Exit Kingdom

shame, knows regret, and what he reads in the woman’s movements is something
different entirely.
    Not that title, Moses says. You called her something else.
    Vestal, says Ignatius.
    Like in vestal virgin?
    What kind of virgin’s a vestal virgin? Abraham asks.
    Come this way, Ignatius says. Right up here.
    They are climbing a small hill behind the mission, and near thetop they arrive at a flat area bordered by high jagged rock formations that create an unclimbable wall. At the base of the rock
wall is a grotto where the rock recedes under a half-moon overhang creating a low, shallow dell like the mouth of a troll. In the shallow cavern is something that looks like a white marble
sarcophagus – and across the mouth of the opening is a long iron gate held in placeby two marble columns on either end. Strung between the bars of the gate and along the filigreed wrought
iron at the top, there are garlands of flowers gone dead and dry long ago.
    What is it? Moses asks.
    It was built as a shrine to the Blessed Virgin, Ignatius explains. Look.
    He points up to a cavity higher in the rockface, and inside there’s a small statue of the Virgin Mary likethe one in the mission church below.
    As they approach the grotto, Moses sees two other recumbent figures behind the gate. One is another virgin statue – this one broken at the base and knocked to the ground. The other is the
body of a man, prostrate and half hidden by the marble shrine. It is only when they are at the gate, Abraham gripping the bars, that the body of the man begins to move,slowly and with great effort
using the shrine to hoist itself first to its knees and then to its feet.
    Who is that? Moses asks.
    His name is Perry. Douglas Perry. He died five months ago.
    What’re you keepin him penned up for? Abraham asks.
    We’re not keeping him. When he got sick and knew his end was near, he came out here to die. We didn’t think it was our right to question hisfinal resting place.
    As they watch, the dead man lumbers over to the gates and reaches his arm through to the watchers, who back away just out of his grasp. His skin is dark and leathered, burned from the sun, his
eyes milky white, his hair pebbly with blown dirt. Otherwise his body is intact – as though he will simply shrivel up and blow away as a dried husk or as the petals of the deadflowers wound
through the gate.
    Maybe he has obligated himself as the custodian of our shrine, Ignatius says. I like to think so.
    What do you want to show us? Moses asks. He is made uneasy by the odd assortment of things – the broken Virgin, the raisin-headed slug, the maw-like cavern, the redheaded Vestal. He wishes
to be away from this place.
    Without responding, the monk Ignatiusmoves to the right end of the gate, where there is a hinged door shut with a chain and lock. He uses a key to undo the lock and slides the chain away.
    Both Todd brothers ready their weapons and aim them at Douglas Perry, who begins to move slowly towards the door in the gate, clutching at each metal bar as he goes.
    What’re you doin? Abraham says.
    But Ignatius ignores him and turnsinstead to the Vestal.
    Amata, if you please, he says and gestures with an open palm for her to step into the gated grotto.
    No, huh-uh, Abraham says. I ain’t here for no perverted sacrifices.
    Moses rushes forwards and gets between the girl and the door in the gate. Meanwhile, Douglas Perry moves closer.
    Wait, Ignatius says.
    I’m gonna kill this thing, Abraham says and aims hisrifle at the slug’s head.
    Please wait, Ignatius says. He won’t hurt her.
    That thing ain’t your parishioner any more, friar, Moses says. It don’t discriminate between holy and un.
    I promise you, he says. He won’t hurt her. Amata, please.
    He turns to the redhead with a look of longing.
    Then she, the Vestal, produces a look of utmost peacefulness and brilliance – like a stageangel backlit with spotlights.
    It’s all right, she says to Moses, putting her hand on the hand that holds the pistol and lowering it for him. He won’t hurt me. It’s all right. I’ll show you.
    Moses does not trust her – trust isn’t what’s behind it. But the strange woman has a desire to prove herself at the mouth of death, and that’s something Moses respects.
He will come between her andhim who would make her a victim, but he is not one to come between any woman and the mode of life or of death she chooses for herself. He will not be held arbiter of
such things, and he