Innocence and Fear Chapter 6 part 1

First part of chapter 6 of "Innocence and Fear" my substack novel.

Photo by Bailey Granneman on Unsplas

Photo by Bailey Granneman on Unsplash

Sean stood up straight in front of Miette, Fabian, Jamie, Carina and Kelvin. Agnes hid behind him. He thought he could lie, say he heard nothing, and return to his room. But he wanted to know more. 

He and Agnes had walked into the Chapel and, as always, Agnes had closed the doors behind them softly, Agnes did everything softly. She was meek as a mouse and never seemed to enjoy making noise. When they had heard the faint sound of voices further in the chapel, Sean had put a finger up to his lips and looked at Agnes. She understood, and they both had snuck around the left side of the nave sticking to the wall. He saw that there was a group of people near the pulpit. When they snuck closer, he saw Kelvin, Jamie and Miette and Fabian huddled up, but with their backs to Agnes and him. He motioned for Agnes to follow him, and he hunched down and snuck behind a pew closer to where his classmates stood. He saw Carina sneak in and up behind the group he was watching. They had sat there hunched and listened to the others talk. Every so often, they threw nervous glances at each other. Agnes’ green eyes looked too wet. Agnes and Sean both wore simple clothes that didn’t match the aesthetic of the group they had come across. Agnes was wearing a green sweater and khaki skirt, and Sean had his torn jeans from home and a plain heather grey t-shirt.

The acoustics of the chapel worked for Sean and Agnes’s benefit. Even though they weren’t close, they could still hear most of what the group was saying. What Sean had heard was confusing to him and he couldn’t see what they were all staring at from time to time. But now that he was right in front of them, he saw it must have been one of the two laptops they had sitting on the table behind the pulpit. Miette looked guilty of something, Fabian looked angry, Jamie was leaning on the wooden pulpit looking careless as always and Kelvin looked like he might be sick in a moment. Carina, always made Sean feel uncomfortable. She was looking around most of the time he had watched them. A few times it was as if she could see them, but Sean told himself he was imagining things.

“I heard a lot of stuff. Is there really a person threatening us?” He asked. He wanted to know more about this topic, especially. But he was also nervous to know that there were some unholy things going on at the school.

“We think so,” Miette said. Fabian threw her an angry look. She looked back at him hard. “They are already here. They have a right to know too, besides maybe they can help us?” She said in a stern voice to Fabian.

“Guys, I don’t have time for this. If you are just going to recap everything to them, I’m leaving.” Jamie said. He started to walk away.

“Will you help us, then? Just can you try to find out more? Maybe your father knows something?” Miette’s French accent seemed even stronger than normal. Sean wondered if she, like him, tried to hold back on her accent, but when she was under duress, it came back almost stronger than normal. Jamie nodded and walked away.

“I’ll see what I can find out. Give me a week or two.” Jamie said over his shoulder. Miette ran after him and grabbed his shoulder.

“I’ll contact you when it is safe to talk again.” Miette’s voice was low sounding, and her face was serious.

“Yeah, Yeah…don’t worry, I can be very…discreet.” He laughed and sauntered towards the door to the chapel.

“Explain to me what is all this about? I heard a lot about world markets and secret clubs, calling themselves God’s people or whatever?” Sean asked Miette when she walked back to the group.

“God’s Chosen.” Fabian corrected. This made Sean feel a streak of anger. It just wasn’t right. It was against God to name a group like this something about the lord when they were not affiliated with belief in him. 

“Yes, and god’s Chosen members do all sorts of disgusting sinful things!” Carina exclaimed, laughing and clapping her hands. Sean ignored her, but he wondered what exactly she meant. He had overheard something about orgies, and someone calling themself God. He figured that was enough to know for the moment, so he didn’t ask Carina to clarify.

“How long do we have?” Miette asked Fabian who had returned to a laptop and was hunched over it, fingers clacking over the keyboard.

“Fifteen minutes.”

“OK, I’ll run through the basics again,” Fabian glanced at her with an angry look on his face again, but she ignored him. Miette explained that the cameras everywhere were watching them and other students. He was part of a special group at the school that was being watched even closer than other students…normal students. She explained about God’s chosen and Trimberg and the animosity between the leaders of the gods chosen. Sean took it all in again. This time he realized he was right to be worried from the snippets he heard. Then Miette explained that the “blessed” kids were all having their ideas and work sold or that they provided things for Patton Industries and God’s Chosen to help aid them. 

“I know that sounds unbelievable…” Miette said after explaining about the “homework” ending up putting more money in the founders of the school’s hands.

“No, I believe you…” Sean said. He fumbled in his school jacket pocket for a moment. He pulled out the “BAM-BAM” bar, still in its cheerful blue wrapper. He presented it to Miette. She took the candy bar in her delicate golden hands. She examined it, then looked up at him, confused.

“The picture on the wrapper,” he explained motioning towards the little people on the wrapper. “That’s my painting. It was one of my first assignments here.” He heard his southern drawl spill out and cringed a little.

“Whoa, really?” Kelvin said. It was the first time he had spoken. Sean didn’t want to answer him. He felt like Kelvin was not a good person for him to associate himself with. He thought of Deuteronomy 22:5, which said “A woman shall not wear a man's garment, nor shall a man put on a woman's cloak, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord your God” He had not known what to make of Kelvin once he found out he was a girl dressing up like a man. He had seen no one like that before. He tried to tell himself she obviously must have been confused, and he would have to pray for her. He spoke more to Miette than Kelvin and said,

“Yeah, I found it in a store in town today.” When he said that, Miette examined the candy bar again.

“They have stolen from all of us. Fabian found out a search program he wrote was sold to a company in Japan and became the basis of a web search client they are developing.” Miette said. “They never told him anything about selling it.” Sean didn’t understand what any of what she had said meant, but he got the point of the story.

“But hey I got top marks in that class,” Fabian said, but it didn’t seem like he was trying to joke around. Fabian’s movements were quick and jerky and not at all fluid, like Miette’s. Agnes reached her small hand out to Miette, took the candy bar, and looked at it closely.

“Sean, why didn’t you tell me about this?” He felt bad that he had not told her right away, but until he heard what Miette had to say, he was still convinced it was some sort of mistake, or that he was imagining things.

“Sorry kid, I just…well, I didn’t know what to make of it.” She handed him the candy bar.

“I don’t think they would steal from me. I just came here on a creative writing scholarship,” she squeaked.

“You’d be surprised what they take for themselves here,” Fabian said softly to her. She just stared at him. Sean could almost see her thinking.

“So, what are you going to do?” Sean asked. “Maybe we should just forget we all knew any of it.” He said. He thought this was the best course of action. He told himself it was just one painting they had taken. They had given him so much in return.

“We are going to keep looking into things. You could help us?” Miette said. Fabian scoffed.

“What could we even do? I don’t know anything about computers or business, or, well, any of it?” He said.

“You could just watch the people you interact with every day, look out for anything weird,” Miette said, smiling just a little, her colorless lips turning up at the corners. Sean saw she had a freckle just above her upper lip.

“I guess I could do that…” He was surprised at what he was saying. Agnes threw him a look.

“I don’t want much to do with it. I don’t want to get into trouble.” Agnes said. The gold cross around her neck caught the light from the lights above them for just a second. Sean wondered if it was a sign. But he thought for a moment about the secret club that might have been running the school. He wondered to himself if they were really so sinful, did he want their dirty money in his life? His mind changed then. He told himself the right thing to do was to find out more, and if the sin was that close, separate himself from it. Miette tapped him on the arm and thrust a laptop into his arms. There was a text document on it. He read it, then she made him read another and another and another. He could feel the tension between all the people writing to one another. Someone mentioned a threat about a "Quinyetta", and he stopped reading at that point. He pointed at it on the screen. Miette nodded. 

“There was a student here last year who died…these letters mention her a few times, never in a way that you would think you would talk about a dead student,” Miette said.

“Agnes, you were here last year. Is it true that girl died?” Sean asked Agnes.

“Quinyetta, yes. But Sean it was a terrible accident, nothing more. She drowned in the pond.”He thought of the small pond that wasn’t too far from where they were all standing. He imagined falling deep into the water, unable to escape death. His chest felt tight. It probably was an accident, but he wondered why someone had chosen to use her death as a threat. He felt in his heart that something was in the blood of this school, something was running behind the scenes that seemed strange at best, and frightening at worst. His mind bucked. He thought, of course, this school and everything they gave him was too good to be true, too good not to have some sort of price. Then Agnes’ voice broke through his thoughts. “The camera’s watch us? Are they watching us now?”

“Like the eye of God, except God is a total weirdo,” Carina said. Her smile was simultaneously pretty and frightening. Sean could tell she was trying to get under his skin. He told himself the girl was just full of spite and hate, and it was best to give her no attention. 

“Yes. And they would be right now normally, but we took care of it. We are safe to talk here for…Fabian?” She looked over to Fabian, his tall frame still hunched over a computer.

“Three minutes,” Fabian said, staring at the screen.

“Maybe some people who work here know more about why there are so many cameras. Maybe there is some explanation for it?” Sean offered. He wondered why he was even thinking about helping them. He tried not to admit to himself it all seemed a little exciting, a little scary. He told himself to just tell them he wasn’t interested in any of it and go back to his room. He kept thinking about it over and over. But he continued to talk, “Agnes and I attend a bible study and some maids and other staff attend.” He couldn’t stop the words from coming.

“Wait, I don’t think we should involve them. They are just trying to study…I don’t want to bother them.” Agnes said.

“Listen, you already said you don’t want to help. Why don’t you just go back to your room and stick your face deep in a bible.” Carina said to Agnes. Agnes seemed to almost tremble after Carina spoke to her. Carina wasn’t smiling in that strange way anymore.

“Sean, come on…let’s just go back to the school,” Agnes said, somehow even meeker than before. Her small, childish face was pleading with him. “I’m sure there is a normal explanation for it all. I don’t want you to get in trouble and get kicked out…” Agnes motioned with her hand for him to follow her. He knew she was right. Some rules were probably being broken. He didn’t even know how they had found those emails, but he knew it wasn’t something that the school would look kindly on. He looked back at the rest of the group. Miette stood closest to him. Her lips parted, revealing her two front teeth. She was waiting for him to decide. Fabian had turned around from his laptop and was giving him a look that Sean knew meant “Are you in or out?”. Kelvin wasn’t looking at him, he was staring at the floor. Carina was glaring at him. He told himself he knew what he should do.

“Agnes,” He said sternly, “you head back to the school. I think I’m going to find out a little more about this.” He watched her face change. But there was no anger there. She just looked sad. She didn’t say a word. She turned around and walked away. They all watched as she left. Sean felt bad about it. He liked Agnes, but something about everything he had heard gave him a funny feeling. Something kept hitting his thoughts. He wanted to know what it all meant. He told himself he would apologize later to Agnes. He was certain she would forgive him. 

“Guys, we gotta go out of time,” Fabian said. Everyone looked at each other for a moment.

“They are gonna be watching us again?” Sean wondered. He saw Miette and Fabian rushing to pack up the laptops.

“Well, they will be by the time we get back to the dorms, but we have to go now to make it back in time.” Sean had to admit it seemed impressive that two kids could do everything Miette and Fabian were doing with just a couple of laptops. He didn’t know much about computers, but he knew they both were pretty smart to figure all they had out. 

“We will contact you guys when it’s safe to meet and talk again,” Miette said. She turned and looked at him, “Sean, try to ask some questions in bible group, but don’t be obvious…remember the cameras are watching always. Don’t give away that you know anything about what we told you.” She was staring so deeply at him, that it seemed like she was looking through him. He tried not to blush. After a second, Miette turned to Kelvin. “watch who is taking things out of the tech closet. Try to get a closer look at the cameras without being obvious.” Kelvin nodded, then turned around and walked out of the chapel. Carina followed him a few feet behind. Sean waited for Fabian and Miette.

“Go on, we shouldn’t group together.” Fabian said to him. So Sean walked out of the chapel. The lights overhead made him dizzy. As he went down the aisle, he saw how dark the stained glass windows were from the inside. He saw the statues of saints hanging above the door as he left, and in the center was a large Jesus. He looked kind, but he was lifting a hand that was bleeding from the palm. Sean said a little prayer.

“God, is this a mistake?”

He felt nothing and didn't receive an answer. The spirit did not guide him towards any revelation. This scared him.

Stay tuned for the next part!

Stay cool!

<3 Aisling!