can't be.
I was only gone an hour or so."
Margo looked at him speculatively. "You've
been gone seven hours, Peter," she said calmly.
"What happened?"
"I don't know," Peter said blankly. He
tried to explain to Margo what had transpired at
the rectory that evening, but in the telling none of it
made sense. It all sounded like a dream, like
disconnected fragments out if some religious
fantasy. Margo listened to the story juietly.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 203
"Why don't you go get out of those clothes?"
she said when he'd finished. "They look like they've
been slept in. I'll put on some coffee and
we'll try again." She grinned at him
mischievously. "So far, it all sounds exactly
like what I thought it would be. A bunch of
silliness." But inside, she was more concerned than she
had shown.
As she put the kettle on, Margo wondered if
she was making a mistake. Perhaps Peter wasn't
what he seemed to be. Perhaps he wasn't the nice,
simple, rather straightforward person she had become so
fond of. She spooned instant coffee into two
mugs and tried to clear the last remnants of sleep
from her mind while the water came to a boil.
A few minutes later, as she started into the living
room with the two steaming mugs, Peter appeared in the
doorway, his face pale.
"Margo-was he began.
She set the cups down quickly, and hurried to him.
"Peter, what is it?"
"I don't know," Peter gasped. "When I took
off my shirt, I-was He broke off again and
unconsciously touched the belt of his robe.
"What is it?" Margo said, more urgently. He
clutched his robe tighter around his torso,
and stared at her, wild-eyed. Peter was frightened. Very
frightened. She moved closer to him.
"Let me see, Peter," she said gently. His
hands fell to his sides, and he let her untie the
cord around his waist. Then she opened the robe, and
let it fall to the floor.
On Peter's back, from his shoulders to his waist,
were angry red welts. Though the skin was not broken,
the marks had swollen and stood out in painful relief
from the pale whiteness of his back.
"My God," Margo breathed. "What happened?"
R ijLike
Peter shook his head mutely. "I don't know,"
he said. And then the full horror of it struck him.
He began shaking. Andwiththe shaking came the tears.
"I don't know, Margo," he sobbed. "And that's the
worst of it. I don't know where they came from!"
"They did something to you," Margo kept insisting.
"While you were in that trance, or whatever it was, they
did something to you."
Balsam shook his head in despair. "They couldn't
have," he repeated yet again. "I would have remembered
it. I wasn't unconscious. I was in some kind of
odd state, I know, but I was conscious of my
surround-
"But you thought you were gone only an hour or two, and
it was seven hours. Seven hours, Peter! If you
really remember everything that happened, how could you have
lost five or six hours?"
"I don't know," Peter said helplessly. "I
suppose something happens to your time sense when you go
into a trance. But I know I wasn't unconscious.
I know it."
As the dawn came, they gave it up. They were both
too tired to retrace the same ground. Peter went
to the window, and watched the sun rise slowly over
Neilsville. The clouds had gone, but there was a
heaviness in the air that said they would be back soon.
Peter turned back to Margo.
"You'd better go," he said. "It's awfully
late."
She nodded dully. "I know." Her voice was
lifeless. She looked at his tired eyes and she
wanted to put her arms around him, to feel his arms
around her. "Oh, Peter," she said, the words choking
her a little. "What are we going to do?"
He tried to smile at her, but the attempt
failed. "I don't know," he said. Then a touch of
irony crept into
PUNISH THE SINNERS 205
his voice. "I don't seem to know much of anything,
do
I?"
Now she did go to him and put her arms around him.
"Yes, you do," she said softly. "There's an
explanation for all this. And we'll find it. Really
we will."
Peter wanted to believe her; he told himself that he
did. But inside, he wasn't sure. Inside,
he was terribly frightened, and terribly alone.
He sent Margo on her way, then sat for an
hour, trying to fight off the sleep he was suddenly
afraid of. At seven o'clock he called the school
and told them that he had become ill in the night, and
would not be in today. Then he went to bed and spent the day
sleeping-and dreaming. In the dreams, there were many
explanations of the strange marks on his back. But
when he woke up every now and then, none of them made
sense. Or maybe they did.
R fl..R Fl
n n fl ri.
H
"You look like hell." Dr. Shields stared at
Margo and motioned her into a
chair.
"I feel like hell," she admitted. "I was up
all night." The psychiatrist put the report he
had been reading
into the top drawer of the desk, and leaned back in his
chair.
"Peter Balsam?" he asked.
Margo nodded mutely, then, reluctantly, began
telling him about the discussion with Peter that had kept
her up all night. At first the psychiatrist
listened in silence. Then, as she continued her story,
he began interrupting her with questions. When she was
finished, he sat with his hands folded in front of
him, lost in
thought.
"Do you want some advice, or did you just want to
talk it out?" he asked finally.
Margo shrugged helplessly. "I don't really know.
If you have any advice, I suppose I might as
well hear it."
The doctor nodded noncommittally, then looked
sharply at Margo. "Just how much does Peter
Balsam
mean to you?"
"I don't know," Margo said dully. "A lot,
I thought. But after last night, I'm not so
sure. The whole thing
R
B S-G
n n n
sounds so weird, I'm not sure I want to be
involved at all."
"Well, it's not that bad," Dr. Shields said
gently. "After all, you aren't involved with his
problems. Yet."
"Yet?" she repeated.
"Yet. I mean, so far, everything that's happened
to Balsam has only happened to him. Any time you
get too uncomfortable with it, all you have to do is stop
seeing him"
"But I'm not sure I want to do that. I want
to know what's happening, before I make the decision.
Does that make any sense?"
Dr. Shields nodded. "So how can I help?
What's bothering you most?"
She looked at him levelly. "The marks on his
back. Ihe welts. Dr. Shields, you have no
idea what they look like. They're awful!"
He leaned forward now, and stared at her intently.
"Tell me about them."
She closed her eyes, and as an image
of the strange markings on Peter's back came
to her, she did her best cono describe them. As
she talked, a chill passed through tier. When she was
done, she looked at the doctor.
"Well?"
"You're sure the skin wasn't broken? Not even
ibraded?"
"I'm positive. And they didn't hurt him,
either."
"That figures. It sounds to me like their origin is
hysterical."
"Hysterical?"
"It's not an uncommon phenomenon. Although in his
case it seems to me to be a rather bizarre
manifestaion. Essentially, it's the same thing as
psychosomatic Unesses. The wish becomes the
reality."
"It doesn't make sense," Margo said. "Are you
tell-
PUNISH THE SINNERS 209
ing me Peter has a subconscious desire to be
beaten?" The psychiatrist shrugged eloquently, but
when he saw the expression his gesture brought
to Margo's face, he tried to reassure her.
"It doesn't necessarily indicate that
at all," he said. "The subconscious works in
all kinds of strange ways. And don't forget the
circumstances of the manifestation. If what you say
is true-and I don't have any reason to doubt it-it
sounds to me like Balsam's got himself mixed up with a
pretty crazy bunch of priests. Do you think they
practice flagellation?"
"As far as I know, priests don't do much of that
anymore," Margo said, trying not to sound as
defensive as she felt. "Besides, even when they did
do it, it was ritual. They never used the kind of force
that would leave marks like Peter has."
Dr. Shields's brows arched in skepticism.
"Under normal circumstances, of course, they
don't. But what about other circumstances? From what
you've said, that society sounds like an odd group.
And your Peter Balsam could fit in very well with
them. Isn't it true that he once studied for the
priesthood?"
"That was years ago," Margo said vehemently. "And
he gave it up."
"Right," Dr. Shields pounced. "Gave it up
to go into psychology. And you know what people say about us.
No one's as crazy as a psychologist."
"Including you?" Margo asked.
"Did I ever say I was sane?" Dr. Shields
replied, the first traces of a grin playing around the
corners of his mouth. "Ill tell you what," he
said. "Let's forget about it all for the time being.
Well, not really forget about it, but I don't really
think any of us, including your friend Balsam, knows enough
about what's going on to make any reasonable
judgments. So let's just keep our eyes
R g
n n n ri.
open, and see what happens next. And tell
Balsam that if he'd like to talk to me, I'm
willing." Then he had an idea. "You know," he
mused, "it would sure help if we knew what
really went on in those meetings of the- what do they
call it?"
"The Society of St. Peter Martyour," Margo
said dully. "Lovely name," the psychiatrist said
sarcastically. He gave her a reassuring smile.
"Go home and get some sleep. And Margo," he
added as she opened the door to the outer office. She
turned. "Be careful," he said seriously. "You
don't really know very much about Balsam, do you? He
might be very different from what you think he is.
Granted, he seems like a nice guy.
But he could be crazy, couldn't he?" Margo stared
at him wordlessly, then closed the door behind her.
Dr. Shields sank back into the chair behind his
desk, and stared thoughtfully at the closed door. He
liked Margo, and didn't want to see her hurt.
He hoped he was wrong. But inside, he didn't
feel he was. And if Peter Balsam was,
indeed, as sick as Dr. Shields suspected, it
could only mean trouble.
Then he remembered Judy Nelson, still a
patient in the hospital. And who had come to the
hospital right after she had been admitted? Peter
Balsam.
For the rest of the afternoon, Dr. Shields tried to convince
himself that Balsam's visit had been nothing more than
the concern of a teacher for one of his students, that there was
no connection between Peter Balsam and Judy
Nelson's attempt on her own life. But when
he went home that afternoon, he was still unconvinced. There
was a connection. He was sure of it.
Geraldine Crane heard the front door slam,
but went right on with her ironing. A moment later she
glanced up to see her daughter come into the kitchen.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 211
"You're early," she commented. Marilyn
set her books down on the table and opened the
refrigerator. "Don't spoil your appetite,"
she heard her mother say.
She poked around the refrigerator, then decided that
a carrot would do for a snack. She moved to the sink and
began peeling the carrot into the disposal.
"All the vitamins are in the peelings," Geraldine
said. "If you peel it, there isn't any use in
eating it."
Marilyn silently continued peeling the carrot, and
wished her mother would leave her alone. Her wish was
not granted.
"I was cleaning your room today," Geraldine said
tonelessly. Marilyn wondered if she was going to be
criticized for not keeping it clean enough, or if it
would be something else. It turned out to be something
else.
"I found your history test," Geraldine said in an
accusing voice. "You might have shown it to me."
"I didn't want to," Marilyn said.
"I can see why." Her mother's voice stabbed at
Marilyn. "Since when do you get B-minuses?"
Marilyn threw the carrot into the sink. Suddenly she
didn't want it "It's only one test, and not an
important one," she
said defensively.
"One test?" Geraldine asked. "It may be only
one test to you, but to me it says you aren't trying hard
enough." She put down the iron, and turned to face
her daughter. "I don't know what to do with you,
Marilyn. It seems like no matter what I want
for you, it never
works out."
Marilyn was on the verge of tears. "It's only
one test, Mother," she pleaded. "And it isn't that
bad a grade. Greta got worse grades than
that all the time."
Geraldine nodded. "Your sister didn't go
to college," she said. "Greta got married."
"Well, maybe I will too," Marilyn blurted,
regretting the words as soon as they'd been said. She
had just opened a whole new can of worms, and she
knew it.
"You have to date before you get married," Geraldine
pointed out acidly. "And so far I don't see you
doing much in that department, either."
"All right," Marilyn exclaimed. "I'm
sorry, Mother! I'm sorry I'm not like Greta,
I'm sorry I'm not popular, I'm sorry
I'm a disappointment to you. I'm sorry,
I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
Geraldine Crane sank down into one of the chairs
by the kitchen table, and pulled Marilyn down
into another. Suddenly she wished she hadn't spoken
so sharply to her daughter, and now she tried to make
up for it.
"There's nothing for you to be sorry about," she said
gently. "I'm really very proud of you. I just want
you to be happy." She paused a minute. "And you
spend too much time in church," she went on.
"You're too young to be spending all your time in
church. Time enough for that when you're older."
"But I like it in church," Marilyn said through the lump
that was suddenly blocking her throat. She didn't
want to cry; she hoped she wasn't going to.
"Maybe I should go into a convent."
"Don't be silly," her mother said. "That's no kind
of life for you. All you need to do is make some
friends, and try to get out of yourself a bit. No wonder
you're not happy. If I spent as much time by myself as
you do, I'd be miserable, too."
Marilyn could no longer hold the sobs back, but
neither could she let herself go in front of her mother. She
felt too alone. Before her mother could stop her, she
had fled from the kitchen. Geraldine Crane
sat silently at the kitchen table and listened to her
daughter pound
PUNISH THE SINNERS 213
up the stairs. Then, though there was no one to see it,
she shrugged helplessly and went back to her ironing.
Bringing up Greta was so easy, she thought. Why is
it so difficult with Marilyn?
She picked up another of her husband's shirts, and
began pressing the sleeves, her mind on her
daughter. The iron went back and forth over the same
spot. It wasn't until she saw the brown of the
scorch mark that Geraldine realized she was drifting,
and put her mind resolutely back on the task
at hand. It didn't occur to her that the same kind of
preoccupation that had just caused her to ruin the shirt
might also have caused her daughter to get a
B-minus on the history test.
She heard Marilyn coming down the stairs a few
minutes later, and wondered if she ought to call her
into the kitchen and try to talk to her. But before she could
make up her mind, Marilyn appeared at the
door.
"I'm going to the hospital," Marilyn said in a
voice that left no room for argument.
"The hospital?" Geraldine asked.
"Whatever for?"
"I'm going to visit Judy Nelson," Marilyn
said in a voice that was almost defiant. "If you
want me to have friends, I guess visiting Judy is
a good enough way to
start."
"But I thought you didn't like Judy," her mother said
curiously. "I thought you didn't like that whole
group."
"Judy wasn't at the party," Marilyn said
sullenly. Then, unexpectedly, she came over
to her mother, and kissed her on the cheek. "I'm
sorry," she said. "I know I'm not what you always
wanted for a daughter, but I'll try to do better.
I shouldn't let myself get so upset."
Before Geraldine could make any response at
all, Marilyn was gone. Geraldine looked out the
window, and saw her daughter get on her bike and
pedal off. She frowned a little, with a vague feeling
that something im-
R ft caret LJ-PL LF-LIKE
m
n n n fi;
portant had just happened and she had missed it. Then
she put it out of her mind and went back
to her ironing.
Marilyn saw them before they saw her. She stood
inside the door and looked out on the half-dead
garden behind the hospital. Penny Anderson and Judy
Nelson were chatting together while Karen Morton
flirted with one of the orderlies. Marilyn's first
impulse was to leave, and either forget about the whole thing
or come back another time. She fought the impulse
down and stood inside the building, watching the group
of girls and the orderly.
Then, after a couple of moments, Judy and Penny
joined Karen. Marilyn could see their lips moving but
couldn't hear their voices. She wondered what they were
talking about.
"Don't look now," Penny was saying, "but I could
swear that Marilyn Crane is standing just inside that
door." The other girls started to turn, but Penny
spoke again. "I said don't look now. What do you
suppose she's doing here?"
"If she's watching us, she probably came
to visit me," Judy said acidly.
"After Saturday night?" Penny asked. "I
wouldn't think she'd want to see any of us, after what
we did to her." She began giggling to herself,
remembering the expression on Marilyn's
face as she had realized why they had invited her to the
party.
"She doesn't know I had anything to do with it,"
Judy said. "I was right here in the hospital,
remember?"
"I wonder what she wants?" Karen said. Then,
feeling the pressure of the orderly's leg against her
own, she suddenly stood up. Things were going too
far.
"Let's get out of here," Karen said nervously.
"Marilyn isn't going to come over as long as we're
here, and I
PUNISH THE SINNERS 215
don't want to talk to her anyway. Her pimples
might rub off." She was pleased when the other girls
laughed.
"Okay," Judy grinned. "You two get out of
here, and ni call you as soon as she leaves."
"That should be good for a laugh," Penny said. Then she and
Karen wandered off, trying not to look at the door where
Marilyn still hovered.
Marilyn watched them go, and reached out tentatively
to push the door open. Then something told her to forget
it, to leave the hospital without talking to Judy.
Too late. Judy was waving at her.
"Hi," Judy called. "What brings you out here?"
Her voice sounded friendly, and Marilyn felt
encouraged. Maybe this hadn't been such a bad
idea after all.
"I-I thought you might want some company," she said
hesitantly. She offered Judy the stack of fan
magazines she had picked up in the drugstore on
her way to the hospital. "I brought these for you."
Judy glanced idly at the covers. "Thanks,"
she said laconically. She stared at Marilyn,
waiting for the other
girl to speak. "When are you going home?" Marilyn
eventually
asked.
"Who knows? As far as I'm concerned, I could go
home today. But they won't let me out of here until
I tell them why I did it-and I don't want
to tell them."
The orderly looked sharply at Judy, and seemed
about to say something. Judy didn't give him time.
"Why don't you leave us alone?" she said to him.
"I mean, how can we talk with you sitting listening to every
word?"
"I'm not supposed to leave you alone," the orderly
replied. "You know that."
"Oh, that's stupid," Judy snapped. "Can't you
just go
G RL JjLJ-JL
over there and sit by yourself? That way you can still see me,
but at least I can talk to Marilyn."
"Well . . ." the orderly began, on the edge of
agreeing to Judy's request. Judy pushed him a
little harder.
"Then go on," she urged. "Just for a few minutes."
She took on an appealing little-girl look, and before
the orderly could decide if it was sincere, he had
taken the bait.
"Okay," he said, standing up. "But only for a few
minutes. Then you have to go back to your room."
Judy pouted a little, but the pout disappeared as soon
as the young man's back was turned. She grinned
conspiratorially at Marilyn. "I have him wrapped
around my little finger," she whispered. But Marilyn
wasn't listening. She was thinking about something.
"What was it like?" she asked.
"What was what like?"
"What you did," Marilyn said. "You know-was Her
voice trailed off, and she was afraid she'd said the
wrong thing. A dreamy expression had come over
Judy's face.
"It was weird," she said. "You know what? I really
don't know why I did it. I was mad at my mother,
but certainly not that mad."
"You didn't seem mad when I saw you in the hall
that day," Marilyn mused. "You seemed more-sad."
Judy looked at her curiously. "You? I
don't remember seeing you."
"Don't you remember?" Marilyn asked her. "It
must have been just before you went to the gym and-and did it."
Judy shook her head slowly. "I don't
remember anything like that at all," she said. "All
I remember about that day is talking to Mr.
Balsam. Then it all gets kind of fuzzy. But
I remember being in the locker room, and
to 
PUNISH THE SINNERS 217
I remember cutting myself. It didn't hurt at
all. I just cut myself, and the blood started coming out.
And I felt so peaceful. It was-well, it was
almost like I feel sitting in church sometimes, listening
to Monsignor celebrate Mass. A strange
feeling comes over me, and I feel like I'm not in
my body anymore. That's how it felt when I
cut myself. Like I was watching it happen to someone
else. And then I suddenly realized what
I'd done. I mean, I suddenly realized it was
me it was happening to. And I got scared. That's
when I called the police. And then Mr Jenkins
found me." Judy paused, eyeing the other girl.
"The rest was horrible."
"Horrible? What do you mean?" It seemed
to Marilyn that the cutting would have been the hard part.
"They all wanted to know what happened. Why did
I do it? How do I know why I did it? It just
seemed like a good idea at the time. Now they're all
afraid I'm going
to try it again."
"Are you?" Marilyn asked, her voice serious.
Judy
shook her head emphatically.
"Not a chance. I suppose if I'd really wanted
to kill myself, then I might try again. But I
don't think I wanted to die. I think I just
wanted to see what it felt like. But it's all over
now." She grinned suddenly. 'Tve got too much
to do. Who has time to die?"
Then the orderly was back, and Judy was standing
up.
"Nap time," she said, with a hint of a sneer in her
voice. "They treat you like a baby around
here."
"If you act like a baby, you get treated like one,"
the orderly pointed out. Judy stuck her tongue out
at him, but he ignored it. The two of them started
walking toward the building. Suddenly Judy turned
back.
"Thanks for coming," she said. Then, just before she
disappeared into the hospital, she spoke again.
"Killing
fi
fl
yourself is really kind of neat. You should try it
sometime." And then Judy Nelson began to laugh-a
laugh that lingered in Marilyn's ears long after Judy
disappeared into the shadows of the building.
Marilyn Crane sat alone for a long time, staring
at nothing and trying to figure out the meaning of everything
Judy had said. Then, she didn't know how much
later, she finally left the bench and went back to her
bike.
Before she mounted the bike and rode away from the
hospital, Marilyn reached into the carryall. Her
hand dosed on a small object She took it from the
carryall and stared at it.
A small packet of razor blades.
Marilyn had no memory of having purchased them.
No memory of putting them in the carryall.
Yet there they were. She stared at them mutely, part
greater-than from her mind wondering where they had come from,
part greater-than from her mind accepting the fact of them.
Carefully, she eplaced them in her bag.
From a window on the second floor of the hospital,
udy Nelson watched Marilyn. There was a small
smile n Judy's face as Marilyn pedaled
away toward town, udy watched until Marilyn
disappeared, then got back lto bed. She picked
up the telephone, dialed, and raited while it
rang. "Penny? Marilyn just left." "What did
she want?"
"Who knows? Who even cares? But Til tell you
one ling. Something's going to happen to that girl!"

The Bishop glanced once more at the calendar on his
desk, and noted the neatly inked appointment for five
o'clock. "Golf," it read, "Joe Flynn." He
had been looking forward to it all week until an
hour ago, when his secretary had come in and calmly
penciled in another appointment above the golf date:
"Peter Balsam." His raised eyebrows had
only produced a shrug and the explanation,
"Fellow says it's urgent." So now he was going
to be late for his golf date, and while he knew
Joe Flynn would forgive him, he wasn't certain
he would forgive this Peter Balsam for delaying him.
Golf, after all, was important. The Bishop
glared up at the clock on the wall, hoping the man
would be late, even if only by a minute. During that
minute he would have a legitimate excuse for
slipping out the door behind his desk. He was counting the
last fifteen seconds when the buzzer on his
intercom sounded.
Muttering to himself, he pressed the switch. "Yes?"
he barked as loudly and testily as he could, hoping
to intimidate the unwanted visitor.
In the secretary's office, Father Duncan winked
up at a nervous Peter Balsam and held a finger
to his lips. Then he spoke into the intercom.
"Mr. Balsam is here to see you, Your Eminence.
Shall I bring him in?"
R ijLike -U
n n n
"What're the chances of his going away if I say
no?" the Bishop's voice growled from the box.
Balsam felt himself turning red and wanted to flee.
Father Duncan just grinned at him.
"None whatever," the priest said severely. "And I
already called Joe Flynn and explained, so you can
stop worrying about being late."
"Oh, very well then, show him in. But I wish you'd
explain things to me the way you do to Joe Flynn.
After all, you're my secretary."
Father Duncan stood up and beckoned Peter
Balsam to follow him. "He always plays golf
on Wednesday, so don't be surprised if he's
a bit grumpy. And try to keep the meeting short
The later he is, the grumpier he gets. But his
bark is much worse than his bite." Then, before
Peter could reply, he pushed the door open and
stood aside so that Peter could precede him into the
Bishop's office.
Bishop O'Malley did not get up when
Balsam entered his office, which surprised Balsam
just a little. He heard the secretary make the
introductions as he crossed the room to kneel in
front of the Bishop. But he didn't make it.
"Must we?" the Bishop said, anticipating Peter.
"Why don't you just sit down so we can get this over
svith as fast as possible, all right?"
An abashed Peter Balsam sank into the
visitor's chair mi the near side of the
desk, and the Bishop smiled to limself. Threw him
off with that one, he thought; score me for me. While
Balsam recovered from the assault, he Bishop
tried to decide which demeanor would prove nost
effective hi getting this young man out of his ofice.
He settled on a stern-superior image, and
frowned icross the desk.
"Father Duncan tells me you arranged this meeting
PUNISH THE SINNERS 221
yourself," he said severely, though the secretary had
told him nothing of the sort. "Ordinarily, you would
need the intervention of Monsignor Vernon in order
to get this far." He watched Balsam squirm, and
added another point to his side.
"I'm sorry, Your Eminence," Balsam said.
"But I'm afraid I couldn't go through
Monsignor-was
"Couldn't, or wouldn't?" the Bishop broke in.
"There's a difference, you know."
"I do know," Balsam said, more sharply than he
meant to. "I'm a psychologist." The Bishop
mentally erased the two points he had scored for
himself, and chalked up one for Balsam. Then he
decided to give up keeping score-it just wasn't
going to be his day. He smiled at
Balsam.
"Sorry," he said. "Father Duncan didn't
tell me that." Balsam took the statement as the
sign of truce it was. He relaxed again.
"I couldn't go through Monsignor Vernon, sir,
because I would have had to tell him what I wanted
to talk to you about."
Bishop O'Malley picked up a pencil from the
desktop and leaned back in his chair. He tapped
his front teeth with the pencil for a moment, surveying the
man across from him. "I gather you want to talk to me
about Monsignor?" he inquired mildly.
Balsam nodded. "I don't know who else to talk
to, or I wouldn't have bothered you. And I'm not
sure it's really Monsignor Vernon I want
to talk about. It's his society."
"His society?" the Bishop repeated. "I'm not
following you." He glanced surreptitiously at the
clock. Yes, he was going to be late.
"The Society of St. Peter Martyour,"
Balsam said, won-
R bar fjjl
n fl a
fl;
dering if he was going to have to explain the whole
thing to the Bishop.
"Oh, that bunch," the Bishop said nonchalantly.
Suddenly he felt much better: this could be disposed of
in a couple of minutes, and he could be on his way
to the country club.
"Then you know about them?" Balsam asked eagerly.
"Well, they aren't any secret, are they? Seven
old priests who get together every now and then to talk about
'the good old days."" He looked at Balsam
curiously. "You really came all the way over here
to talk about the Society of St. Peter Martyour?
I think you wasted your time." He stood up, ready
to end the meeting. But Peter Balsam didn't
move.
"I think there's more to it than that," he said softly.
The Bishop stared at him for a moment, then sank
back into the chair behind the desk. He was going to be
late after all.
"More to it? What makes you think so?"
"Have you ever been to one of their meetings?" Balsam
countered.
When the Bishop shook his head, Balsam began
to describe the two meetings of the Society he had
attended. The Bishop heard him out in silence, but
throughout the entire recital the pencil
drummed on the edge of the desk.
"Is that all?" he said when Balsam eventually
fell silent.
"More or less," Balsam said equivocally.
He'd left out the last part of the story, unable to bring
himself to tell the Bishop about the strange marks on his
back.
"It sounds like more," the Bishop commented dryly. "It
sounds like you don't really remember too much about the
meetings, and you're reading a lot into the
PUNISH THE SINNERS 223
Society that simply isn't there. Frankly, it
doesn't seem to me to be in the least remarkable that
seven old priests with not much to do have decided
to entertain themselves by forming a discussion group."
"You keep saying seven," Balsam put in.
"There are
only six."
The Bishop smiled easily. "There used to be
seven. Until Father George Carver died last
year. Now it looks like they're trying to recruit you
to round the number out again. Are you thinking of joining
them?"
"According to them, I already have," Peter said
hesitantly. The Bishop noted the
hesitation in his voice, and picked up on it.
"Is there something you haven't told me?"
Balsam shifted uncomfortably in his chair,
wondering whether he should tell the Bishop about the
marks on his back. He decided against it.
"I really came here more to ask some questions than to tell
you about the Society. I'd hoped you knew more about it
than I do."
"I see. On the assumption that the Bishop is the
source of all knowledge in the diocese. Well, I'm
afraid that's a myth. If I tried to keep up with
everything all my priests are doing, Fd never have time
for the important things."
Like golf? Balsam wanted to ask, but didn't.
"Like golf," the Bishop grinned, reading bis mind.
"As for the Society of St. Peter Martyour, I'm
afraid I know very little about it. As far as I knew
it was simply seven old priests-was
"Monsignor Vernon isn't exactly old,"
Balsam broke
in.
The Bishop peered at him over his glasses; this
Balsam was showing a lot more spunk than he liked.
On
R R IjLike
r so backslash not not.
the other hand, he was finding it refreshing, in an odd
way.
"Not in years, perhaps, but his thinking is a bit
oldfashioned. As for the rest of them, well, their
years match their thinking, for the most part."
"What do you mean?" Balsam asked. He thought he
knew, but wanted the Bishop to spell it out for him.
"How can I put it?" the Bishop mused aloud.
Then he put the pencil down and leaned forward in his
chair. "The Church is in a constant state of
paradox," he began. "On the one hand we tell
our flock, and each other, that we hold the keys to the
absolute truth. But on the other hand we realize
that there is no absolute truth. Truth changes
along with the times. The trick to being comfortable within the
Church is to balance tradition with change, and try
to change tradition to keep up with the times.
Unfortunately, all too many of us find it easier
to cling to the traditions than move with the changes.
All too many of us fail to see that keeping up with the
times isn't destroying the Faith. And that, as I
see it, is the basis of the Society of St.
Peter Martyour. They're old-fashioned in their
thinking, and they don't get much support from
the Church, at least not in my diocese. They want
to Believe. They need to lean on each other for
support.
"They're terribly dogmatic, of course, and quite
frankly I don't spend much time with them. I
don't mean as the Society of Still Peter
Martyour; I don't spend any time with the Society
at all-I mean as individuals. I'm afraid
I just can't be quite as-what's the word? religious?-as
they'd like me to be. And, though I know I shouldn't
say it, Monsignor Vernon's the worst of them."
The Bishop smiled wryly, then went on. "Young
man, every time I talk to Vernon I thank my
lucky stars
PUNISH THE SINNERS 225
I'm getting older. By the time that man gets to be
my age, he's going to be absolutely
impossible. In fact, I have to keep reminding myself
that he's your age, not mine. He seems old
already."
"I know." Balsam felt himself warming to the
Bishop. "I went to school with him. He was just
Pete Vernon then, and you wouldn't have recognized
him."
"Wouldn't I? Don't forget, I've
been watching him in Neilsville for twelve years
now. I remember the young man who came out here from
Philadelphia. He's a lot different now.
Neilsville, I suppose. Towns like that do things
to people. Too small. Inbred. I suppose it's
inevitable that the clergy gets caught up in it too.
I've often wondered if I'd have stayed with the Church
if they'd sent me to a place like Neilsville."
Then he brightened a bit. "Who knows? Maybe if
I'd wound up in Neilsville, I'd have started a
Society of Still Peter Martyour myself. Just between us,
being stuck in Neilsville is certainly my idea
of martyrdom."
"I know what you mean," Balsam replied. Then
he picked up on something else. "Did
Monsignor start the Society of St. Peter
Martyour?"
"You mean you didn't know?"
Balsam shook his head. "I know he's their leader,
but Fd assumed the Society had been going on for
years."
"Not at all. Vernon started it about five years
ago, at about the time he became Monsignor. I
suppose it was his way of proving to himself that he'd
"made it""
"Seems a strange thing," Balsam commented
"Petty conceit, I'd call it," the Bishop
snapped.
"Conceit?"
Now the Bishop regarded him quizzically. "You
mean you haven't figured it out?"
"You've lost me again," Balsam admitted.
"The names, man, the names," the Bishop cried.
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"Monsignor Vernon named the Society after
himself!"
Balsam stared at the Bishop blankly. "Named it
after himself?"
"You mean you didn't know?" The Bishop chuckled.
"St. Peter Martyour's name was Piero da
Verona. Now if you were to translate that
into English, what would you come up with?"
"Peter Vernon," Balsam said slowly. "Or
something close enough to that so it wouldn't make any
difference. Is that what you mean?"
The Bishop nodded. "It makes you wonder,
doesn't it?" Then: "What an
unpleasant person he must have been."
"Who?"
"Piero da Verona. St. Peter Martyour."
Balsam's brows arched in surprise. "I beg
your pardon?"
"You've read the story, haven't you? About how one
of the so-called heretics was finally pushed too far
by Verona's persecutions, and killed him one
night?"
was "So-called" heretics?" Balsam wanted
to smile. He didn't
The Bishop looked at him sharply, wondering if the
young man was pulling his leg. "Oh, come on. I
think we all have to admit that during the Inquisition the
Dominicans were denouncing everyone who disagreed with
them as heretics. But calling them heretics
doesn't make them heretics, does it?"
"No," Balsam agreed, "it doesn't." Then
he changed the subject "What happened to the man
who killed Verona?"
"Ah," said Bishop O'Malley, standing once more.
"Now there's a wonderful case of the mysterious ways
of the Lord. The murderer is a saint too!"
PUNISH THE SINNERS 227
Balsam's eyes widened in astonishment.
"Once more?"
"Possibly." Bishop O'Malley laughed.
"I don't know what the truth of the matter is, and
I don't suppose anybody else does either, but
the story is that the man who killed Verona-his name
escapes me if I ever knew it- repented, joined
an order himself, and was eventually canonized. Not as
fast as Verona, of course, who I think holds the
record for quick canonization, but he eventually made
it"
"As Saint who?"
"I haven't the slightest idea. There's so many
saints I can't keep up with them." He glanced at
the clock, and was surprised to see how late it
was. "If you'll excuse me," he said
to Balsam, "I'm going to be very late for my
game."
Balsam leaped to bis feet. "I'm sorry for
having taken so much of your time," he apologized.
The Bishop clapped him on the back, deciding he
quite liked this young man.
"None of that," he said. "Any time. But next time,
please go through proper channels. If you have to,
lie to Vernon about it Better that than having him
find out you circumvented him entirely.
Let him get wind of that, and you'll really find out
what the Inquisition was like." Then a thought struck
him. "You know, young man, maybe that's what they're
up to. Maybe the Society of St. Peter
Martyour is actually trying to resurrect the
Inquisition. If they are, Neilsville would
certainly be the place to start. It's always struck
me as the kind of town that would love to have an
Inquisition. Or a witchburning. Tell you what,
why don't you join up with the Society, and see if
you can find out what they're up to? Who knows? It
might prove to be interesting."
Bishop O'Malley opened the door to his office
and

R R
ii n n
walked with Peter Balsam from the rectory to the car
that Balsam had borrowed from Margo Henderson.
He waved to Balsam as the younger man drove
away, and decided that he did, indeed, like the boy very
much. Feeling quite good, Bishop O'Malley got in
his own car and set out for his golf game.
Had he known about the marks on Balsam's back,
he would not have felt nearly so good. He would
have known that something was happening in Neilsville.
Instead, he went happily to his golf game, where
Joe Flynn beat him by three strokes. Which
wasn't too bad; Joe Flynn usually beat him
by five.
Peter Balsam entered his apartment and tossed the car
keys to Margo Henderson.
"Not a scratch on it," he said. "You ready for the
dinner I promised?"
Margo nodded, relieved to see that he seemed to be
in a good mood. "Shall I fix you a drink first?" she
asked.
"Sure. Then ni tell you all about the Bishop.
Right now I'm going to change my clothes."
He walked quickly into the bedroom and stripped to his
shorts. As he'd done this morning, he glanced in the
mirror to check the welts on his back. This morning
they had been as angry and red as ever.
Now they were gone.
He looked again, and tentatively touched the skin of
his back.
No trace. Not a scar. Not a mark. His back was
as clear as it had ever been.
When Peter Balsam returned to the living room a
few seconds later and took the drink
Margo offered, his mood had changed. The merriment was
gone, and in its place was a certain thoughtfulness.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 229
By the time dinner was over Peter Balsam had made
up his mind. ,
He would join the Society of St. Peter
Martyour.
Margo wasn't sure it was wise, but Peter
insisted. Reluctantly, and only because the Bishop
had suggested his joining the Society, Margo
agreed. Despite her falling-out with the Church, she
instinctively trusted the Bishop. And she was beginning
to suspect she loved Peter Balsam.
But she didn't like it. She didn't like it at all.
Peter Balsam found the note in his box on
Thursday morning:
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2/ridcuf r light
8:00
KM.
There was no signature, not even any initials, and
it was written-lettered almost-in a flowing script that
appeared to have been produced by a quill. And yet,
despite the lack of details in the note,
Balsam was sure he knew what it was:
the summons to his final initiation into the Society
of St. Peter Martyour. He stared at it silently
for a moment, then slipped it between the pages of the book
he had been carrying. When he turned, he saw the
smiling face of Sister Marie watching him
quizzically.
"Is something wrong?" the nun asked.
"Wrong?" Peter repeated, somewhat startled.
"No, nothing's wrong." He started to move away,
but the nun stopped him.
"Are you sure? You look pale. Almost as if you'd
just seen a ghost."
Peter hesitated for a moment, then suddenly pulled
the note from the book he was carrying. He handed it to the
nun. "What do you make of this?"
Sister Marie took the note from Balsam's
outstretched hand and examined it carefully. She
turned it over, glanced at the back of it, then
returned it to Balsam.
"Odd," she said.
"Do you recognize the handwriting?"
Sister Marie looked puzzled, as if she wanted
to say something but wasn't sure it was proper.
Balsam pressed her. "You do recognize it,
don't you?"
"I'm not sure," Sister Marie said slowly. "It
was like a dejd vu. When you handed me the note, I
had the strangest feeling that the same thing had happened
before. But then, before I could remember, it was gone."
Balsam felt a pang of disappointment. He had
hoped the nun would be able to tell him whose hand had
written the message. Then she brightened, and asked
to see the note again. This time she examined it even more
carefully, and held it up to the light When she finally
gave it back to him she looked even more bewildered.
"I don't know," she said, hesitating in a way that
made Balsam suspect she did. "I can tell
you where the paper came from," she said. "That's easy:
Monsignor Vernon. But you knew that, didn't
you?"
"It seemed likely," Peter grinned.
"It's the hand that bothers me," Sister Marie said.
"I know it isn't Monsignor's; I also know
I've seen it somewhere before. But there's something amiss.
Something on the edge of my mind that isn't quite right.
It's as if I've seen it before, but it was different,
if you know what I mean."
It's like Neilsville, Balsam thought to himself.
You've seen it all before, but here it isn't quite right.
Here, there's always something more than what can be
seen.
*
PUNISH THE SINNERS 233
Aloud he said, "Try to remember, will you?" At his
voice, the nun's expression changed from bewilderment
to concern.
"Is it important?" she asked, not seeing how a
simple summons to the rectory could be of that much
concern to anyone.
"I wish I knew," Peter said. "It might be,
and it might not be. I wish I knew who wrote this
note."
"Well, don't worry about it too much," the nun
smiled. "It'll probably come to me in the middle
of the night, and if it does I'll write it down
before I forget it"
"In the margin of The New Yorkefl" Balsam
asked mischievously.
"That, or something even worse," Sister Marie
tossed at him. Then, before he could draw her out, she
was gone.
Several times during Thursday and Friday, Peter
Balsam spoke briefly with the Monsignor, and
each time he wondered if he should mention the odd
note. But the Monsignor never mentioned
it, nor did there ever seem an opportune moment
for Peter to bring it up. He wasn't sure, but he
had the feeling that Monsignor Vernon was
deliberately preventing him from asking any questions.
Late Friday afternoon, Balsam went looking for
Sister Marie. When he found her, he had the
distinct feeling that she wasn't particularly glad
to see him. Her usual cheerful smile was nowhere in
evidence, and the twinkle in her eye had faded.
"Sister Marie?" he said, as if he wasn't quite
sure it was her. She seemed to jump a little, as if
she hadn't seen him, though he was standing right in front
of her.
"Mr. Balsam," she said, and Peter noted the
use of his last name. Her eyes didn't meet
his.
"You've been biding from me today," he said, fore-
S B JLJ-I
n h
m
fi
ing a lightness into his voice that her manner did
nothing to encourage.
"No, I don't think so," the nun said softly.
Her eyes flitted from one part of the room
to another, as if seeking escape.
"I was wondering if you'd remembered where you saw that
handwriting before," Peter said as casually as he could.
"Handwriting?" the nun repeated too quickly. "What
handwriting?"
"On the note," Balsam said, beginning to feel just
a bit exasperated. The nun continued to look
blank. "The note I found in my box yesterday
morning? Surely you haven't forgotten?"
"Oh, that," Sister Marie said, laughing nervously.
"Tm afraid it slipped my mind completely!"
Again she glanced around the room, and Peter had the
distinct impression she was about to dart off somewhere. He
was right.
'Tomorrow afraid you'll have to excuse me," she
exclaimed. "1 promised Sister Elizabeth
Fd help her with some things this afternoon." Then, as if
she were too aware that the excuse was lame, she added
quickly: "Some tests. I promised to help her
grade some tests." And then she was gone.
Though they'd made no plans to have dinner together
Friday evening, Peter wasn't surprised when
Margo Henderson appeared at his apartment shortly
after he got there himself, nor was he surprised that she
was carrying a couple of steaks that nearly
matched the two he'd picked up himself on his way
home. What did surprise him was that as soon as
she was inside his apartment he gathered her into his arms
and kissed her. She returned the kiss warmly, then
pulled away from fr8tion
PUNISH THE SINNERS 235
"Now that was something new," she said. "I could get
used to being greeted like that."
"Good," Peter replied. "Since we have two
extra steaks, why don't you plan on being greeted
that way again tomorrow night? And tomorrow night we can spend the
evening together."
"They canceled the dance?" Margo asked. Peter
snapped his fingers impatiently.
"Damn. I'd forgotten all about it." St.
Francis Xavier's was holding its first dance of the
school term that weekend. He grinned at her.
"What do you think they'd say if you showed up with me
to help me chaperone?"
"Me at St. Francis Xavier's?
Monsignor'd have to exorcise the place after I
left. But I'd love to have dinner." She paused,
frowning prettily. "Although I have to admit I'm
beginning to feel like a corporate wife-I have dinner
with you, then sit by myself while you run around
to meetings and social events." The glint hi her
eye told Peter that she was teasing, but he decided
to take it seriously. He took her hands in his.
"It isn't fair, I know. And you don't have to do
it, Margo. In fact, I wish you wouldn't"
The smile faded from her face and she grew serious.
"Of course I don't have to do it, Peter, and you're
very sweet to worry about it. But I'd rather have dinner with
you and spend the rest of the evening worrying about you than
spend the entire evening with anyone else. I thought you
knew that."
"Maybe I was fishing," Peter said, the beginning of a
grin playing around the corners of his mouth. Margo's
face remained serious.
"Or maybe you were trying to tell me you care about
me, in your own way. Well, all right. I know you
care about me, and you know I care about you. That gives
me the right to spend an evening worrying about you
H JjLike JjLJ-PEOPLE
now and then. I will worry about you tonight-unless I can
talk you into changing your mind."
Balsam smiled gently. "Why don't you wait for
me and do your worrying here? Then, no matter how
late I get back, we can find out what's really
going on with the Society of St. Peter
Martyour. Tonight I'm going to record the whole thing."
He held up a small cassette recorder.
Margo stared at it in silence. Suddenly she
wasn't sure she wanted to know about the Society.
In fact, she was ahnost sure she didn't want
to know what went on at their meetings. But at the
same time, she had to know. She made up her mind
to be waiting when Peter came home that night.
Silently, Margo began fixing dinner. There just
didn't seem to be much to talk about
The Society of St. Peter Martyour was waiting.
All six of them were in the foyer, standing formally in a
semicircle-expectant. He closed the front
door behind him and stood looking at them. There was a
long silence as the six priests surveyed him, and
then Monsignor Vernon spoke.
"Peter Balsam," he said sonorously, "we have
met, and it is our decision that you shall be initiated
into the Society tonight."
"I see," said Balsam softly. He decided
to risk a question. "Even though I'm not a priest?"
The Monsignor smiled faintly. "We have never
had a ... layman in the Society before, but we are
prepared to make an exception for you. Our
reasons," he declared, anticipating
Peter's question, "will eventually become clear to you."
Peter remained silent. But he wondered why the
Monsignor had hesitated over the word
"layman." What other word had come into his mind?
PUNISH THE SINNERS 237
The six priests turned suddenly, and began filing
down the hall toward the study. Balsam quickly
reached into the inside pocket of his jacket and
activated the recorder before falling in behind them.
As before, the study was lit only by candles and the uneven
glow of the fire. Once again the chairs were arranged in
a semicircle in front of the fire, with the two
easy chairs opposite each other, reserved for
Monsignor and Balsam. In a few moments the
seven men were seated.
The catechism began again, each of the priests in
turn questioning Balsam's knowledge of the Faith. He
answered the questions easily, giving the correct
responses, careful to keep his voice level,
to give no hint of his true feelings whenever he was
mouthing a doctrine he questioned. As the inquisition went
on-and he had the distinct feeling that it was, indeed,
an inquisition-he wondered to what purpose it all
was. The questions were the same ones he had answered
before, and his answers were the same. No, he
realized with a start, the answers were not the same. The
first time he had sat in this room to be questioned by the six
priests, it had taken him a while to realize what
they wanted to hear. Tonight, he had known from the beginning.
And his tone had been different that first night. He had
made no effort to conceal his doubts about certain
aspects of his faith. Tonight, Peter Balsam was
acting the part of the true believer. And as he played
his role, letting himself be led through the Doctrine and
listening calmly to his own responses, he began
to wonder if the role wasn't taking over the
actor, to wonder how much of his earnestness was feigned
and how much was real.
It was over, finally, though Peter Balsam didn't
realize it at first. He looked from one stern face
to another, wondering from which of them the next question would
H R-V
his
come. Eventually he realized there would be no more questions.
The six clerics were looking at him with
satisfaction; he had apparently passed their test.
He wondered what would come next
Suddenly they were standing, looming over him. "Peter
Balsam," they asked in one voice, "what do you
want of us?"
The question echoed in his mind. What do you want of us?
His brain searched for the answer. He knew there was an
answer; one single answer that they were looking for, and that
if he was unable to give it, there would be no second
chance. He was still trying to decide what to say when he
heard his own voice answering.
"Solace in my Faith."
"And what do you offer us?"
"My body and my mind, for use in your holy work."
They reached out to him then, taking each of his hands, and
drawing him to his feet. They offered him wine.
He had passed.
He was one of them.
He had told them what they wanted to hear, and he was
glad.
The Society of St. Peter Martyour, once more
seven strong, began to pray.
The same chanting he had heard before began once
again, but this time Peter Balsam was aware that he was
somehow able to take part in it. He mouthed the strange
words easily, his lips and tongue forming one syllable
after another as if he had been saying the unfamiliar
Latin-like words all his life. As he chanted in
unison with the others, part of his mind tried to reason out
the source of his ability to match the priests
word for word. He told himself that it was simply because he
had heard the service once before, and it had remained
PUNISH THE SINNERS 239
imprinted on his memory. But another voice
inside him told him there was more to it than that; that one
hearing of the service was not enough for hirn to have it flow so
easily from his lips.
He put the disturbing thoughts from his mind, and
concentrated instead on trying to follow the service.
It sounded, at first, much like the praises of the Lord that
had been sung in the convent he grew up in. But,
again, there was something different. The praises were there, but
there were overtones of other things. Things in the odd
not-quite-Latin that he could almost get a grasp on, but
then would lose. Eventually he stopped trying to understand
the words and began to feel them instead. They were words of
exhortation. The Society was praising the Lord,
yes, but it was also exhorting Him. To what
purpose? Faster now, and faster, until
individual words escaped him and there was only the
rhythm.
The rhythm, insistent, inexorable, caught him up in
its mysticism, transporting him into the same state
of religious ecstasy he had experienced once before
in this room. He began to lose consciousness
of his physical surroundings, and was only aware of the
presence of the light, and the warmth, and the spirituality of his
cornpanions. They were moving now, the circle
closing in on him, surrounding him, and as the service
grew more intense Balsam had the feeling of being at
one with them, of joining them in an experience that was both
frightening and exhilarating, as if, for the first time, the
core of his soul was being touched by God.
And then the voice began.
It sounded far away at first, but it grew steadily
louder until its throbbing tones echoed through the room.
The glow of the candles and the heat and flicker of the fire
held him but the chanting had stopped. Only the
throbbing sound of a single voice filled his ears
ip-i bar LJP
it
n
n
now. And then that, too, stopped. In the sudden
silence, Peter Balsam reached out to touch the priest
who was closest to him. In the odd light the priest
seemed to glow white as an angel, and Balsam was
sure he would find the support he was seeking. He
tried to speak, but his mouth refused to open. From somewhere
he heard another voice:
"He is with us. Saint Peter Martyour is with us."
And then the deep tones of the oddly disembodied voice
once more filled the room, using the strange
language that Peter could not quite understand. He was able
to follow the meaning now and then, but only in snatches.
"You must find him for me . . .
"You must punish . . .
"They are everywhere . . .
"Celebrate . . .
"Punish . . .
"Sin . . .
"Sin . . .
"Celebrate. . .punish. . .sin. . ."
And then the voice was gone, and the chanting began again.
And once more the strange trance came over
Balsam, and he lost track of time, and of place,
and of what was real and what was not All was religion,
and religion was all. And the chanting went on ...
and the celebration went on ... and sometime during the long
night, Peter Balsam felt himself slipping
away, drifting in a fantasy that he had neither the will
nor the desire to define.
Three hours before dawn, it ended. As before, Peter
Balsam had no idea of what had happened.
Only impressions, and a feeling of both
exhilaration and exhaustion.
And, of course, a tape. As he left the
rectory he felt
PUNISH THE SINNERS 241
the miniature recorder, still in the pocket of his
jacket, still running. He switched it off, though he
knew it must have stopped recording hours earlier. But
the first two hours of the meeting were on the tape. At
least it would be a beginning. But a beginning of what?
He hurried his step, and by the time he got home he
was almost running. Margo was waiting for him, a
strange expression on
her face.
They listened to the tape together.
Margo sat at one end of the sofa, Peter at the
other, and Peter was intensely aware of the distance between
them. They only listened to snatches of the first part of the
tape; the part that had recorded the catechism. Ten
minutes after it began, Margo commented softly that
whatever else was on the tape, Peter had certainly
started out sounding like a good Catholic. He glanced
at her, wondering what the remark meant, but her
eyes were turned away from him. He reached down and
advanced the tape through the rest of the first hour to the point
where the chanting began.
When the first strange sounds of the almost religious
music came out of the tiny speaker, Margo spoke
again.
*There was a silence," she said suddenly. "What was
happening during the silence?"
"You mean when they were accepting me into the Society?"
Margo nodded.
Peter thought back to the moment, then remembered.
"Wine," he said. "Monsignor Vernon passed
a chalice of wine around." Margo's brow furrowed,
and she fell silent.
They listened to the tape, watching the cassette
player almost as if it were producing a visual
image as well as emitting the peculiar sounds.
"It sounds almost like Latin," Margo said.
"I know. But it isn't. Not quite. It's close, but
just different enough to make it mostly unintelligible. I
can pick up a word here and there, but most of it sounds like
another language."
"Like Spanish, sort of," Margo said.
"Spanish?" Peter said. He listened more
closely, and suddenly the rhythms made more sense.
And then it came to him. It wasn't Spanish at
all. It was some kind of strange Italian.
"That's it," he said softly.
"What?" Margo asked, looking at him for the first
time.
"That's it!" Peter exclaimed. "It's not
Spanish, Margo, and it isn't quite Latin. It's
some kind of Italian! And it makes sense, too.
Not the words. I can't understand them, but I know what
we're listening to! They're using a language
that's between Latin and Italian."
Margo looked confused, and he tried to explain.
"The Romance languages all stem from Latin.
French. Spanish. Italian. But languages
change slowly. So what would early Italian sound
like? It would be somewhere between Latin and modern
Italian, wouldn't it? And St. Peter Martyour was
an Italian from the thirteenth century! The
Society is using the language of Still Peter
Martyour! That must be it. Of course we can't understand
all of it, any more than we can understand all of
Chaucer's English."
"But where would they have learned it?" Margo asked.
"Who knows?" Peter said. Suddenly he felt much
better about everything; the chanting had lost a lot of
PUNISH THE SINNERS 243
the mystery it had held in the flickering light of the
rectory. "How much of this do you
remember?" Margo asked
him suddenly.
"Not much," Peter said. "It all sounds vaguely
familiar to me, but not nearly as familiar as it should.
I mean, only a few hours ago I was taking part
in that chanting."
Margo stared at him. "I thought you said you couldn't
understand the words."
"I couldn't. And I still can't. But at the time I was
able to keep up with it, without even trying. It was like the
words just flowed out of me . . ." His voice trailed
off as he realized that now, in his apartment, the rhythms
that had seemed so simple in the rectory seemed
incredibly complicated.
And then he heard the voice.
It boomed sonorously out of the recorder,
resonant and compelling. He recognized it
immediately, and wondered why he hadn't known it during the
service. It was Monsignor Vernon.
"What's he saying?" Margo asked. She, too,
had recognized the priest's voice.
Tm not sure," Peter said slowly, trying to conceal
the sudden fear that was clutching at his stomach. "I. .
. When I was there, I thought I was hearing the voice
of St. Peter Martyour. It never occurred
to me that it was Monsignor. And I can't understand most
of what he's saying. It has to do with sin, and
punishment, and celebrating. I don't know. I should
be able to understand the Latin-I teach it. But it isn't
quite Latin anyway. It's more like Italian and my
Italian doesn't exist."
And then the booming voice stopped, and the chanting began
again, accompanied now by a different sound. Slowly the
chanting faded away, and the new sounds
*L com9-i
i I
grew in volume. They began as a series of
small whining noises, but as the tape ground on, the
whines turned into moaning, mixed with heavy breathing, and
other sounds that seemed familiar to Peter but that he
couldn't quite identify. Occasionally a cry of ecstasy
penetrated the steady moaning.
Peter knew what he was hearing, but didn't want
to admit it to himself. He listened to the tape, trying
to shut it out, but at the same time fascinated. And he
began to remember some of the images he had
experienced in the rectory.
The angels, seeming to glow whitely in the flickering
candlelight.
The closeness among the seven of them that he
had thought was a spiritual closeness.
The caresses that he had thought stemmed from a
religious experience.
Naked men, priests stripped of their vestments,
stripped of everything, their bodies intertwined not
spiritually but carnally, caressing each other not
religiously but sexually.
He was listening to the sounds of an orgy, an orgy
he knew he and six priests had participated in
only hours earlier.
And then he heard his own voice crying out in that tight
ecstasy that only comes with a sexual climax. His
stomach knotted and he knew he was going to be
sick. As he lunged toward the bathroom his right hand
flew out, knocking the tiny recorder from the coffee
table. But it didn't stop: the sickening sounds
continued as he fled the room.
He stayed in the bathroom for a long time, waiting for the
nausea to subside, not wanting to go back into the
living room, not wanting to face Margo. Then, as
he
PUNISH THE SINNERS 245
was beginning to hope that she might have left, he heard
her rapping at the door.
"Peter?" she said, her voice quiet and
gentle. "Peter, are you all right?"
All right? he thought. All right? How could I be
all right? My God, what have I done? He sank
to the floor of the bathroom, laying his cheek on the
cool tile. He heard the click of the door
opening, and realized that Margo had come in. Then he
felt her touch him on the cheek.
"It's all right," she said softly. "Peter, it's
all right."
He stared up at her, wanting to believe her, but
sure that nothing would ever be all right again.
Darkness closed around him.
n n
ji
m not. .
Balsam's body an odor emanated. The sweet
muskiness of semen.
Margo Henderson buried her face in the soiled
undergarment and cried. As the tears came, she realized
that she had still been hoping. She had been clinging to a
hope that the evidence of the tape had been false, that
what she had heard was something entirely different from
what she now knew was the truth. She had stumbled
into a mess. And yet, even as she lay on the bed
next to Peter, sobbing softly into the
pillow, she realized she was not going to walk away;
she would not-could not-leave him.
It wasn't Peter's fault, she told herself,
forcing back the sobs. He didn't know what he was
doing. He didn't know what they were doing to him. You
watched his face as he listened, and he was shocked.
So don't blame him; help him.
Margo rose from the bed, then pulled the covers up
over Peter's naked body. She looked down at
him, and realized how vulnerable he must be right now.
When he woke, she must be close to him. He
mustn't feel that she had abandoned him.
She went out to the living room, and stretched out on the
sofa. The first glow of dawn was beginning to light the
sky outside as Margo fell into a fitful doze
interrupted by dreams that took all the peace from her
sleep. . .
She was outside the rectory, and she knew what was
going on inside. But she couldn't stop it. She could
only crouch in the darkness outside, listening to the
sounds, hearing first the chanting, and then the moaning, knowing
that Peter was inside, that he was in the middle of that
group of six strange priests, and that they were
seducing him. Their hands were touching him, and their lips
kissing him in a way that only her hands should
PUNISH THE SINNERS 249
have touched him, only her lips should have kissed him.
Then she was suddenly inside the rectory, inside that
oddly lit room, watching the naked priests, their
wrinkled bodies glistening sweatily in the
candlelight as they stripped Peter's clothes from him,
their fingers greedily playing over his smooth skin,
their tongues clucking away in that strange
language. And then they were holding him down and
Monsignor Veraon, grown suddenly to a towering
height, stood over Peter, his monstrous organ
thrusting toward Peter's gaping mouth. The priest
began advancing toward Peter, and Margo looked
on in horror. She wanted to scream, but couldn't
make any sound escape her lips. She tried
to lunge forward, tried to rescue Peter from the
grasp of the old men, but she couldn't make her feet
move. They seemed to be mired in heavy mud.
All she could do was look on in mutely fascinated
horror as Monsignor Vernon, suddenly
enveloped in a halo, forced his penis into Peter
Balsam's mouth. And finally, as the immense glans
disappeared between his lips, she screamed.
Margo woke up to the sound of her own scream, and
felt her body shaking uncontrollably.
She could feel a clammy sweat covering her like a
wet sheet. And then she felt a hand touch her, and
her eyes snapped open. Peter Balsam was bending
over her. She stared silently at him for a second
or two, suddenly unsure whether she was awake.
And then she realized she was awake, and he was real,
and she threw her arms around him.
"Oh, God, Peter," she cried into his ear.
"I saw it all. I was there, right there in the room,
and those priests- those six awful priests-they were
naked and they were-they were doing the most disgusting things
to you. And then the Monsignor-Monsignor
Vernon- he-he-was She broke off, unable
to continue.
"It's all right," Peter said softly, holding her
closer "It was only a dream. You had a bad
dream."
She lay still in his arms for a moment, and her panic
passed. And then she remembered. He should have been in
bed. She had put him to bed, then lay down to doze,
only a few minutes ago. What was he doing up?
How could he be up already? She wriggled free of his
arms and sat up. The sun was pouring brightly in the
front window.
"What time is it?" she asked. "Almost
eleven," Peter said. "I woke up half an
hour ago and decided to let you sleep. I guess
I shouldn't have."
The dream came back to her, and she looked at him,
tried to separate him from the Peter Balsam in her
dream. But she couldn't quite do it, and she had to tell
him why.
"Peter," she said softly, "there's something I
didn't tell you last night. Part of my dream just
now wasn't a dream. It was a memory. Last
night I-well, I got so nervous waiting for you
here that I decided to go for a walk. And I found myself
walking up the hill. To the rectory."
"Is that why you looked so strange when I came in
last night?"
She nodded miserably. "I already knew what had
been going on at the rectory, long before I heard
the tape. I must have been outside the window of
Monsignor's study for hours, listening." She
looked at him beseechingly. "You have no idea what
it was like. I didn't want to listen, but I couldn't
make myself go away. I stayed until it was almost
over. I only got back here about forty-five
minutes before you did."
"Why did you stay?" Peter asked
gravely. "I don't think I would have."
PUNISH THE SINNERS 251
"I had to. I had to see you, to see if you knew
what was going on up there. And you didn't. I could
tell from your face." Her voice rose. "Oh,
Peter, they're doing such horrible things to you."
She flung her arms around his neck and clung to him.
Only this time, Peter picked her up and carried her
into the bedroom, kicking the door closed behind him.
"What are you going to do?"
It was an hour later, and they lay in bed, her head
resting on his stomach.
"I'm not sure," Peter said. "I have to stop it I
can't let them keep doing what they're doing."
"But what can you do?"
"I don't know. I suppose I could take the
tape to the Bishop, but frankly, I don't think
he'd do anything. The only thing he could do is talk
to Monsignor and the rest of them, and of course they'd
deny they were doing anything wrong."
"But those sounds . . ."
"Religious ecstasy," Peter said, trying to make
light of the whole mess. "The sounds we were making
thirty minutes ago weren't much different."
Margo blushed, remembering, then spoke
again.
"But you have to do something."
"I know," Peter said. "And I'm going to have to do it
alone. No one's going to believe what's on that
tape."
"I can back you up," Margo said softly.
Peter shook his head violently. "Fin going to have
to do it on my own. I'll talk to the Bishop again,
but I don't think anything will come of it. And believe
me, I won't be going to any more meetings of the
Society of St. Peter Martyour."
"What about the dance tonight?"
"I'll go, of course. That's going to come under the
I
p n n n
heading of acting as if nothing had happened. And all
of a sudden I think it's important that I be there.
Important for me, and important for the kids."
Then he remembered Sister Marie, and her strange
evasiveness yesterday morning.
"And there's someone I have to talk to," he said
softly, thinking: Someone who knows more about all this than
she's told me.
He decided not to tell Margo about Sister Marie.
The gymnasium of St. Francis
Xavier High School had that look of slightly
seedy festivity produced by high-school students
valiantly trying to convert a gymnasium into a
ballroom. The crepe-paper streamers, already
beginning to go limp as the dance was beginning, hung
unevenly from the light fixtures and the basketball
hoops, serving more to accentuate the unsuitability
of the room than to lend their intended air of gaiety.
Marilyn Crane sat unhappily in one corner
of the gym, the corner farthest from die door, and
wondered for the tenth time why she had come. For the tenth time
she answered herself; she was here to make her mother
happy, and because her sister Greta had always come to the
dances in the gym. The fact that Greta always had a
date had not struck her mother as particularly
relevant. So Marilyn sat in her corner,
half hoping to be left alone and unnoticed, half
hoping someone- anyone-would come over to talk to her.
No one did. The room began to fill up, and
Marilyn watched the sisters in their black habits
cruising among the students like so many dignified
black swans in a flock of brightly colored,
raucously quacking ducks. Marilyn wondered how
they did it; wondered if that mystic self-confidence
was issued to the sisters along with their
habits. Marilyn particularly liked to watch
Sister Marie, her wimple
PUNISH THE SINNERS 253
framing her pretty face in a way that seemed
to accentuate her beauty rather than lend her an air of
remoteness.
Sister Marie, unaware of Marilyn's scrutiny,
was standing by the main entrance, greeting each of the students
as he came in, and doing her best to keep her right
toe from tapping to the music too obviously. Years
of practice in front of a mirror had taught her
the precise amount of movement she could make under the
heavy folds of her habit without causing the
telltale swaying of the material that had constantly
given her away during her novitiate. But she still
tended to get carried away, particularly since the
advent of the rock era. Rock music always set her
foot to tapping far in excess of the tolerance of her
habit. She saw Janet Connally coming in, and
smiled easily.
"All by yourself tonight?" she grinned.
"I get to meet more boys if I come alone,"
Janet said. "Besides, Judy couldn't come, Karen's
here with Jim, and Penny is working the refreshment table
with Jeff Bremmer."
"How is Judy?" Sister Marie asked, genuine
concern in her voice.
"All right, I guess," Janet said slowly.
"She came home yesterday, and she's supposed
to be back in school on Monday."
"That'll be nice," Sister Marie said
emphatically. cTve missed her."
"Sister Marie," Janet began. She wanted
to ask the nun if she knew what was going to happen
to Judy, but suddenly, without really knowing why, changed
her mind.
"Yes?" the nun prompted her.
"Nothing," Janet said. Suddenly she felt
nervous, and wanted to be elsewhere. "I think I'd
better say hello to
9-I
i i
m
Penny." She moved off quickly, and her place was
taken by Monsignor Vernon, who had been standing a
few feet behind her.
"Monsignor," Sister Marie greeted him
gravely, her cheerful smile disappearing.
"Sister Marie," the priest acknowledged her
greeting, looking dolefully around the
room. "Well." The word was uttered in a tone that
conveyed deep disapproval.
'1 think it looks nice," Sister Marie said
tentatively.
"I wonder if it's the sort of thing we should be
encouraging."
Sister Marie knew what was coming, knew how the
Monsignor felt about frivolous
activities-sinful activities. She knew about
St. Peter Martyour, and about the Monsignor's
fascination with the saint. Often, in the lonely privacy
of her cell, she had wondered where that fascination had
come from, and where it would lead the priest. And sometimes it
frightened her. As it had frightened her when she finally
remembered where she had seen that odd handwriting on the
note Peter Balsam had shown her a few days
ago.
Now, sensing that the Monsignor was about to launch
into one of his tirades, she glanced quickly around for a
diversion.
"I think I see Penny Anderson waving to me,"
she said, moving away from the priest. "I'd better
see if she needs any help." Before Monsignor
Vernon could make a reply, the nun was gone,
gliding through the crowd, smiling and nodding to the
students as they danced around her. The priest watched
her go, his eyes noting the contrast between her dark
habit and the brightly colored dresses of his charges.
He felt his anger surging up, silently wished
he could turn the clock back, turn time back
to an easier day, when girls dressed modestly and a
priest was respected.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 255
Monsignor Vernon's expression grew even more
severe as he watched the teen-agers merrily
greeting Sister Marie as she made her way through the
room. Not one of them had spoken to him. He
turned, and walked back into the foyer of the gym,
glad to be away from the glittering lights and
festooning crepe.
Peter Balsam glanced at his watch as he
hurried up the steps of the gymnasium: he was already
ten minutes late, and he had intended to be at least
that much early. He burst through the door into the foyer,
and almost collided with the Monsignor. He felt his
heart pound at the sight of the priest, and hoped his
voice wouldn't give his feelings away. He
wanted to back away, then turn and flee, but he
forced himself to stand his ground and smile a greeting.
"Monsignor," he said. "Nice evening,
isn't it?"
The priest seemed pleased to see him, and Peter
began to relax. Maybe he was going to be able
to pull it oSo after all.
"Sorry about last night," Vernon was saying.
"I'm afraid time just slips away from us sometimes.
I hadn't intended for the service to go nearly that
late."
"Well, it was Friday night," Peter said, forcing
his voice to remain neutral. Tm afraid I
slept in a bit this morning, though." He waited
for the priest to respond, then became aware that the
Monsignor was no longer looking at him, but
seemed to be concentrating on something behind Peter.
Peter turned, and saw Karen Morton and Jim
Mulvey coming in the door. He smiled a greeting
to his students, but they hurried by, studiously
ignoring him. It wasn't until they had disappeared
into the gym that he realized it hadn't been he they were
avoiding; it had been Monsignor. The priest was
glaring after them.
J caret JjLike
"Karen seems like a nice girl," Peter said,
trying to keep his voice easy.
"Do you think so?" the priest said icily.
"Then you aren't as perceptive as I thought you were.
Excuse me, I'd better have a word with Sister
Elizabeth."
Puzzled, Peter made his way to the door of the
gym, and let his eyes wander over the crowd.
Eventually he saw the Monsignor bending down
to whisper into Sister Elizabeth's ear, and pointing
toward a spot where Jim Mulvey and Karen
Morton were dancing. A moment later, Sister
Elizabeth was striding toward the couple, a ruler in
her hand.
He watched curiously, wondering what the ruler was
for. Then, as he looked on, Sister Elizabeth
put the ruler between Karen and Jim. She looked at
them severely when the ruler wouldn't quite fit, and pushed
them slightly apart. When they were a foot apart, and the
ruler could be passed between them without touching either of them,
Sister Elizabeth was satisfied. She glared at
each of them once more, then moved on to another
couple.
Balsam almost laughed at the performance. The fact that
Sister Elizabeth had not been kidding with her
measurements made him stop. He looked around and
saw that all the nuns were carrying rulers, and that they were
all circulating through the room,
meticulously making certain that the boys and girls
were maintaining a foot of open space between them.
All, that is, except Sister Marie, who was standing
at the refreshment table chatting with Penny Anderson and
Jeff Bremmer. Peter Balsam decided to have a
cup of punch.
The nun saw Peter approaching, and had an
impulse to hurry away. But then she changed her
mind, and made herself smile at him.
"Some punch, Peter?"
PUNISH THE SINNERS 257
Balsam's brows rose. "No more Mr.
Balsam?" he said. The look of hurt in her
eyes, and a sudden flicker of what he thought was fear,
made him wish he hadn't said it "I'm sorry,"
he said quickly. "I didn't mean it to sound
sarcastic. I'm just glad to see you smiling at me
again." He decided to change the subject. "Where's
your ruler?" He gestured toward the nuns who were still
steadily circulating through the room, measuring the
gaps between the students.
"Oh, I have one," Sister Marie said, her sense
of mischief getting the best of her. "But I use it
differently." Deftly, she slipped the ruler from the
sleeve of her habit, and stirred the punch
with it. Then she looked at Balsam, and her manner
changed slightly. "Could I talk to you for a
minute?" He followed her to a quiet corner.
"What is it?" he said gently. He thought the
flicker of fear he had seen earlier was back, and
growing.
"It's probably nothing," Sister Marie said
nervously. "But I have to tell you about it. I'm
sorry about the way I acted yesterday, when you asked
me about the handwriting in that note. I told you I'd
forgotten all about it. I lied. I didn't forget;
I remembered. But for some reason, when I
remembered, the strangest fear flowed over me. I
almost felt like-well, never mind," she broke off.
She saw no point in telling Peter Balsam that
she had felt like killing herself. Besides, it had only
been an impulse, and it had passed almost immediately.
But it had frightened her. Frightened her badly.
"You remembered the handwriting?" Balsam said, his
heart suddenly pounding.
"Yes," Sister Marie said, nodding. "But I
don't know what it means. It's very strange."
"What is it?" Balsam said impatiently. He
had to
know.
"It was years ago," Sister Marie said. "I was in
Monsignor Vernon's office, and he suddenly
offered to show me something. A relic. A relic of his
favorite saint, Peter Martyour."
"A relic?" Balsam said curiously. "What
sort of relic?"
"It was a letter. Just a page. But he told me it was
written by St. Peter Martyour. And it was in the
same handwriting as the handwriting on the note you showed
me Wednesday morning."
"What did it say?"
"The letter? I haven't the slightest idea. It was in
a language I couldn't understand. Almost like Latin,
but sort of like Italian, too. I suppose if
I'd had time, I could have figured it out."
"You speak Italian?" Peter couldn't believe his
luck.
"And French, and Spanish. I majored in
languages in college. So of course I joined
the order, and where did they send me? Neilsville,
Washington!"
Balsam hardly heard her. "You really think you could
have understood that language?" he asked eagerly.
The nun looked at him, wondering why he was so
curious about the relic. "I don't see
why not," she said thoughtfully. "My Latin and
Italian are both excellent, and since
Italian grows directly out of Latin, I
shouldn't have any problems with it."
"What if you heard the language?" Peter said.
"Heard it?" Sister Marie laughed. "Well,
that's hardly likely, is it? I mean, who would
speak it anymore?"
"But could you understand it?" Peter said urgently. The
laughter faded from Sister Marie's voice.
"I suppose so," she said carefully. "I can't
say. But I can try. I mean, if you aren't just being
hypothetical."
PUNISH THE SINNERS 259
Tm not," Peter said. "Believe me, I'm not."
For the first time in several days, Peter thought he
had a chance of getting to the bottom of the Society of
Still Peter Martyour.
Jim Mulvey pulled Karen Morton to him, and
squeezed her. A shiver of pleasure ran through her
body, but she tried to pull away from him. "They'll
see us, Jim," she whispered in his ear, gesturing
toward the nuns. Sister Elizabeth, the one Karen
feared most, had her back to the couple for the moment, but
Karen was sure that it wouldn't be more than a
few seconds until the sour-faced sister saw them
pressed together and moved swiftly to break up the
embrace.
"Let them see us," Jim whispered back, his
voice heavy. "They just wish it was them instead of you."
He pulled her to him again, pressing the swelling of his
erection against her. "Put your hand down there," he
whispered.
She wanted to, but she knew she shouldn't. She
resisted the urge to touch him. Instead, she pulled
away
again.
"Not here," she hissed. "Everyone can see." She
glanced around, and sure enough, there was Sister
Elizabeth bearing down on them.
"Twelve inches," Sister Elizabeth said
bitterly. "You know the rule." She brandished the
ruler.
"I know it, but I can't quite manage it," Jim said
innocently. "Will you settle for eight?"
Sister Elizabeth saw Karen blush a deep red,
and wondered if she'd missed something. She glared at
Jim, sure that he had gotten the best of her, but
uncertain how he'd managed it She scurried
away, leaving Jim grinning
triumphantly at Karen.
"That was a terrible thing to say to her," Karen said.
"Was it?" Jim leered. Then he winked at her.
"Hey, I have an idea. You know that little room where
they keep all the gym stuff?"
Karen nodded, remembering the equipment room, no more
than a closet, really. "What about it?"
"Let's go in there," Jim said. "It's dark, and
private. And no sisters with rulers."
Karen considered the idea. It'll only be for a
couple of minutes, she told herself. What can
happen in a couple of minutes?
Jim began dancing her toward the equipment room.
Marilyn Crane felt she was being watched. She
told herself that she was only imagining it, that no one was
paying any attention to her at all. That thought was even
worse. Suddenly her corner became unbearable, and
she looked around for refuge. Jeff Bremmer. Of
all of them, Jeff was usually the kindest to her. She
began working her way across the floor toward the
refreshment table, dodging the dancing couples. She
stepped aside to let Jim and Karen pass; they
ignored her.
She rushed on toward the refreshment table, not speaking
to anyone until she reached Jeff. He
smiled half-heartedly at her.
"Hot in here," she said tentatively, dipping herself
a cup of punch.
"Too many people," Penny Anderson said pointedly,
staring into her eyes. Marilyn decided to ignore the
crack, and turned back to Jeff.
"Can I help you with anything?"
Jeff glanced away from her guiltily, remembering
that he'd been at the party when they'd all made her
look like a fool. He looked to Penny Anderson for
help.
"We can manage fine," Penny said. Then she
relented. "If you want to get some more ice, it's out
in the
PUNISH THE SINNERS 261
foyer." Marilyn's face broke into a smile, and
she started toward the main doors. Behind her, she
heard Penny's
voice.
"She's really pathetic, isn't she?"
The words hit her like a physical blow. Marilyn
hurried toward the door. Only now she knew she
wouldn't be back, with or without the ice. She had
to get out of the gym, get away from everybody, get
to the church.
She had to get to the church. She had to.
The Sorrowful Mother. She had to talk to the
Sorrowful Mother. The Virgin had come to her once;
maybe she would again.
But then, just as she was about to pass through the doors, her
way was blocked. She looked up into the piercing
eyes of Monsignor Vernon. He returned her
gaze, and seemed about to say something when Sister
Elizabeth rushed up. Ignoring Marilyn, the
nun spoke to the priest over her head.
"Monsignor," she said, her voice carrying a
heavy burden of outrage. "It's happened. I
knew it would if we let this kind of thing go on, and
now it has."
"What's happened?" the Monsignor replied, his
brow suddenly furrowed.
"Jim Mulvey and Karen Morton. I just saw
them go into the equipment room together."
Suddenly, as Marilyn looked on, the
Monsignor's face changed from its normally
severe mask into a glowering visage of indignation.
Thrusting Marilyn to one side, he began striding
toward the closed door of the equipment room,
scattering the dancers as he went
Monsignor Vernon grasped the handle
of the door of die equipment room, and yanked the
door open. The small room was close and dark.
The priest groped for the light cord, yanked it,
illuminating two startled figures. There, under the
naked bulb were Jim Mulvey
n! : n r
H
his
and Karen Morton, their arms around each other,
thenbodies pressed close in a passionate kiss.
The priest seized them, one with each hand, and thrust
them out of the tiny room into the crowded gymnasium.
He reached up and found the light cord again. The
door began to swing slowly closed, and as he pulled
the light switch he was suddenly plunged into darkness.
He moved quickly toward the door but his foot caught
on something. He tripped.
Monsignor Vernon fell to his knees, and as
he caught himself he glimpsed the narrow band of light
that came through the slightly open door. Deep
inside him, a memory came to life.
Monsignor Vernon froze, staring through the crack
in the door. High up in the rafters, the gym's
lights glared balefully down on him. He felt
himself growing dizzy. And then he saw the
girl. She moved into his line of sight, and she
seemed to be turning, turning slowly toward him.
She had something in her hand, the girl. Something that
glinted silver in the light. A knife. It looked
like a knife.
Monsignor Vernon lunged to his feet and burst
through the door.
Janet Connally, her silver net scarf held high
as she danced, paused in mid-step as the priest, his
eyes wild, threw the door open.
"Stop it!" he bellowed. Janet froze. The
Monsignor stared around him. They were everywhere, the
girls, all around him, they all looked alike.
They all looked like her, like his sister. "Sinners!"
he cried. "All of you are sinners!"
The students stared now, and began edging toward the
door. Monsignor was angrier than they had ever
seen him before.
"No more!" shouted the priest. "Do you think I
PUNISH THE SINNERS 263
don't know you? Do you think I don't recognize
you? Do you think I will show you mercy? You do not
deserve mercy! Beware for your souls, for you have
sinned. Punishment will fall upon you."
And then, across the room, Monsignor
Vernon saw Peter Balsam staring at him. The
priest raised his hand, and pointed to the teacher.
"Heretic! Punishment will fall upon you," he
bellowed. "Punishment at the hands of the Lord!"
And then, as quickly as it had come, the rage was over, the
memory gone. Nervously, the Monsignor glanced
around. A silence had fallen over the room, and when
he spoke again, this time in a whisper, everybody in the
room heard him.
"The dance is over," he said.
Five minutes later the room was empty, except
for two people. Standing at opposite ends of the gym, as
if waiting for the battle to begin, Monsignor
Vernon and Peter Balsam stared at each other.
And now, thought Peter, it's all going to happen.
He was frightened.
iu If ir s
ad-va-oxnv
The cafeteria buzzed with the noise of high-school
students at lunch, but Marilyn Crane didn't
hear it. She sat alone, surrounded by empty
seats, and concentrated on her sandwich. A few
feet away from her, at the other end of the same table,
Jeff Bremmer also sat alone. Every few
seconds he glanced at Marilyn, and
tried to figure out what he should say to her.
He knew she'd overheard Penny Anderson's
remark on Saturday night. He had intended
to follow her out to apologize for Penny. But then
Monsignor had found Karen and Jim in the
equipment closet, and blown his cool. Jeff
shook his head, remembering the priest's outburst.
He glanced at Marilyn again, and decided to use the
dance as an opening. "Boy, that was really something,
wasn't it?" he said.
Marilyn looked at him, and wondered if he was
talking to her. Then she realized there wasn't
anybody else at the table; he must be talking
to her.
"What was?" she asked warily, searching for a
trap.
"The dance," Jeff said. "I knew Monsignor
was a puritan, but I never expected anything like
that."
"Well, they shouldn't have gone into the equipment
closet," Marilyn said stiffly, allying herself with the
priest.
Ti
J equals J equals JL equals B
n n
H
Jeff tried another tack. "But calling Mr.
Balsam a heretic? What was that all about?"
Marilyn shrugged. She didn't see how she could
defend the priest against Mr. Balsam; he'd been
too nice to her. But she wasn't going to agree with
Jeff, either. "I don't know," she said carefully.
Then she relented. "It was pretty weird,
wasn't it?"
"Weird isn't the word," Jeff said. "It was
really gross. I mean, just because Mr. Balsam
isn't a priest doesn't make him a heretic.
Jesus, who uses words like "heretic"
anymore, anyway? If you ask me, Mr.
Balsam's the best thing to hit this dump in years!"
"He probably won't stay," Marilyn commented.
"Why would he? Would you?" Without waiting for an
answer, Jeff went right on talking. "But I'm
glad he's here now. I like his class; he really
makes me think about things."
"I know," Marilyn said. "But sometimes I'm more
confused after his class than I was before. I mean, I
used to think I understood things pretty well. But
since I've been in his class, I just don't know
anymore. Those rats are weird. It
seems like he can make them do anything."
"It's just conditioning," Jeff said smugly. Then he
frowned. "I wonder if you can condition people the same
way you condition rats?"
Marilyn shrugged. "Why don't you ask Mr.
Balsam?" There was something else on her mind. "That
isn't really why his class makes me nervous,"
she said. "It just seems like the more I find out about
psychology, the worse I feel about myself." Then,
realizing what she'd admitted, Marilyn flushed.
But suddenly Jeff was smiling at her.
"I wouldn't worry about it if I were you," he
grinned. "I mean, you obviously aren't as bad off
as some people
PUNISH THE SINNERS 269
around here." He nodded toward the door. Marilyn
followed his glance. Judy Nelson was coming into the
cafeteria.
The room fell silent. They had all been waiting
for this moment; they had all known that Judy was back
at school today, that she had spent the morning in
Monsignor's office. No one knew what had
gone on in there; but no one imagined it had been
pleasant. Now here she was, sailing into the
cafeteria as if nothing had happened. From
the table next to Marilyn and Jeff, Janet
Connally called out.
"Over here, Judy."
While Marilyn and Jeff looked on, Judy
slid into a chair and was surrounded by her friends. The
questions began.
Judy was enjoying it. They were hanging on her every word,
and every couple of minutes someone she hardly knew
stopped to welcome her back to St. Francis
Xavier's. They all wanted to know what had
happened to her; first in the hospital, then when she
got home, and, most important, what had gone
on this morning in Monsignor's office.
Judy answered the questions calmly, her voice soft
and ethereal. As they listened to her, her friends began
to feel that they were talking to a new Judy Nelson,
a Judy who had passed through the valley of death and
been transformed. It was exactly the impression
Judy intended to give.
As Marilyn watched the scene being played at the
next table, she began to wonder what had happened
to Judy, if the attempt on her own life had
really changed her, or if she was putting on an
act. Chiding herself for the unkind thought, she turned
back to Jeff. He wasn't there.
She glanced quickly back to the table where Judy
*equals -"
was still regaling her friends, and saw that Jeff had joined
Judy's group, and was hanging on her words along with
everyone else. And then, as she watched, Mr.
Balsam came into the cafeteria. She looked up
hopefully; he always stopped to greet her. But today
he walked right past her, intent on something else.
Marilyn watched miserably as even Mr.
Balsam joined the group around Judy Nelson.
A couple of minutes later the teacher rose, and
Marilyn's hopes surged again. Now he would
pause at her table. But he didn't. Before
Marilyn could summon the courage to call out to him,
he was gone. Sadly, she turned her attention
back to Judy Nelson's table.
Karen Morton had grown restive. She was tired
of listening to Judy. Besides, didn't anyone want
to hear what had happened to her at the dance? It
wasn't fair. Ordinarily, the encounter with the
Monsignor would be the major topic for the day, but
Judy had eclipsed her. She stared glumly down
at her hands. Then inspiration struck.
"Trying to kill yourself isn't such a big deal," she
said, breaking into Judy's monologue.
She was pleased when Judy fell silent and stared at
her.
"Have you tried it?" Judy said knowingly. Karen
smiled and held up her hands.
"How do you think I got these?" she said, displaying
her palms. The scabs were nearly healed, but still
clearly visible.
"Those?" Penny Anderson laughed. "I thought you said
you didn't know how you got those!"
"I just didn't want to admit it," Karen said.
She felt herself losing control of the conversation.
Judy Nelson confirmed the feeling. "If they
weren't even bad enough to put you in the hospital, I
don't
PUNISH THE SINNERS 271
think they count," she said acidly. "Besides, why should
you want to kill yourself?"
"I'm not sure," Karen began, but Penny cut her
off.
"I'll give you a reason," she said. "I've
decided I'm going to take Jim Mulvey away
from you."
Karen's mouth dropped open. All of a sudden it had
all gone wrong. All she'd wanted was a little
attention. Now they were all laughing at her,
and Penny was saying she was going to take Jim away.
That wasn't what she'd intended at all. She
glared at Penny.
"You have about as much chance of doing that as Marilyn
Crane!" she snapped. Then she stood up and
walked quickly out of the cafeteria.
The remark hit Marilyn like a slap in the face,
and her hand suddenly let go of the sandwich she was eating.
She stared down into her lap, and her eyes filled with
tears as she surveyed the purple stain that was
spreading from the lump of jelly lying on her pale
yellow skirt. Now she would have to spend the rest of the
day pretending everyone wasn't staring at her dirty
skirt. She stuffed the rest of her lunch back
into its bag and hurried out of the room.
She started for her locker but suddenly changed her
mind. Instead, she made her way to the church, and
slipped into the pew in front of the Blessed Virgin.
She reached into her purse to pull out her rosary
beads. Before she found them her hand closed on something
else.
It was the package of razor blades.
Her fingers closed on them and they felt good to her.
Then, suddenly frightened, she dropped the blades and
found the rosary. She began praying.
When she left the church thirty minutes later,
Marilyn had almost succeeded in forgetting about the stain
on her skirt. She hurried toward her locker and
spun the dial quickly, intent on tossing the remains
of her
P! "J equals JJ
lunch into the metal box, and picking up her books
for the afternoon. She pulled open the locker door.
Marilyn Crane screamed, but the scream was cut
off as she gagged. A wave of nausea broke over
her. Her Bible lay open on the bottom of her
locker; on top of it was a white rat, its fur
stained by the blood and gore that was oozing from it Its
throat had been slit, and it was disemboweled. The
nausea passed, and the team began. Marilyn
Crane sank to the concrete floor, sobbing
hysterically. Moments later Sister Marie appeared
and gathered Marilyn into her arms. Then she led her
slowly away toward the nurse's office.
Peter Balsam sat in his classroom after
school, three books spread out in front of him.
He was reading snatches from one page, then changing
to another book, reading a paragraph here and a
paragraph there, then picking up the third book.
Slowly he was piecing it all together. And in
its own weird way it was starting to make a strange
kind of sense. He heard a noise at the door and
glanced up. Karen Morton was standing uneasily hi
the doorframe.
"Can I come hi?" she asked tentatively.
'Tomorrow kind of busy," Balsam said, hoping she'd
go away. She stood her ground.
"It'll only take a minute." Karen advanced
into the room. Peter Balsam pushed the books to one
side, and glanced at his watch. Maybe he could
hold her to the minute.
"What is it?"
"I'm not sure," Karen said uncertainly. Then,
seeing the impatience on Balsam's face, she
hurried on. "It's Judy, I guess. She
seems-was She hunted for the right word. "comdifferent, I
guess."
Is that all? Balsam thought to himself. "Well, of
PUNISH THE SINNERS 273
course she does," he said easily. "But I
don't think she is, really. Oh, she may think
she is, but don't forget: right now she's the center of
attention around here. It'll all calm down hi a
couple of days, and things will be back to normal."
Karen started to say something, but Peter cut
her off. "Look, I'm kind of busy right now. Can
this wait till tomorrow?" He picked up one of the
books, and had already started to read another
paragraph. He had finally found the saint he was
looking for, and he promptly put Karen Morton
out of his mind.
The girl looked at him for a moment. She needed
to talk, but he didn't want to listen. She felt
her anger growing, and started out of the room. And then, just
as she was at the door, she spun around.
"Maybe I should try to kill myself, like Judy!"
she cried. "Then maybe you'd pay some attention
to me."
The words jarred Peter loose from the book in front
of him, but Karen was already gone. He could hear her
feet pounding the floor as she ran down the halLike
He started to get up to follow her, but another
figure appeared hi the door of Room 16.
Monsignor Vernon.
The two men faced each other coldly.
"You handled that rather badly," the priest cornmented.
"You aren't hi any position to criticize,"
Balsam said icily, remembering the incident
Saturday night
The Monsignor ignored the remark.
"What happened?" he said, and Peter knew the question
was being put as the principal of the school. He
explained briefly.
"I should have given her more time, I suppose," he
finished. "But I'm afraid I was too involved
hi my reading."
contion n jjljl
n
"Oh?" the priest said, advancing toward the desk.
'What is it that's so fascinating?"
Peter quickly gathered the books together and shoved hem
into the bottom drawer of his desk.
"It's not that interesting, really," he said as he
closed he drawer firmly. "Just some old
psychology texts."
The priest seemed to accept his explanation.
"There's going to be a meeting of the Society
tonght," he said. "At the rectory, the usual
time."
"I won't be there," Peter said.
The priest stared at him.
"Yes," he said. "You will be there. We need you."
And then he was gone. Peter stared after him. There lad
been something in the priest's voice, not a note of
conommand, but something else. It was a note of
knowlidge, as if he didn't feel that he needed
to order Peter o attend that night; it was as if the
priest had some sort greater-than from secret knowledge, a
knowledge that told him that omething would compel Peter's
attendance at the Scciety of St. Peter Martyour.
Balsam pulled the books out of his desk drawer,
and eft the school.
Two hours later, when he had finished his reading, it
ill made sense to him. Crazy sense, a sense
he had difficulty accepting, but sense nevertheless.
The Monsignor stz right: he would attend the meeting
of the Society or it. Peter Martyour that evening.
But only long enough to onfront them with what they were
doing, and why.
And then he would leave. If they wanted to go on
tdthout him, let them. Peter didn't think they
would.
If the conclusions he had come to were correct, they
leeded him. But they would never have him.

Karen Morton hurried down the front steps of the
school, her eyes straight ahead, as if by looking
to either side she might tip a delicate balance and
give way to the tears that were welling inside her. She
wouldn't cry. She would go straight home and
spend the rest of the afternoon by herself. If nobody wanted
to talk to her, that was fine with her; she certainly
wouldn't make them.
It was Judy's fault, she told herself. Judy was
supposed to be her friend. Some friend! When Karen had
tried to talk about what she had done to herself, about
gouging her hands, Judy had laughed at her.
Well, maybe not out loud, but inside she had been
laughing. And everybody was paying Judy all kinds
of attention, even Mr. Balsam. Mr. Balsam
should have listened to her. Judy's problems were all over
with. Couldn't he see that? But what about Karen? Who
would talk to her?
Ahead of her, Karen saw Marilyn Crane
hurrying down the hill. For the first time, Karen knew
how Marilyn must feel. She wanted to call out
to her, wanted Marilyn to wait for her. But why should
Marilyn wait? Wasn't Karen part of the group that
had been making Marilyn's life miserable for
years? Maybe she should apologize to Marilyn.
No, that wouldn't work either. There was too much
to apologize for. Besides, she didn't want to talk
to Marilyn. She wanted to talk to a
3 equals 3 equals
man. She wanted to talk to her father. He
would have understood. He would have put his arms around her,
and held her, and told her that it was all going to be
all right. But he was dead, and there wasn't anybody
else . . .
She heard a car pull up beside her, and recognized
the sound of the motor immediately. Jim Mulvey. She
kept walking; kept staring straight ahead.
She heard the sound of his horn, then his voice.
"Karen? Hey, Karen?"
She stopped, and turned slowly. He was grinning and
waving to her.
"Hop in," he called. She shook her head and
started to turn away.
"Hey," Jim said, getting out of the car. "What's
wrong? It's me, Jim." He caught up with her
and took her arm. She wanted to shake his hand off, but
didn't.
When she turned to face him, Jim realized that
something really was wrong with Karen. It looked as though
she was about to start crying. The bantering quality left
us voice, and it softened.
"Get in the car, Karen," he said. "I'll take
you lome." Karen let herself be led to the car, and for the
irst time since she'd known him, Jim Mulvey
opened he door for her. She sat staring
ahead as he circled the conar and slid behind the wheel.
They drove in silence.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Jim finally said.
Caren shook her head. A minute later he slowed
the car ind pulled over to the curb. He turned
to face her.
"I heard about what Penny Anderson said at lunch
oday," he said. "If that's what's got you upset,
forget that."
"That's not it," Karen said dully. "Why don't you
list take me home?"
But there was something in her voice that told Jim
PUNISH THE SINNERS 277
that she didn't really want to be taken home. He
put the car in gear, but instead of driving Karen
home, he headed out of town.
"Where are we going?" Karen asked, not really caring.
"Out by the lake."
"I want to go home."
"No, you don't," Jim said definitely. "You
want to talk, so we're going to go sit by the lake and
talk."
"I hate it out there," Karen complained. "It
smells bad, and there's nothing there but scrub
juniper."
"It's better than nothing," Jim said.
They finished the ten-minute ride in silence. Jim
drove through the picnic area, and parked at the end of the
dirt road that led to a primitive boat ramp.
The lake was deserted. The silence lengthened, and
Jim wondered what he should say. Then he decided
not to say anything. Instead, he put his arm around
Karen, and pulled her toward him.
She tried to resist when he kissed her, but his arms
tightened around her, and his mouth found hers. And then, as
the kiss deepened, Karen felt her body
responding almost in spite of herself. She needed to be
held, she needed to be caressed, she needed to be
loved. Her arms went around him.
"Love me, Jim," she whispered. "Please
love me." She heard him groan as her hand went
to his lap and her fingers touched his erection. She
pressed closer to him and helped him as he began
undressing her.
"Jesus," Jim breathed half an hour later.
"I never had it like that before. Let me know the next
time you need to talk to someone." He leered at her, and
winked, and Karen felt something break inside her.
He used me, she thought. He doesn't love me.
He just wanted to fuck me. Fuck me.
Fuck me.
She repeated the words to herself, over and over again,
trying to make them take on that meaninglessness that comes
when a word is used too often. It didn't work.
She had needed to be loved, and she had only gotten
laid. She tried to convince herself that there wasn't
any difference, but she knew there was. And now all
the things they had been saying about her were true.
"Take me home," she said quietly.
Jim Mulvey started the car, turned it around, and
began driving back to Neilsville.
Twenty minutes later he stopped in front of the
Morton house. He let the engine idle, but
didn't get out of the car.
"Aren't you going to open the door for me?" Karen
asked.
"You can do it yourself," Jim said. He wasn't sure
why, but he was suddenly angry with Karen. All
they'd done was get it on, for Christ's sake. It
should have made her feel better. And she'd sure
acted like she liked it when it was happening. But now,
nothing. Well, if she couldn't talk to him, she could
damned well open the door herself. He glared at
her.
Karen opened the car door, scrambled out, and
slammed it behind her. Then, without looking back, she
hurried toward the house. Not that it would have made any
difference if she had looked back; as soon as the
door had slammed, she'd heard the tires scream
as Jim raced away.
Karen went inside, fixed herself a TV dinner, and
tried to concentrate on the television. It didn't
help. She needed to talk to someone, but there wasn't
anybody to talk to. She glanced at the
clock-her mother wouldn't
PUNISH THE SINNERS 279
be home for a couple of hours yet. But Karen had
to talk to her, had to talk to her now. She picked up
the phone and called her mother at work.
"Hi, Mom," she said, trying to keep her voice
light.
"What is it?" Harriet Morton asked. All
her tables were full; she really didn't have time
to talk. "Are you all right?"
"I'm okay. I was just wondering if you could come
home early tonight."
"If we're going to eat, I have to work," Harriet
snapped. She dropped the phone back on the
hook, picked up the coffee pot, and got back
to work.
Karen stared at the dead phone, and felt like crying
again. Even her mother wouldn't talk to her. She held
back the tears and decided not to think about it She
wouldn't think about anything. She'd just watch
television till her mother came home, then she'd
let it all out. Only a couple more hours. She
glanced at the clock.
Almost ten.
Only one more hour.
And then the phone rang. Karen picked it up
eagerly; maybe her mother had changed her mind and was
corning home.
"Hello?" she said. "Mother?"
But it wasn't Harriet Morton's voice at
all. It was someone else, another voice, a
voice Karen thought she recognized.
"You have sinned," the voice said. "You are evil. You
must repent. Repent!"
And then it was over. The phone went dead in Karen's
hand. She dropped it to the floor this time, not even
bothering to put it back in its cradle.
So it was already out
The talking was already starting.
And her mother still wasn't home.
contion n n n
*ii in
his
She stared at the clock. Only five after ten.
The desolation swept over Karen Morton, but she
still wouldn't let herself cry.
Maybe she should have let herself cry.
Maybe if she had let herself cry, she wouldn't have
done what she did next.
Maybe she wouldn't have gone upstairs to the
bathroom, locked the door, filled the tub with warm
water, and begun cutting herself.
Maybe Karen Morton should have cried instead. But
she didn't
They sat like six birds of prey, the black of their
clerical garb accentuating the paleness of their
faces. They stared balefully at Peter
Balsam, but he maintained his calm, returning them
stare for stare, matching the coldness in their eyes with his
own icy demeanor.
Inside, Peter Balsam was quavering.
He could tell they didn't believe him; he was
sure they thought he had gone crazy.
The silence went on; Peter Balsam was determined
not to be the one to break it. He wondered what was going
through their minds. Had they simply decided
to put what he had told them out of their minds
entirely? Or were they thinking about his words, mulling
them over, examining them?
"Just what is it you think you're going to tell the
Bishop?" Monsignor Vernon finally said.
For the first time, Peter Balsam squirmed. Why had
he told them he was going to go to the Bishop? Why
hadn't he simply told them he was through with the
Society of St. Peter Martyour, and let it go
at that?
But they had insisted on knowing why he was leaving, and he
had told them.
They had listened in silence as he told them about
PUNISH THE SrNNERS 281
the chanting; they knew about that. It came to him then that
the same things happened to all of them that had happened
to him during those weird services: they knew something
was happening, but they didn't know what. He tried
to tell them. He wanted to tell them that they were all
perverts, to detail for them exactly what they were
doing during their rituals. But he found he couldn't.
They were, after all, still priests. Priests, to be
respected. The traditions he had grown up with
took over, and he found himself unable to describe for
them what went on between them. He merely
told them that he had found the whole thing unspeakable.
"But you'll be able to tell it to the Bishop?"
Monsignor had said mildly at the end of
Balsam's recital.
"I won't have to," Peter said quietly. "I have
a recording of everything that went on at the last
meeting."
"A recording?" Father Prine said blankly.
"What do you mean, a recording?"
Peter patiently explained it again.
"I wanted to know what goes on at the services,"
he said. "I couldn't remember myself; all I could
remember was going into some kind of a trance, and it being
much later than I thought it should be when I came out
of it."
"Not unusual during times of devotion," the
Monsignor said.
"It had nothing to do with devotion," Peter replied,
his anger rising. "I don't know what it had to do with,
but I wanted to find out what was going on. So I
brought a recorder to the meeting, and recorded the
whole thing. When I played the tape back, I was
sick. Literally sick. If I played the tape
for you, you'd all be
sick." "You're exaggerating, of course,"
Monsignor Vernon
began, but Peter cut him off.
to n n ni n
n
Tm not exaggerating," he snapped. "The whole thing
was absolutely depraved."
"I think we've heard enough," Monsignor
Vernon said, standing up. "All you can tell us is that
you heard a language that you think-you think, mind you;
you don't know-might be some kind of mixture of
Latin and Italian. And that we were all indulging in
something you call depraved. Something you won't
describe tons."
"I don't see that ifs necessary," Balsam said.
"I'm sure that when the Bishop hears the tape,
hell be convinced."
"Convinced?" It was the Monsignor again. He was
pacing the room now. "Convinced of what?"
"Well, for one thing, I think hell be convinced
to put an end to your Society."
The Monsignor chuckled. "Convinced by the words of a
heretic7" Peter noted that the fanatical light
was beginning to come into Vernon's eyes. He told
himself to be careful.
"Heretic again," he said softly.
"Well, at least I know where that's coming from now."
"You finally figured it out?" The priest's voice was
as soft as Peter's own.
Peter nodded gravely. "That, and a couple of other
things." He stood up. When he spoke again he
tried to keep his voice level. "Monsignor,
I don't intend to spend any more time here discussing
something that I don't think you're mentally competent
to discuss. I know you think Pm a heretic-whatever that
word means to you. But still think the Bishop is much more
likely to come to the conclusion that you're sick. After
all, when he hears your voice claiming to be Still
Peter Martyour, and calling down the wrath of God
on the sinners and heretics, what else can he
conclude?"
PUNISH THE SINNERS 283
If he had expected an outburst of protest,
Peter Balsam was disappointed. A sudden silence
fell over the small study, as the priests
exchanged glances. But the atmosphere in the room
had changed. No longer was it filled with hostility
toward Peter Balsam. Suddenly there was something
else. A sense of anticipation, as if something long
awaited was about to occur.
Monsignor Vernon had stopped his
pacing, and was staring at Balsam. The other five
priests all looked uncertainly toward the
Monsignor.
"Can it be true?" Balsam heard one of them
whisper. But before he could answer the voice of
Monsignor Vernon roared over him.
"What did you say?"
"I asked what else the Bishop can conclude,"
Peter said, trying to ignore the rage in the
priest's voice.
"About St. Peter Martyour," the Monsignor
thundered.
"During the last service you claimed to be St.
Peter Martyour, and exhorted God to hand down
punishment on what you called the sinners and
heretics."
"It's happened," Father Martinelli breathed.
Peter whirled and stared at the old man. An
expression of awe had come over the priest's face,
and he was gazing at the Monsignor with adoration.
"What's happened?" Peter asked in a low
voice, though he was sure he knew the answer.
"He's come to us at last," Father Prine said
softly. "After all this time, St. Peter Martyour
is finally among us."
Peter Balsam sank back into a chair. It
couldn't be happening. And yet it was. They had
heard him, but what he had told them hadn't shaken
their faith in their young leader. Instead it had deepened
it. Peter Balsam remembered the words of the
Bishop. "They want to Believe. They need to lean
on each other for support."
9 equals J equals friend
Now, when they should finally have realized that the person they
were all leaning on was unbalanced, they only drew
closer.
Balsam's eyes moved to the Monsignor. An
expression of rapture had come over him, and he was
staring upward, his hands clasped in prayer, his lips
moving silently. Suddenly he looked at
Balsam, and the teacher saw the fierce light in the
priest's eyes.
"And still you don't believe?" he said softly.
"No," Peter said. "I don't believe any of
it"
"But you must believe," Monsignor Vernon said.
"I tried to tell you so long ago, when we were in
school together. But the time wasn't right. But you must have
known. It's in the names."
"The names," Peter said tiredly. "You
always come back to the names, don't you?" He peered
quizzically at the Monsignor; he wasn't
sure the priest was listening. But the others were.
Balsam looked from one old face to another, and
saw the same puzzlement in each of them.
"Hasn't he told you?" he asked them. They stared
at him, waiting for him to continue. When he did,
Balsam chose his words carefully.
"St. Peter Martyour was a man by the name of Piero
da Verona. Peter Vernon, if you want
to believe it And he was killed by another man, a
man named Piero da Balsama. Get it?"
"Peter Balsam," Father Martinelli whispered.
"It's happening all over again! You are Still
Acerinus."
"No!" Peter snapped. "I'm not St.
Acerinus, I'm not Piero da Balsama. Any
more than Monsignor Vernon is Still Peter
Martyour. It's coincidence. Nothing more!"
And then it happened. Monsignor Vernon's
voice was quiet, but it carried throughout the small
room.
"I am St. Peter Martyour," he said.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 285
It's a nightmare, Peter Balsam thought
to himself. It isn't happening. None of it can be
happening.
But it was. Around him, the five priests knelt,
staring up at Monsignor Vernon. For them, in that
moment, Monsignor Peter Vernon became St.
Peter Martyour. Peter Balsam stood up, and his
eyes met the Monsignor's over the heads of the
kneeling clerics.
"I won't do it," he said softly. "I won't
carry it any farther. I won't be your heretic, and
I won't kill you. If you really need a St.
Acerinus, you'll have to find him somewhere else."
But the priest didn't seem to hear him. He stood
quietly. His face was calm but the fanatic light
gleamed in his eyes.
Peter Balsam walked from the study, and from the
rectory. It would have to end now, he told himself.
They needed him to sustain the fantasy. But he had
withdrawn, and now it would have to end. And then, as he
started down the hill, he heard it.
The chanting had begun again.
It had not ended.
Somewhere in Neilsville, a clock was striking the
hour. It was ten, and the Society of St. Peter
Martyour was holding a service, and Karen
Morton was preparing to die.
Karen lay in the tub of warm water, and wondered why
it didn't hurt. Judy Nelson was right; there was
no pain at all. Only a kind of numbness.
Karen watched the blood flow from her wrists, watched
it form strange patterns in the water, then move
swiftly around her to turn the entire tub a bright
pink.
As the pink slowly deepened into red, Karen wondered
if she was doing the right thing. But it was too
L-r
m
late. Too many things had gone wrong, and there was no
one to talk to. If only there had been someone
to talk to, someone to listen to her. But there hadn't
been, and as the redness in the tub grew steadily
deeper, Karen realized she didn't really care.
Not any more.
She began to pray, but she kept her eyes open.
She wanted to see the color of her death, as if
perhaps by watching her life stain the water she could
figure out why it had all gone wrong.
She never saw the color of death. Long after her
eyes drifted closed, the water continued to darken.
When she died, it wasn't from the bleeding.
It was from drowning.
At quarter of eleven, Karen's head disappeared beneath
the surface of the crimson water.
At eleven-fifteen Harriet Morton unlocked
the front door. "Karen?" she called. When there was
no answer, she called a little louder: "Karen!?"
Still no answer. Yet the house did not seem
empty: she was sure Karen had not gone out.
Harriet went upstairs, but didn't call out
to Karen again. When she saw the bathroom door, she
felt a sudden surge of relief. Karen was in the
tub. Of course. That was why she hadn't heard
Harriet's first call.
Harriet tapped at the door. "Karen?" she
called. "Are you in there?"
There was no response, so Harriet tried the
door. It was locked. And then the fear hit her.
She pounded on the door, and called out her
daughter's name. The silence buffeted against her.
Harriet picked up the telephone in the upstairs
hall. The police. She would call the police.
But something was wrong with the telephone. There was no
dial tone. Only a strange buzzing sound.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 287
Harriet Morton began to scream. She
hurled herself against the bathroom door, and it burst
inward. The sight of the bathtub, filled with red
liquid, choked off her screaming.
At the end of the tub, barely breaking the surface,
a foot was visible. The toenails were painted
green. Harriet knew that only her daughter had
ever painted her toenails green.
The neighbors called the police as soon as
Harriet Morton began crying out into the night; the
police called an ambulance. A moment later the
night was shattered by the screaming of sirens.
By midnight a doctor had sedated Harriet
Morton, and Karen had been taken away. But still the
crowd lingered in front of the Morton house, talking
quietly among themselves, trying to tell each other
what had happened, trying to find a reason for the
tragedy that had struck their town. Jim Mulvey was
there. He wondered if it had been his fault.
I i B H
Peter Balsam sat waiting outside
Monsignor Vernon's office the next morning.
He was waiting to resign.
There didn't seem to be anything else to do; he had
discussed it with Margo late into the night before, then again
this morning. They had gone over it all,
piece by piece, trying to make some sense out of it.
First Judy Nelson. Then the Society of St.
Peter Martyour. Now Karen Morton. And Karen
was dead.
There had to be a connection. Somehow all the
strangeness in Neilsville was coalescing; Judy
and Karen were its victims. And Peter was sure that the
Society of St. Peter Martyour was involved.
But so was Peter Balsam. Margo had tried
to talk him out of it, but all night long his certainty
had grown. He had been Judy Nelson's
teacher, and she had tried to kill herself. He had
joined the Society of St. Peter Martyour, and
Karen Morton had killed herself. Another of his
students. It was as if whatever force was loose in
Neilsville had been intensified first by the arrival
of Peter Balsam, and then by his involvement in the
Society. And so he would leave. He had already
left the Society (for all the good it had done) and
now he would leave St. Francis Xavier's and
Neilsville.
And he would talk to the Bishop.
But first he would resign, and then he would go to
Sister Marie for an exact translation of what was
on the tape. He heard the heavy tread
of the Monsignor, and stood up.
Monsignor Vernon stepped into the reception room
and nodded curtly to Balsam. "I expected you
to be here this morning," he said. "How long will it
take?"
"What?" Balsam said, his guard dropping a little.
"Why, whatever it is you want to talk about this
morning. It's Karen Morton, I assume."
"Her, among other things," Balsam said carefully.
He felt suddenly off balance, as if he had had
an advantage, and lost it.
They moved into the Monsignor's office, and the
priest took his seat behind the desk, motioning to Peter
to take the visitor's chair.
"No, thanks," Peter said. "This won't take
long, and I'd rather stand." He cast around in his mind
for the right words, and decided there were none. "I'm
leaving," he said.
The priest's brows rose a fraction of an inch, but
he said nothing. He simply sat in his chair, staring
at the teacher, waiting for him to continue.
"I suppose you want to know why," Balsam said
when the silence became unbearable.
"I think I have the right to know, yes," Monsignor
Vernon said calmly. "I imagine it
has something to do with Karen Morton."
"Among other things."
"Tell me about them."
Peter Balsam, without thinking about it, sank into the
chair opposite the priest. "It isn't only
Karen, although what happened to her was the final straw.
I feel responsible for her death."
"You're not," the priest said, almost too
definitely.
"Well, it's neither here nor there now, is it? But
I do
PUNISH THE SINNERS 291
feel responsible She wanted to talk to me
yesterday, and I brushed her off. I shouldn't have done
that I should have known how important it was to her. I'm
a psychologist, after all. But I didn't see.
And I'm obviously not much of a teacher, either, am
I? I mean, just look what's happening to my
students." The feeble attempt at black humor
failed even for himself.
"I've told you before, and I'm telling you again," the
priest snapped impatiently, "you aren't
responsible for Judy and Karen. You aren't a
priest."
"But it isn't just them," Peter said
softly. "There's more."
The priest's head came up and his eyes bored
into Peter's. Peter hesitated, but forced himself
to say what he'd come to say.
"I'm going to talk to the Bishop about you," he said,
unable to meet the Monsignor's eyes. "I'm
going to see him as soon as I'm released from my
position here, to tell him about the Society of St.
Peter Martyour. What you and those priests are doing
is grounds for excommunication."
"Indeed?" the priest said incredulously. "Our
prayers may be fervent, but they are still only
prayers."
Something snapped inside Peter; he leaped to his
feet and stood towering over the priest.
"Prayers!" he thundered. "You call that prayer? You
have no idea what you're talking about. Fornication!
That's what you're up to! You and all of them."
"How dare you!" the Monsignor roared. He was on
his feet, his rage almost a palpable force in the
room. "Have you any idea what you're saying?" If
it was meant to intimidate Balsam, it failed. The
teacher stood his ground, and glared right back at the
priest.
"Cocksucker," he snarled. The priest
recoiled.
"What did you say?" There was a look of horror
on his face.
"The truth," Balsam said softly. "I called you
a cocksucker and it's the truth. That's what you do,
all of you. You get yourselves stoned some way, and you
start in. And the saddest part of it is that you don't
even know it"
The priest sagged into his chair and stared at Peter.
"So that's what you meant last night?" he asked
softly. "When you said we were depraved?" Peter
nodded, and the priest shook his head gently. "Then
it's even worse than I thought. I thought you were
telling us we were perverted in a religious sense.
But it's worse than that, isn't it? It isn't enough
for you, is it? Now you have to accuse us of-of-was He
broke off, unable to say the words. He stared
balefully at Balsam. "Piero da
Balsama," he said softly, "you killed me
once, and now you try to disgrace me. But you will not do
it. This time I shall triumph."
Now it was Balsam's turn to sag into a chair.
The man was insane. There wasn't any other word for
it. But how should he deal with it? He tried
to remember the books. The books had had
the answers, but what were they? Buy into the insanity.
That was it.
He remembered the technique. It was sometimes used
in dealing with paranoia; Balsam was sure the priest
was paranoid.
"What makes you think so?" he said now. "If I
beat you last time, what makes you think I won't
beat you again? Why should this time be any different?"
The priest's eyes flashed around the room as if he
were looking for a hidden weapon.
"I know," he said softly. "I just know."
"Did God tell you?" Balsam sneered the word
"God," trying to make it sound tainted.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 293
"You don't believe me, do you?" Monsignor
Vernon said. "But why should you? I'd almost forgotten-
you're a heretic, aren't you?"
"If you say so," Balsam said evenly.
The priest continued to glare at him, but then something
happened. It was as if a switch had been thrown,
and the light suddenly faded from the Monsignor's
eyes. He shook himself slightly, as if waking up
from a sleep.
"What were we talking about?" he said, totally
puzzled. Balsam thought fast; the
paranoid state could have passed, or this could be
simply another manifestation of it. He'd have to be
careful.
"My resignation," he said. The priest still appeared
to be puzzled, but then his face cleared.
"Ah," he said, clearing his throat. "Of course."
He smiled genially, and leaned toward Peter.
"Well, of course I can't stop you, but I'm
afraid I'm going to have to ask you to wait a while.
Oh, not long," he said quickly as Peter started
to protest. "Just a few weeks. You see, I
spoke to the Bishop this morning."
"The Bishop?" Peter said blankly.
The priest nodded. "He called me early, about
Karen Morton. He's very concerned about the situation
here, as am I. He seems to think there's something
going on here, that whatever happened, first to Judy
Nelson, and then, last night, to Karen Morton,
are somehow connected." The priest's tone suggested that
he didn't agree with the Bishop's assessment.
"At any rate, he thinks it would be a good idea
if we made the fullest possible use of your
background in psychology. For some reason, he
seems to think that of everyone here, you're the best
qualified to deal with whatever's happening.
Not, of course," he added, almost as an afterthought, "that
anything is happening here. However, under the circum-
g a ai contion
*i. in
*
stances, we're going to have to ask you to stay a while
longer."
Balsam thought it over. The Bishop, of course, was
right. His resolution began to waver.
"And there's something else," the priest said somberly.
"Were you aware that Karen Morton left a
note?"
"A note?" No, Peter certainly wasn't
aware of it.
"Yes," the priest lied. "A very disturbing note.
She said something about us-you and me-to the effect that she
thought, and I think I can quote it, 'something is going
on between them." Nonsense, of course, but if you
left right now-well, I'm sure you can see my
point. There would be talk, wouldn't there?"
Peter Balsam felt defeat wash over him.
Yes, he agreed to himself, it certainly would cause
talk. Particularly since it was true. But that
"something" had gone on only in the meeting of the
Society of St. Peter Martyour. How
could Karen have known about that? Or did she? Maybe
she had simply hit a nerve by accident. Not that it
mattered. Either way, he was caught. Karen
Morton was dead, and Peter Balsam was trapped.
He looked up at his superior, and knew he was
expected to say something.
"All right," he agreed. Til stay. But I'm still
going to talk to the Bishop about the Society."
"I assumed you were," the Monsignor said
coldly. "You'll be wasting your time." He stood
up. "Is there anything else?"
"No," Peter said, his voice as cold as the
priest's. And then something occurred to him. "Yes,
there is," he added, eyeing Vernon carefully. "I
was wondering where I might find Sister Marie.
There's something I need to talk to her about."
An odd look passed over the priest's face, and
Peter
PUNISH THE SINNERS 295
felt a surge of triumph. He had shaken the
man. But then the Monsignor's face cleared.
"I'm afraid she's not here," he said smoothly.
"She'll be away for a while."
"Away?" Peter asked warily. "What do you
mean, "away"?"
"Periodically, Sister Marie goes into retreat."
He smiled thinly. "I'm afraid her vocation
isn't always as strong as it might be, and we've
found, both of us, that it helps her to get away from
here now and then. She'll be back."
"But she didn't tell me she was going away,"
Peter protested, his hopes suddenly fading.
"Of course she didn't," the priest said easily.
"Why would she?"
The interview was over.
"You should celebrate the Mass yourself," Father
Martinelli said. He was sitting in the study of the
rectory with Monsignor Vernon, though only he
was sitting. The Monsignor was pacing.
"It's a sacrilege," he muttered.
"I don't see how," Father Martinelli said
emphatically. "Whatever people may think privately,
we know tonight's Mass is not for Karen Morton."
"That isn't the point," Monsignor Vernon
replied. "Of course we know the Mass isn't for
Karen Morton. How could it be?-she wasn't in a
state of grace when she died. The point is that the people
intend to make it a Mass for Karen. And the only
way we can prevent that is to cancel the Mass
entirely."
"And what will that accomplish?" the old man asked,
tiredly. "We'll only face the same thing at the
next Mass. There is no way we can stop our
parishioners
from praying for Karen Morton, and I'm not even
sure we should try."
"But it's wrong," Monsignor Vernon insisted.
"There's no other way of looking at it. When that
girl killed herself she committed a sin beyond
redemption. She has no rights within the Church
whatsoever."
Father MartineUi sighed, and his ancient mind tried
to sort out the problem. Technically, the Monsignor
was right, and yet there was more to the problem. In the church,
the parishioners were gathering, expecting to hear Mass,
needing to hear Mass. Shouldn't their needs be met?
He peered out the window of the rectory, and saw the people
still streaming up the hill.
It had begun an hour ago. Ordinarily the
turnout for a mid-week Mass was next to zero,
even in a parish as devout as St. Francis
Xavier. But today was different, and there could be only
one reason. The people were coming because of Karen Morton.
It had been this way all day. As the word of the
girl's suicide spread through
Neilsville, the people had begun drifting in and out of the
church, praying briefly, and leaving only after
silently lighting a candle.
And then, half an hour ago, they had begun arriving
for the evening Mass. They kept arriving, until the
church was as full as it ever was on Easter Sunday.
Two things can fill the church, Father MartineUi
reflected- the hope of eternal life, and the fear of
unexpected, and inexplicable, death. He had
watched them stream into the church, and been pleased; Father
MartineUi didn't reaUy care about why people came
to church. He only cared that they came. But with
Monsignor Vernon it was different.
For the Monsignor, it wasn't enough that they were there; they
had to be there for the right reasons. And to pray for Karen
Morton wasn't, in Monsignor Vernon's
PUNISH THE SINNERS 297
strict rehgion, a suitable reason. And so they were
discussing the possibiUty of canceling the Mass
entirely.
"Ill have no part of it," the Monsignor said in a
tone that told Father MartineUi the discussion was over.
But then he relented. "If you want to conduct it
yourself, I won't stop you. However, the consequences
are your responsibility." Abruptly,
the Monsignor left the room.
As he made his way to the church and began the vesting
processes, Father MartineUi wondered what
consequences the Monsignor could be talking about
Peter Balsam dipped his fingers in the font,
made the sign of the cross, and slipped into one of the
back pews. In front of him, he saw Leona
Anderson turn and glare. He pretended not
to notice, and picked up his prayer book.
He glanced around the church, recognising some of the people,
just as the organ music surged out of the loft, and the
service began.
The first disturbance came when the congregation "aw that
Monsignor Vernon was not conducting the Mass.
They buzzed and whispered among themselves as the stooped
figure of Father MartineUi moved unsurely up
the aisle. Peter quickly searched for the face of the
Monsignor, and was not surprised when he didn't
find it.
The Mass began, but it was soon apparent that something
was happening. Tonight, the responses, which normally
brought only a few garbled murmurs from the
congregation, came fuUs-throated from the entire body
of the church. Father MartineUi appeared to be unaware
of anything unusual, and his quavering voice
droned steadily on with the Mass. But Peter tried
to locate a focal point for the phenomenon. He
found it almost immediately.
m
Tonight, all of Karen Morton's friends, instead of
sitting with their families, were knotted together near the
center of the church. All of them-Judy Nelson,
Janet Connally, Penny Anderson, and several
others. Apart from them, sitting by herself, was Marilyn
Crane.
Marilyn had come alone to the evening service, as she
always did, and had taken her usual place near the
statue of the Blessed Virgin. She had been
engrossed in her prayers, begging the Sorrowful Mother
to forgive her for the cruel thoughts she had had about Karen
Morton in the past, and asking the Queen of
Angels to intercede on behalf of Karen, when she
had become aware that the church was filling up around
her. Yet no one sat next to her. Suddenly she
felt conspicuous, and found it difficult
to concentrate on her devotions.
Then it began.
It was soft at first, a barely discernible murmur
against the full tones of the organ, but then it began
to grow, and, as the last chords of the organ
died away, the church was filled with a different kind of
music, the music of the human voice.
It was the girls.
They were clustered together, and clasping each other's
hands, though otherwise it didn't seem that they were
aware of each other's presence. Except for Judy
Nelson, all of them were wailing, tears streaming
down their faces, their heads tilted upward toward the
church ceiling, as if they were searching for something in the
heights.
Father Martinelli tried to ignore them and raised his
voice to continue the mass over the growing wail.
But the sound continued to grow, and suddenly the girls were
on their feet, swaying together, and crying out
PUNISH THE SINNERS 299
in a voice that seemed filled as much with exaltation as
grief.
Father Martinelli faltered in the service, then
stopped altogether. He glanced around for help, but there was
none. Instead, he saw only troubled faces
looking to him for leadership. Immediately he went into the
benediction, and the organist picked up his cue.
As the girls' keening rose, filling the church, the
organ blared out, mixing with the high-pitched lamentations
and creating a chaos of sound that made the
final words of the benediction inaudible.
It didn't matter. Already the congregation was beginning
to move nervously toward the doors, embarrassed
to be in the presence of such clearly expressed
grief, unnerved by the adolescents' display of
emotion.
To Peter Balsam, it was obvious that the girls were
caught up in a hysterical response to their friend's
death. He rose and moved toward them.
But, as quickly as it had begun, it was over. It was as
if the girls had come out of a trance, and the moment they
became aware of each other again, they looked at each
other, giggled nervously, and hurried out of the church.
Behind them, more slowly, Judy Nelson walked up
the center aisle. As she passed the spot where
Peter Balsam stood, she suddenly turned to him,
and smiled. He supposed it was intended as a friendly
smile, but it made him cold. He felt a shiver
in his back, and quickly looked away. By the time he
got hold of himself, and turned back to face her,
she was gone.
Only one figure remained in the church. Marilyn
Crane sat huddled in her pew, and seemed
unaware of what had been going on.
As, indeed, she was. She had been
concentrating on the Sorrowful Mother, and when the
strange wailing
had begun she was sure it was inside her own head.
There was no other explanation for it; such sounds as these
were never heard in any church Marilyn Crane had
ever attended. And then, when they ended, she realized
she was alone in the church. She decided that the Blessed
Vrigin wanted something from her, and was sending her a
sign. She approached the statue, and lit a
candle.
She waited for the message.
For a long time nothing happened. Then the urge swept
through her. She wanted to put her hand in the flame.
She fought the urge, but it grew inside her: this was the
message from the Sorrowful Mother; this was the
Marilyn Crane reached out and put the palm of her
hand over the flame of the votive light. She lowered
her hand until she could see the flame touching her
skin. There was no pain. The Virgin was protecting
her from pain. It was just as Judy Nelson had told
her. It was beautiful.
Marilyn held her hand steady, and didn't remove
it from the fire until she smelled the
sickly-sweet odor of charring flesh. When she
did pull her hand from the flame, she stood
still for a few moments, staring awestruck at the wound.
Yes, she told herself, Judy was right. There is no
such thing as pain.
As she pondered the new truth, Marilyn Crane
crossed herself, thanked the Blessed Virgin for the
message, and slowly walked from the church.
Peter Balsam had almost reached the sanctuary
doors when something caught his eye, and he paused.
Then he realized he was staring at one of the saints.
St. Acerinus.
St. Acerinus, the canonized Piero da
Balsama.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 301
The saint seemed to be staring down at him accusingly,
as if Peter had started something, but not finished it.
Peter Balsam told himself that he was being
ridiculous, that he was imagining things. He tore
himself away from the saint's sightless gaze, and started
from the church. But he had a feeling of being watched.
When he turned around, Monsignor Vernon was
standing in the chancel, observing him, a look of strange
serenity on his face.
JLJ'-ILike
ft
Earlier they had all gone to church; now they
were gathered on Main Street, the parents at the
drugstore, their children across the street There was something
new in Neilsville-a discotheque-and the St.
Francis Xavier crowd had flocked there tonight.
Leona Anderson stabbed fretfully at her banana
split, part of her attention focused on the meager
size of the dessert (which she was sure had shrunk by at
least fifty percent since she had been a
teen-ager), the rest of it silently protesting the
noise from across the street.
The Praying Mantis-she wondered how they came
up with such a silly name-had opened only a month
ago, and Leona's worst fears had been immediately
justified. A few of the Neilsville High
students had drifted in, but it quickly became
obvious that the disco was going to be the headquarters for the
youngsters from St. Francis Xavier's. Leona had
visions of drug traffic-or worse. She was sure
the opening of the Praying Mantis spelled the end of
decent living in Neilsville.
"Isn't there a law against making that much noise?"
Inez Nelson complained from the opposite side of the
booth. Leona shook her head grimly.
"I checked, of course," she said. "It's zoned for
cornmercial use. They can do whatever they
want." Her tone implied that she was sure they were
doing exactly
that, and that "whatever they want" went far beyond blasting a
jukebox at top volume. Tm not sure we should
allow the girls to go there," Leona continued. She
glared out the window at the offending building, as if
by simply staring at it she could make it disappear.
"Oh, I don't know," Inez Nelson said
tentatively. "Things just aren't the same as they were
when we were teen-agers. I suppose you have to bend with the
wind. Times change."
"Do they?" Leona asked crossly. "Then why are
we sitting here in the same drugstore we sat in
twenty years ago? It's more than that, Inez.
Sometimes I feel as if we've lost control of
things."
Inez stirred her coffee silently, wishing she could
deny the truth of what Leona had said. If she had
ever been in control, that time was certainly over by now.
Ever since Judy had come home from the hospital,
Inez had felt like she was walking on eggs. Being
manipulated. She knew it was wrong, knew she
should be more forceful with her daughter, but she couldn't.
She just couldn't. She was too frightened of what might
happen. Particularly after last night.
Inez knew she'd never forget the look on
Harriet Morton's face as they led her out of the
house to take her to the hospital.
Leona's right, she thought. We have lost control.
She followed Leona's gaze and she, too, began
conjuring up images of the bizarre things that must be going
on inside the Praying Mantis. A few minutes
later the noise became too much for them, and the women
fled.
The truth was that not much at all was going on in the
discotheque. The jukebox was blaring, but from inside the
large room, the music seemed somewhat hollow and
desperate.
A few of the teen-agers were dancing, but it was a des-
PUNISH THE SINNERS 305
ultory kind of dancing. For the most part, they were
clustered around tables, sitting, the music vibrating
against them, trying to forget that Karen Morton was no
longer with them.
Except for Janet Connally, whose mother had insisted that
she go home right after the services ended, the group of
girls who had created the disturbance at the church were
there. But they were no longer all together. Judy
Nelson was sitting alone, taking in her surroundings
unhappily.
It was sleazy, hastily thrown together, without the money
to do it right. Rock posters covered the walls; a
sensuously sweating Mick Jagger, apparently in a
state of sustained orgasm, presided over a
gallery of his second- and third-rate
imitators.
A makeshift light panel had been tied into the
jukebox, but instead of creating the psychedelic
visual symphony that had been intended, the crude
box could produce no more than an occasional flash
of red or green. Because of the poor quality of the light
show, another lighting system had been installed,
consisting of several strings of outdoor Christmas
lights that glowed eerily in the dimness. In the center
of the room, slowly revolving, hung the immense
papier-mache1 insect for which the place was named.
Had Leona Anderson seen the inside of the Praying
Mantis, much of her worry would have been displaced
by disgust, and she would have wondered why the kids wanted
to be there in the first place. But it was, for the students
of St. Francis Xavier's, the only game in
town.
And so they were gathered, trying in their own way
to pretend that everything was all right. It might have worked
if Jim Mulvey had not been sitting
alone at a table, a constant reminder of Karen
Morton's absence.
Penny Anderson broke away from the group she had
P*
to His
been standing with, and glanced around. She saw Judy
Nelson sitting alone, and started across the room
to join her. Before she had taken three steps, she
realized that Jim Mulvey was also sitting by himself.
On an impulse, Penny changed her course and
approached Jim's table.
"Hi," she said. He looked up disinterestedly.
"Okay if I sit down?" Without waiting for an
answer, she slipped into the chair next to Jim.
He glanced at her once more, not smiling, then
turned his attention back to his Coke.
"I wanted to talk to you," Penny said softly.
"About Karen." She waited for a reaction, and when there
was none, she continued talking. "We're all going
to miss her, you know. I mean, Judy and Janet and
me. We've always been sort of a foursome, ever
since we were little. Of course, in the last year or
so-was Penny suddenly broke off. It had been in the
last year or so that Karen had started dating Jim
Mulvey.
Now Jim looked at her curiously. "What were you
going to say?" he said bitterly. "Were you going
to say that in the last year or so-ever since she started
going with me-Karen changed?" Jim stared accusingly
at Penny.
"n-no-was Penny stammered. "I wasn't going
to say that at all."
"Yes, you were," Jim said flatly, leaving no
room for argument. "Don't you think I know what's
been going on? Don't you tHnic I've heard the
talk? Hell, I started some of it." He stared
sourly into his Coke, and when he spoke again,
Penny wasn't sure he was talking to her. "It's
my fault," he said so quietly Penny could
hardly hear him. "I never treated her the way she
wanted to be treated. I never talked to her. I should
have talked to her. If I had, none of this would ever have
happened."
Penny reached out and touched his hand. He seemed
PUNISH THE SrNNERS 307
so unhappy, so unsure of himself. Not at all like the
Jim Mulvey she had grown up with. The
cockiness, the selfconfidence, had vanished.
"It isn't your fault," she said. Then, as if
trying to convince herself, she added, "It
isn't anyone's fault."
Jim's head snapped up, and he realized he'd
been talking out loud. "Shut up," he said
savagely. "Just shut up about her, all right?"
Penny felt herself blushing. She wanted to leave the
table. But something held her, something told her to stay
with Jim. She held his hand a little tighter.
"I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am," she
said desperately. "I know you were crazy about her, and
I know you'll miss her, too."
Now Jim looked at her, and saw the hurt in her
eyes. 'Tomorrow sorry," he said. "I just don't
want to talk about her. Not now. It's too soon.
Maybe not ever." He looked into Penny's eyes,
and thought he saw an invitation. 'Tve got to forget
her."
"Then let's talk about something else," Penny
offered.
"What else is there to talk about?" Jim shrugged.
"Look around. It's like a morgue in here. All
anybody's thinking about is Karen."
'Tomorrow not."
He looked at her questioningly. "What are you thinking
about?"
"You," Penny said. "How you aren't at
all like I always thought you were. You're really very
nice."
She felt Jim's hand respond under her own. The
pressure sent a thrill through her, and she returned
the squeeze.
"I like you, too," Jim said. He looked at her
speculatively. Was she telling him what he thought
she was telling him? "Why don't we get out of
here?"
I
conp n
Penny started to refuse, but then she looked around the
room. Judy Nelson was watching her, as were
several of her other friends. What would they think,
Penny wondered. What would they think if they saw
me leave with Jim Mulvey? Particularly after
what I said at lunch-my God, was it really only
yesterday? They'd all heard her. They'd all
heard her say she was going to take Jim away from
Karen. Well, Karen was gone now, but why wait?
If she left with him, wouldn't they think that Jim had
been planning to break up with Karen anyway? Karen
wouldn't care. She was dead.
"Where would we go?" Penny asked, stalling for time.
Jim shrugged. "I dunno. Not the
drugstore. That place is really gross." Then
he had an idea. "How about Bill Enders"
cabin? I haven't seen Bill in awhile."
Penny thought it over. She barely knew Bill
Enders. Bill was another of her mother's favorite
gripes. The young man had built a cabin for himself
about a year ago, and because he had long hair and lived
alone, Leona Anderson had immediately labeled him a
hippie and begun agitating against him all over
Neilsville. It turned out Enders had paid cash
for the land he'd built his house on, and kept a
steady, if modest, balance in the bank. But he
kept pretty much to himself, and as far as Penny
knew, Jim Mulvey was the only person in town
who knew him well enough to drop in on him. The
prospect excited her.
"Isn't it a little late?" She half-hoped Jim
would agree.
"Not for Bill. He's always up." Jim smiled
at her reassuringly, wondering what her reaction
would be when she found out Bill Enders wasn't at the
cabin at all.
Penny made up her mind, and stood up. "Well,
what
PUNISH THE SDWERS 309
are we waiting for?" As they left, Penny saw
Judy Nelson beckoning to her.
"You're not leaving with Jim Mulvey, are you?" she
whispered.
Penny, feeling terribly adventurous, did her
best to look sophisticated. "We're just running out
to say hello to Bill Enders," she said, loudly enough
to be heard at all the tables in the area. Then, as
Judy Nelson's eyes narrowed suspiciously,
Penny took Jim Mulvey's arm and walked out
of the Praying Mantis.
As they drove out of town a few minutes later,
Penny thought she heard it-faintly in the distance, a
sound that was becoming familiar to her. She put it out of
her mind and turned her attention back to Jim.
But Penny was right; she had heard it. Somewhere in the
night, an ambulance was wailing through town. The
music stopped in the Praying Mantis, and everyone
began looking around, trying to assess who was there, and
who was not. When they realized what they were doing they
became self-conscious, and a nervous buzz of
conversation grew in the room as the siren slowly
faded.
Penny looked apprehensively at the darkened
cabin, tucked away in a tiny stand of
cottonwood trees.
"He must have gone to bed," she said, feeling slightly
relieved. All the way out from town, she had been
wondering if this was a mistake. Now she relaxed.
They would turn around and drive back
to Neilsville. But Jim switched off the engine.
"Nah," he said. "Too early. He must have gone
out for a while. Come on, I know where the key is.
We can go in and wait for him to come back."
Penny wanted to ask him to take her home, but then
she told herself that that was silly. She'd come this far,
ILJUL n
and she wasn't going to chicken out now. Besides, everyone
at the disco knew where she'd gone, and who she'd gone
with, and if she made Jim take her home, he'd
be sure to spread it around. Penny could hear Judy
Nelson's caustic remarks about people who talk big
and don't follow through.
She got out of the car.
She looked around the cabin curiously, surprised
at how neat and cozy it was. It was entirely
made of wood, and Bill Enders had obviously
known what he was doing. Even the furniture seemed
to have been made by hand.
"It's nice," she said. "I always thought it
was just a shack."
"That's what your mother wanted everyone to think," Jim
commented. "Lemme see if Bill has any beer
around." He went to the refrigerator, sure that it
would be well stocked. It was. He took out two
Olys, and handed one to Penny.
Tve never drunk beer before," she said
hesitantly.
"No time like the present," Jim said. "I'll
build a fire."
Penny hadn't realized how cold the night had
gotten. She shivered. A fire would be nice.
Ten minutes later, she and Jim Mulvey were
sitting cross-legged on the floor, the flames
dancing on the hearth. But the beer was bitter.
"I don't like it," Penny said, setting the bottle
down.
Jim grinned at her. "Til fix you something
else."
He went to the kitchen and surveyed the liquor
stock. He settled on sloe gin, mixed with ginger
ale. He took the drink back to the living room and
handed it to Penny. "Try that."
Penny tasted it. "Sweet, but good. What's in
it?" she asked.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 311
"Mostly ginger ale, with a little grenadine," Jim
lied. "They call it a Shirley Temple."
"Didn't she used to be in the movies?" Penny
asked.
"I guess," Jim said. "About a hundred years
ago."
Penny giggled, and took another swallow of the
drink. She decided she liked it. She drained the
glass and held it out to Jim. "Can I have another
one?"
He fixed the second drink, and they sat in front
of the fire, enjoying the warmth and the quiet. Penny was
beginning to feel much better. She looked at Jim,
and thought he was terribly handsome in the firelight.
"You're nice," she blurted. "I like you a lot."
Jim turned and gazed at her. "I like you, too."
Then, after a pause, "Do you smoke?"
"Smoke?" Penny repeated blankly.
"You know. Grass."
"God, no!" Penny repeated blankly.
"Well, it's not that bad," Jim chuckled.
"It's bad enough," Penny countered.
"How do you know, if you haven't tried it?"
Penny thought it over. She was feeling
relaxed- really good-and the idea of smoking some grass
didn't seem nearly as shocking as it always had before.
"Why not?" she giggled. Then: "Do you have any?"
"I don't," Jim said, winking at her. "But
Bill does."
He got up and went to one of the drawers that was built
into the wall next to the fireplace. In a minute
he was back, two joints in his hand. Penny reached
to take one, but Jim held them out of her grasp.
"Not yet," he said, laughing. "One at a time.
No sense wasting all that good smoke. Just a
second, and ni put on some music." He chose
an Alice Cooper record, and put it on the
stereo. Then he rejoined Penny on the floor, and
lit one of the joints.
She coughed on the first drag, but Jim showed her
contion pi
n n
m
how to do it. The second drag went into her lungs,
and she held her breath. When she felt her lungs
beginning to hurt, she let the air out.
"I don't feel anything," she said, a little
surprised.
"You will," Jim promised her. "Take
another hit."
This time she seemed to inhale endlessly before her lungs
were full and then she thought she could hold her breath for
an eternity. It felt good.
Tm thirsty," she said, lazily stretching herself out
in front of the fire.
*Til fix you another," Jim said softly.
"Finish the joint, and we'll light the other one when
I get back."
When he came back into the room a few minutes
later, her drink in his hand, his shirt was off.
"I always get hot when I smoke," he said.
"Hope you don't mind."
Penny realized she was staring at his chest She
wondered what it would be like to touch Jim's skin. As
if reading her mind, Jim lay down on the floor
and put his head in her lap. Her hand fell
naturally to his chest and she thought the could feel his
heart beating. It was almost as if her fingertips were
inside him.
They smoked the second joint and Penny watched the
fire, listened to the music, and stroked Jim's
chest.
"God, I'm hot," Jim moaned. Penny
looked down at him, and saw him looking
hungrily back at her. He reached up and put his
hand behind her head. Then he pulled her forward, and
kissed her.
It was like an electric shock. She felt his
tongue push into her mouth, and suddenly she felt as
though she was inside her own mouth, not only feeling the
kiss but watching it, helping it. She sucked
hungrily at Jim's tongue, wanting it deeper
in her mouth.
Then she was lying on her back, and he was on top of
her, his body pressing her against the floor. She
PUNISH THE SINNERS 313
could feel his hips moving. In the background the
music kept time to Jim's movements. By the time his
hand touched her breast, she was ready.
"Touch me," she moaned. "Oh, God, it feels
so good."
Penny found herself groping for Jim, and she wasn't
surprised when she found his jeans unzipped. She
slid her hand inside his shorts and touched him.
"Please," she said. "Do it to me, Jim. Do it
to me."
He kicked his jeans aside and began removing her
clothes. She lay on the floor, the liquor and
grass working inside her, dissolving her
inhibitions. She felt the heat of the fire, and then the
heat of Jim's body. She felt him entering her,
felt him pressing against her. And then, painlessly, the
membrane broke, and he plunged into her. She
gave herself up to the ecstasy, only dimly aware
of the sound of Jim's voice calling out near her ear.
"Karen," he cried. "Karen . . . Karen * . .
Karen..."
She knew it was morning even before she opened her
eyes. There was a grayness around her, and now she
knew she wasn't at home.
She began to remember.
Even through the pounding headache, she could remember it
all. The drink. It couldn't have been "mostly ginger
ale." If it had been, she never would have agreed
to try the grass.
And the rest of it. What they had done. She tried
to force the images out of her mind, tried to tell herself
that it hadn't happened, that what she was remembering was
a dream, not a memory. She looked around.
Jim Mulvey, naked, lay next to her on the
floor, one hand holding his groin, almost as if he were
protecting
n
n n n
caret that
himself. Penny stared at him for a moment, then leaped
to her feet and scrambled into her clothes. She wanted
to wake him, but first she wanted to cover him up. She
didn't want him to wake up nude, and find her
staring down at him. She went into the bedroom and
pulled a quilt from the bed.
She took it back into the living room, and threw it
over Jim. Then she began shaking him.
"Wake up," she said. "Please, Jim, wake
up."
He stirred finally, and looked at her sleepily.
"What time is it?" He jumped up, grabbing the
quilt just before it fell away from his body, and picked
up his clothes. Then he scuttled into the bedroom.
"It's all right," he said a couple of minutes
later as he emerged from the other room. "It's just a
little after five. If we hurry, you'll be home before
anyone even wakes up."
Penny didn't say anything, nothing at all. She
followed him mutely to the car, got in, and huddled
miserably in the corner of the seat as he drove her
home.
"Stop here," she said suddenly. They were a block from
her house. "If I get out here, at least
no one will see you bringing me home. Then maybe I
can convince them I was at Judy's all night."
Jim let her out, wanting to apologize for what had
happened, but unable to find the words. He hadn't
meant for the night to end that way, but he had just gotten
too stoned. He hadn't known what he was doing. In
fact, he had thought he was making love to Karen. But
he didn't tell Penny any of it. Instead, he
put the car in gear and drove away. He could understand
why she didn't want her parents to see him, but he
still resented it.
Penny hurried up the steps and into the house. Her
mother, bleary-eyed, gazed at her steadily.
PUNISH THE SDWERS 315
"Where have you been all night?" Leona Anderson
demanded.
"At Judy's," Penny said. She wondered why
her mother was looking at her so strangely; it wouldn't
have been the first time she had stayed at Judy's
overnight without telling her mother. Besides, her mother would
have called the Nelsons, and Judy would have covered
up for her somehow. And why was her mother still dressed?
Hadn't she been to bed at all? Suddenly Penny
was frightened.
"Something's happened, hasn't it?" she
said.
Leona Anderson, her mouth set, nodded stiffly.
"Well, what is it?" Penny asked. "Mother, what
is it?"
"I've been at the hospital all night,"
Leona said. "As a matter of fact, I just got
home myself. Janet ConnaUy tried to hang herself
last night."
Penny stared at her mother for a second, then screamed.
She screamed again.
Something broke inside her, and she crumpled to the
floor. Leona Anderson stared at her daughter,
then her hands instinctively began working the beads she
had taken to the hospital with her.
"Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners.
. ."
She broke off, unable to finish the prayer. But in
her mind the words echoed.
"dis . . now, and at the hour of our death . . ."
dis.f
m
Penny Anderson's first thought was that it had all been a
bad dream. But then she realized she wasn't in her
bed; she was on the sofa in the living room, and her mother
was staring down at her.
It wasn't a bad dream. It was real. It had
all happened. Penny closed her eyes again, trying
to shut it all out, but it wouldn't be shut out.
"Janet-was she said finally. "Is Janet going
to be all right?"
"She'll be fine," Leona snapped. "Although
what's going on in this town I don't know. Ever
since that Mr. Balsam got here . . ." She
trailed off. No sense going into that now, she
reminded herself. "Do you want to tell me where you were
all night?"
"I wasn't anywhere," Penny said. "I was just
wandering around."
"No," Leona said definitely. "You weren't out
'wandering around." You went somewhere with Jim Mulvey,
and I want to know where."
"We were out at the lake, talking."
"All night? Don't try to fool me,
Penelope Louise!"
"He was upset," Penny replied. "He wanted
to talk about Karen, and he asked me if I'd go for a
ride with him, and talk to him for a while."
m
"You expect me to believe that?" Leona demanded.
"Jim Mulvey never talked for more than
two minutes at a stretch in his life!" She
glared at Penny, as if the truth would somehow be
pulled out of her by sheer concentration. Penny stared at
the floor.
It wasn't that she wanted to lie to her mother. She
wanted to tell her mother the truth. In fact, she
wanted to throw herself in her mother's arms and cry. But
her mother wouldn't understand. Penny was sure of it. Her
mother would be horrified by what she'd done, and start
yelling at her. Penny couldn't let that happen; she
was already too upset She knew she'd fall apart
cornpletely if her mother started yelling at her.
Shakily, she got up from the sofa.
"I'm going to take a bath, and go to bed," she
announced. "I feel awful."
"Ill bet you do," Leona agreed. "And you can
take a bath. But you're not going to bed, young lady.
You're going to school."
Penny stared at her mother. School? The way she
felt? No. She couldn't go. She wouldn't go. Not
after last night. She needed a day by herself; a day
to deal with what had happened. A day to forget But she
looked at her mother and knew it was no use. She was
going to school.
Tiredly, she started up the stairs.
Halfway up she heard her mother's voice again.
"When you get there," Leona said darkly, "don't
bother to go to your first classes. Go to Monsignor'i
office. If you won't tell me what happened
last night, you can tell him."
Penny froze on the stairs and listened for the words she
didn't want to hear. They came.
"Monsignor will hear your confession."
PUNISH THE SINNERS 319
Penny could feel people staring at her as she walked up
Main Street. She tried to tell herself that they
weren't staring at her, that she didn't look any
different now than she had yesterday, or the day before,
or the day before that. But she could feel the eyes on
her, feel people wondering why she was on her way
to school so late.
They were watching her, and wondering. Neikville was
getting worried. One of their girls was dead, and
two others had tried to take their lives. And they were
all from the Catholic school on the hill. What was
going on up there? So they watched Penny Anderson as
she self-consciously walked through town and started up
the hill toward St. Francis Xavier*s.
She noticed a chill in the air this morning, and
glanced up at the leaden sky. Summer was
definitely over, and the world seemed to be cloaked in
the same gray shroud Penny felt herself suffocating
in. She hurried up the steps and through the main door
of the school
Monsignor Vernon was waiting for her, seated at
his desk, his fingers drumming impatiently. His
lips tightened when he saw Penny Anderson framed
in the doorway.
"Your mother has asked me to hear your confession," he
said.
"Couldn't we talk here?" Penny countered. She
knew she would have to tell the priest the truth in the
confessional. Here, in the office, she could avoid it.
"Shall we go into the church?" Monsignor Vernon
said, and Penny knew that he was not asking a question.
Silently, she followed the priest out of the school and
into the church.
When she was in the tiny confessional, the door latched
firmly, Penny knelt and began praying. She
n n n
heard the shutter open. The priest was waiting for her
to begin.
The story came out slowly. But Monsignor
Vernon prodded, and poked, dragging it from her
detail by detail.
"Did you know it was going to happen?" the priest's
voice asked.
"No," Penny replied.
"Are you sure?"
She tried to remember. "Not at first," she said
hesitantly.
"But then you knew?"
"When he took his shirt off-was
"How did you feel?"
"I'm-I'm not sure. I wanted to-to-was
"To touch him?" the disembodied voice accused.
"Yes," Penny hissed. "Yes, I wanted
to touch him."
"And you wanted him to touch you?"
"Yes," Penny wailed.
In the other half of the booth, Monsignor Vernon
was sweating. It was sinful. What they did was
repulsive and sinful. He could see them, the naked
boy lying on top of her, her hands on his back,
on his buttocks, then reaching around, touching him,
touching him. He pictured her hands on the boy's
organ, and his own hands began working. He could almost
feel the hardness of the boy . . .
"Tell it to me," he urged her softly. "Tell
me all of it"
Once more Penny went into the recital of her sins,
and the priest felt the wrath of a vengeful God rise
in him. A combination of excitement and revulsion. And
then it was over. Monsignor Vernon felt a
sudden release within himself. Now he would have to deal with
PUNISH THE SINNERS 321
the penitent who knelt quietly on the other side
of the screen, waiting for him to speak.
He began the prayer of absolution, but was suddenly
conscious of a stirring from Penny's side of the
confessional. He broke off the prayer.
"Is there more?"
There was a slight hesitation, and then he heard
Penny's voice.
"The penance, Father. What is the penance?"
In the dimness of the tiny booth, Monsignor
Vernon smiled softly.
"You will know what the penance is," he whispered. "When
the time comes, you will know what to do."
Then, as Penny wondered what he meant,
Monsignor Vernon absolved her of all her
sins.
Monsignor Vernon glanced at one of the hall
clocks. "We're late," he said, increasing his
stride. Penny almost had to run to keep up
with him.
"Late for what?"
"Your class," the priest announced. Tm
conducting it today."
Penny stopped in her tracks, the one bright spot in
her day ruined. "Mr. Balsam isn't here today?"
she asked. She wondered if she could plead
sickness, and go home; she had been looking forward
to the psychology class as the one ray of hope:
Mr. Balsam always seemed to know what was happening
with the kids, and what to say to them. And today he wasn't
there.
"He went to the hospital," Monsignor Vernon
said placidly. "Janet Connally wanted to talk
to him, and we thought it best that he go."
"I see," Penny said vaguely, though she
didn't see at all. They walked the rest of the
way to Room 16 in silence.
7*
Penny hesitated at the door, and stared at the
empty seats in the front row. Judy Nelson was
there, but all the other seats were empty: Karen
Morton's, Janet Connally's, and Jim
Mulvey's. Where was Jim? she wondered. Home
in bed, probably, she thought bitterly.
She started to slip into a vacant seat in the back
of the room, but Judy Nelson was signaling to her,
so she walked to the front and took the seat next
to Judy.
"I had to tell," Judy whispered urgently. She
was speaking so fast Penny could hardly follow her.
"Right after you left with Jim, we heard about
Janet. We all went over there, and your mother was
already there, and when you weren't with us, and Jim wasn't
with us, well-she just put it together. What could I
say?" She looked eagerly at Penny. "What
happened? Did you-was But before she could finish her question,
Monsignor Vernon rapped on the desk and
cleared his throat.
He gazed out over the room, taking note of the
empty desks in the front row. He stared at them
for a long time, long enough for the class to be certain what
he was thinking. As the silence lengthened, the class
began to squirm, and the questions in their minds showed on their
faces.
Why is he here?
Where's Mr. Balsam?
What's he going to do?
Monsignor Vernon cleared his throat and the
squirming suddenly stopped.
He spoke without preamble, offering no explanation for
their teacher's absence. He made a simple
announcement.
"Your assignment today will be to write a paper."
There was a rustling in Room 16. Maybe the hour
wouldn't be so bad after all.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 323
"A paper about death," Monsignor Vernon said.
Suddenly the silence in the room was tangible. They
stared at him, not sure they had heard him
correctly. They had.
"Something is happening in this class," Monsignor
Vernon went on, "and I don't know too much about
it. So I want you, each of you, to tell me. You will
spend the rest of this hour writing about death.
Specifically, your own deaths."
Now the students looked terrified. The
Monsignor continued.
"You are to look within yourselves. You will decide if there
are any circumstances under which you would contemplate
committing suicide. If you find that there are, you will
describe those circumstances in your papers, and then
attempt to reconcile your feelings with the
Doctrines of the Church." He looked out over the
class. "Your papers will be entirely
confidential. No one will see them except me and
Mr. Balsam. We will read them, evaluate them,
and destroy them. They won't be graded, and they
won't be recorded. But I thinfriend we might be able
to get some valuable information about what has been
happening to-some of you."
Suddenly everyone in the class began glancing at
Judy Nelson. But Judy sat calmly in her
seat, unaffected by what the priest had asked of them.
In the back of the room, Marilyn Crane tried
to hold back her tears. To think of frilling yourself was
a mortal sin! But if it was a sin, surely a
priest wouldn't ask you to do it, would he? Then
Marilyn realized that the Monsignor had given them
an opportunity: if she was honest with herself, she
knew that she had thought about it but had always stopped
herself. Now she had a chance to think it through, and think it
through with a
i
n n n n;
clear conscience. She silently blessed the priest for
giving her the assignment, and set to work.
Penny Anderson couldn't think at all. She sat
numbly in the front row, and stared at the
Monsignor. How could he? With Karen
dead and Janet in the hospital, how could he ask
them to do such a thing?
Her head was still pounding from the night before, and she felt
as though she hadn't slept in a week. She tried
to force herself to concentrate. But all she could do was sit
and stare at Monsignor Vernon.
And then she realized that he was beckoning to her,
signaling her to come to him. She responded to the
summons.
"Is something wrong?" the priest asked when she was
next to the desk.
"I-I can't seem to concentrate," Penny
stammered.
The priest smiled at her. "Perhaps you'd better work
in the quiet-room," he said. "Maybe it would be
easier for you if you were alone."
But I dorit want to be alone, Penny's mind
cried out. still want to talk to someone. I want
to talk to Mr. Balsam! Aloud she said: "I'll
try." Then she repeated it: "Really, Til
try!" She picked up her things and hurried out of
Room 16.
On her way to the basement, where the quiet-room
was, Penny hoped she'd find someone else already
there. She didn't care who-anyone-just
someone she could talk to for a while, to take her mind
off herself, off last night, off everything. But the
quiet-room was empty, and as Penny closed the
door behind her she felt even worse than before.
Resolutely, she put her things down on one of the
tables and took out a pen and some paper. She put her
name neatly in the upper left-hand corner, and then
printed the title of her paper.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 325
WHY SHOULD I KILL MYSELF?
Then, underneath, she wrote something else:
WHY SHOULDN'T I?
Penny stared at the paper for a long time, and after a
while the paper blurred in her vision. She began
to see other images. She saw Jim Mulvey, his
chest glistening in the firelight, his eyes inviting
her. She saw herself, kneeling in front of him,
tearing at his pants.
And then the image was gone, and Penny saw Karen
Morton. She was wearing a white dress-it was her
confirmation dress-and she was walking toward Penny.
But something was wrong. Penny looked closer. Now
she knew what was wrong-Karen was walking toward her
from the grave! But Karen was happy; she was smiling,
and waving to Penny. How could she be happy?
She was dead. Dead! Dead! Penny repeated the word
to herself over and over again. Dead. DEAD!
DEAD-DEAD-DEAD'-DO,.EADDEAD. And suddenly the word
didn't mean anything to her anymore. It was just a
sound without any meaning at all. Karen wasn't
do,.eaddead. No. Karen was happy. She was wearing
her confirmation dress, and she was happy. Penny
wanted to be with her . . .
Penny Anderson sat up suddenly, and looked around.
Where was she? The quiet-room. Of course. She was
in the quiet-room and she was supposed to be writing
a paper. What had happened?
She looked at the clock: a few minutes after
four o'clock. It must be broken.
But the second hand was moving steadily.
She left her things in the quiet-room and climbed
up
I
the stairs to the main floor. The clock on the main
floor said the same thing. Seven minutes after four.
It was impossible, of course. She had been
downstairs only a few minutes. Then she
stopped, and listened. It was quiet Too quiet.
Not the busy quiet of a building full of students,
but the awful, deserted silence that comes over
a school in late afternoons and on weekends.
Somehow, Penny Anderson had lost most of the day.
Shaken, she pushed quickly through the door of the girls'
room. As she was washing her hands, she glanced at the
mirror. What she saw horrified her.
Her eyes were puffy.
Her whole face seemed to have swollen.
She stared at herself, and began to feel sick at her
ttomach. Then, as if trying to blot out the image,
her fist came up and smashed into the mirror. It
shattered, and jagged pieces of glass crashed to the
floor at her feet. Shocked, she stared at the
mess around her, at the cut that was slowly beginning
to ooze blood on her leg. And something clicked in
her mind.
The penance.
Something about the penance.
"You will know what the penance is." That was what he had
said. "When the times comes, you will know what to do."
Penny Anderson knew what to do.
She reached down and picked up the largest shard. Then
she went back into the stall she had just came out of, and
carefully latched the door behind her.
She took off her shoes and her pantyhose.
She sat on the plumbing above the toilet,
and carefully put both feet in the toilet bowl.
She grasped the fragment of broken mirror and
reached down.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 327
The blood came slowly at first, then faster,
running down her ankles into the bowl. She stared at
the red water, then flushed the toilet. A moment
later, the bowl refilled with clean water, but that,
too, soon turned red.
Over and over again, Penny slashed at herself with the
broken glass, lacerating her legs until the
blood poured from them as from a tap. Then she let the
glass fall to the floor.
She watched the blood flow into the toilet bowl, and
when it again turned red, she reached down once more and
pressed on the lever. She watched her life swirl
down into the sewers, watched the clean water bubble
into the bowl, watched her blood mix into it once more.
The fifth time she reached for the lever, she was too weak
to press it. Instead she sat, resting her weight on
one hand, watching the red fluid rise in the bowl. And
she thought she heard music, somewhere in the background.
It sounded like the nuns chanting vespers, but she knew
it was too early for that. Or was it? It seemed to be
getting darker.
She slipped from the toilet to the floor, and gave
herself up to the darkness. She thought she saw a
tunnel. At its end Karen Morton was waiting for
her, still in her confirmation dress, beckoning to her.
And in the background, the chanting continued, sending
Penny onward.
In the room next to Room 16-n a room,
really, but an oversized storeroom that had been
converted into a makeshift laboratory-Marilyn
Crane was patiently working with the white rat. She
had set up a particularly difficult maze, with
two routes through it-one shorter, but complicated, the
other much longer, but much simpler. She was trying
to determine if the rat would discover both routes,
explore them, and then choose one. So far, the
results had been inconclusive. The rat had
-i r less-than
made his way through the maze several times, but he
seemed to take just as long by either route, and so far
hadn't shown any preference for either.
Marilyn had made herself come to the laboratory that
afternoon. Until two days ago she had enjoyed working
with the rats. Now, every time she was with them, the image of the
disemboweled creature loomed up in front of her,
and she had to force herself to pick up the live
animals. Gingerly, she reached down and picked up
the wriggling creature.
I should have gone home, she thought. Why did I
stay? But she knew why she'd stayed. It had been
the essay for Monsignor Vernon that morning.
What she'd written had frightened her, and she was
afraid her fear showed. She didn't want her mother
to ask her what had happened that day, so she'd
decided to stay after school until she calmed down.
It hadn't helped.
She was about to drop the rat back at the beginning of the
maze when she felt it. Hot. Wet. Instantly
she knew what had happened. Marilyn cried out in
disgust and dropped the rat. It missed the maze
entirely, hit the floor, and scuttled off into a
corner, where it sat looking curiously at
Marilyn. But Marilyn was staring at the yellow
fluid that was running off her hand onto the floor.
The rat had-had peed on her!
Mortified, she ran out of the room and down the hall
to the girls' room.
She knew something was wrong as soon as she opened the
door. Glass all over the floor. She decided
to ignore it, and began to pick her way carefully
around it to use the other wash basin.
Then she saw the blood. At first, she thought it was just
a drop, but then she realized it was a puddle of
PUNISH THE SINNERS 329
blood, oozing slowly toward the drain in the middle
of the floor.
Almost against her will, her eyes followed the blood
toward its source. It was coming from a closed stall.
"Is someone here?" Marilyn said softly, knowing there
would be no answer. The silence only increased her
fear. She pushed at the door. It didn't give.
She knelt down, carefully avoiding the glass and
blood, and looked under the door.
Penny Anderson, her eyes open and vacant, stared
back at her.
Marilyn felt the sickness rise.
Moving with a strange calm, she let herself into the end
stall, bent down, and threw up into the toilet.
Then, detached, wondering why she was behaving as she
was, she waited for the sickness to subside, washed out
her mouth, and left the girls' room. She
returned to Room
16, gathered her things, and left the school.
The fresh air hit her like a bucket of water, and
she knew what had happened. Penny had killed
herself. But why was she so calm? Why
wasn't she screaming? Why wasn't she running,
calling for help? Maybe Penny was still alive.
Maybe if she did something, they could still save
Penny.
And then she realized that Penny wouldn't want her to do
that, that Penny would want her to stay calm, and walk
down the hill. And leave her alone.
Marilyn started down the steps, and away from the
school. Suddenly it all seemed to be closing in
on her, and she felt the pressure building in her,
the pressure she had been fighting against for so long-the
pressure to do what should be done, instead of what she
wanted to do. Now she was going to do what she wanted
to do. She was going to listen to the voices.
She was not going to tell anybody what she had seen
in the restroom.
She passed the rectory, glancing at it as she
passed. Then she stopped and looked more closely.
Smoke was coming out of the chimney. It struck her as
strange, since the afternoon was still warm. The evening would be
cold, but not yet.
Then she heard the chanting. At first she thought it must
be coming from the convent. Then she knew it wasn't. It
was coming from the rectory.
And it was telling her the same things the
voices inside her were telling her. She listened for a
moment, then hurried down the hill.

Margo looked surreptitiously across the table at
Peter, trying to see him with his guard down, trying
to decide whether he looked strained, or whether it was
her imagination. He was concentrating on his food,
unaware of her scrutiny.
"I'm not going to stay tonight," Margo said, breaking the
silence that had reigned over the table since they had
sat down for dinner. Peter looked up from his steak.
"Don't ask me why," she went on,
anticipating the question. "I couldn't tell you. I just
have a feeling I'm going to be needed at the
hospital tonight."
"It's the atmosphere around here lately," Peter
said, putting down his fork. "Tve felt the same
way all day, ever since I talked to Janet
Connally."
"Can you tell me what she said, or is it
confidential?" Margo wanted to know. She had already
heard about Peter's visit with Janet from Dr.
Shields, but she wanted to hear it again, first-hand, from
Peter. If his story differed much from the one Dr.
Shields had told her, it might help
her make up her mind.
Peter looked at her wryly. "It's not
confidential," he said. "As a matter of fact,
I'd like to hear what you think of it. The whole day, not
just the visit with Janet." He cast around in his
mind, trying to decide where to start.
in to n n p
"There was a note in my box, just before the psych
class. It was from Monsignor, and it told me to go
to the hospital right away, that Janet wanted
to talk to me. He said he'd take over my
class, and I should leave as soon as I found the
note. I stopped by his office to see if there were
any details but he wasn't there. So I left .
. ."
He walked into the hospital just after eleven, and
asked for Janet Connally's room number. The
nurse looked slightly annoyed; then, when he
identified himself, her annoyance grew.
"Well, you certainly took long enough." She
didn't seem to expect an answer, so Peter
followed her silently down the hall. He was
relieved when they passed the room Judy Nelson
had been in, and turned into the next one. Janet was
propped up on a pillow, watching
television. As soon as she saw him she reached
over and snapped the TV off.
"You certainly took long enough," she echoed the
nurse. "I was beginning to think you weren't coming at
all."
Peter sat down in the chair at the foot of the bed and
looked at Janet in puzzlement. "The nurse said
the same thing, that I 'certainly took long enough."
I came as soon as I got the message."
"It must be the school, then," Janet complained.
"I called at seven-thirty this morning, and talked
to Monsignor. He promised he'd give you the
message as soon as you got there." She smiled
sheepishly. "I really did a number on him,
Mr. Balsam. I tried to make it sound like I was
dying, and that if you didn't come instantly, terrible
things were going to happen to me. But I guess he
didn't believe me."
Or, more likely, chose to ignore it, Peter thought
He
PUNISH THE SINNERS 333
looked at Janet carefully, trying to determine
if she was as well as she appeared to be.
Last night this girl had tried to hang herself.
Today she was the same as she had always
seemed- happy, cheerful, with no apparent problems.
Or were the problems just too well concealed for his eyes
to see?
"I look too good, don't I?" Janet said.
Her perceptiveness startled Balsam and made him
wary.
"I don't know," he said evasively. "How do you
feel?"
"No different than ever," Janet responded
immediately. Then, realizing the answer could have a double
meaning, she clarified it. "That means fine. I
feel fine now, and I felt fine yesterday."
"Then why are you here?" Peter said, trying
to approach the issue obliquely. Janet, in her
straightforward way, hit it head on.
"Because I hung myself last night. Or tried to.
I've been trying all morning to decide if an
attempt counts. I mean, since I'm not dead or
anything, do I say "I hung myself," or "I
tried to hang myself?"
Peter bit his lip, suddenly nervous. She must be
covering up something. She had to be. But what? He
decided to be as forthright as she.
"Janet," he said somberly, "it isn't funny.
You hung yourself-or if you want to be
absolutely correct, 'hanged yourself-last night.
If your father hadn't gotten to you as quickly as he
did, you'd be dead right now. As it is, you're
lucky you didn't suffer any brain damage."
The grin vanished from Janet's face, and she
shifted in the bed. When she spoke, the lightness had
gone from her voice.
"I know it isn't funny," she said. "But right now
it's
the only way I can cope with it. If I don't
make fun of it, I thinic I'll go crazy. I
might be crazy anyway."
Peter Balsam's brows arched, and she took the
expression as a question.
"That's why I called you. I suppose I should
talk to Dr. Shields, but I just can't. He's
nice, but I don't know him, and he doesn't know
me. You've seen me every day this semester-was
"Which has barely begun," Peter broke in.
"All right, so it's barely begun. But you've seen
me every day, and you know what I'm like. Or, anyway,
better than Dr. Shields does. Dr.
Shields is sure to think I'm some kind of a nut.
I mean, what else can he think? Anybody'd have
to be crazy to do what I did."
Peter decided to take a gamble. "Then by your own
terms, you're crazy."
She stared at him for a moment, then nodded.
"I know. That's why I called you. You decide if
I'm crazy."
"I'm not qualified," Peter protested.
"I don't care," Janet said. "You're the one
I want to talk to. There isn't anybody else
I can talk to. Don't you see? Dr. Shields
has to think I'm crazy, and why shouldn't he? And
everybody else-well, you know what it's like around
here. Particularly at school. All they'll do is
tell me I'm a sinner, and give me a penance.
But I'm not a sinner."
Peter moved his chair closer to the bed and took
Janet's hand. "All right," he said gently.
"What happened?"
"First, I didn't try to kill myself."
"You didn't?"
"No, I didn't Oh, yes, I did, I know,
but I didn't really." Her face twisted in
frustration. "I'm sorry," she went on, forcing
herself to relax. "I know none of this
PUNISH THE SINNERS 335
makes sense, but just listen to me, then you
try to figure out what happened. I've tried, and
I can't, and Fro scared. So please, help me?"
For the first time since he'd gotten there, Peter
Balsam saw the part of Janet Connally that was still a
small child. He wanted to hold her and comfort her.
"I'll listen," he said softly. "Tell me what
happened."
"I keep telling you," Janet said. "I don't
know what happened. Where shall I start?" Without waiting
for an answer she went right on talking. "Everything was
fine yesterday, or as fine as it could be, what with
Karen and all. I don't know how I got caught
up in what happened at church. In fact, I can
barely remember it. We must have sounded like a bunch
of Holy Rollers. Anyway, after it was over with,
I went home with my parents, and we watched
television for awhile. Then I went up to do my
homework." She stopped talking. Peter waited
patiently for her to resume the story. Finally he
prompted her.
"And?"
She looked at him bleakly. "And that's when it
happened. I was studying, and all of a sudden I got
this crazy urge to hang myself. At first I told
myself it was ridiculous, that there wasn't a
reason in the world why I should want to kill myself. But
I still wanted to. So I sat there for about an hour,
and argued with myself. I mean, I literally argued with
myself. But the feeling wouldn't go away."
"But why? There must have been some reason why you wanted
to kill yourself."
"That's the part that makes me think I must be crazy.
There wasn't any reason. Just this incredible urge
to hang myself. And I did."
Balsam nodded gravely. "This may sound
strange, but do you remember what it was like?"
r tilde greater-than like tilde less-than rather-i
"It wasn't like anything. I mean, there I was,
getting a chair, and putting it under the chandelier in my
room, and taking an extension cord, and tying it around
my neck. And all the time wondering why I was doing
it, and trying to make myself stop. But I couldn't."
"It must have been frightening." "That's what I kept
thinking, too. But it wasn't. All the time, there was
just this strange sense of not being able to control myself. like
a puppet. It was just like someone was pulling strings, and
I had to do whatever they wanted me to do." Her
voice suddenly became bitter. "So I stood up
on the chair, and tied the cord around my neck, and
kicked the chair away." The blood
drained from her face as she remembered it "What if
they hadn't been home? What if Mom and Dad
had gone out last night?" Janet Connally shuddered,
and fell silent
Peter Balsam turned the story over in his mind.
It all seemed preposterous, and if it had been
anybody but Janet telling him, he would have been
inclined to discount it. But not Janet. Her assessment
of herself coincided exactly with his own, and the story had
the ring of truth. Or of what Janet thought was the
truth. Then her voice interrupted his thoughts.
"Mr. Balsam," she said, almost pleading, "am I
crazy?"
"Do you feel crazy?" he countered. **ationo."
"And you don't look crazy, and you don't sound
crazy. Granted, the story sounds crazy, but you
don't.
So," he went on, more lightly, "I think we can
assume
that, since you don't feel like a duck, look like a
duck,
or sound like a duck, you probably aren't a
duck."
"Probably," she said, repeating the qualifying
word.
Peter Balsam shrugged. "Would you believe me if
I
PUNISH THE SINNERS 337
said 'absolutely"?" He was pleased when she
smiled again.
"No. And "probably" is a lot better than
I was doing by myself." Silence. Then: "Mr.
Balsam, what am I going to do?" Again, the
plaintive, childlike quality in the voice.
Balsam had been expecting the question. But when it
came, he had no ready answer. All he could
offer was some reassurance.
"Try not to worry," he said. "Just relax, try
to stop worrying, and I'll go talk to Dr.
Shields and see if I can convince him that you aren't
quite ready for the looney bin yet." And talk to him about
a few other things, he silently added to himself. He
squeezed Janet's hand one last time, and stood
up. "Do you need anything?"
Janet shook her head. She started to speak,
stopped, then started again. "Mr. Balsam? Thanks
for coming. I feel better just talking about it to someone."
"There's lots of people you can talk to about it," he said.
Janet smiled wanly. "I suppose so. But not
around here." Then, as if to preclude any
answer, she reached out and switched the television set
back on. Peter Balsam stood in the doorway
for a second or two longer, then turned and left the
room.
He approached the nurses' station and waited for the
nurse to finish with the chart she was working on. Finally,
she looked up and put on a practiced smile.
"Can you tell me where Dr. Shields's office
is?"
"I'd better show you." She stood up and led him
down the hall. "You're the psychology teacher,
aren't you?" Her voice stayed carefully neutral,
and Peter wondered whether the question was hostile.
"Yes."
they're in your class, aren't
"And all these girls . . . they're in your class,
aren't they?"
Tm afraid they are."
The nurse smiled tightly. "Must be some class,"
she observed. Then, before Peter could respond, she
was pointing to a door. "Dr. Shields's office
is right through there." And she was gone. Peter watched
her until she turned a corner and disappeared from
view, then went into the reception room she had
indicated, and tapped on the inner door,
half-hoping Margo would come out Instead, Dr.
Shields himself opened the door.
"Excuse me," Peter said. "I don't know if
you remember me. I'm-was
"Peter Balsam," Dr. Shields said, opening the
door wide. "Tve been expecting you." He
held the door until Peter was inside the inner
office, then closed it firmly. Instead of taking the
chair behind the desk, he seated himself in one of the
armchairs that flanked a small table, and gestured for
Peter to take the other.
"Expecting me?" Balsam asked.
"Janet Connally. Ever since she was admitted
she's been saying you were the only one she wanted
to talk to. So this morning we gave in, and let
her call you. I assumed that as a matter of-what shall
we call it? professional courtesy?-you'd drop
by to see me after you talked to her."
"I have a few questions of my own."
'Til do my best," Dr. Shields said, observing
Balsam behind a smile.
As Balsam related the conversation he'd had with
Janet Connally, Dr. Shields found himself putting
all his attention on what the girl had said. When
Balsam finished the story, Shields's
first question was, "Will she tell me the same story?"
PUNISH THE SINNERS 339
Balsam nodded. "I told her I was going to try
to convince you that she's not crazy."
"You don't flunk she is?"
"I don't"
"What about her story? Do you believe it?"
"I don't know," Balsam said carefully. "I
guess I'd have to say that I do. In fact, that's
what I wanted to talk to you about. The control thing.
It sounded as though she thinks she's a victim of some
kind of mind control." Peter's expression grew
intense, and his voice took on a note of
urgency. "Is it possible? I mean suppose, just
suppose, that a group of people was trying to exercise its
will on others. Without the others knowing what was happening.
Could it be done?"
Why doesn't he say it? Dr. Shields
wondered. Why doesn't he say he's thinking of the
Society of Still Peter Martyour? Aloud he said:
"Who knows? I suppose anything's possible. But
I'd say it's highly improbable. I don't
think anything of the sort is going on."
"Something's going on," Peter stated.
"Of course it is," Dr. Shields
agreed. "Answer this: Are they all friends? Judy
Nelson? Karen Morton? Janet Connally?"
"Close friends. And there's one more in the group. A
girl named Penny Anderson."
Then it's pretty obvious what's happening,"
Dr. Shields said. "It's called a suicide
contagion."
Peter Balsam had heard the term before, but wasn't
sure what it meant. "A what?"
"Suicide contagion. Put simply, the urge
to selfdestruction passing from one person to another.
It's not unusual, in fact. But it almost always
happens in an institutional environment. Read
'hospital" for that. And it's almost always restricted
to teen-aged girls. There's
even a term for them-"slashers." In some places,
it's gotten so bad that entire wards of teen-age
girls have had to be put under physical restriction
to keep them from cutting themselves."
Balsam's eyes widened in surprise. "But what
causes it?"
"It's a hysterical condition," Dr. Shields
explained. "As far as I know, though, it only
occurs in hospitals, and the victims are always
pretty unstable types to begin with." He
paused, considering. "But what's happening up at
St. Francis Xavier's sounds like a suicide
contagion to me."
"But couldn't it be something else?" Peter Balsam
felt himself grabbing at straws. "You said they were
called slashers. That certainly fits Judy
Nelson and Karen Morton. But what about
Janet? She didn't cut herself."
Dr. Shields shrugged expressively. "I
don't know. Until today, I hadn't even considered
the possibility of a suicide contagion. Now, I
have to. But mind control? I don't think bo."
When he left the psychiatrist's office a few
minutes later, Peter Balsam felt more alone
than ever. Alone, and frightened . . .
"The whole thing sounds too bizarre to be believed,"
Margo said.
"It is too bizarre to be believed," Peter said,
"but it's happening."
Margo fell silent, thinking. Dr. Shields had
already told her Peter's story. But Dr.
Shields had gone further, and Margo decided it was
time to tell Peter about it.
"You should talk to Dr. Shields about the
Society," she said. "Since he already
knows about it."
"He knows about it? How?"
PUNISH THE SINNERS 341
Suddenly Margo felt guilty, as if she had
betrayed a trust. But she hadn't talked to the
psychiatrist to betray Peter; only to gain some
insight.
"I told him," she said. "I've been talking
to him a lot lately, about you . . . about us."
"And about the Society?" It was almost an accusation.
"Of course about the Society. Peter, the
Society has been a pretty big thing between us."
"How much did you tell him?" Peter felt
embarrassed, as if a private part of him had been
exposed for public scrutiny.
"Not much," Margo hastened to assure him. "As little
as possible, really." She smiled at Peter
wryly. "I guess I didn't want him to think
we were both crazy."
"Is that what you think?"
"You know it isn't" Hurt edged Margo's voice
and Peter was immediately sorry. Before he could
apologize, the telephone rang.
"It's for you," Peter said a moment later. "Your
boss. He sounds upset."
Margo took the receiver and carried on a one-sided
conversation. Though she said very little, Peter knew something
was wrong. Her complexion turned chalky. Finally,
after what seemed an eternity, she hung up and
turned to him.
"It can't be ..." she began.
"What-?"
"Penny Anderson. They found her half an hour
ago. Peter, she's dead."
"Oh, Jesus." Peter sank back into his
chair, and buried his face in his hands. Then, forcing
himself, he looked up at Margo again.
"How?"
"She-she cut herself. At the school. In the rest-
to R R Fl r"
room." Margo was already gathering her things together. "I
have to go to the hospital. Leona's there- she's in
pretty bad shape-and Dr. Shields says there
are other people there, too. All of them suffering from all
kinds of strange symptoms. He says it's
hysteria, and it seems like it's all over the
place."
Peter pulled himself together. "I'll go with you."
"No!" Margo said the word too sharply, and immediately
regretted it. Dr. Shields had warned
her. Some of the people were saying the whole mess was Peter
Balsam's fault; whatever she did, she mustn't
let him come to the hospital with her. "I-I'd rather go
by myself," Margo stammered.
"I see," Peter said, the situation suddenly
becoming clear to him. "Yes, I suppose I should
stay here." He looked mutely at Margo, and she
wanted to go to him, hold him, stay with him.
Instead, she turned, and hurried out of his apartment.
Peter washed the dishes, then tried to read. He
tried the television next, then turned it off and
went back to his book. Finally he went to bed. But
before he turned off the lights he made sure
to lock and bolt the front door. Then, as an
afterthought, and feeling silly, he moved a chair in
front of the door as well.
Just before he turned off the lights, he wondered
whether he'd taken the precautions to keep others out,
or himself in. But he put the thought out of his mind, and
went to bed.
He woke up the next morning more tired than he
had been the night before. He felt restless, and
sweaty, as if he'd been running all night.
He'd had bad dreams. Dreams about the Society
of St. Peter Martyour.
In the dreams he'd been back in the rectory,
back with the priests, and they had been doing things to him.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 343
Things he didn't want to think about. He'd tried
to keep it from happening but there were six of them, and only
one of him, and they could do anything they wanted to.
Anything. And they did.
He lay in bed, thinking about the dream, then decided
to put it out of his mind- He rose from the bed, threw
on a robe, and went into the living room.
The chair had been moved away from the door.
The chain hung loose.
The door was unlocked.
Peter tried to tell himself it wasn't true, that he
must have done it himself, in one of the restless periods
during the night. But he knew he didn't
remember it. No, something else had happened.
Something unspeakable.
He went quickly to the bathroom and dropped the robe
from his shoulders.
His back was covered with the strange red welts.
P
*mininMk Plus-or-more. caret
Marilyn Crane hadn't slept all night. She
covered a yawn as best she could and seated
herself at the table. Her father didn't even glance up
from his paper, but her mother surveyed her critically.
Marilyn wondered what she'd done wrong now.
"Dressed for school?" Geraldine asked.
Marilyn looked at her curiously. Was today a
holiday? She searched her mind rapidly.
"Shouldn't I be?" For some reason she felt
vaguely guilty.
"I don't see why," Geraldine Crane said a
little too sharply. "You're not going."
"Of course I'm going to school,"" Marilyn
protested.
Geraldine set down the frying pan she had been
holding and faced her daughter.
"Not today," she said. "Not after what happened
yesterday. Imagine, that poor child lying there all
afternoon. It must have been terrible." She clucked her
tongue, her head bobbing sympathetically.
Terrible for whom? Marilyn wondered. Certainly not
for Penny Anderson. Why did everyone worry so much
about what happened to people when they were already dead? It
wasn't as if Penny had been in pain. Penny's
face appeared before her again, the eyes wide open, the
features frozen. Penny had looked almost happy.
Marilyn kept her thoughts to herself. After
all, nobody knew she had seen Penny.
"But I want to go to school."
Her father lowered his newspaper and looked at her
curiously.
"I'd think you'd want to stay as far away from there as
possible," he remarked. "Anyway, it doesn't
matter. There isn't going to be any school today,
at least not at Still Francis Xavier's. I
don't know what they're doing at the public
school." He shook the paper out again, prepared
to drop the subject, but Marilyn didn't want
to let it go.
"Just because of Penny?" The newspaper went down again,
and at the stove Geraldine froze.
"Just because of Penny?" her father repeated, emphasizing
the first word. "Marilyn, she killed herself."
It was the first time anyone had actually used those words,
at least in front of her, and they echoed in her ears.
"Killed herself . . . killed herself . . . killed
herself . . ." Until that moment, it hadn't been
real for her. Now it was. Penny had killed herself.
By her own hand. Penny was dead. Marilyn looked from
one of her parents to the other, then, wordlessly, left the
table. A few seconds later they heard her tread
on the stairs. Geraldine glanced toward the
ceiling, as if her eyes could bore through the plaster and
wood, and detect what was happening in the mind of the
girl above. Then she shifted her gaze to her
husband, whose interest was back on his newspaper.
"Bill," she said quietly, "something's wrong."
He looked up at her, faintly annoyed.
"You're just catching on?"
Geraldine ignored the sarcastic tone. Tm not just
talking about Karen and Penny," she began.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 347
"And Janet Connally, and the Nelson girl," her
husband interjected.
Tm talking about Marilyn," Geraldine said.
"There's nothing wrong with Marilyn." Bill's
nose was buried in the paper again. "Just growing
pains."
"I don't know," Geraldine protested. "I think
it's something more."
"If something's bothering her, shell tell us about it
Greta always did. Why should Marilyn be any
different?"
Geraldine shook her head now, as if trying to jar
loose a thought that was nagging at her. "They aren't the
same. They're really quite different. And something's
happening to Marilyn. Maybe I should
talk to Monsignor about her."
Bill Crane turned the page of his newspaper.
"Good idea. Why don't you do that?"
No one had told him school was canceled for the day.
He had simply arrived at Still Francis
Xavier's to find the place deserted. The sisters were
nowhere to be seen. Monsignor Vernon, if he was
around, wasn't in his office. Peter had started
to check his mail, then changed his mind. What if there
was a message there? A message from the
Monsignor? Better not to check at all.
He hurried down the hill, aware of the strange
silence that had fallen over Neilsville. Everywhere
he looked, there were clusters of people, talking softly
among themselves, and looking up now and then,
suspiciously, as if by quick furtive glances they
would be able to catch a glimpse of the evil in their
midst.
Peter felt the glances piercing Mm. They were
looking at him, and wondering. Nothing much had ever
happened in Neilsville until he came along.
But since he had arrived, things had started going
bad. How long
m
would it be before the entire town became
infected with whatever it was that was infecting the girls from
St. Francis Xavier's? The only thing they could
pinpoint was the outsider. Peter Balsam. The
stranger. Not to be trusted.
As he passed each group the silence deepened, and
he could sense that he was the focus of it. Then, after
he passed, the talk would begin again, the heads drawn
more closely together, lips close to ears, but the
eyes, always the eyes, following him as he made his
way down Main Street.
As soon as he got to his apartment, he called
Margo.
"Peter? Is that you?" He hadn't spoken, and was
pleased at the anxiety in her voice. He tried
to mask his fears about the night before.
"Want to go for a ride? Fve got the day off."
"I didn't sleep all night-was Margo
hesitated.
"Who did? But they canceled school, and I decided
to go see the Bishop. I was going to borrow your car,
but why don't you come with me?"
She almost refused, almost told him she was going
to spend the day in bed. But she didn't
"111 pick you up in twenty minutes," she said.
Then, as an afterthought: "Are you going to take
the tape?"
"I-I don't know," Peter hedged. "I hadn't
thought about it"
A silence, then Margo's voice, very confident.
"You don't have to tell Mm one of the voices is
yours," she pointed out, pinpointing his hesitation. "The
only voice thaf8recognizable is Monsignor
Vernon's."
What she said was true, but still he hesitated, wishing
there was some other way. He knew there wasn't Without
the tape, how could he expect the Bishop to believe
him? He made up his mind.
"I'll be waiting," he said. "With the tape."
PUNISH THE SINNERS 349
He hung up the phone, and opened the bottom
drawer of the desk. He reached into the back of the
drawer, groping for the tiny cassette. His fingers
couldn't find it. He pulled the drawer out further,
and felt again.
He was still searching when Margo arrived twenty
minutes later. All the drawers had been
emptied, and he was methodically going through their
contents, though he knew it was useless. As soon as
Margo saw what was happening, she knew.
"It's gone, isn't it?"
Peter nodded mutely.
"Was it hidden?"
Again, he nodded. "But no one searched for it. They
knew exactly where it was." Margo's face
clouded: was he accusing her?
"Only one person knew where the tape was,"
Peter went on. He looked at her with an
anguish that tore at her. Whatever he was going through,
he wasn't accusing her.
"Who?" She wasn't sure she wanted to know the
answer.
"Me," Peter said bitterly. Tm the only one
who knew where that tape was. So I must have taken it
myself."
He told her about the night before, about locking himself in
and chaining the door. Then about putting a chair in
front of the door, to be extra sure. Then about the
dreams, the dream in which he had been at the
rectory, been back with the Society.
"This morning the door was unlocked," he finished.
"The chain was loose, the chair was back over there. .
. And I was a mess."
Margo sank onto the sofa, despair washing over
her like a wave.
"And you took them the tape?" she said
softly. "Is that what happened?"
"What else could have happened?" Peter answered,
spreading his hands in a gesture of frustration. "The
only thing I had on them, and I gave it to them
myself."
"Maybe you didn't," Margo said suddenly, standing
up. "Maybe you just hid it somewhere else, and
forgot." She began searching the room, methodically
at first, but then more and more frantically, as Peter
looked on. As suddenly as she had begun searching,
she stopped. She looked at him, and for the first time
Peter saw fear reflected in the depths of her
eyes.
"It's no good, is it?" she said bleakly. "I
won't find it here, will I?"
"No," Peter said softly. "I don't think you
will." He went to her and put his arms around her. She
stiffened, then let go, her arms curling around tnm,
holding on to him.
"Oh, God, Peter, are they going to get you
too?"
She believes me, he thought. At least she
believes me. But he didn't have an answer for her
question.
Father Duncan looked up at them and
smiled.
"Mr. Balsam," he said. "What a pleasant
surprise." But something in his face told Peter it
wasn't pleasant at all. A surprise, yes.
But not pleasant. He could almost see the young priest
trying to sneak a look at the calendar on his desk,
hoping he had not made a mistake, hoping his name was
not there.
"It's all right," he said, trying to put him at his
ease. "I don't have an appointment."
It was the right thing to say. Father Duncan relaxed in
his chair, and his smile suddenly became genuine.
"Well, that's a relief. Usually people come in here
without an appointment, demand to see His Eminence,
PUNISH THE SINNERS 351
then insist that they set up an appointment two
weeks ago."
"Then I can't see him?"
"I didn't say that," the secretary grinned.
"Honesty should be rewarded." He pressed the key
on the intercorn. "Mr. Balsam is here for his
ten-o'clock appointment," he said smoothly. He
winked at Peter, then included Margo in the wink.
There was an ominous silence from the intercom, then the
Bishop's voice crackled through.
"I don't see his name on my calendar," he
barked.
"Really?" Father Duncan said smoothly. "My
mistake; I must have forgotten. But we can't take
that out on Mr. Balsam, can we?"
"Whom can we take it out on?" the Bishop's
voice came back.
"Your next appointment," Father Duncan said.
"It's Mrs. Chambers. She wants to arrange for
you to give some spiritual guidance to her Girl
Scouts."
"Little green trolls," the Bishop muttered.
"All right, show Balsam in."
Margo settled herself in the secretary's office
to wait, and Father Duncan ushered Peter into the inner
office. The Bishop was on his feet, his hand out.
"Nice to see you again, young man, however
unexpectedly." He tried to direct a severe
look at Father Duncan and failed. "Any idea
how long you can keep Mrs. Chambers at bay?"
"She won't wait more than twenty minutes," the
secretary warned.
"Then let's count on at least an hour's chat, shall
we? Sit down, Mr. Balsam, sit down." The
Bishop waited until Father Duncan was
out of the room, then turned twinkling eyes back
to Peter.
"He's terrific," he said. "Always manages
to get the
r tilde less-than i tilde less-than rather
tilde i i-i
people I want to see in, and keep the others out. But
Mrs. Chambers won't be easy."
"I'm sorry," Peter apologized. "I should have
made an appointment, but I didn't know I'd have
any free time till just a couple of hours ago."
"Of course you should have, but it doesn't matter. I
was going to have Father Duncan call you today anyway."
The sparkle left his eyes. "What's going on in
Neilsville?"
"That's what I want to talk to you about."
It took nearly thirty minutes for Peter
to reconstruct the entire story for the Bishop. He
tried to make the realities of the Society of St.
Peter Martyour as palatable as possible, but the
Bishop prodded him. "Out with it, young man. I'm not
a prude, and I've been around."
Peter told him as much as he could remember, and
everything he and Margo had been able to piece together from
the tape. The Bishop listened in silence.
"And you thinic the Society is connected with the
suicides in Neilsville?"
"I do."
"It sounds pretty farfetched."
"I know it does. But what happened last night is
pretty farfetched, too. I'm sure I wound up
in the rectory last night, and I know I didn't
want to go. I don't remember going, I don't
remember being there, and I don't remember coming
home again. But I'm sure that's where I was."
"And you jhrnVery they got you there by using some kind of
mind control." The Bishop turned it over in his
mind. "Frankly, I don't think it's
possible."
"I wouldn't have either, a few days ago. But when
nothing makes any sense, you have to believe whatever the
facts point to. Nothing else makes any sense
at all-
PUNISH THE SINNERS 353
it's got to be some form of mind control or
hypnotism ... or something."
"You make it all sound rather sinister," the Bishop
commented.
"It is sinister. Two girls are dead. Two more
nearly died. At first I thought the
Society was just a sick pastime for some unbalanced
priests. But it isn't, Your Eminence. It's
something else entirely. Monsignor Vernon
believes he is Peter Martyour-his reincarnation.
And they think I'm a reincarnation of St. Acerinus,
a man named Piero da Balsama, the man who
killed St. Peter Martyour. At first I thought it
was harmless, but I don't think so any more. I think
they're all very sick, and I think they've found some
way to inflict their sickness on everyone else."
Bishop O'Malley leaned forward slightly.
"I wish I could agree with you," he said gravely,
"but I'm afraid I can't. I talked to a-was He
consulted a pad on his desk.?-Dr. Shields this
morning."
"I know him."
"He thinks Neilsville is experiencing a
suicide contar gton.
"I know," Peter said shortly.
"Then you should also know that I agree with him," the
Bishop said. "It is quite obvious to me that what's
going on at St. Francis Xavier's is a
hysterical phenomenon. And, quite frankly, it
doesn't surprise me. Dr. Shields told
me that the sort of thing we seem to be
experiencing usually-almost without exception- occurs in
mental hospitals." The Bishop paused,
considering. "Unfortunately, in small towns,
parochial schools can become very institutional. I
think we're going to have to begin making some rather radical
changes in the structure of the school."
"Will that include Monsignor Vernon's
dismissal?"
ni IP
r? n r tilde i
n
Peter asked. He supposed the question was rude, or
at best impertinent, but he didn't care. He
felt his stomach tighten when the Bishop shook his
head.
"I don't see that I can go that far," he said
gently. "Not right away, at least. It may become
necessary if he refuses to go along with the changes I have
in mind. But not now."
Peter stared at the Bishop. When he finally found his
tongue, the words tumbled out
"But he's a danger now! If s now that he's
doing whatever it is he's doing! I had it all on
the tapel"
"But you don't have the tape, do you?"
Peter could only shake his head.
The Bishop stood up. "I'm sorry Mr.
Balsam-Peter. May I call you Peter?"
Balsam nodded. "Peter, I just don't see that
anyone in the world would believe the ttory you just told
me. I don't believe it myself. I grant you that
I don't think much of the Society of St. Peter
Martyour, but all you've given me are a lot of
impressions about things you can't even remember. After
all, you could be wrong."
It was over. Peter walked numbly through Father
Duncan's office, and Margo fell in step behind
him.
"It didn't go well, did it?" she asked, knowing
by his face that it had not. "What are you going to do?"
He didn't answer the question for a long time. Instead,
as he drove back toward Neilsville, he
watched the barren countryside, and remembered how
foreign it had looked to him when he had come in on the
train only a few weeks earlier. Now, it all
seemed terribly familiar. Now the countryside
around Neilsville looked every bit as bleak as
Peter Balsam felt
Beside him, Margo Henderson maintained the silence.
She, too, watched the desert go by, and
wondered if there would ever be anything else for her.
She was
PUNISH THE SINNERS 355
getting tired of desert; she'd lived in it too
long. She'd hoped Peter Balsam would take her
out of it. Instead, he was getting caught by it.
As they approached the outskirts of Neilsville,
he suddenly took her hand. "I know what I'm
going to do." He said it so quietly she almost
didn't realize what he was talking about. Then,
remembering, she looked at him questioningly.
"I'm going to play my part," Peter said
quietly. cTomorrow going to be St. Acerinus."
t tilde backslash rather tilde less-than i-i
r i
n n
snuuBoy 7,9
unod nooa
backslash
Leona Anderson sat in her living room, staring
vacantly ahead, trying to understand it. She had sat
like that all day, wordlessly, not hearing the condolences of
her friends.
She had listened to Monsignor Vernon that morning,
heard him telling her why her daughter could
not be buried in sanctified ground. She had known
it, of course, but until the priest had come to tell
her, she had not believed it.
"It's that teacher," she said bitterly, shattering the
silence that had fallen over the room.
One of the women glanced at Leona, then away.
"It is," Leona insisted quietly. "They were
all in his class, all of them. Judy and Karen, and
Janet and- and-was she broke off, knowing that if she
said her daughter's name she would lose control. She
must not cry. Not yet. First, she must destroy
Peter Balsam. "When I first met him I knew
there was something wrong. And look what's happened
to us." She looked desolately from one face
to another.
"Leona, we don't know what's happening," one
of the women said soothingly. Leona Anderson turned
to the woman who had spoken, and a hardness came into her
eyes.
"Don't we, Marie?" Then, remembering that only
a
Ti
n
n
few days ago Marie Connally had come
close to going through what she was going through now, Leona
spoke more softly: "But what if Janet had died?
How would you feel then?"
Marie Connally smiled. "But she didn't die, and
she isn't going to. She's home, and she's
feeling fine. And that's largely because of Peter
Balsam. I'm sorry, Leona, but if you want
to attack Mr. Balsam, please don't do it in
front of me."
"Think what you like," Leona said stiffly. "But mark
my words. It isn't over yet. As long as Peter
Balsam is in this town, it won't be over."
The object of Leona's bitterness emerged from the
church into the darkness of night, and began making his way
back down the hill.
Below him he watched the scattered lights of
Neilsville glowing dimly in the night. It
crossed his mind that the lights of Neilsville were as
dim as his own faith. He had spent two hours in
the church, seeking guidance and solace, and had found
none. Instead, he had found himself.
A few minutes later he was on Main Street.
But it was a different Main Street than the one he
had walked up two hours earlier. Or he was
different.
Now, as he felt the eyes of strangers on him,
he met their glances, and smiled at them. They
turned away, embarrassed. Once he heard a
voice shouting at him from a doorway.
"Go away, teacher," a woman shouted. "Leave us
in peace!"
Peter turned around to confront the source of the shout,
but the woman was gone, faded back into the cloak of the
evening.
In the middle of town, music throbbed from the
PUNISH THE SINNERS 361
Praying Mantis, and Peter found himself drawn to it
He paused at the door, then made up his mind.
He pulled the door open, and stepped into the shabby
discotheque.
In the flickering light the faces seemed gaunt and
hollow and there was a heavy silence behind the blaring
music. It was a moment before Peter realized that there
were no girls in the room: the girls seemed to have
disappeared from the face of the earth. He knew why.
None of them would be allowed to go out tonight. They would all
be home, their parents keeping a watchful eye on
them.
Someone waved to Peter, and he started across the
floor.
Sitting together at a table were Jim Mulvey,
Lyle Crandall, and Jeff Bremmer. Without
waiting for an invitation, Peter seated himself in the
fourth chair at their table. All three boys
looked at him. He could see fear in their eyes.
"It isn't all that bad," he said softly. "It's
almost over now."
"What is?" Lyle Crandall asked. He looked
curiously at the teacher, and thought the man looked
different. It was the eyes. There was something about Mr.
Balsam's eyes that had changed.
"The dying," Peter Balsam said. "It won't go
on much longer. It can't."
Jeff Bremmer stared at him. "Mr. Balsam,
what's going on?"
Peter smiled at the boy, a warm smile. "I
wish I could tell you, Jeff."
"But you know, don't you?" Jeff said, more as a
statement than as a question.
Balsam shrugged. "As much as anybody knows, I
guess."
r less-than
"It's my fault," Jim Mulvey said suddenly.
Peter shifted in his chair to look squarely at the
boy.
"Don't believe that," he said. "Don't ever
believe that. Whoever's to blame, it isn't you. It
isn't any of you. Children don't do things like what's
being done here."
"But they do," Jeff Bremmer said softly. "My
dad says it's called a suicide contagion, and
it happens all the time."
"In mental hospitals," Balsam said. "That
only happens in mental hospitals."
"Then what is it?" Lyle asked. All three
boys were staring at Balsam.
"It's a game," Peter said, more to himself than to the
boys. They looked at each other, puzzled.
"A game?" It was Jim Mulvey, and now he,
too, saw that something had changed in their teacher.
"What kind of a game?"
"A religious game, I suppose you might
say." He was about to say something else, but he was
interrupted.
The sound tore through the room like a knife, cutting
through the music, through what little conversation was going on,
through each of the people who heard it.
It was the siren, wailing through Neilsville.
"Oh, Jesus, not again."
No one knew who had spoken, and no one
cared. It was the thought that had come to all of them, and all
of them knew it was too late.
Somewhere in Neilsville, "again" had happened. As
if an order had been given, all the people in the
Praying Mantis moved out into the street, where they were
swallowed up by the crowd that had emerged as if from
nowhere in response to the eerie cry of the speeding
ambulance.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 363
Peter Balsam spoke to no one, and no one
spoke to him. He made his way quickly through the
crowd, and started once more up Cathedral Hill,
moving faster as he climbed, until, by the time he
reached the top, he was running.
He didn't stop till he reached the rectory.
He looked up.
Smoke was curling from the chimney. The sound of
chanting drifted through the night.
Marie Connally was trying to hurry her husband as they
walked home from the Andersons'.
"Can't you walk a little faster?" Marie asked,
increasing her pace.
Dick Connally's arm tightened around his wife's
shoulder. "There's nothing wrong. No need
to hurry," he said with a conviction he
didn't feel.
"But she's only been out of the hospital a day. I
just don't like the idea of leaving her alone."
"She's not alone," Dick reminded her. "Your
mother's with her."
"Well, I just don't like it. Janet should have us-was
She broke off as the sound of the siren reached them.
They stopped on the sidewalk and stared at each
other, listening. Then, as the siren grew steadily
louder, they began running.
Lights blazed from their house.
The ambulance was parked in the driveway, its red
lights still flashing.
"Stay back," someone called to them. "Don't go
inl"
They ignored the warning.
Marie Connally's mother stood numbly at the foot
of the stairs, her face pale, her whole body
shaking. She stared hollowly at her daughter and
son-in-law, then one hand reached toward them,
grasping at them.
w
ri
"I fell asleep," she muttered. "I was watching
television, and I fell asleep." No
one heard her: Marie and Dick were already halfway
up the stairs.
And so they saw her again. It was like a recurring
nightmare. She looked exactly the same, her
limp body suspended from the fixture in the ceiling,
an extension cord knotted around her neck.
Only this time it was too late. Her skin was
bluish, and her eyes bulged. Her face, which had
always been so pretty, was no longer recognizable.
From her wrists, blood was still dripping to the floor.
Marie Connally began screaming.
Her husband put his arms around her, and tried to pull
her from the room. But it was no use; she remained
rooted to the spot, staring at Janet, screaming.
She stayed that way for almost five minutes, until
one of the paramedics prepared a shot and administered it
to her.
The shot could stop the crying, but it could never erase the
image. For the rest of her life, Marie Connally would
live with the vision of her daughter hanging dead from a
light cord.
Just before she fell under the deadening influence of the
sedative, Marie Connally decided that Leona
Anderson had been right.
It was Peter Balsam. It must have been.
There could be no other answer.
In Neilsville that night, no one slept.

There was an uncomfortable stillness in the
auditorium. It was as if they had been
anesthetized and were waiting for the stimulant that would bring
them awake again. When Monsignor Vernon moved
to the lectern they looked at him expectantly; for
years they had been trained to look to their religious
superiors for guidance. Now, the teaching sisters of
St. Francis Xavier's rustled their habits;
all over the room beads were suddenly released from
tight grips.
Monsignor Vernon looked from face to face,
trying to gauge the mood of the sisters. With a few
exceptions, they looked confused. Concerned, and
confused. Sister Elizabeth, however, looked
angry, as did Sister Kathleen. And Sister
Marie, back from retreat, seemed to be entirely
closed down, her face impassive, a glaze in
her eyes that gave no clue as to what might be going
on in her mind.
"I wish I could say "good morning,""
Monsignor Vernon began gravely. "But there
isn't very much good about this morning."
"Monsignor-was It was a hesitant voice from the
back of the room, and the priest smiled at the elderly
nun whose face seemed particularly drawn. She
had been teaching at St. Francis Xavier's for
nearly forty years, and the parents of most of the students
had been stu-
dents of hers. Leona Anderson, in fact, had
named her daughter for the nun.
"Yes, Sister Penelope?"
"I-I-was the old sister faltered, trying not to cry.
"It's just all so terrible. What's happening to us?"
"We don't know," Monsignor Vernon said
calmly. "That's why I wanted all of you here this
morning, to try to tell you what little we do know, and
to decide what to do."
"Penny," Sister Penelope said, her voice
breaking. "I need to know about Penny. She was always
my favorite-always."
One of the other sisters reached out to pat Sister
Penelope gently on the hand, and whisper a word or
two in her ear.
"I wish I could tell you what happened,"
Monsignor said sorrowfully. "All we know is
that she left her things in the quiet-room."
"What about Janet?"
Now Monsignor Vernon frowned slightly.
"Again, we don't know exactly what happened. But
Janet did leave a note."
A ripple passed through the room as the sisters
looked at each other, murmuring among themselves. At
last, there was something.
"She said she didn't know exactly why she was doing
. . . what she did. She said she was having very
strange feelings lately, feelings she didn't
understand. It was almost like-and I'm quoting her
now-"someone outside is making me want to kill
myself.""
The nuns looked at each other. None of it made
any sense to them. They turned their attention back
to the Monsignor.
"She went on to say that she was feeling more and more
hopeless, and even though she really didn't want
PUNISH THE SINNERS 367
to kill herself, she was being forced to anyway. She asked
to be forgiven for what she did."
"Forgiven?" Sister Elizabeth asked stiffly.
"By whom?"
Monsignor Vernon's eyes met those of the nun,
and a look of understanding passed between them: The Church is
a rock and cannot be bent. "I don't know,"
the priest said softly. "Perhaps she forgot she would not
be dying in a state of grace." Another murmur
buzzed through the room as the nuns considered the state of
Janet's soul. Monsignor Vernon let it go
on for a moment, then cleared his throat to regain their
attention.
"We don't know, of course, what is going on
here. I confess I'm as baffled as any of you. And
I also find Fm forced to go outside the Church for
help."
"Outside the Church?" Sister Kathleen said in a
manner that made her opinion clear: there could not
possibly be any help outside the Church.
"I-we-are put in a very difficult situation," the
priest said with unease. "My faith, of course,
lies in the Church, and the Church places full
responsibility for suicide on the person who
commits it. And yet, we are faced with a unique
situation. Three of our girls have died, and a fourth
one has tried to kill herself. Can it be that each of these
girls came to the same decision independently?"
Though he had intended the question rhetorically, Sister
Elizabeth had an answer.
"They were all friends," she said emphatically.
"Close friends. Ever since they were small,
what one of those girls did, all of them did.
That's why we have always tried to keep them apart."
"I'm aware of that, Sister," Monsignor
Vernon said. "And Fm afraid that closeness is
part of the problem. Dr. Shields-was
"Who?" It was Sister Penelope again.
H
"Dr. Shields," the priest repeated the name.
"He's a psychiatrist at the hospital. And he
tells me that, despite what the Church teaches,
there is a phenomenon called suicide contagion."
Suddenly the nuns were frowning and staring at each other
as Monsignor Vernon explained the term.
"But what can be done about it?" Sister Elizabeth
demanded.
"I don't know. When it happens in a mental
institution, the solution is easy. They simply
put the girls under physical restraint until the
hysteria that causes the syndrome passes. That, of
course, is impossible in this situation. It simply
isn't feasible to put all the girls in the school
under physical restraint. Although," he added, "there
have been times when I wished I could do exactly that."
An appreciative chuckle passed over the
room, and some of the tension seemed to ease.
Then Sister Kathleen made a small gesture.
"Monsignor?"
"Yes, Sister?"
"You've only mentioned girls. What about the
boys?"
"According to Dr. Shields this sort of hysteria only
affects adolescent girls. Our boys are quite
safe."
"But what do we do?" one of the sisters asked.
Monsignor Vernon shrugged. "There isn't too
much we can do. But," he warned, "we must stay
calm. We must carry on as always. School will be in
session tomorrow, and the parents of every child who isn't there will be
contacted, and urged very strongly to keep their children in
school."
"Are you sure that's wise?" It was Sister Marie,
and it was the first time she had spoken that morning.
"It's the only thing we can do," Monsignor
Vernon said. "If the children are here we can watch them.
If
PUNISH THE SINNERS 369
they aren't . . ." The Monsignor's voice
trailed off, as if the consequences he had been about
to name were too dire to be articulated. "We must
watch them," he repeated, "we must watch
the girls." He paused, then added crisply,
"If you notice anything out of the ordinary, anything
at all, I want you to report it to me at
once."
The sisters digested this, and wondered just what was to be
considered "out of the ordinary." Lately, everything had
begun to look out of the ordinary.
"Monsignor," Sister Marie asked suddenly,
"why isn't Peter Balsam here?"
"I asked him to stay home today, and perhaps tomorrow as
well. This whole thing has been very difficult for
him, and it seemed to me that he needed some rest"
It was as if a dam had burst in the room. The
sisters were suddenly talking animatedly among
themselves, glancing at Monsignor Vernon every now and
then, then whispering to each other once more. Only
Sister Marie remained aloof from the buzzing. She
sat almost isolated in the hubbub, her eyes fixed
on Monsignor Vernon. She still wore that
slightly glazed, unfathomable look. Then, as
quickly as it had begun, the nuns' talk subsided.
Sister Elizabeth stood. It was apparent she had
become the spokesman for them all.
"Monsignor," she said, "we have some questions about
Mr. Balsam. I'm not sure how
to begin," she went on, though it was obvious that she
certainly did know how to begin. "I'm afraid,
though, that we all think there has to be some connection
between Mr. Balsam and what's happening to the girls.
Particularly in light of what Janet Connally said
in her note. About someone putting thoughts into her head.
Who else could it be but Mr. Balsam?
Certainly, before he came, we never had any trouble
like this. And before he came,
n
1 n
n
n
"Lord knows what he told her, but after that note she
left-was
The talk that wasn't about Janet Connally was about
him:
"Comes from Philadelphia-was
"Studied for the priesthood, but they threw him out-"
"You know, he's seeing Margo Henderson!"
"But she's divorced-was
"Ever since he came to Neilsville-was
That was the summation. Everywhere he went, Peter
Balsam felt it bearing down on him. "Ever since
he came to Neilsville-was The sentence was
never finished, always left hanging to be completed by the
listener. By noon he was back in his apartment, the
door locked, the draperies drawn. He was
beginning to feel like a caged animal, and he was sure
he could sense them outside; the small-town people,
passing by his building and looking at the dosed-up
apartment, and wondering what he was doing inside, what
he might be planning in the darkness.
He had not been accused. He had not been tried.
But he had been judged, and found guilty.
Peter Balsam wanted to leave Neilsville,
wanted to pack his clothes and flee. It would be
easy. He could simply walk once more through the
town, and go to the train station. There would be a train at
six o'clock. Once, he went so far as to pull his
suitcases down from the closet shelf and open them
on the bed.
But he couldn't do it. Not this time. He'd run away
before-from the priesthood, then from his marriage. Besides,
this time there was more to think about than himself. There were the children.
If he left, it would go on and on, and nobody would
know how to stop it
PUNISH THE SINNERS 373
Nobody would even understand it. And why would they? It was
simply too bizarre.
Too bizarre. The words rang in his head. It was
too bizarre. There had to be something more. Something he
was overlooking. In the middle of the afternoon, he went
back to his books.
First the story of the saints. He reviewed it all,
what little there was.
He read briefly over the paragraphs about Piero
da Verona, the fanatical Dominican priest
who had roamed Italy during the early years of the
Inquisition, persecuting heretics and sinners, in the
name of the True Faith and the Mother Church.
Then he came to the man whose name was so similar to his
own-Piero da Balsama, the heretic who had
finally been driven too far, and waited in ambush
one night to crush Verona's head with a stone.
Not that the killing had accomplished anything, Balsam
realized. The Medieval Church had elevated its
murdered Inquisitor to the status of saint, named
him St. Peter Martyour, and used his martyrdom
to carry on the Inquisition. And apparently it had
worked very nicely, for the murderer, poor Piero da
Balsama, had repented, and joined an order himself.
Eventually he had even joined his Inquisitor in the
ranks of the saints.
Piero da Balsama had become St.
Acerinus.
Was it all really happening again? Balsam wondered.
Had his old friend Pete Vernon really come
to believe that the two of them were the ancient saints in
reincarnation?
He went over their histories in his mind.
Certainly there were parallels beyond the simple
coincidence of their names. Pete Vernon, since his
elevation to Monsignor, had certainly taken on the
sort of fanatical dedi-
n r-i
m
ation to the Church that had been the hallmark of the
(ominican Inquisitors.
And Peter Balsam had certainly undergone some
irofound doubts of his own faith, the sort of doubts
that greater-than nce, long ago, would have branded him a
heretic. But hat was long ago. In the Modern
Church, questioning uch as his was common. Many Catholic
theologians, Jalsam knew, had proposed more
radical ideas than he bever had. But not in
Neilsville. With a chill that turned lis body
to ice, Balsam remembered the massive
blackdad figure of the Monsignor standing in the
gym, pointng at him; remembered the
light in his eyes and the word he had used: heretic.
He remembered all the times he had tried
to confront the priest, and all the times he had backed
off in the Eace of the priest's hypnotic wrath.
Hypnotic.
It was like a light had been switched on, and the darkness
cleared away. The word stood out in Balsam's
mind, and images began to swirl around it
The flickering candlelight.
The steady rhythms of the chanting.
The memory lapses, when time had been
telescoped, and hours had been compressed
into minutes.
The things Janet had told him: "I'm being forced
to do things I don't want to do." "It's as if
something's controlling me, making me do things."
It had to be a form of hypnosis, but a form that went
beyond the normal.
Feverishly, Peter began going through his books; not
the texts, but the odd volumes he had been
collecting over the years, the flotsam and jetsam
of parapsychology, psychic phenomena, and
speculation.
He picked up a piece here, a bit there. It was
like fitting together extra pieces from several
jigsaw puzzles
PUNISH THE SINNERS 375
to form something new. And when he was finished, it made a
certain kind of sense.
Monsignor Vernon had found a way to control
minds.
In his fanaticism he had stumbled onto a method
of using the combined concentration of several minds
to inflict his will on others. And it was working.
The girls were dying.
But why? Peter Balsam spent the rest of the afternoon
worrying at the problem, turning it over in his mind,
trying to fathom the motivations of the priest.
He knew it had to do with the girls. But was it just the
four girls who had been victimized so far, or
would there be more?
And there was the problem of his own role. He tried
to figure out how he fit into the scheme.
He was sure that he did. Too many times
Monsignor Vernon had insisted that he was vital
to the Society of St. Peter Martyour, although he
certainly didn't share their fanatical opinions.
It was something else. It had to be.
Something clicked in his mind. Something from his past, but
way back in bis past, when he had first
come to the convent. There was something about one of the boys,
something none of them were supposed to talk about. Could it
have been about Pete Vernon? His thoughts were
interrupted by the telephone.
Margo's voice brought him out of his reverie, and he
glanced at the clock. The day was gone.
"Want me to bring over some dinner?"
"Yes. And I want you to spend the night."
There was a silence. Margo thought she detected something
different in Peter's voice, a sureness that she had
never heard before.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
i n
i disi . caret ,-i
m
"I'm fine," Peter replied. "I finally put it
all together, Margo. I know what's happening around
here."
"Are you sure?"
"I'm positive. The only thing I don't know
is why it's happening, but I'll find that out, too.
And then I'll put an end to it all."
The confidence in his voice made up her mind for her.
For the first time, Peter Balsam sounded as she had
hoped he would sound.
"Til bring some steaks. And my toothbrush."
While Peter Balsam and Margo Henderson ate
dinner that night, and made love, and were happy together,
Marilyn Crane found herself in turmoil. She
tried to read, and she tried to watch television. Then
she went up to her room, and tried to study. She
couldn't concentrate.
She heard things in her mind. She heard a strange
chanting, and voices calling to her. She imagined the
voices were angels, and they wanted her to come to them.
She knew she couldn't. If the angels wanted
her, they would have to come for her. She wished they would.
She listened to the angels call out to her.
She wanted to respond, wanted to heed their call.
But it was sinful, and Marilyn didn't want to sin.
The Sorrowful Mother hated sin.
Marilyn Crane forced herself not to listen to the
voices.
From the chimney on the roof of the rectory, smoke
curled slowly into the sky.
No one in Neilsville noticed it. They were all
at home, worrying about their children, and watching them.

A somnolence lay over the town, and it was centered
on Cathedral Hill, where the buildings
of the church, the school, and the convent had taken on the
air of a fortress. People moved slowly, forcing themselves
through the motions of the day, as if by keeping up the
appearance of normality they could somehow achieve it.
They watched each other, all of them. In every class,
lessons came to a sudden halt as the teachers found
themselves studying the faces of their students, searching for a
clue as to who would be next.
The students, too, watched each other, and gossiped
together between classes. But with them, there was almost a sense
of anticipation, an excitement, as if they were
spectators at a macabre circus. With the
confidence of youth, each of them was sure that whatever
force was striking out at them would inevitably bit
someone else. Who?
There was an unspoken consensus.
As she moved through the day, Marilyn Crane could
feel it. As long as she could remember, she had
felt people watching her, felt them talking about her,
felt them snickering silently at her. Now, she was
sure, they had decided she was next, and they were
watching her more intently than ever.
It didn't matter where she went; she could feel the
inn
,i ,-backslash
*
curious eyes on her, examining her as if she were
an exotic insect. And it wasn't just her
classmates, it was the Sisters, too. She heard
the rustling of habits as the nuns began to keep a
vigil over her. Every time she turned around one of them
was there: a figure in black disappearing around a
corner, or seeming to be busy with something else, or
bending close to another blackgarbed figure,
whispering something into an invisible ear.
The days went by and her turmoil grew. As her
emotions became more chaotic and her thoughts more confused,
they knew. They knew, and they were waiting.
She began spending more time in church. She stopped
eating lunch, preferring to spend the hour in the
sanctuary, losing herself in the Madonna, silently
crying out to the serene figure to help her.
She was rarely alone in the church; always there were two
or three people scattered among the pews, each of them
lost in his own meditations. Often they were the families
of the girls who had already died, privately seeking
solace for their loss, praying for understanding.
Peter Balsam, at his own insistence, had
returned to the school after only one day's absence.
But he had changed, and everyone noticed the
change. They were watching him almost as closely as they
were watching Marilyn Crane, and he knew why. Just
as they thought Marilyn Crane would be the next
victim, they thought he was responsible. Leona
Anderson, in her grief, had done her work.
Everywhere he went the watching eyes, the hostile
stares, of the people of Neilsville frightened him. The
nuns, too, had changed, had hardened toward him.
He had tried to find out why, but none of them would
tell him. They merely stared at him, as if to say
"you know better than we."
PUNISH THE SINNERS 379
Except Sister Marie. She came to him the day
he returned to St. Francis Xavier's, and
offered to help him.
"Help?" he asked blankly. "Help with what?"
"Before I left, you wanted me to translate something
for you. Or at least try."
Peter remembered. The tape. 'Tomorrow sorry," he
said. "It's too late." Then: "Sister Marie,
why did you leave?"
A small frown crossed her brow. "I don't
know, really," she said. "Just one of Monsignor's
quirks, I guess."
"Monsignor's?"
"He ordered me into retreat." Sister Marie's
infectious grin suddenly lit up her face. "I
don't think he likes me. Tax afraid I just
don't take things seriously enough for him. Every time he
thinks I'm getting out of hand-my words, not his-he
sends me off to spend a few days in retreat.
Believe me, if you'd ever had to maintain the
Silence for three days, you'd come back feeling more
serious about everything, too."
Peter tried to remember exactly what
Monsignor Vernon had told him about Sister
Marie's sudden absence. No, there was no conflict
between what the priest had told him and what the nun was
telling him now.
"I'm sorry I had to go just then," he heard the
nun saying. "Was it terribly important?
Whatever it was you wanted me to translate?"
Peter shook his head briefly, and tried to smile.
"I don't think so," he said. "I thought it was,
but now Tm not sure. Anyway, it's too
late."
"Peter," Sister Marie said slowly, as if having
a difficult time making up her mind to speak.
"What you wanted me to translate-did it have
anything to do with-with what's been going on? The
girls?"
"I thought it did. But now I'm not sure."
n n n n
I . T
"Do you know what's going on?" Sister Marie asked
bluntly.
"I think I do," Peter said uncertainly,
wondering whether to take her into his confidence.
Sister Marie chewed her lower Up. When she
looked at him again there wasn't a trace of her
usual merriment left in her eyes.
"A lot of people here think-was She broke off,
embarrassed.
"That I'm responsible for what's happened to the
girls?"
She nodded.
"What do you think?" Peter said softly.
She stared at him, and Peter saw tears brimming in
her eyes. "I-I don't know what to think," she
blurted finally. Then she turned, and hurried away
from him.
Sister Marie hadn't spoken to him since, nor had
Peter sought her out.
Every day he was growing more exhausted. Only on the
nights that Margo Henderson stayed with him
did he let himself sleep, and there had only been
two of those nights. When she wasn't with him, he
stayed up, keeping himself awake with coffee, afraid
to sleep alone. The exhaustion was showing in his eyes,
and he knew it was not going unnoticed in
Neilsville.
He knew Leona Anderson had gone
to Monsignor Vernon, demanding that Peter be
dismissed immediately; he knew that the priest had
refused. But he didn't know why the Monsignor
had refused-the chill between the two men had grown to the
point where they rarely spoke now, and the obvious
tension between them served only to give the town one more thing
to whisper about.
Occasionally Balsam himself wondered why he stayed,
but each day he told himself that this would be
PUNISH THE SINNERS 381
the day he would find a way to be alone in the
rectory, to search the study for whatever might be there
that would fit the last piece into his puzzle. If
there was anything, he had decided, it would be in the
study, for it was in the study that the horror took
place. Then, when he knew why the horror was
perpetrated, he would know how to stop it.
His only solace was Margo Henderson.
They began to spend each evening together; each evening
Peter would reiterate his theory to Margo. And she
would listen.
But nothing was happening. Neilsville was quiet.
The days were beginning to take on the dull sameness they
had always had, and Margo found it a relief. The
town was still restless, people were still talking, but the tension was
easing.
Except that each evening Peter Balsam would tell
her again that what they were going through was only a
respite, that the horror would begin again.
"But how can you be so sure?" she demanded one night
"I mean, if anything's going to happen, why isn't
it happening?"
"I don't know," Peter said doggedly. "But I
know it isn't over yet. I won't be able to end it
until I know why it's happening."
Margo looked at his pale complexion and haggard
eyes. It was becoming an obsession with him. Their
evenings weren't fun anymore; he was too wrapped
up in a problem Margo was no longer sure even
existed.
"Even if you find out, what makes you so sure you can
do anything about it?" She tried to keep her voice
level, but her own growing doubts about
Peter came through.
"You don't believe me, do you?" Peter asked.
n n n
H
Margo saw no point in denying it. The doubts had
seen growing for days.
"I don't know," she said, compromising with herself.
*I want to believe you, Peter. But it's all
so-was She jroped for the right word. "coms farfetched.
Peter, it just isn't rational."
"I never said it was," Peter countered.
"No, you didn't," Margo complained. "Maybe
if you had tried to make the whole thing sound reasonable
it would be easier. But you don't. You just insist that I
believe you. You know, there really isn't any
difference between you and Monsignor."
The words stung, and Peter winced. 'Tomorrow sorry you
feel that way," he said stiffly.
"So am I," Margo said coldly. "But it's the
way I feel, and I can't do anything about it."
Peter rose from his chair and went to the kitchen to fix
himself a drink. As he pried the ice loose, and
measured the liquor, he reflected on the
fragility of the threads of faith. His faith in the
Church had broken, and he had turned
to himself. Now the carefully nurtured threads between himself
and Margo had broken, too. Where could he turn
now?
He returned to the living room.
Margo was gone.
Peter Balsam was alone.
It was on Tuesday that Peter Balsam overheard
Marilyn Crane. He was sitting behind his desk in
Room 16, trying to grade Latin exams. In the
small room adjoining Room 16, Marilyn
Crane and Jeff Bremmer were working with the rats.
Peter had been vaguely aware of their conversation as
they worked, but it wasn't until Marilyn suddenly
began talking about the rats that Pe-
PUNISH THE SINNERS 383
ter gave up trying to concentrate on his work and began
listening to the two adolescents in the next room.
"They aren't any good anymore," Marilyn
suddenly commented.
Jeff Bremmer glanced at her, annoyed first that
he had been assigned to work on the experiment with
Marilyn, and currently because now she was insisting on
talking, instead of simply getting on with it
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Marilyn ignored the implied rebuke.
"Look at them. They don't even try anymore.
It doesn't matter what you do; they just plod along
until they get through the maze. A few days ago,
you could tell them apart. But not anymore. Now
they're all alike. It's like their personalities
are gone."
"They never had any personalities," Jeff said,
his irritation growing. "They're just rats, for
Christ's sake!"
Marilyn shot him a look. "You shouldn't talk that
way."
"What way?"
"Swearing."
"Oh, Jesus," Jeff said deliberately.
Marilyn didn't hear him this time; her attention was
back on the rats.
"Why do they do it?" she mused. "Why don't they just
sit in a corner and wait it out? All they get for
finding their way through the maze is a little piece of
food, and they'd get that anyway."
"They don't know that," Jeff said, anxious to get
back to work. 'Tor all they know, if they sit down
and do nothing, they'll starve to death."
Marilyn didn't seem to hear him. "Sometimes I
feel just like them," she said. Her voice had
taken on a dreamy quality, and Jeff was no
longer sure if she was talking to him, or to herself.
"Sometimes I feel like my
f
ni contion n rt ri
life is just like that maze, and every time I figure out
what I'm supposed to do, somebody changes the
rules, and I have to start all over again."
In Room 16, Peter Balsam put down the
exam he had been working on, and devoted his full
attention to Marilyn.
"Why do I bother to do it?" she was saying. "Why
don't I just quit? I mean, what could happen
to me? I'm just like the rats." Her voice grew
bitter. "They keep going, and I keep going, and
they're all starting to seem alike, and Fm starting
to seem like all the rest of them. It must have been the
same for them. They must have felt just like I do, like
someone else is running their lives for them. But they
all gave in, and did what they were supposed to do.
Except Judy. But she never does what she's
supposed to do."
Jeff Bremmer had stopped working, and was gaping at
Marilyn. She no longer seemed to be aware of his
presence, or even of where she was. Though
she was still staring down into the maze, her eyes had taken
on a faraway look, and Jeff wasn't sure she
even saw the rats. Her voice continued to drone through
the sudden quiet that had fallen over the two rooms.
"Janet tried to fight it, too; she just wasn't as
strong as Judy is. But she was stronger than me.
If she couldn't hold out against him, how can I? And
why should I? It would be a lot easier just to give in
to him, and get it over with."
Jeff picked up on the word. "Him." She had said
"him." He reached out and grabbed Marilyn's arm.
"Who?" he said. "Give in to who?"
Marilyn didn't respond for a second or two,
but then her eyes focused on Jeff, and her body
stiffened. She hadn't realized she'd been talking out
loud. She'd been thinking. Only thinking. But
Jeff had heard.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 385
She shifted her gaze, and looked through the open door
to Room 16. Mr. Balsam was staring at her
too. Everything she'd been thinking-no, said-they'd
heard. Now they'd think she was crazy. She had
to get out. Get out of the room. Get out of the school.
She wrenched her arm free of Jeffs grasp, and
bolted toward the door. As she passed through
Room 16 her tears began to come, and she tried
to force back the sob that was in her throat. She began
to run, out of the room, down the hall.
Ou.
She had to get out. By the time the wracking sob tore
loose from her throat, Marilyn Crane was
halfway down Cathedral Hill.
She hadn't even noticed the smoke curling up from
the roof of the rectory. She was only aware of her
own sobbing, and the noises in her head. The sounds. The
awful, compelling sounds.
By the time Peter Balsam could react, she was gone.
He hurried to the door of the room, but she had
disappeared around the corner; all he could hear was the
pounding of her feet. He went slowly back
into Room
16. Jeff Bremmer was waiting for him.
"What did she mean?" Jeff asked. "It sounded
like-was
"Never mind what it sounded like," Peter snapped.
Immediately he regretted his tone; he hadn't been
thinking when he spoke. He tried to ease the hurt
that had sprung into Jeff's face.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I was worried about
Marilyn."
"She's getting worse," Jeff commented.
"Worse? What do you mean, worse?"
Jeff fidgeted uncomfortably. Maybe he
shouldn't have said that. "Well, she was always a little, you
know, weird. But lately it's really gotten bad.
I mean, most of
n n i
m
the kids think-was He broke off, unwilling
to condemn a peer in front of an adult, even if
the peer was Marilyn Crane.
"Think what?" Peter asked. Then: "Never mind.
I know what they think."
Jeff looked at his teacher curiously, remembering
the word Marilyn had used. "Him." And then, when she
had seen Mr. Balsam looking at her, she had
run.
"You," Jeff said suddenly. "She was talking about
you, wasn't she?"
"Me?" Balsam said blankly.
"When she was talking about giving in. She said something
about giving in to 'hm." She was talking about you,
wasn't she?"
"No," Peter said definitely. "She wasn't
talking about me."
But there was something in his eyes, something in his face, that
made Jeff doubt him. When he left the room,
Jeff Bremmer was sure that whatever had happened
to all the girls-what was happening now to Marilyn
Crane-Mr. Balsam was to blame.
Peter Balsam sat alone in the room for several
minutes, trying to decide what to do. Whatever he
did, he would have to do it alone. There was no one left
to turn to.
He made up his mind. He would call Marilyn's
mother. He would warn her, tell her to watch out for
Marilyn, to talk to her.
Peter gathered his things together, locked the
uncorrected quizzes into his desk, and left the
room. His mind was so occupied with trying to decide
exactly what to say to Mrs. Crane that he
passed the rectory without even looking up.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 387
No one answered the telephone at the Cranes'
home until nearly nine o'clock, and as the hour grew
later, Peter became more and more worried. Maybe
he was too late. Maybe something had already happened
to Marilyn. But when the phone was finally answered, the
voice speaking in his ear sounded normal.
"Yes?"
"Mrs. Crane?"
"Yes. Who is this?"
"We haven't met, Mrs. Crane. I'm one of
Marilyn's teachers."
Geraldine Crane's impulse was to hang up.
How dared he call her? Didn't he know what
everyone was saying about him?
"Mrs. Crane, are you still there?"
"What do you want?" Geraldine asked coldly.
"I'm calling about Marilyn. Is she there?"
"Of course she's here. Where else would she be?"
"Mrs. Crane, I'm very worried about Marilyn.
I think she may be in danger, and I don't know
what to do."
"Danger?" Geraldine Crane held the receiver
away from her ear and stared at it What was the man
talking about?
"She was working in the lab this afternoon, and I- well, I
don't know how to put it exactly-was
"I suggest you put it the way it happened, whatever
it was."
"Well, she was sort of talking to herself."
"Marilyn? Don't be ridiculous." Geraldine
was finding the man more annoying every minute.
"I'm sorry, maybe I put it
badly." He told her what he'd overheard, and
what had happened after Marilyn realized she'd been
talking out loud.
"I tried to go after her," Peter finished. "But by the
time I got to the hall, she was gone."
"Well, I can assure you, she's quite all right
now," Mrs. Crane said icily. "She came
home this afternoon, and we all went out for dinner. Right
now she's upstairs, doing her homework."
"Mrs. Crane, I know it sounds like a strange
request, but I think you ought to spend some time with
Marilyn. Talk to her. Try to find out what's
bothering her."
Geraldine Crane lost her patience. "Mr.
Balsam, apparently you don't know who you're
talking to. I happen to be her mother. I talk
to Marilyn every day. You spend perhaps one hour with her
each day, and now you presume to tell me how
to behave with my daughter. I know you claim to be a
psychologist, but I have to tell you that I don't have
much faith in that sort of thing. I never have, and after
what's been happening in Neilsville since you
arrived, I have even less. As far as I'm
concerned, I think it might be best for everyone if you
spent a lot less time meddling in the
affairs of your students, and stuck entirely to your
classes."
"Mrs. Crane-was
"Mr. Balsam, I'll appreciate it if you
don't interrupt me. Marilyn isn't like any of the
other children in Neilsville. She's always, since she
was a baby, been somewhat withdrawn. I don't know
why, but it's always been that way. So you see," she
went on, her voice dripping with sarcasm, "your
wonderful perceptions are no news to me. I'm
aware that Marilyn has been upset lately, but
why wouldn't she be? My Lord, Mr. Balsam,
she's lost three of her best friends. I don't know
if you're aware of it, but Marilyn was very close
to those girls. She visited Judy Nelson in the
hospital, and Karen Morton had Marilyn at
her party. So of course she's upset. She's a
PUNISH THE SINNERS 389
normal teen-ager, Mr. Balsam, and I would
think you'd understand that." Without waiting for a reply,
Geraldine Crane firmly placed the receiver back
in its cradle. Peter Balsam stared at the dead
phone in his hand, and wondered what to do. But there
didn't seem to be anything left. He put on the
coffee pot, and took one of the pills that
helped him stay awake. It was going to be a long
night.
Geraldine Crane sat seething for several minutes
after she hung up on Peter Balsam, and
congratulated herself on how well she'd handled the
impudent teacher. Then, as her anger eased, she
remembered what he'd said. Could he have been right?
Was something bothering Marilyn?
Marilyn was on her bed, a book open in front of
her. She looked up when her mother came into the room,
but didn't close the book.
"Marilyn?" Geraldine's voice was tentative,
as if she weren't quite sure how to approach her
daughter.
"I'm studying, Mother." There was a flatness
to Marilyn's voice.
"I just thought you might like to talk awhile."
"I don't I talk too much. Can't you just leave
me alone?" Marilyn turned her attention back
to her book.
Geraldine stood helplessly at the door, wondering
what she should do. Then, following the path of least
resistance, she started out of the room.
"Marilyn? If you need to talk, I'm here."
"I know, Mother." But it was a dismissal, and
Geraldine knew it. She left her daughter, and
went back downstairs.
Marilyn got up and closed the door to her room.
Why couldn't they leave her alone? All of them? It
was
n n
caret
Mr. Balsam on the telephone. She was sure of
it. If it wasn't him, who else would have called and
induced her mother to try to talk to her?
She couldn't talk to them. What could she talk to them
about? The strange things she wanted to do to herself? They
wouldn't understand. She didn't even understand it herself, so
how could they?
Maybe they wanted her to be upset. Maybe it
all was Mr. Balsam, or he was part of it,
whatever it was. But it couldn't be him, could it?
She would pray. She would pray for guidance, and the
Blessed Virgin would tell her what to do.
She began praying. She prayed all through the night
And all through the night, the voices howled in her
mind, calling to her, chanting to her.
The night was long, but for Marilyn Crane it
wasn't nearly long enough.
29
Peter Balsam watched the sun come up, watched the
black horizon turn first to a pearly gray, then
to a pale rose as the first rays crept above the
hills. The long night was over.
He'd sat up through the endless hours, concentrating his
depleted energy on resisting the strange impulses
within him. Hour after hour, he had heard the chanting
echoing in his mind, reaching out to him like invisible fingers,
pulling at him, demanding that he leave his home and
go-where?
He was sure he knew. He was sure the
Society of St. Peter Martyour was reaching out
to him, trying to draw him to the rectory, trying to ply
its evil on him once again.
The telephone had rung several times during the
night, its jarring clangor breaking into his intense
concentration, sending waves of fear through him. He
wouldn't answer, wouldn't leave the chair he clung
to. Each time it rang, it seemed louder, and went
on longer. The last call had been just before dawn, and
went on endlessly, the steadily paced rhythm of the
bell breaking in on him, rattling on his nerves,
shaking him.
Now, as the sun rose over Neilsville, Peter
Balsam dragged himself into the tiny
bathroom. He stared at himself in the mirror, and
wondered if the image he saw
n
i disi .-i
was truly himself, or if something else was being
reflected there.
The eyes were rimmed in red from lack of sleep, and
at the corners, crow's feet were beginning to show
starkly against his pale skin. His whole face seemed
to sag under the weariness he felt. He wondered how
long he could go on.
Today, he decided. Today, somehow, he must find a
way to get into the rectory, to search the study.
Whatever he was looking for, it had to be there. If it
wasn't, there was no hope at all.
He began dressing, fighting off the tiredness. An
irrational idea grew in his mind, and he reached up
to the highest shelf of his closet, and pulled a large
box from the depths. He set it on the bed, and opened
it. His monastic robes lay inside, relics from
a more secure past. He put on the unfamiliar
articles, one by one.
He knew the exhaustion was overtaking him, knew that
he shouldn't be doing what he was doing. He tried
to tell himself to take off the vestments, to put
on his ordinary clothing. But his body wouldn't obey,
and once again he heard the chanting voices reaching out
to grasp his mind. Only now he had no more
resources left. His fight was done. As the
unspoken commands came into his mind, his body
numbly obeyed.
In his black robes, a crucifix swinging from his
waist, an exhausted Peter Balsam left his
apartment and began walking toward Main Street
Marilyn Crane, too, had fought against the voices
through the long night, her beads clutched in her hands,
counting out the decades over and over, praying for her
soul. As the sun climbed into the sky above
Neilsville, Marilyn put the rosary aside,
and looked at her fingers. They had grown red during
the night, and had swollen.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 393
Blisters showed where she had squeezed the beads, as
if through pressure alone she could find strength. Her
legs ached, and at first she could barely move. She
sat on the edge of the bed, flexing first one knee, then
the other. She tried to close out the chaos that still raged
in her mind, and concentrated instead on the sounds of her
family preparing for the day.
She heard her mother calling her, and forced
herself to get up from the bed, and move through the door of
her room, and down the stairs. In the kitchen, her
mother stared at her. "You're not dressed," the voice
accused. One more accusing voice. One more fragment of
disapproval, adding itself to the confusion.
"I'm staying home today." Her voice was flat,
drained by the long hours of whispered prayer.
"Don't be silly." Geraldine looked sharply
at her younger daughter. "Are you sick?" "No. Just
tired."
"Well, I'm sorry. You shouldn't have studied so
late. But that's your fault and no one else's.
You'll go to school."
The words rang in Marilyn's mind as she slowly
plodded up the stairs. "Your fault. Your fault.
Your fault." Everything was her fault. Everything that
went wrong was her fault. The chaos in her mind
grew, and Marilyn Crane stopped thinking.
She dressed slowly, almost dreamily, and when she was
finished, she gazed at herself hi the mirror. I'm
pretty, she thought. I'm really very pretty. She
went downstairs, and presented herself to her mother.
Geraldine surveyed her daughter critically.
"White?" she asked. "For school? That's a
Sunday dress." "But I want to wear it
today."
Why not? Geraldine Crane asked herself. She
looks so tired, and if it'll make her feel
better, why not? She kissed her daughter on the
cheek, and Marilyn left the house.
She walked slowly, almost unaware of her
surroundings. Suddenly she felt at peace, and the
voices in her head were no longer calling to her so
stridently; now they were singing to her, caressing her spirit.
She got to Main Street, but instead of turning
to start up the long hill to the school, she turned the
other way, and began walking into Neilsville, her
soft white skirt floating around her, the morning
sun bathing her face.
Far ahead, as if at the end of a tunnel, she saw
a shape moving toward her. She concentrated on the
shape, and her focus seemed to narrow until she was
no longer aware of anything else: only the dark
shape coming slowly closer. Marilyn clutched her
purse to her abdomen with one hand, andwiththe other once
again began counting the decades of the rosary.
Peter Balsam trudged slowly up Main
Street, vaguely aware that people were staring at him.
He knew he must be an odd spectacle in his
robes, his face unshaven, his eyes
swollen and red. He wanted to go back, to go home
and lock himself in once more. But it was too late. The
chanting had a firm grasp on his mind now, and he
could only keep walking, his pace steady, one foot
carefully placed in front of the other.
Then, far ahead, he saw a figure in white coming
toward him. He felt his pace pick up, and idly
wondered why. The white figure wavered in front
of him, and he realized that it wasn't the figure that
wavered; it was himself. He steadied himself, pausing for a
moment to regain his balance. Ahead of him the figure
in white seemed to pause too.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 395
Peter strained his eyes, trying to make out who it
was. Then he knew.
It was Marilyn Crane.
She should have been going the same way he was going, up
the hill, to the school. Instead, she was corning toward
him.
Something was wrong. He forced his exhausted mind to begin
functioning again. Marilyn was coming toward him, and something
was wrong.
Now he tried consciously to hurry; his feet
refused to obey him. But he had to get to her.
He raised his black-robed arm and waved.
Marilyn saw the dark shape coming closer, and then she
saw the uplifted arm. It was beckoning to her.
Beckoning, as the voices in her head had
beckoned.
Suddenly she knew what the figure was.
Clothed in black, Death was coming for her.
She wanted to run, wanted to fling herself into the arms
of the specter, and let him carry her away.
But there was something she had to do first. There was some act
she had to commit, some symbolic gesture she was
required to make to let the figure know that she was
ready to accept Him.
Her right hand dropped the rosary beads, and the
crucifix clattered to the sidewalk. Marilyn
knelt, reached into her purse, her eyes fastened on
the black figure before her. Her fingers closed on
the package. The razor blades that had been with her
for so long. She fumbled at them.
Peter stopped suddenly, realizing that Marilyn was
no longer coming toward him. He saw the crucifix and
beads fall to the sidewalk, and his hand went to his
waist, his fingers tightening on his own rosary.
n n
*
She was kneeling now, and had dropped her
purse near her beads.
And then the redness began to flow from her wrist, and
Peter knew what was happening. He began to run.
Marilyn watched the blood spurt from her left
wrist, and quickly transferred the blade to her other
hand. She began hacking clumsily at the arteries
of her right wrist. Suddenly the blade met its
mark; skin and flesh parted. She stared at the throbbing
artery for a split second, then plunged the razor
deep into it. A crimson fountain gushed forth,
splashing against the white of her dress, and dribbling
slowly to the pavement beneath her.
She looked up, away from the blood. She had been
right. Death was coming for her now, hurrying toward her, and
she must go to meet Him. She began running, her
arms stretched out toward her approaching Death, the
blood spewing from her wrists.
The truck was coming toward Main Street on First
Street. For once, the light-Neilsville's
only traffic light-was green. The driver
pressed on the accelerator and the engine surged. He
would make the light.
It happened so fast the driver had no time
to respond.
From the left, a figure ran in front
of the truck, a blur of red and blinding white. He
moved his foot to the brake, but before the truck even
began to slow he heard the dull thump, and the scream.
He brought the truck to a halt, and leaped from the
cab. He threw up on the pavement.
Her head caught under the left front wheel, her
neck broken, Marilyn Crane lay in a
crimson heap. Only the blood, still being slowly
pumped from her wrists, signified that she was still
alive.
PUNISH THE SINNERS 397
Peter Balsam saw it happen, saw Marilyn
dashing across the street toward him, too intent on him
to notice that the light was wrong, and that the truck was
coming. If she saw it before it hit her, she gave no
sign. She didn't try to veer away, she
didn't try to stop.
She screamed once, but that was a reflex.
He never knew whether he paused, or whether he
took in the scene as he ran. But suddenly he was
beside her, on his knees, her blood soaking the heavy
material of his robes.
Peter Balsam, his mind reeling, began praying
over the broken and dying body of Marilyn Crane.
From out of his past, from somewhere in his memory,
Peter began administering the Last Rites
to Marilyn.
The crowd gathered slowly, until there was a solid
mass of people surrounding Peter as he prayed for
Marilyn's soul. The crowd was in shock, but finally
one of them broke away and found a telephone.
A few moments later, the ambulance screamed through
Neilsville.
In the rectory, Monsignor Vernon stared into the
last coals of the dying fire. An intense
satisfaction filled him, and he stood up. He
moved to the window, drawing the curtain open to the
sunlight. With the sunshine came the howl of the siren.
The priest smiled softly. At last, the long
night was over.
He began to prepare for the day ahead.
r tilde was n n
i disi .1
The story was sweeping through Neilsville even before the
ambulance had taken Marilyn Crane and Peter
Balsam to the hospital.
Neilsville stopped functioning. For the first time,
each one of them, as he heard the story, felt
personally touched. Until that day they had talked,
spoken in whispers, wondered about the girls
who had died. But that day, they had seen it, watched from
the sidewalks, from the windows, as the evil among them
spilled out into the street. By noon, everyone in town
had heard the story, and told it, and heard it again.
For each of them it was as if they had seen it themselves;
by afternoon each of them believed he had seen it
School was canceled before it even began that day, and the
Sisters retired to their private chapel to spend the
day in prayer. The children went home, but on their way
home they talked, and by the time they reached their homes,
all of them were sure that they had seen Marilyn
Crane die.
She was dead by the time the ambulance reached the
hospital, but still, in the manner of hospitals, they
tried to act as if she was not. They worked over her for
nearly an hour, and all the time they worked, Peter
Balsam sat numbly looking on, knowing they were not
treating Marilyn, but treating themselves, avoiding by
n
simple activity the truth of what had happened,
what was happening.
Margo Henderson walked briskly into the emergency
room, but when she saw why she had been called she
came to an abrupt halt. She stared at the
specter before her, not wanting to believe her
eyes. But then the professionalism born of years
in the hospital came to the fore, and she steeled herself.
She approached Peter Balsam.
"Peter?" There was no answer, and she realized he
was in shock. She repeated his name: "Peter."
"I have to end it," he murmured. "I have to end it."
He kept repeating the phrase as Margo led him
through the halls.
Dr. Shields gave him a shot, and he slowly
came out of it. He gazed first at Margo, then at
the doctor.
"She's dead," he said, neither asking a question nor
stating a fact.
"What happened?" Dr. Shields asked gently.
"Can you talk about it?"
"Nothing to talk about," Peter said thickly. "I have
to end it, that's all."
"Peter, there's nothing for you to do," Margo said.
Suddenly an image flashed in her mind, an
image of the attractive young man she had met on
the train such a short time ago. Could this haggard being,
his bloody robe hanging limply from stooped
shoulders, be the same young man?
No, she decided, it could not. Biting her lips
to hold back her tears, she hurried from the
room. Peter watched her go, and knew that this time she
was gone forever. It didn't matter. The only thing that
mattered
PUNISH THE SINNERS 401
was that he must end the horror. He tried to focus
on the doctor.
"I have to sleep," he said. "Can you give me something
to sleep? If I sleep, I'll be all right."
Dr. Shields nodded. "Why don't I admit you
to the hospital?"
"They'll watch me?" Peter asked.
"Watch you?"
"While I sleep. They'll watch me while I
sleep?"
Dr. Shields nodded.
"If they'll watch me," Peter said vaguely.
"I can't sleep alone, you know."
Dr. Shields nodded understandingly, though he hadn't
the vaguest idea of what the young man was talking about.
"I'll see to it," he promised.
Thirty minutes later Peter Balsam was
asleep in Neilsville Memorial
Hospital, a nurse sitting by his bed. She
watched him for an hour, checking his breathing and his
pulse. When she decided all was well with
him, she silently left the room to go about her
duties.
He woke to the sound of church bells pealing, and
knew what it meant
All over Neilsville the churches were holding
special services. The people had asked for them, needing
something to take their minds off the horror of the day,
needing something to tell them that soon all would be well
among them again.
Peter lay in his hospital bed, thinking that it was
curious. The bells were sounding for Marilyn, all of
them except St. Francis Xavier's. The
bells of St. Francis Xavier were sounding as
usual, calling the faithful to evening Mass.
Usually, on a weeknight, attendance would be
light. But not tonight, he was sure. Tonight
I.
H
they would all be there, praying guiltily for the soul of
Marilyn Crane, knowing in their minds that they should not,
that Marilyn was no longer worthy of their prayers, but
praying for her nonetheless.
He glanced at the clock. Thirty minutes, he
thought, and they'll all be in church. All of us,
except those of us here, or in the grave.
All of us. He repeated the words to himself. All of
us. Peter Balsam sat up in bed, the last
vestiges of sleep falling away as his mind
suddenly became alert Now was the time. If ever there
was going to be a time, it would be now.
He rose from his bed and shuffled into the tiny bathroom
wedged economically between his room and the next. He
splashed cold water on his face and looked in the
mirror.
His eyes were better, and the crow's feet had faded.
He needed a shave but it didn't matter. No one
was going to see him anyway.
He found the bloodstained robes hanging in the
closet. Loathing them, he put them on. Then he
sat down to wait
He waited until the bells died away, and
silence fell over Neilsville. Then he left
his room. Without speaking to anyone, Peter Balsam
walked out of the hospital.
No one tried to stop him. Perhaps it was the strange
figure he presented, barefoot, his bloodstained
robes trailing the floor, his crucifix clutched
tightly in his hand. The orderlies looked at the
nurses, and the nurses looked at the resident, but
none of them spoke. Dr. Shields had
admitted him, but had said nothing about keeping him there.
"Make sure he sleeps." That's what the
doctor had ordered, and that's what they had done.
Peter Balsam had slept, and now he was going
home. But he didn't go home. Instead he
walked slowly up
PUNISH THE SINNERS 403
Cathedral Hill, listening to the sounds of the choirs that
were raising their voices to God all over
Neilsville. No one was in sight, but he could
sense them around him, praying quietly in the
churches.
He mounted the steps to the rectory, and let himself in
the front door. He picked up the silver bell
and shook it, then shook it again. Its tinkle echoed
through the dimly lit house, and Peter knew he was
alone. He walked quickly down the hall to the door
of the study.
He paused there, suddenly frightened. He had
to remind himself that the room on the other side of the
door was empty, that there were no strange rituals
being performed, that tonight no one was reaching out to draw him
to this room. Tonight, he had come on his
own.
He opened the door, and entered the small
room. He found the light switch, and the room was
filled with a yellow glow that seemed to change its
configuration, washing away the gloom.
He began his search of the desk, opening and closing the
drawers rapidly. He wasn't sure what he was
looking for. He would recognize it when he saw it.
There was nothing in the desk, and he moved to a small
filing cabinet that was built into one of the walls. He
opened the top drawer, and began going through the files.
Nothing. Nothing in the second.
In the third, he found what he was looking for. It was
a large sealed envelope, wedged behind the last of the
files. Peter pulled it from its hiding place, and
tore open the envelope. A scrapbook. A
scrapbook and a file folder. He opened the file
folder.
On top was a single sheet of paper; on it was
written a list of names. Five of them had been
scratched out
Judy Nelson Karen Morton Penny Anderson
Janet Connolly Marilyn Crane
At the end of the list, Judy Nelson's name
appeared again, with no One through it
Peter Balsam had found what he was looking for.
He slipped the file folder back in the
envelope, and closed the drawer of the cabinet He
let himself out of the study, snapping the light off as he
went, then, carrying the bulging envelope, walked out
of the rectory into the fading light of evening.
For the first time in several days the dusk held no fear
for Peter. This night he would complete the puzzle.
This night would end the terror, both for him and for
Neilsville.
As he hurried down the hill the bells of St.
Francis Xavier began to peel once again.
Mass was over.
In his apartment, Peter began going through the
scrapbook. He leafed through the pages quickly. They
were all more or less the same: filled with yellowed
newspaper clippings, each clipping headlined in
bold type:
GIRL SLAYS PARENTS, SELF
MODERN LIZZIE BORDEN WILL NEVER STAND
TRIAL'
CHILD WATCHES AS FAMILY DIES
There were nearly fifty clippings in the scrapbook,
from brief articles less than a column long
to major features spread over several pages.
All of them were about
PUNISH THE SINNERS 405
the same crime, all of them were from the same time.
Peter Balsam subtracted quickly. He would have
been two or three at the time the crime took
place.
He went back to the first page of the scrapbook, and
began reading the articles carefully. Most of them
gave simply the bare facts: A man and his wife
had been found in bed, murdered. In the same room
their daughter was discovered hanging from a light
fixture. When the room was thoroughly searched, the
couple's small son was found hiding in the closet
of the bedroom, in shock.
The tabloids had spread the story over several
pages, and it was in the clippings from the tabloids that
Peter Balsam was able to glean the details of the
bizarre crime.
The couple had been murdered while in the act of
making love. Their daughter had walked in on them and
hacked them to death with a cleaver. The weapon indicated
premeditation. The motive was unclear. There was some
speculation that the girl was reacting badly to her own
misfortune-an autopsy had revealed that she was
pregnant.
But what the tabloids played up most was the little
boy-the little boy who was thought to have watched the
entire thing from the closet, from the moment when bis
parents came into the room and began making love-not
knowing they were being observed-to the moment when his
sixteen-year-old sister brought the cleaver into the
bedroom, hacked her parents to death, then hanged
herself from the light fixture.
He had been in shock when he was found, and had
been rushed to a hospital. There, it was discovered that
the child had no living relatives. In the end he had
been
anonymously placed in a convent
The convent was unnamed, but Balsam was sure he
f
tt
knew which one it was. What he had just read was the
story that had been whispered about when he was a child.
None of the children at the convent had known the facts. Now
Peter Balsam knew them all.
He searched through the papers.
The name. Where was the name of the family?
The name was not given. Nowhere. In every story the names of
everyone involved in the crime had been carefully
deleted, as if whoever had compiled the scrapbook
had wanted the story known, but the identities kept
secret. Nor were the papers themselves
identified. Each clipping had been carefully cut
from its page.
In only one story was there even a clue. In one
story, someone had slipped. The child's name was Peter.
Suddenly it all made sense. He had never
gotten over the shock. It had festered in him all the
time he was growing up, all the time he had studied for the
priesthood. And then, sometime, not too long ago, the
shock had caught up with him.
He had begun to hate adolescent girls. And why
shouldn't he? Hadn't one of them taken his parents
away from him? Taken his home away from him? Left
him with nothing? If one of them could do that, why not all
of them? His hatred had grown, had turned into an
obsession.
And Peter Vernon-now Monsignor Vernon-had
acted on his obsession. He had gathered together the
forces at his disposal, and begun to strike back,
taking revenge on the children his injured mind blamed for the
loss of his parents.
Balsam leafed through the scrapbook. He could understand
it, now, and for the first time he felt a trace of
sympathy for the priest.
He wondered what to do with the scrapbook. Should he
take it to the police? But what would they do?
All
r
PUNISH THE SINNERS 407
right, so the Monsignor kept a scrapbook about a
crime more than thirty years old. So what? If
it was your family, wouldn't you have kept a
scrapbook too? Those girls killed themselves,
mister, and the fact that a priest's older sister did
the same thing thirty years ago is just one of those
coincidences.
The Bishop. He could take it to the Bishop. Even
if the Bishop didn't believe the Monsignor
had anything to do with the suicides, at least the
scrapbook would prove that something had gone wrong in
the Monsignor's early life, and that the priest should
at least be carefully observed. The Bishop could
order the Monsignor to undergo observation. From there,
the psychiatrists could take over. It would all come
out
The door suddenly opened.
Monsignor Vernon stood framed in the door, a
small smile playing around his lips; a smile that
was betrayed by the burning fire in bis eyes.
"I went to see you at the hospital," he said.
"But you'd left."
"Yes, I did," Peter said blankly, his mind
whirling.
"May I come in?" The burning eyes bored
into Peter, and without waiting for an answer the priest
entered the room and closed the door behind him.
"You found my scrapbook," he said softly. His
eyes darted around the room, coming to rest on the open
scrapbook on the desk.
"It was you we all talked about, wasn't it? When
we were kids?"
"Yes, it was me," the priest said. "But I
didn't know it, not until five years ago."
"Five years ago?"
"Someone sent me that scrapbook. I don't know
who, and I don't know why. But it explained a lot
to me. It made me see what I had to do."
,r equals i
m
vi
ll
"Do?" Peter Balsam felt his heart beat
faster.
"I had to punish them. All of them."
"You mean the girls?"
"They're evil," the priest said.
"They're evil with their minds, and with their bodies. The
Lord wants me to punish them."
"I thought it was St. Peter Martyour," Balsam
said softly.
"Of course you did. That's what I wanted you
to think. And that's what I wanted the members of the
Society to think. It makes it much easier that
way."
"I see," said Peter. "The Society never had
anything to do with religion, did it?"
"What is religion? It has to do with my
religion, and with St. Peter Martyour's
religion. But not with the religion of the Church. The
Church has no religion any more. It has
become weak. It tolerates."
"And you do not."
"I don't need to," the priest said. The fire in
his eyes was raging now, and Peter Balsam was
suddenly afraid. But he had to know.
"Me," he said. "Why did you need me?"
Monsignor Vernon smiled now.
"You think I'm insane, don't you?" he asked.
"Are you?"
"If I were, I wouldn't do what I've done."
The fear stabbed at Balsam again. "Done?
What do you mean?"
"You," the priest said simply. "You've figured out
everything else, but you haven't figured out your own part
in it, have you?"
"I'm to be St. Acerinus," Peter said. "I'm
supposed to kill you, and then repent. But I won't
do it."
"No, you won't," the Monsignor said. "You've
done everything else admirably, but I don't
expect you to kill
PUNISH THE SINNERS 409
me. That was never part of the plan. That was the way it
happened the first time. This time, St. Peter takes his
revenge."
"I'm not sure I'm following you," Balsam said.
It was all getting confused again. Did the priest
really believe, after all, that he was Still Peter
Martyour's reincarnation? And then the truth struck.
Of course he did. He had to, or the guilt
would be too much for him. If he weren't Peter
Vernon-if he were St. Peter Martyour-then everything
was different. He was punishing heretics and sinners,
carrying on the work of the Lord, and protecting the Mother
Church. He was no longer just Peter Vernon,
insanely avenging the death of his parents.
"I'm going to kill you," Monsignor Vernon said
in
the silence.
Balsam stared at him. "You can't," he protested.
"Can't I?" The priest's eyes had grown cold.
"What will happen if I do? They'll think it was
suicide." He picked a letter opener off Peter
Balsam's desk, and began twirling it in his hands
as he talked.
"When they find you, what will they find? A young man,
a psychologist, a teacher. Wearing monastic
robes stained with blood."
The letter opener glittered as it reflected the light from
the desk lamp. Peter Balsam bunked as the
flashes of light struck his eyes.
"And who is this young man? His name is Peter. He
grew up in a convent, after a tragedy in his youth."
The priest touched the scrapbook with the point of the letter
opener. "And he was a failure at nearly
everything."
The letter opener glinted again. Peter Balsam watched
it, unable to force his eyes away from the lamplight
reflecting on the blade.
"His students have been dying, one by one,"
Monsignor Vernon's voice went on
inexorably. "But has he
n
They buried him a week later, in an unmarked
grave. They tried to reach his wife, but she had
disappeared. They weren't sure that even if they found
her, she would want him. Not after hearing what they would
have to tell her.
In the manner of small towns, everyone in
Neilsville knew where the grave was. And they
went; the Catholics secretly, the others openly.
They covered it with filth, as if by desecrating his
grave they could wipe him out of their memories.
Each day the filth was cleaned away, and each night
it reappeared.
It took nearly a year, but eventually they forgot,
or buried their memories deep in the backs of their
minds. Peter Balsam's grave lay clean,
unvisited, untended. For awhile.
For Judy Nelson, that year was the most difficult
of her life. She had always felt set apart from the
town, but during that year it was worse than ever. Her
friends were gone, and she was unable to make new ones. It
was as if she was tainted; as if whatever had brushed
against her, then attacked her friends, might still be in
Neilsville, ready to strike again.
Judy was haunted by the memory of Marilyn
Crane. Late at night, when she should have been
sleeping, she
n
n r
I r I
H
would remember. She hadn't intended for the pranks to go
as far as they had. She had only been teasing
Marilyn. She hadn't meant for Marilyn to die.
But Marilyn had died, and Judy knew that, whatever
had happened to the other girls, with Marilyn it had
been different. She, Judy, had driven her to her
death. Her mind would not let her forget.
On the anniversary of Peter Balsam's death, the
memory of Marilyn Crane loomed larger than
ever in Judy's mind. She woke out of a sound
sleep, and Marilyn was singing to her, calling her.
She left her bed and moved to her closet. From the
top shelf she removed the box that contained her
confirmation dress. She opened the box and shook the
dress out
She put it on.
She left the house quietly, and walked through the
streets of Neilsville. She entered the
graveyard, and went to the spot where Marilyn
Crane lay buried. She stood for a long time,
staring down at the grave and praying.
Then, as the first gray of dawn showed in the eastern
sky, Judy moved to Peter Balsam's grave.
There, too, she stood for a long while, praying
once more. As she prayed, the music-a sort of
chanting-grew in her ears.
She began searching in the rubble around the grave
until she found a piece of broken glass.
With the shard of glass she began to cut herself.
They found her late that morning. She was lying on
Peter Balsam's grave, face down, her arms
spread wide, as if trying to embrace the decaying
remains that lay below. Pools of blood soaked the
earth beneath her palms, and her rosary lay broken, the
beads scattered in the mud where the headstone should have
been.
backslash PUNISH THE SINNERS 415
They removed Peter Balsam's bones from the ground
and burned them.
But it happened again, and yet again.
The people of Neilsville wondered, and were frightened.
They grew expectant, and each year, about the same
time, they began watching their daughters,
looking for a sign. But there was never a sign, never a
clue. But each year, sometime in the fall, one of their
children would be missed from her home. She would always be
found in the same place, reaching out as if to embrace
the empty grave.
And each year, in the rectory of the Church of St.
Francis Xavier, the Society of St. Peter
Martyour met.
Six priests, meeting in the glow of the firelight,
praying to their patron saint.
On each of those nights, very late, the flames would
begin to dance in a slow rhythm, and the voice would speak
to them.
"Give praise unto the Lord, my servants.
Strike down the heretics, and punish the sinners."
Each year the will of St. Peter Martyour was carried
out, and the sins of the faithful were punished.
n
U
y*and*
No other book and no other
novelist will prepare you for the
nightmares he has in store.
Dell
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SUFFER THE CHILDREN 18293-X $6.50
WHEN THE W1MD BLOWS 19490-3
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JOHN SAUL'S first novel of psychological
and supernatural suspense, Suffer the Children,
became an
immediate phenomenon in 1977, leaping onto
national bestseller lists and selling more than one
million copies. Each year since has seen the
publication
of a new bestselling novel of horror-among them
The God Project, Nathaniel, Brainchild,
Hellfire, The Unwanted, The Unloved,
Creature, and his latest,
Second Ch. Mr. Saul lives in Seattle,
Washington, where he is at work on his next
novel.
IM
M
i.-backslash
It
U U His