The Devil’s Keepsake by Somme Sketcher
Poppy
Park Street Church, Boston.
It’s a big, blocky building with a towering spire that disappears deep into the fog. In front, the sprawling Boston Common is a carpet of snow, and behind it, the Charles River brings in an icy chill that snakes through the narrow streets.
My father parks a few blocks away, and by the time we reach the front of the church, there’s frost gathering on my eyelashes. I pull my worn jacket tight under my chin. It doesn’t feel like the right time to tell him I need a new one.
There’s a fistful of people on the stone steps, hands stuffed into pockets and eyes following early-morning runners on their way to the park.
Asking less questions means I see more. And as we approach the church, I notice two things.
One: For such an “important family,” there really aren’t many people celebrating the Quinns’ lives.
Two: The people that are here don’t look solemn. They look confused.
Scared, even.
I glance up at my father but his eyes are trained straight ahead, a hardened expression smeared across his face. It’s one I can’t read. I don’t know him well enough.
With everyone avoiding eye contact, I take the chance to look at the crowd in better detail. From body language alone, I can tell where the divides lie. A woman with dark roots and heavy bags lining the underside of her eyes clutches the hands of two boys, neither older than seven. The younger-looking one grips the hem of her peacoat, his big blue eyes as bewildered as I feel. To the left of us, a man around my father’s age, and a teenager I assumed to be his son in his shadow. As I run a cautious look over the pair, the boy locks eyes with me. Steel gray and deep-set, and there’s not a trace of fear in them.
I look away first. Like the coward I am.
The church bells above our heads chime, their echo reverberating against my rib cage.
Eight times for eight a.m., sharp.
Among the deafening noise, my father does something he’s never done before.
Grabs my hand.
“Poppy,” he says, spinning me around to face him. This time, his expression is as clear as day. Fear. It taints his emerald-green eyes, the only physical feature we share. “You keep your head down and your mouth shut, okay?” I swallow my own fear as it rises up my throat. Looking around, I can see the mom having the same hushed conversation with her children, the father hovering over his son, body language displaying a similar sentiment. Another tug on my hand. “Poppy?” my father hisses, the lines deepening on his face. “You listening to me?”
I manage a nod, and it’s enough for him to straighten up, reset his jaw, and pull me toward the opening church doors.
Inside, the silence rings louder than the bells, but there’s no relief from the biting chill. I blink, once, twice, to adjust my eyes to the room. It’s cavernous with sloped ceilings and intricate stained glass that transform the white winter sun into a kaleidoscope of colors. They wash over the simple interior, bringing the well-worn pews and beige tiles to life. The small crowd hovers in the aisle, no one wanting to be the first to take a seat. After a few electrified seconds, the teenage boy pushes past my shoulder and stomps toward the front row, both the sound and sight of his Doc Martens standing out like a sore thumb. His father mutters something under his breath beside me and then follows him. I glance at my own father for reassurance. As always, it doesn’t come. I decide to take matters into my own hands, and with my legs like jelly, I make my way to the pew third from the front—not directly in the line of fire, yet not too obviously trying to hide at the back—and slide onto the smooth bench.
The set-up at the front of the church only adds fire to my confusion. Only one simple coffin sits on the raised sanctuary. There’s a new question forcing its way up my throat. I thought three of the Quinns were dead? But before I can lean toward my father’s ear and ask, the church doors fly open behind us, slamming against the hinges with a crashing echo.
There’s a collective wince, the tide of everyone rising to their feet forces me to stand too, and it’s instinctive to squeeze my eyes shut.
What you can’t see can’t hurt you. What you can’t see can’t hurt you. What you can’t see can’t hurt you.
The chant swarming around my head is so familiar it’s almost melodic. Etched in my brain from years of forcing myself not to be curious.
But closing my eyes only sharpens my other senses.
I can hear the heavy footsteps growing louder.
I can smell the fresh wave of crisp, winter air they’ve brought in from the street.
I can feel the tension brewing among the small crowd, reaching almost unbearable heights.
When the footsteps come to an abrupt stop, my father nudges his elbow against mine.
And when I look up, there’s no spark of recognition or creeping unease that trickles over me.
No. It hits me like a ten-ton truck.
I’m locking eyes with the Devil.
The man with the wolfish eyes that have haunted every dark crevice in my brain since I was nine.
His amber stare pins me to the pew, his mere presence gripping at my windpipe, threatening to cut off my air supply.
What you can’t see can’t hurt you.
But I can’t look away.
After what feels like hours, but is probably only seconds, he releases me from his vice-like stare, dragging his yellow eyes across the rest of the crowd instead.
“Dearly beloved,” he spits, his deep voice echoing off the high ceilings and the thick walls. “We gather here today to honor the life of my family. My father, Donal Quinn, and my two brothers, Eamon Quinn and Fergus Quinn.”
Ice runs through my veins. He’s a Quinn. My father’s boss.
The Devil lets the deafening silence hang in the air for a few seconds, just enough time for me to try to grapple at my senses and take him in.
Hard lines define him. Sharp nose, square jaw, and a mouth contorted into a permanent straight line. His eyes—those goddamn eyes—are set in his angular face like two rare gems on display in a museum. His beard is the type only achieved by rich men with time on their hands. Thick and black, the first signs of salt and pepper flecked around his chin. The hair on his head matches in thickness and in color, falling into waves just above his ears, and bizarrely, I can’t help but think, if he grew it a centimeter longer, it’d form into curls.
His suit costs more than my soul. The wool fabric probably has an exotic history, and it’s clad to his imposing frame like a second skin. The only relief to his never-ending darkness is the large emerald ring on his pinky and the vibrant pop of silk elaborately folded into his chest pocket.
Blood red.
When he starts speaking again, something about his demeanor shifts. His hard mouth curls upwards into something resembling a smile, and there’s a glint in his eye.
“But make no mistake,” he snarls, “we will not be honoring their life with nostalgic anecdotes and fake tears. We are the Quinn family,” his voice wraps around his last name with a cocktail of pride and authority. “We are gods among mortals. And there is only one way gods should be honored.” Those yellow eyes search the room, taking their time to land back on me. “Sacrifice.”
The blood rushes from my head, and my father’s hand tucks under the crook of my elbow as I stumble, stopping me from sinking into the pew.
A sacrifice.
This is a funeral.
Just not one for the Quinn family.
With the flair of a circus ringmaster, he takes the three steps up to the sanctuary and stands behind the simple pulpit. While his eyes aren’t boring into my soul, I take the chance to glance around the room. The fear is universal, etched into foreheads, balled up into fists and quivering on bottom lips. I catch the eye of one of the children, the same one with the big blue eyes. I force a smile, but it doesn’t feel convincing. Looking over my shoulder to the back of the church, I notice three large men in suits guarding the doors.
The only exit, and it’s guarded by the hounds of Hell.
A rustle from the front of the church forces me back around. The Devil produces a crisp sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and places it on the pulpit.
“You may be wondering why you’re here,” he addresses the petrified crowd, his nostrils flaring. “Or, if you were smart, perhaps you’ve already made the connection. Eleana Cummings,” he says swiftly, twisting to face the woman and her kids. She pulls them closer to her body. “On January 11th, you delivered a parcel to one-oh-four Pillsbury Street. My family’s warehouse—”
“Please,” the shell of a woman lets out a desperate sob, her body collapsing in on itself. “I’m only a mail carrier. I work for UPS. I had no idea—”
It’s not a word or even a hand that cuts Eleana Cummings off. Just one, simple look. A look that makes acid rise up my throat.
“And in that parcel,” the Devil continues, “was a mix of gasoline, propane, and fertilizer. A lethal, homemade bomb that took the lives of Donal, Eamon, and Fergus Quinn.” The tension hanging over the tiny congregation is suffocating. Every pair of lungs in the church is full of stale oxygen as everyone waits to hear what fate the Devil has decided for Eleana Cummings. “I’m a cruel man,” he says, almost softly. “It’s in my DNA. But I’m not an unreasonable man, even in the midst of grief. I won’t kill you, or your children.” Out of the corner of my eye, I see Eleana form a vice-like grip around the shoulders of her kids. “But rest assured, I’ll make you suffer. Your job is to be terminated immediately, and there isn’t a business, legal or illegal, that will hire you within a one-hundred-mile radius of Quinn territory. Within the same territory, no supermarket or restaurant will serve you. No landlord will rent to you. No church or charity will take pity on you. No, Eleana Cummings,” he says, a chilling smile creeping over his hard face, as if his special strain of punishment is amusing to him. “I won’t kill you. But I’ll make it impossible for you to live.” He glances up toward the back of the church, and the tiniest twitch triggers a stampede of heavy boots. I watch, helplessly, as the men guarding the church doors drag her and her screaming children down the aisle, back out into the harsh Boston weather.
The doors slam behind her, and in the sudden silence, numbness creeps over me. I’m not an unreasonable man. If barring a single mother from every resource in the city because she was simply doing her job isn’t unreasonable, then this man is more psychopathic than I first thought.
The unease creeps up my neck. With Eleana out of the way, there are two more punishments to be dealt.
“Marcus Murphy.” My father’s name echoes around the church, a horrifying ring to it.
I’m not a religious girl. God never saved my mother and no matter how many carpet burns I got on my knees from praying at the foot of my bed, he never brought her back to save me.
But in the moment of desperation, I squeeze my eyes shut and clamp my hands together.
Please, God, please save me. Save my father.
My father stiffens beside me. But as I glance at him, I notice he shows no emotion. He’s been trained, trodden on, to behave like this in the Devil’s presence.
A pang of pity, and disgust, shoots through my chest.
“On January 11th, you were the doorman on duty at the Quinn warehouse. You deemed the package to be safe, you signed for it, and then you handed it to my father.” His eyes glower, but his body language remains eerily calm. “You didn’t do your job, Murphy. Your incompetence is the sole reason my family has been taken away from me.” His gaze slides from my father to me. Once again, I’m frozen under the intensity of his stare. “And for that, I will take yours.”
His words reverberate around my brain, bouncing off of the sides of my head as if they are balls in a pinball machine.
“Sir—”
Like Eleana, it only takes a certain look to silence my father, before he turns his unwanted attention back to me. “Poppy Murphy,” he mutters, rolling my name around on his tongue, like he’s seeing how it tastes. He drags a knuckle over his bearded jaw. “The day you turn eighteen is the day you belong to me.”
Drawing in a lungful of ice-cold breath, I turn to my father in desperation. I don’t know what I’m expecting him to do, but I’m expecting him to do something. A real man, a real father, would never let another man claim his daughter. They’d fight to the death to protect her. At the very least, tell the Devil to take him instead.
But it’s in this moment I realize my father isn’t just a bad man. He’s a coward. One that stares at his shoes and clenches his fist and swallows his anger as his boss stakes a claim on the child he brought into this world.
And it’s in this moment I realize I’m nothing like him.
I’m not a coward.
I can’t be. Even if it’s instinctive to squeeze my eyes shut and clamp my hands over my ears, I have to be brave. Because the only person in the entire universe willing to fight for Poppy Murphy, is, well, me.
“Go to hell.”
The words come from my mouth like a hiss of steam. Only now does my father make a sound. A weird, strangled noise that sits deep in his chest. But still, he makes no move to come to my defense. The boy with the steel-gray eyes and the Doc Martens twists and stares at me, an amused smirk dancing on his lips. You’ve really fucked up now, his expression reads.
I stare back at him because I’m too frightened to lift my gaze to the Devil. The silence radiating from him is the scariest sound so far. It’s interrupted by slow, deliberate footsteps.
Thud, thud, thud.
The sound of the Devil descending the three steps leading down from the sanctuary.
Thud, thud, thud, thud.
The sound of him walking down the aisle, stopping at the third pew.
What you can’t see can’t hurt you.
I’m not looking directly at the Devil, but his presence is suffocating so much that it does hurt. When Doc Martens boy turns back to face the lone coffin at the front of the church, I have no choice but to face him.
With only a few feet and a pathetic excuse for a father between us, I could reach out and strangle him. Wrap my weak hands around his thick neck and squeeze the breath from his lungs. Choke the evil out of him, at the very least. But as he towers over both me and my father, I know the idea is nothing but a sick fantasy.
“Move,” the Devil says simply at my father, not taking his eyes off me. The coward slithers past his imposing body, stumbling to get out of his way. Now there’s nothing between us but hatred. “Repeat yourself.”
Inches from me now, I can barely breathe. He was scary when on the sanctuary, but up close, he’s petrifying. It’s not just his larger-than-life build or the way he carries himself like he’s a million miles above the law. Because, in the ten minutes I’ve been in his presence, it’s as clear as day that he is.
It’s his eyes. Swirling around in the whirlpools of citrine and amber is a glint of something deeply unsettling.
A look of a man who has nothing to lose.
I take a deep breath like it might be my last. My life has been short and miserable and gloomy.
Looks like I have nothing to lose either.
“I said, go to hell,” I say evenly, forcing the tremor out of my voice.
The silence is hot and heavy despite the January weather. The Devil studies me with a poker face that any gambler in Vegas would die for. Then, his lips stretch, his deranged smile splitting to reveal a perfect set of white teeth.
“I’m already here, princess,” he murmurs, closing the gap between us. He’s so close now that the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. Mixed in with his oaky cologne is another scent, one that smells bitter and acidic. Alcohol. I force myself not to shrink away from him. “And in three years, you’ll be right here with me.”
He widens the space between us as quickly as he closed it, shoving past my father and striding back up to the sanctuary, taking his spot behind the pulpit again. Adjusting his cufflinks and smoothing down a strand of wavy black hair that has escaped his mane, he nods towards the back of the church. “You’re dismissed,” he says, without looking at me again.
The patter of heavy boots as the Devil’s men make a beeline for my father and me. Marcus Murphy’s hands shoot right up, palms in the air, walking himself out of the church. Me, on the other hand, I find it a lot harder to budge.
The teen with the Doc Martens and his haggard father are the only ones left. And I have a feeling that the Devil makes a habit of saving the worst till last.
“Wait,” I stammer, trying to rip my arm out of one of his hound’s vice-like grip. I was torn between wanting to get the hell out of here and finding out how this ends. “What about them?”
It was obvious “them” referred to the only two people left in the room; the father and his Doc Marten-clad, ice-cold son. The punishments had gotten progressively worse, to the point where if I stay silent, it’ll eat me up inside for the rest of my life.
The Devil throws a stony look over the pulpit. “I said, you’re dismissed.”
The hounds of Hell kick into action again. I might be no match for them, but I’m tall for my age and have enough stubborn strength to dig the heels of my worn pumps into the floor. His lips twitch at my struggle, enough for me to realize this is nothing but a cruel, twisted game to him. This knocks all of my fighting breath from my lungs and now I’m as limp as my father. The beige and brown colors of the church pass in a blur as the men drag us outside, dumping us on the curb like we’re the day’s trash.
The monsters that live in your head grow bigger and stronger and scarier as they feast on your fears. But when confronted by them in reality, you realize how much you’ve blown them out of proportion.
But not the Devil. He was exactly how I imagined him.
Catching my breath, I look up at the looming spire, letting the day’s first bout of snow settle on my face.
Today has proven to me once and for all that God doesn’t exist. If he did, the Devil would have gone up in flames.