Page 154 of Serenity Falls

Yeah, I thought. Me too. But this wasn’t going how I thought it would.

‘What is it?’ I asked.

‘I’ve decided that when I finish school I’m going to train to be a priest alongside Father Purefoy.’

‘Wow. That’s … unexpected.’

‘I know. But it feels right.’

I cleared my throat. ‘Milo, there’s something I have to tell you.’

I opened my mouth. I saw the words spilling out, could almost feel them on my tongue.

‘Serena?’ Milo frowned. He bent towards me. I saw something glint beneath his pyjama top. A large crucifix on a chain.

I swallowed: ‘Nothing. It’s nothing. You know, I can’t stay very long. I need to go.’

‘Right away?’

‘Sorry. I’ll come back. Tomorrow, maybe.’

I smiled, then I turned and walked out of the ward. A familiar figure strolled down the corridor towards me, clad in a shapeless dress, a blue scarf around her head, brown sandals on her crusty feet. Milo’s mom. Great.

She smiled. ‘Serena. Leaving already?’

‘I have to be somewhere.’

She nodded. ‘He made his choice, didn’t he?’

‘What?’

‘He’s not yours any more. He belongs to God now.’

I glared at her. ‘What did you do to him?’

‘We saved him, honey.’ She patted me on the arm. ‘Only the righteous will survive the Flood. You might want to think about that.’

43

‘So, you don’t remember anything about the alligator attack?’

Miller shakes his head. ‘No. Although, I bear the scars, of course.’

He pulls up his left trouser leg. The leg is only half a leg. A huge chunk has been gouged out. What’s left of the limb is now a thick, gnarled mass of scar tissue.

Miller lets his trouser drop. ‘A permanent reminder of how God saved me.’ He smiles and gestures to coffee and biscuits on the table in front of us. ‘Please, help yourself.’

We’re seated in his living room, a small yet comfortable room in a modest house, tucked just behind the chapel. Everything is a little battered and worn: the floor is scuffed, the sofa saggy. More like our old home, except for the giant cross above the fireplace.

I reach for a biscuit. ‘What were you doing out on the lake that night?’

He hesitates and then says, ‘Well, I believe I had some foolish idea to steal a boat. I was sixteen, reckless, a little lost, really. Until the accident. It may sound trite, but out on the lake, in the dark water … that was where I found God.’ He pauses. ‘Afterwards, I decided to make a fresh start. To devote myself to the Church. I began to go by my middle name, James, and I put Milo Miller in the past.’ He looks at me. ‘So, I’m curious as to why you’re asking about him?’

I brush some crumbs from my T-shirt. ‘Well, I’m sort of helping out a young woman called Hailey – you know her?’

‘Yes, she’s May’s niece. How do you know her?’

‘I ran into her when her little boy was lost in the park. Hailey invited me over and we got talking about her aunt and Davey Junior.’