Thorne said, “But surely the evidence supports the Wharton girl’s story.”
Dawson appeared startled. “The Wharton girl’s story? Yes, I believe it was, from a letter. But how did you know that?”
A beat passed as the question hung in the air like a storm cloud. Oh, no. A stupid slip of the tongue. Was that realization she saw dawning on Dawson’s face?
“I was just surmising. I’ve never heard of this before.”
Grimacing, Dawson squeezed the bridge of his nose. He stood and smiled politely. “Of course. I fear the threads of last night’s dreams weave through my thoughts. You were right before when you said that it’s early.”
“Perhaps more muffins and tea are in order?”
“An excellent idea.”
The men quickly went upstairs.
Alice stood there, trying to understand what had just happened. In a flash, she foresaw Christ’s plan: a replay of His own arrest and crucifixion, except she would be the criminal. Reverend Dawson would figure out who she was, and like Judas Iscariot, would betray her to the authorities. Following extradition to her home state, Alice would be publicly humiliated, like Christ before the Passover crowd, and then executed. She would carry her own hangman’s noose to the gallows in a twisted parody of Christ’s death march.
The stifling pressure of being alone in the chapel soon pushed her out the door. Once moving, however, she hurried, hoping to learn what the authorities knew of her role in Forney’s death. She also wondered if Gramma Wharton was still living.
But at the dining room threshold, she stopped short, detecting a change in atmosphere. Reverend Dawson sat ramrod-straight at the table, gazing at the “N” engraved into the top of the large mirror’s frame. It stood for “Norwick”—the name no doubt emerging from the loom of his memory to entwine with the dreams he had mentioned.
Thorne, also sitting at the table, kept silent. His face shined with embarrassment. He stared into his tea, forearm muscles flexing as he pinched the cup’s handle. No longer steaming, the drink appeared very cold.
✽ ✽ ✽
She might have anticipated Obie Redger’s wedding ceremony and emotionally girded herself for it the best she could, but she found she still wanted to bolt. This was different than that morning’s short visit to the basement with the two men. Not just a simple wedding, this was the event they had been planning for: the gathering of Heavenly forces to join battle with her. The Great Confrontation.
Soldiers filled the tiny chapel. Not U.S. soldiers, no. These brazen fools wore their old Confederate uniforms, cloth freshly brushed and brass buttons shined as if parading in Atlanta seven years ago. Didn’t they know they could be jailed or worse? Part of her admired the gall—their secret display of defiance in spite of the fealty oaths many of them no doubt had sworn, like Thorne, in order to regain their lands. But still …
Officers, all of them, with frills, sabers and buckles—even feathers—in every direction the eye looked, a fantastic hodgepodge of styles in disregard for the dead uniform code. Fifty of them, perhaps more, crowded into the pews and stood around drinking coffee spiked with bourbon. Beards and moustaches rippled as tongues wagged. They looked tired and worn from the last three years, and yet proud—made of leather and gunpowder. Alice could scarcely believe they had lost the War.
From the variety of ribbons and cuts of uniform, she believed she was seeing a broad sampling of the past spectrum of military units. They’d traveled far for this event, an impressive testament to Thorne’s political connections from the old days. She thought she recognized some of them, but her knowledge suffered from her self-imposed wartime isolation.
That’s not to say, however, that she didn’t recognize the many Norwicktown locals who were also present, such as Roosevelt Parker (who apparently, by his presence, had not heard the rumors about Obie and his boys). She also recognized the two men standing next to her: the generals—or former generals—who the throng of men reverentially approached, one at a time, for a private word. Somehow, despite the suffocating shoulder-to-shoulder number of people, these two men, and Alice along with them, had plenty of room.
Former General Nathan Bedford Forrest of the Confederate cavalry nodded to the comrade who refilled his coffee mug. So he wouldn’t swallow his thick moustache as he sipped, Bedford inserted the hair into the mug’s specially built, inside pocket.
“Wonderful,” he said a moment later. “Simply wonderful.”
The other former general, a heavily bearded man named Jack Gordon, replied, “It’s good coffee, but I wouldn’t go that far.”
Alice’s nervous titter came out too high-pitched. Gordon gave her an odd look.
“I meant this,” Bedford said, gesturing to the church. “The depth of Colonel Norwick’s ingenuity rivals that of his societal dedication.”
“Ah?” Gordon raised an eyebrow, a magnificent effect over the battle scar on his left cheek. “Do I apprehend a poet emerging from the Forrest?”
The men’s laughter made her cringe.
“And what say you, Missus Norwick?” Gordon said.
You don’t want to know what I think, she thought, but pretended to be enraptured with the sight of the widow Libby Hughes’s two-foot-tall cross, centered on the altar table. Although now adorned with orange blossoms, it was still a knife that Thorne had driven into her, an affront.
“My husband has indeed committed a … dramatic act.”
Appearing pleased, the men sipped their coffee.
The coffee made her think of—yes, a kettle, she was a human tea kettle, gathering steam and pressure from being in this hellish place, its very air heating her until she exploded. She felt a mad impulse to grab an ear of each general. Then, with her palms as kettle spouts, she would release that steam. As with Reverend Forney, the generals’ brains would heat and burst. She could do it. The angel’s wings gave her that power, just like Momma had blackened the roses, and—
Alice bit her lip. If she didn’t leave at once, she’d lose control. Her decision to come here, to confront whatever fate Jesus had planned for her, had been stupid.
“I must leave for a moment. Have to find what’s keeping Thorne.”
Choked, she turned to push her way through the crowd. The men would be surprised at her strength. Their thoughts blew into the angel’s wings’ cage: ghouls, titans, wizards.
“No need to run off,” Bedford said. “The colonel just entered. He appears a bit agitated.”
She looked to see Thorne standing at the altar, wringing his hands, an odd mannerism for him. “Attention, please!”
Being well-disciplined soldiers, the men hushed at once.
“Uh, we’ve had a slight problem with our priest for tonight’s ceremony.”
Deadly silence. Such a comment might have meant nothing to the average farmer, but these were former military men. When a colonel reported a “slight problem,” it heralded something quite serious. She hadn’t been so isolated during the War not to realize that.
And the psychic steam kettle inside her picked that very moment to erupt.
Relative to the days of madness on Poppa’s rice plantation, this was a minor incident—just a telepathic sprint through Thorne’s mind—but it was still uncontrolled, an involuntary spasm. The angel’s wings burst from the mental cage, flashed through Thorne’s head and re-alighted in her brain.
What they retrieved from his memory made her stagger.
✽ ✽ ✽
Of course Reverend Dawson had realized who they were. Thorne had known this the moment Alice—the dumb whore—had asked one too many questions about the priest’s necklace. One didn’t have to be a master of observation like Thorne, nor have seen men soil their pants before battle, as he had, to interpret Dawson’s gray face and continual lip licking.
Whereas before, the chapel had only needed its pews repositioned, now it didn’t have enough space, light, or air.
“There’s nothing I can do about those things,” Thorne had said in respon
se to Dawson’s mumbled complaints. This conversation had been twenty minutes ago, by the stable. “Our lack of funds precluded construction of a proper building.”
“As if your manor house is ‘proper,’” Dawson sniffed. “Plaster is falling from the ceiling, and some window panes are broken. It’s an outhouse.” He nodded to the horse stall. “Why not have the wedding here? At least a stable can support life.”
The horses—Thorne’s and some of the guests’—stomped the ground as if they thought otherwise.
“Perhaps the reverend needs a shot of communion wine to calm himself.”
Dawson glared as he patted a broad-shouldered mare’s neck. “I’m done checking my horse. Let’s go get this over with.”
He turned to leave, but Thorne caught him by the shoulder and spun him. “Tell me, is it the building that truly bothers you, or the people in it?”
Dawson’s face turned grayer in the dusk light. “It—it’s the fact it hasn’t been consecrated by a bishop.”
“I don’t think so.” The swishing drone of Thorne’s deafness crescendoed. “You saw a ghost from your past today, is that it? From South Carolina.”
The reverend stepped back. Stumbled. “You’re that officer, aren’t you? And she’s the Wharton girl. Killed my uncle.”
Thorne answered with a faint smile. The aperture of existence focused, and everything fell away except for them.
“I’ll have no part in any ceremony here,” Dawson said. “It may as well be held in hell.”
Thorne pulled his knife from his belt sheath and sprang. The horses jumped a step. Into the stomach, and then up, up …
Gurgling, Dawson looked heavenward before Thorne let him fall.
Angry now. How had this gotten so out of hand? Now who would administer the wedding? The plan, becoming ruined. He cursed as he wiped the blade on Dawson’s suit and checked his uniform for blood spots.
Even Alice wasn’t behaving as planned. The chapel had been conceived with her in mind. Economical, it was supposed to serve all his purposes. Yet Alice had entered it that morning and would be at the wedding tonight. Was she now comfortable with Christ, or was her courage as thin as he suspected? Perhaps she needed a reminder that Christ was cruel, oh yes, and that she was nothing to Him, and that she should never, ever, enter a Christian church.
Reverend Dawson reclined on his back, gazing at the night’s first stars with dead eyes. Upon his chest lay the fish-lure-looking crucifix necklace he’d inherited from his uncle, Reverend Forney.
Thinking of his wife, Thorne carefully slipped the jewelry from the priest’s neck.
✽ ✽ ✽
“It seems Reverend Dawson has fallen very ill,” Thorne continued from the front of the chapel. “I therefore offer the honor of his stead to my old commander. General Forrest?”
Everyone looked to Bedford, who appeared stunned. But he quickly recovered and smiled. “I’d be privileged. Are the bride and groom ready?”
“In five minutes,” Thorne said, and saluted before stepping out. Murmurs filled the room.
Alice composed herself with a supreme effort. Thorne killed the preacher? She couldn’t believe it, and yet she’d just witnessed it through Thorne’s own eyes. An agent of Christ killing of agent of Christ. … But it made sense in a way, for she knew Christ was a treacherous, spiteful thing that cared little for His minions and who would think nothing of setting them against each other.
The room spun. She knew she was on the verge of being overwhelmed, just like at Poppa’s picnic eight years ago.
General Gordon wrapped her arm through his, saving her from collapsing. “Shall we?” he said, gesturing to the pews.
She nodded but knew she should still leave, polite excuse or not.
“You appear ill, my dear. Are you well?”
“Perhaps I should lie down upstairs.”
Forrest answered as he followed them up the aisle. “Worry not, my lady. My liturgical ignorance shall truncate the entire ceremony, I assure you.” Alice glanced to see his dour expression.
The three sat together in the front row—much, much too close to the altar for her comfort. She had sat like this at Poppa’s funeral, in the front row between Momma and Gramma. Had Jesus planned it this way? The cross stared down at her.
The chapel has been conceived with her in mind, Thorne’s memories had said.
Well, of course it had, in order to persecute her; she already knew that. Alice isn’t behaving as planned, Thorne had thought. He was discomfited by the courage she had shown by coming here—thought she needed a “reminder” that she should never enter a Christian church.
Her head cleared at once. Oh, that’s how it was, was it? Jesus, using Thorne, sought to cripple her with her own fear of this place.
“Well, gentlemen,” she said, anger rising. “It’s wonderful you’re both here.”
The men grunted.
“I gather this wedding is not my husband’s true agenda.”
“Excuse me?” Bedford said. Then sharply: “What has he told you?”
She batted her eyes innocently. “Nothing, except I surmise his real purpose is to bootlick you two. That’s all I was saying.”
Bedford relaxed. “Most certainly.”
“Actually,” General Gordon said, appearing queasy, “I’m also here because I might purchase some of Colonel Norwick’s land. I’ve thought of closing my New Brunswick plantation since the freedmen insurrection last year.”
Hear the lies, she thought.
Bedford looked thoughtful, and then spoke with sudden intensity. “The freedman can indeed be fearsome, but so can the Republican carpetbaggers.”
“No doubt,” Gordon said, “but—” He leaned forward to see Bedford around Alice. “Your voice says something has happened.”
Taking a breath, Bedford seemed to force a smile. “Oh, I suppose I shouldn’t get so agitated. It’s just that in the Norwicktown square this afternoon, I saw an unsigned notice for an election rally saying—what was it—‘All negroes must attend on pain of being fined five hundred dollars or suffering exile to a foreign land.’”
“Preposterous,” Gordon said.
“With the state elections so close, the Republicans have become predators, and the negroes’ natural stupidity and votes are their prey. That’s why we must—” He broke off, noticing Alice. “I mean, we good citizens must safeguard our liberties, that’s all.”
A sudden stab of pain, high in her sinuses, filled her ears with buzzing. Did she just see movement on the altar?
Bedford touched her arm. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t pepper you with questions when you’re ill.”
“Pardon?”
“I asked how many of your negroes have left since the War.”
“We’re down to two who aren’t gang laborers: Jonah and Eliza.” Thorne had surely sugar-coated the plantation’s state of affairs for his benefactor, but she didn’t care how it sounded. “They do everything—cooking, housekeeping, tending the vegetable garden.”
Bedford shook his head ruefully. “Only two.”
“Yes, but they get paid handsomely. Eight dollars a month each—”
Bedford blinked at her exaggeration.
“Plus their cabin and share of food. Quite progressive of my husband.”
“Quite.” Bedford looked thoughtful.
She was enjoying this. Maybe if she told a few more lies about Thorne’s allowing himself to be taken advantage of, then Bedford would cut him off.
Again, she saw movement on the altar. A rat? No, nothing there.
Silence spread from the back of the room. General Forrest stood to look. “Here they come.”
Everyone rose as the bride and groom processed up the aisle, arm-in-arm. As usual, Obie moved like an old man. Thorne walked behind them. There was no music because Thorne, Alice only now realized, had neglected to hire musicians.
She had never seen this woman. Obie had said her name was Mariann. Tall and dark-haired, she carried the grace of a queen an
d the perfect beauty of a goddess. Holding her chin high, the bride met Alice’s gaze with a smug, almost condescending air.
And she was wearing Alice’s bridal veil.
Alice closed her eyes tightly. The first shot in the battle. Jesus strikes truly.
She smelled Thorne’s face close to hers. “I hope you don’t mind,” he said.
She opened her eyes and mouth, intending to say something cutting. Damned if she cared about disrupting the ceremony. He’d gone too far.
But she stopped, shocked by what she now saw.
The altar cross was moving.
There, right in front of the world. Didn’t everyone see it, swaying this way and that? Obie Redger and that Mariann woman had taken position facing it. Thorne stood as best man. General Forrest fidgeted before them, clearing his throat and looking as if he hadn’t the slightest idea what to do.
The cross continued its slow dance, first reaching one horizontal beam down to the table and then the other, like a man touching his toes.
Heartbeat, blood rushing. She couldn’t hear Bedford addressing the congregation. Just the sounds of her blood and the cross. It groaned now, its golden surface less metallic and more skin-like.
The cross inflated, its dimensions growing more bulbous and round. Sprouting hands, the horizontal beam transformed into arms, the vertical beam into a torso. The top grew into a head. The orange blossoms adorning it darkened and sharpened into the fabled Crown of Thorns.
In the cross’s place at the table’s center now stood the naked upper body of a golden-skinned man. Alice recognized the smiling face immediately.
Reverend Forney.
The general soundlessly continued mouthing the words of a wedding liturgy. Although she didn’t hear him, Bedford’s expression said he was groping for words. The congregation of ex-officers stood attentively but looked bored, as if they couldn’t see the monster rearing behind the general. Thorne and the bride and groom hadn’t moved a muscle.
When the beast spoke to her, its voice was humanity’s, a billion voices speaking together as one: “Thou art standing on holy ground. Remove thy shoes and kneel before Us, for We are the Lord.”
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