“Why did they kill him?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do. That’s why you made me stay on the path. You knew he was dead.”
Preacher hesitated. She was right, of course. She wasn’t a child. That was the problem. He wanted to tell her not to worry, not to think on it. She didn’t require an explanation. He was the adult, and he could make that decision, as parents did for their children. Yet he knew that to do so was to loosen his already tenuous grip on his foster daughter. Treat her as a child, and he’d earn her disdain. He would have taken that chance if he thought it would truly stop her from learning the truth. It would not. She’d proven already that she was as curious—and as dogged—as he.
“They killed Rene, too,” she said as he tried to decide what to tell her. “Is it the same thing?”
“Yes, it appears so. Eleazar claims that to give life . . .” He struggled for the kindest words.
“They must take it,” she said, again as if this were a simple matter, one that anyone ought to be able to see. “They killed the old man to bring back Charlie. And now they’ve killed Timothy James . . .”
He didn’t hear the rest of what she said. He knew the rest. They’d killed Timothy James to bring back another. Then, once that child was raised from the dead, there were five more . . .
“We must go,” he said. “Back to town. Immediately.”
* * *
Preacher heard the weeping before he saw the town ahead. Wailing and sobbing and crying out to God. That’s what he heard, and he ran as he hadn’t since he was a boy. Ran so fast he could no longer hear anything but the crash of sound, like the ocean’s surf, rising and falling.
From the end of the main road he could see the crowd. The entire village it seemed, gathered down at the hall, the mass of them blocking the road. People sobbing. People on their knees. People standing in stunned silence.
He looked back for Addie, but she was right there.
“Go to Sophia!” he said.
She hesitated, but she seemed to see the fear in his eyes, nodded, and veered off in the direction of the house. Preacher kept running. When he reached the crowd, he prepared himself for what he might see. The horrors that could cause such wailing.
On a normal day, if the villagers saw him coming, they’d make way. He was the preacher. But now, even when he nudged through, they resisted, pushing him back until he had to shove past, as if he were at a cockfight, jostling for a better view.
Finally, the villagers seemed to see him, to recognize him. Or they simply realized he would not be held back. The crowd parted. There, at the front, he saw . . .
Children. All six of them. Sitting up in their coffins, looking about, as if confused, their parents grabbing them up, hugging them, wailing.
Now that the thunder in his ears had died down, he realized what he was hearing. Sobs and wails of joy. Praising God. Thanking God.
He looked at those six children and those six families, and there was a moment when he wanted to fall to his knees with the others. To say, This is a miracle. To accept it as a miracle.
Then he remembered the body in the woods. Timothy James, lying in the dirt, covered in blood, staring at the sky.
Six children alive. Six people dead.
Dear God, who else did they take? Who else did they murder?
He reeled, stomach clenching, gaze swinging to Dobbs, embracing his child, his big body shaking with joy. Preacher glanced down, about to back away. Then he saw the blood on Dobbs’s boot. Timothy James’s blood on his boot. Timothy James’s murder on his hands.
“What’s going on?” a voice cried.
Everyone went still. The voice asked again, and it was a high voice, a reedy voice. A child. Preacher turned to see one of the resurrected—six-year-old Jonas Meek—pushing his mother away as his gaze swung over the crowd.
“Who the bloody hell are all of you?” the boy asked.
Eleazar leaped forward as the crowd gasped and the boy’s mother fell back, crossing herself. Jonas began to push up from his coffin, his face fixed in a snarl as he said something Preacher didn’t catch.
“Restrain him!” Eleazar said. “Quickly!”
Two men leaped in to do it as Eleazar strode forward, cloth in hand. He pressed it to the boy’s face, ignoring his struggles. Preacher caught a whiff of something vaguely familiar from his college science classes. Chloroform.
As Jonas went limp, Eleazar’s voice rang out over the stunned crowd. “I warned you that this might happen. I will sedate them all now, to prevent further injury. They are confused and will act most unlike themselves for a day or two. But all is well. Your children are returned to you and all is well.”
Preacher stepped forward, but before his boot even touched down, Dobbs was there, moving unbelievably fast for a man of his size. He planted himself in front of Preacher.
“You don’t belong here, Benjamin,” he said.
“I know—”
Dobbs stepped forward. “I said you don’t belong here.” He lowered his voice. “I would suggest you run on home, preacher boy. Back to your wild brat and your pretty wife. You ought not to leave your family alone.”
Preacher looked up into the man’s eyes and his gut chilled. There was nothing there. No compassion. No compunction. Perhaps there had been, when he’d undertaken his task, but now that it was done, Dobbs had severed any part of himself that might have felt guilt. He’d done right, and if Preacher dared suggest otherwise . . .
“He’s right,” another voice said. It was Mayor Browning, moving up beside Dobbs. “Go home, Benjamin. You aren’t wanted here.”
“But, Preacher,” someone said. It was Maybelle, pushing through the crowd. “What do you think of this? Can you speak to us about it?”
“No,” Browning said. “He cannot. This isn’t your preacher. It’s a false man of God, one who would deny this miracle, who would tell you it’s wrong, sinful.”
Behind Browning, Eleazar stood watching, lips moving, and that chill suffused Preacher’s entire body.
It is as if he is putting words in their mouths. As if they are puppets to his will.
“This preacher would take back our children,” Browning said. “Steal them from us again.”
Preacher started to argue, to say that was not it at all, but there seemed to come a growl from the crowd, and when he looked about, he felt as if he were surrounded by wolves, scenting a threat in the air—a threat to their young and to themselves. He saw that and knew what he must do. The only choice he had.
He closed his mouth, backed away from the crowd, and raced home.
ADDIE
Addie was arguing with Sophia when they heard Preacher coming up the steps. Sophia wanted to go out, to see what was happening. Addie had to block the door to keep her in.
“You ought not to see,” Addie was saying. “Preacher doesn’t want it.”
“I’m not a child, Adeline—”
“But you are with child. You cannot be upset. You might lose the babe.”
That had stopped her, as Addie knew it would. Then Preacher’s footsteps clattered up the steps, and he threw open the door and said, “Pack your things. You’re leaving. Now.”
Sophia argued, of course. She often did. Addie had never seen a woman who felt herself so free to dispute her husband’s word. Or a husband who allowed it. Certainly, in her own home, her mother had only to issue the smallest word of complaint, and she’d be abed for days, recovering. To actually argue? Addie had only seen that once. And when it was over, her mother would never argue again.
But Sophia did. And yet, even as she disputed her husband’s word, she did not stand there and holler at him. She could see how agitated he was, and she immediately set about packing as he asked, while arguing about leaving.
Preacher wanted them to go. Her and Sophia. Immediately. He told Sophia what had happened, in the gentlest terms possible, but they still shocked her into a near trance, gaping at him as if he’d gone m
ad. Addie confirmed it was true, all of it. Rene and Timothy James had been murdered to bring back the children, and there was something very wrong with the children, and they had to flee.
“But . . . but the villagers,” Sophia said. “They are almost all innocent in this. We cannot abandon them—”
“I’m not. I’m sending you and Addie on ahead. I need to find out precisely what has happened here and warn those who will let themselves be warned. Then I will join you.”
Sophia pulled herself up to her full height—which barely reached Preacher’s chin. “I am not going anywhere without you, Benjamin.”
“Yes, you are. You and Addie and the baby. Dobbs has already made his threat against my family. You will leave, and I will do what I can here, which I cannot do if I’m worrying about you.”
“Preacher’s right,” Addie said.
She walked up beside Sophia and took her hand. It felt odd, reaching for another person, voluntarily touching another person. But she took her hand and squeezed it.
“You need to go,” Addie said. “For your child.”
Sophia looked down at their hands, then at Addie.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll go. For my children.”
PREACHER
What had Eleazar done? Dark deeds, Preacher was sure of that. Murder. Inciting others to murder. And more. But what more? What exactly was wrong with Charlie and the others? That was what he had to discover.
Of the children who’d been raised, only Charlie was awake. The others had all been sedated. Deeply sedated. He confirmed that by paying a visit to the Meeks. They were a God-fearing couple who’d always been kind to him, and he’d seen the look on Ella Meek’s face when her son started spewing such venom after the resurrection. She was frightened. So Preacher spoke to her.
Jonas had not stirred since he’d been chloroformed. Eleazar had told them that if he did, and he said anything untoward or concerning, they were to give him another dose, from a small bottle he’d left. The boy was fine, simply not himself. Not yet.
“But he’s only six years old,” Ella Meek said to Preacher. “He doesn’t even know those words he was saying. He’s a good boy. A quiet boy.”
And so he was, one of the quietest in the town. All his family was, prompting the joke that they truly earned their surname. Meek and mild.
“And the others have been told the same?” he asked.
She nodded. “All of them.”
All except Charlie. Who was, by all accounts, resting comfortably at his home. It was time for Preacher to pay the boy a visit.
ADDIE
Addie had lied to Preacher. She would, perhaps, eventually feel guilt about that. But not today. Today did not count by any proper reckoning. Sophia knew of the promise and had participated in breaking it, which proved the world had, indeed, turned upside down.
Addie had promised to stay with Sophia. To ride through the forest, where they’d not be seen, then over to the road and hightail it to Greenville. That was not what she had done. She’d gathered the horses—they had two—and met Sophia on the wide main path. It was quite impossible to hide the taking of the horses, but no one seemed to pay her much mind. In truth, no one had even noticed. She took them and they rode them until they had to dismount and steer them along the secondary path to Timothy James’s cabin. Then Addie ensconced Sophia there, shotgun in hand, and went back to town. For Preacher. To keep him safe.
PREACHER
“I’ve come to apologize,” Preacher said, standing on Mayor Browning’s front porch, hat in hand. “I was wrong, and I see that now. My lack of faith blinded me. Mr. Dobbs is right. I am not fit to be a man of God. I will be withdrawing from my position immediately.”
“What?” The reply came from deep within the house. Dorothy Browning pushed past her husband. “Quit? No. Our town needs you, Preacher, perhaps now more than ever—”
Browning nudged her back. “We’ll talk on this later, Benjamin. It’s a poor time.”
“I know. I didn’t come here to resign so much as I came to apologize. I was wrong. I misspoke. A miracle has occurred in Chestnut Hill. Seven miracles.”
The whole time he spoke, Browning nodded absently, as if urging him along. Finish up and begone, man.
“Charlie is well, then?” Preacher asked.
“Well enough.”
Dorothy made a noise, but a glare from her husband cut her short.
“May I see him?” Preacher asked. “Addie is most anxious to speak to her friend again. I’ve told her this is, as you’ve said, a poor time. However, she asked me to give him this.”
He pulled a stone from his pocket. It was a pretty one, veined with fool’s gold. He’d found it two doors down, by the roadside.
Preacher continued. “She says it will lighten his spirits. It’s hers, and he always admired it.”
“He’s not—” Dorothy began.
“I’ll take it and give it to him,” Browning said.
“May I?” said Preacher. “It would mean so much to Addie if I could tell her his response.”
“He’s gone,” Dorothy said. “With that—” Browning glowered at her, but she squared her thin shoulders and said, “He’s gone with that man. They went a-walking a while back. He says Charlie’s weak, and then he takes him a-walking. The boy has—”
“That’s enough, woman,” Browning cut in.
She continued. “The boy—my boy—has scarcely said two words to me. Too weak to converse, that man says. But Charlie can walk and converse with him, easily enough.”
“Well, I’ll leave the stone, then,” Preacher said. “And I’ll leave young Charlie with Eleazar. The man does not wish to see me, I’m certain, so I will stay clear.”
* * *
Preacher found Eleazar and Charlie. They had not gone far, just deep enough into the woods that they wouldn’t be overheard, and far enough off the path that they wouldn’t be seen. Preacher snuck up as best he could. It would not have satisfied Addie, but the two were in such deep conversation that they did not notice him.
“Are you certain that is enough food, boy?”
“I am, sir.”
“I don’t think it is. My instructions were clear. We will be walking in this forsaken wilderness for at least two days. We need more food.”
“I have enough, sir. Much of it is dried.”
Preacher paused, shaking his head as if he was mishearing. It was not the content of their conversation. While he was startled to hear they were leaving together, that paled against surprise of the voices themselves. Of who was delivering which lines. He was hearing wrong. He must have been.
He crept forward until he could see the two figures. Charlie was bent on one knee, examining the contents of a pack, while Eleazar stood behind him.
“This money and these goods are not the full accounting,” Charlie said. “There’s eleven hundred dollars and perhaps two hundred more in goods. That’s five hundred short.”
“Yes, sir,” Eleazar said. “I imagine it is. But this is not a wealthy village. They are gathering more, but I presumed you wanted to be gone before the children fully woke.”
“Don’t be smart with me, boy,” Charlie snapped.
Eleazar cleared his throat. “Given the situation, sir, I might suggest you’ll want to stop calling me that.”
“In private, I’ll call you what I want. How long would it take to get more from them?”
“Too long. And that was not the primary purpose of this trip. We got you something far more valuable than money, did we not?”
Charlie snorted. “A child’s body is not particularly valuable. Now, a strong young man’s . . .”
“It will be such in a few years. We ought to count ourselves lucky that there was a boy of goodly age who died. You’d not have wanted to be brought back as a toddling child. Or a girl.”
More grumbling. When Preacher had first heard them speaking, his mind had reeled. Then something in his gut steadied it, saying, Yes, this makes sense. Of course, in
the larger scheme of things, the fact that an old man’s soul had been put into the body of a dead boy did not make sense, but given all that Preacher had seen, it was more sensible than any explanation he’d considered.
The soul was the essence of life. Charlie’s was long gone. In heaven, he trusted. And if one believed that, and one believed the scriptures, then a merciful God would not allow a child to be stolen back from paradise. The body would need to be returned to life with a soul still wandering this world. The soul of someone recently departed.
It had seemed odd that Rene had been Eleazar’s assistant, but the man had been so doddering that it would have seemed more shocking to realize the situation was reversed. Now it seemed it was indeed the case. The old man—the leader, the teacher—had been in need of a new body, and they had taken it here, in Chestnut Hill.
As for the other six children . . .
Dear God. The other six.
Timothy James’s soul. The souls of five others. Murdered, only to awaken in the bodies of children . . . children whose parents they would hold responsible for their deaths.
Preacher turned away from Eleazar and Rene. What they had done was a horrible thing, deserving a terrible punishment, but right now, there were others about to be punished even more terribly, others who’d known nothing of the murders, who’d only wanted their children—
“You do realize we are not alone, I hope,” Rene said, his voice as easy as if he were discussing the possibility of rainfall.
“What?” Eleazar said.
“Someone watches from the woods. I trust you plan to take care of that.”
Eleazar let out a curse. Preacher began to run, not caring how much noise he made, only that he got back to the village in time to warn them before—
Something grabbed his legs. He did not trip. He was certain of that. He felt the pressure, something wrapping about them as he ran, and there was no time to stop. He fell face-first to the ground.
Four Summoner’s Tales Page 7