“I…I sent a letter to the Bishop a week and a half ago. Did he send you?”
Hale looked at me and sighed.
“Your Bishop and the church, they don’t have much love for folks like me. Like I told you, I got nothin’ but respect for the job you do, but all the prayin’ in the world ain’t gonna help that little girl. If the Bishop ever sends a response, he’ll like as not tell ya to drown the girl or set her aflame. Now that straight out ain’t right. I think we can all agree on that.”
Pastor Ranklin had gone a ghastly shade of white. “But you’re…you’re…”
“What I am is here to help. And we—Tod and I—we mean to see it done. I’d like it to be with your help. Never hurts to have a holy man about, but Tod and me have a big burlap sack we can put you in ‘til we’re done. Wouldn’t be the first time. Your choice, really.”
The preacher looked about, checking to see if any of the townsfolk had noticed the interchange between himself and this flamboyantly dressed stranger. I looked about, too, and saw a number of curtains pulled back and the odd slightly ajar door.
“Your flock,” I asked, “the townsfolk…do they know?”
“Some do,” Pastor Ranklin said, looking at his toes. “We’ve been able to keep it the thing of rumors, but it has grown so bad…in the night…once the sun sets, it gets worse. Much, much worse.”
Hale nodded, pulling his wide-brimmed hat back onto his head. “Where’s the girl? I reckon she’s somewhere abouts the church or maybe that big house over there.” He tilted his head in the direction of a stately home with columns of freshly whitewashed wood.
The pastor lowered his voice. “It is a…sensitive matter. The mayor’s daughter…It is a source of great embarrassment.”
“Embarrassment? Why in the hell—beggin’ your pardon in advance, Pastor—would the mayor have cause to be embarrassed?”
Pastor Ranklin flushed. “Well, the…condition of his daughter, of course.”
“Condition?” Hale, ever the showman, spread his arms wide. He knew full well the audience was populated by more than just those of us in the square. More curtains shifted, and every door creaked open just a crack. “You say that like this is somehow that little girl’s fault. Is that what you’re thinking underneath that little skullcap on your head? Well, listen to me and listen good: ain’t none of her fault at all. Ain’t the fault of her family nor anybody in her house. Ain’t nobody’s fault. It weren’t invited here, if that’s what you’re thinkin’. No sir. There’s no reason. Ain’t never any reason. Just happens now and again. And when it happens—if you’re lucky—there’s someone like me or young Tod here who might just be able to lend a hand.” Hale lowered his hands to his hips and looked around, his gaze hitting every exposed patch of window and every sliver of open door. His eyes finally settled on Pastor Ranklin. “So tell me again, Pastor, just who’s to blame for what you all been hearin’ coming from the big house by the church these last few nights?”
“No one.” The pastor shuffled from foot to foot as he whispered the words.
Hale cupped a calloused hand to his ear and leaned forward. “I really weren’t askin’ for me,” he said. “How’s about you tell it loud and strong so’s all of them can maybe hear it from you. Who’s to blame, Pastor?”
The pastor cleared his throat and responded in the voice he reserved for sermons and such.
“No one is to blame for what has happened here,” he said.
Hale placed his hand on Pastor Ranklin’s shoulder.
“Nicely done,” he said. “It’s good for them to hear it from you. Me? I’m nobody. Once we’re done here, Tod and me, we move on. But you? You’re the man they turn to. You’re…what’s the word…oh yeah. Permanent. That’s you. Permanent. These folks’ll be lookin’ to you long after we’re just a bad memory. It’s best it looks like you have all the answers. Especially with somethin’ like this.”
Hale took a step back and smiled.
“That said, you given any more thought to that burlap bag I mentioned earlier?”
All agreed that the burlap bag could stay secure in the wagon. Given the choice, most holy men opt to help. The pastor wrung his hands and looked towards the mayor’s house.
“Would you…would you like to see the child now?”
Hale gauged the sun on its trek toward the horizon, glanced at the big white house, and shook his head. Turning to face the inn, Hale adjusted his hat and strode away.
“I’m awful hungry,” he said. “Tod, them kilns got fires stoked?”
“Not yet,” I said, tilting my head toward the pastor. “I got a little interrupted.”
“I don’t pay you to be interrupted, Tod. We need a powerful heat, and to have that, the kilns need fire. Best get to it.”
“You know, I’m hungry, too,” I told him. “Working all day tends to build a hunger in a fellow. Just in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Best hurry, then. Else I mightn’t leave ya nothin’ but crumbs. Pastor Ranklin, let me buy you a drink. You can fill me in on what’s what while my ‘prentice does his work.”
I finished the last of my assembly. Lorne gave me a few coals from his forge to get my kilns fired. I fed the fires with wood and charcoal, then slid the stones of the glory hole into place.
Lorne accompanied me to the inn. Hale sat at a table with the pastor and another man. That man was dressed in quality clothing, and there was nary a hint of sweat or shit on anything he wore. Here was the mayor.
“Well, if it ain’t my ‘prentice Tod gracin’ us with his presence. What’s the matter, run out of daylight?”
“Something like that,” I said. “There’s about a half hour before sunset, I’d say. Any food left for us?”
A pot of stew sat cold in the center of the table along with some crusts of bread. I spooned some into bowls for Lorne and myself.
“Tod,” Hale said, “this here’s the mayor. It’s his daughter’s been afflicted. Eight years old.”
“How long has she been presenting symptoms?” I asked.
“Afflicted near a month.”
I whistled. “That’s a long time. What do you figure?”
“Won’t know ‘til I see her. But I don’t want to see her ‘til it’s good and dark.”
The mayor glanced toward his house through the inn’s single window and turned pale. “Why would you wait?” he asked, then his voice dropped. “It’s so much worse after dark.”
Hale sniffed. “After dark’s the only time I got an even chance of getting all of it. Trust me on this. You want me to get all of it.”
I looked up from my bowl and caught the pastor’s eye.
“I was wondering, sir, if you might have a jar of ink to spare. I’ve been watering mine for the past two weeks, and it’s mighty thin.”
Pastor Ranklin leaned across the table. “If you and this…gentleman can help us with our…our problem, then I think I could convince the mayor to give you a barrel of ink.”
“Much obliged,” I said, “but a jar is all I’ll need.”
As I chased the last remnants of broth around the bottom of my bowl with a crust of bread, Hale cleared his throat.
“Tod,” he said. “Once you’re done, you’d best tend to those fires. I want the crucible filled and ready to go. Could be quick, could be a long haul. Might be this is your night.”
I sat up taller.
“My turn?”
“We’ll see,” said Hale. “Let’s get the lay of the land afore we go makin’ any decisions.”
I pushed my bowl to the center of the table and headed to the door. Lorne tagged along. The smith knew how to make a fire hot, and a second set of hands are always welcomed. We stoked all three sections of the kiln, and as we were closing up the glory hole, Lorne’s curiosity got the better of him.
“In the inn,” he said, “you asked the pastor for some ink.”
“That’s right. The ink I have barely stains the page.”
“So…you know your letters?”
I told him I did, then went to the wagon and pulled out the leather-bound journal I kept. I opened it and leafed through the pages so he could see my writings and sketches. His eyes grew wide, more at the pictures than the words, I figure. I showed him the last few entries and their faded, watered-down strokes.
“How is it,” he asked, “that a glassblower’s apprentice has the way of words and letters?”
“I haven’t always been a glassblower’s apprentice.”
Hale, Pastor Ranklin, and the mayor spilled through the tavern’s doors. Hale walked about the kilns and racks and nodded with satisfaction. He turned his attention to the west. The curve of the sun had just crept below the horizon, staining the sky with an ominous streak of crimson.
“Might be a sky like that portents well for sailors,” Hale said with a shrug. “Too bad we ain’t sailors.”
Hale hunkered down next to one of the wagon’s wheels and pulled his hat down over his eyes. The pastor and mayor looked at me in disbelief, but I just shook my head. It wasn’t time, and I told them so. To avoid conversation I busied myself, fiddling with the blowpipes and the tongs. I have to admit that was only part of it. I could feel it building, that presence in the mayor’s house. It felt like ash in the back of my throat, and there was a thrum like the beating of a partridge’s wings that unsettled me to my core, but the villagers couldn’t feel it. Not the way I could. Once the purple had faded from the sunset and we were in full dark, Hale rose to his feet so abruptly that he gave all of us a start.
“Torches,” he said to no one in particular. “Here, here, here, here and here.” With every here, Hale ground his heel into the dirt to indicate where he wanted them planted. Lorne and I took the torches I’d placed by the wagon and set them. Hale checked that everything was positioned how he wanted it, then paused. “Tod. If it’s you tonight, is everything where you’ll need it? Would you move anything?”
I looked over our set up. “It’s just as you’ve taught me, Hale. Everything is in easy reach. I think we’re good.”
“Then let’s go see the little girl. Mayor, lead the way.”
Inside the house, we were greeted by a serving girl and the mayor’s wife. Both women were disheveled, and their postures spoke of a weariness that went deeper than the physical. The mayor’s wife was weeping, and I noted that the serving girl’s cheeks bore streaks of fresh run tears. As was usually the case, the women of the house were the ones carrying most of the physical and emotional cost of the affliction. My gender, it shames me to admit, tends to find excuses to vacate when the going gets too rough, and that’s an option most mothers just can’t abide. They remain and almost always pay a heavy toll.
“Who are these men?” the mayor’s wife asked as Hale tipped his hat.
“We’re here to help, ma’am,” Hale said, “if we’re able. Tod, can you feel it?”
“I can,” I told him. “This one is frightfully strong.”
Hale strode down the hallway toward a closed door. The serving girl moved to stop Hale.
“Miss,” I said, gently taking her by the arm, “I assure you, we are here to help. We’ve seen this before, and we know the hell—pardoning my language, of course, but there’s no other word for it—that you and the girl’s mother have suffered through this past month. If you could please take your lady into some quiet corner of the house, I promise you, we’ll do all that we can.”
When I had first apprenticed with Hale, he told me, “Don’t never promise nothin’. Tell them you’ll do as you can, but don’t give false hope. Tell them there’s a chance, sure, but don’t ever give false hope. ‘Cause, pure and simple, sometimes there just ain’t any hope to be had.” I’d been with Hale long enough to know the truth of those words. I’d seen the lost causes firsthand.
Watching the two women as they hurried away, I prayed this wasn’t one of those times.
Hale opened the door at the end of the hall. With his left hand, he motioned for the rest of us to follow.
Oil lanterns hung from hooks in the four corners of what was usually the salon where the mayor received guests. All of the stately furniture was gone and faded spots on the walls spoke to paintings recently removed. The windows were boarded shut. The room was bare, save for the bed in the middle of the room and a small table standing next to it. On the table was a tray with a wooden bowl containing some pale broth.
Walking into the room past the heavy oak door, I paused to look at deep gouges in the wood at the top and bottom corners.
“Sometimes…” Pastor Ranklin whispered. “Sometimes she gets loose, and we have to leave her locked in here scuttling around until morning.”
For now, she was secured. Tied to the bed by sturdy lengths of cord, each of her limbs strained against the knots. Hale shook his head. He nodded to me and Lorne.
“Hold her,” he said. I indicated that Lorne ought to grab the same limb I held. “Hold her tight there, blacksmith. What’s in her makes her a hell of a lot stronger than any eight-year-old girl has any business bein’.”
Lorne got his first real look at her face and began to pull back. I pressed my shoulder against him to keep him in place. I wrapped my hands around her upper arm.
“Try not to look at her face. She’s not controlling her muscles right now. That face you see, that’s a mask that it has put there to scare you.”
“It?” Lorne whispered. Although I could feel him trembling, his grip remained true.
Hale loosened the knots. He discarded their rope and replaced it with a length of our own cord. Using the complicated techniques he’d taught me, he secured her arm. He caught the pastor’s questioning look.
“Knots are tricky things. Or they can be. Yours ain’t tricky at all and, no offense, I only trust my own rope. No wonder she’s been gettin’ loose on ya. You gotta use a few tricks and magic them a little bit to keep this thing from workin’ them loose.”
There was no magic involved. Just tight and exactingly convoluted knotwork that would leave the best of sailors scratching their heads. Hale moved from limb to limb as Lorne and I assisted. As we went, the girl struggled with all her might, but Lorne and I were strong enough to keep one limb held while the other three were tied.
So far, she hadn’t said a word. Sometimes they can’t speak, or won’t speak. Most of the time, however, they’ve got something to say. Up until now, she’d kept her vocalizations to hisses and growls, but that was all about to change.
Finishing his last knot, Hale gestured for Lorne and me to step back. We watched as the little girl’s body arched and struggled, testing the limits of her newly secured wrists and ankles. Wood creaked, and the ropes flexed under the strain, but Hale knew what he was doing. The girl stopped thrashing and regarded Hale for the first time.
“I was wonderin’ when you’d notice me,” Hale said. “You got an inkling of what I am?”
The stream of vile profanities that spilled from that little girl’s chapped and bloodied lips would wilt my quill and curdle this ink, diluted though it is, should I mark them here in this account. Even Lorne the blacksmith cringed at the filth that assaulted our ears.
“Well, that’s just fuckin’ charming,” Hale said as the girl stopped for a breath. He looked to the mayor and Pastor Ranklin. “Can either of you tell me if she’s able to move stuff without—”
The bowl of broth flew from the table and struck the wall. It impacted with such force that shards no bigger than a fingernail and a wet splatter across the wall were all that remained. The wooden spoon stood up on the table and began to spin. Hale grabbed the spoon and handed it to me.
“Small wonder your knots ain’t been holdin’ her.” He moved his hand to touch the girl’s forehead. She strained against her bonds and snapped at his fingers with her teeth. She laughed and rolled her eyes until only the whites showed.
Hale placed his palm on her forehead. All hell broke loose.
The bed lifted from the floor, rattling from leg to leg. The table shot straight up and shat
tered against the ceiling, sending a shower of plaster and fine dust down upon all of us. The door snapped open, then slammed shut. The four lamps swung inward on their hooks, straining toward the girl.
Hale pulled back his hand. The bed fell with a crash. Everything was still. Sweat stood out on Hale’s forehead. I figure I’m the only one who noticed. He ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth before he spoke to me.
“So, Tod,” he said. “I promised you you’d get a turn and you will. This one…this one seems a tad ornery. It’s been in there a long time. Likely pretty firmly planted. You’ll get your turn, I promise. Soon. Just not tonight. That fine by you?”
I looked at the girl, the smashed bowl, and the shattered table. I looked at the plaster on the floor and shook the dust from my hair. Tilting my head, I caught Hale’s eye.
“Figure I’ll let you take this one,” I said.
“Mighty generous of you.” Hale crossed to the door. “She ought to be quiet for a bit. We’d best get her outside quick. One man to a corner. Tod, you be ready to step in should she wake up.”
Neither the mayor nor the pastor seemed interesting in being near the girl’s head. After the language that had spewed from that mouth, I suppose I could hardly blame them. They picked up the bed down by her feet while Hale and Lorne grabbed the headboard. As they made their way out of the house, the girl stirred, growled, and twitched, but that was all. On the front porch, they lowered the bed to take a rest.
“Where to now?” the mayor asked.
Hale wandered off the porch. He stood, stretching his back, looking up at the stars. The night was clear, and though the moon hadn’t risen, there was plenty of starlight to see by. Hale didn’t look like he’d heard the mayor at all.
“We need to get her in the center of those torches,” I told them. “I’ll take Hale’s corner.”
We moved her across the town square. As we drew closer to the circle of torchlight and our kilns, the bed seemed to grow heavier. When I glanced down, the little girl was awake, and her bloodshot eyes glared at me.
Lawless Lands: Tales from the Weird Frontier Page 25