"The boys made me eat bugs and I threw up and it made me pee," Rigby admitted, ashamedly.
"Yer pathetic, kid. Why ain't there more food? Where's the rest of it?"
"Mama hasn't yet wired money this month."
"Well when she does, you hand it over. You hear? Maybe then I'll tell you about yer dad and how he wasn't no gentleman-"
"Hey!" Rigby scolded.
There was a flush of blood to his face.
It was the first time he had been more angry than afraid.
The feeling was short-lived as a backhand knocked Rigby unconscious?
Rigby came to. The man was asleep on the only bed and it was very late at night. With a lantern in one hand and his notebook in the other, the boy left the house for his forest. Rigby set up a new home over the next few weeks, one made of scraps stolen from a nearby junk heap and held up by tree limbs and branches and rope. Every day he built more, vowing never to return to school. He counted the days until his mother would wire more money and he'd again be able to eat; this time, however, he'd bring it back to his new home, not the old place where his "uncle" might take it. With this decision, Rigby realized that he wasn't sure if the man eating his food and sleeping in his bed was actually related to him. There had been no reason to doubt him, as grown-ups didn't just show up and lie.
Did they?
Rigby got his wired amount in town and decided to hold off on visiting the general store, as there were patrons inside. He walked behind the buildings, where people couldn't see him, and returned to his new home in the forest. As he got comfortable, sketching into his notebook new additions to his home base, he heard a familiar tune:
Rig-by
Rig-by
Red hair
No soul
Ugly face
Wormy toes
Terror flooded Rigby as the back portion of his newly made home began to shake. More voices joined in the singing, some of them girls:
Rig-by
Rig-by
Dirt boy
No soul
Stink bug
Wormy toes
There was more shaking, all of the kids chanting:
"Nosoul! Nosoul! Nosoul!"
A new round of embarrassed giggling. Surprised yelps from the girls. The sound of a stream of liquid on the roof. A horrid stench.
"Now you should feel more at home, Nosoul!" laughed David Browser.
They always spoke the name No Soul so fast that it had long been one word.
Rigby crawled out of the home he had been building for weeks just as it collapsed. Again, anger took over. He heard himself whispering, "My father's an angel," over and over and over, but he wasn't doing it consciously. There were several kids waiting behind the strewn branches and sheets of scrap. David Browser was laughing, his back to Rigby. They assumed he was still in the hut, struggling under the debris. The young child rushed at David Browser and a brief fight broke out between them.
In the end, Rigby lost the money his mother had sent for food.
II
Not Long Ago?
"I AM NO DEMON!" Henri Ville screamed at the silent, bewildered congregation as the wounded Pastor Rigby Briarwood - whimpering, face profusely bloody from the gash - ran past the Warminster Parish and off into the distance. There was a gathering wind, one ominously cycling in the fields behind the gallows on which Henri was standing. "I am the Angel of MERCY and you have all forsaken me! All of you!" Hatred filled her voice. "Bring me my guns! NOW!" And someone in the back ran off. "You have shown me that you are not worthy of my LOVE and KINDESS. And so I release a storm like that which destroyed Seraphim Falls, and it will swallow this church for its BLASPHEMY!" The sky grew darker as she spoke, her loud voice and harsh words carrying over the mounting rush of the winds. "John 13 verse 34 - A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. John 8 verse 7 - Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone. Matthew 7 verse 12 -Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
No one spoke, even as the storm across the fields grew exponentially worse with each passing second. The winds were climbing, the sky near black.
Henri climbed down the front of the gallows and into the crowd, which backed away from her in a circle. As she moved, so did the crowd, keeping her in the center. Her belt and holsters were still on and, as a man returned with her guns (ducking into the circle only to quickly jump back as if it burned), Henri slid her shining guns into their rightful place?though the crowd and winds and panic caused a blanket over the sound she so dearly loved, gun metal sliding along leather.
And the storm twisted, taking the form of a tornado.
"Now run, you IDIOTS!" she yelled.
Finally, the people scattered.
Henri made a direct path toward the tree-line over a mile off. Her speed was unmatched by the others but glancing back to check the tornado, she found the entire congregation following her. Disbelief filled her and she ran faster, making the tree-line in a five-minute mile. Her body hurt from running, dehydrated. Her chest was pounding. The storm was circling the farm and tearing up every piece of wood, every hunk of root and glass. The imported, red clay adobe lifted in a single, unbroken piece. The land and farm were disintegrated, all of it spiraling in a maelstrom toward the outer atmosphere as if sand in some bizarro reverse hourglass. Henri smiled as the wooden silo shredded like ash: first, the doors were pulled off by the wind and tossed like two weightless discuses; the top portion of the silo fell over but didn't hit the ground, instead half-laying on its side as the wind and support beams tried to keep it balanced; and then every bit was ripped apart by invisible claws.
Henri had stopped to gleefully (but nonetheless silent and stern-faced) watch the church crumble before heading deeper into the forest. And, for the rest of the day, she was lost - traveling further, backtracking, changing her course west. She had no gear, no food, no tent, nothing. As night fell, the path grew treacherous, blinding, the forest a black that was nearly impossible to traverse without walking into a tree or stumbling over rocks in the ground. But Henri didn't rest and she didn't slow, navigating with both hands and careful steps until she finally came upon a series of lights in the distance. Approaching with caution, she found the lights to be farther than originally estimated. There were so many individual fires - lamps, campfires, torches - that she had seen the glow before the actual flames.
And closing in, she heard a familiar sound.
Children as a choir of angels singing:
Simply, simply, as a little child;
Simply, simply, spirit meek and mild.
In our weakness He is strong;
In despair He is our song;
It is with thankful hearts our praise to Him belongs,
As He wraps His arms around us in love.
Jesus loves me; this I know, for the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong; they are weak but He is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me; yes, (In my heart I know) Jesus loves me;
Yes, (I know) Jesus loves me; the Bible tells me so.
III
Henri Ville finished vomiting in the blind corner between the dentistry and Apothecary in an alleyway toward the back of the town of Carpatheon. She wiped her mouth and lowered the bandana back over the lower half of her face. She seldom left the Apothecary anymore, mainly observing the comings and goings of the town from a second floor window, all while speaking at length with Chaim. Through that window, Henri watched Carpatheon transform in just a single week. What was once a ghost town now overflowed with bright spirits as her followers set up their stake or left to gather more supplies, more people, always more. The stable boys from the Catlight Infinite would often skitter past, playing in the crossways and running between the buildings. The boarding house was full. The new blacksmith clanged his iron daily. The candle maker had to hire not one but two extra people (Nathan Jrs. 1 & 2) in order to meet demand. One of the biggest draws was the pool h
all and a man named Roger Avery Daniels. He was a renowned pool shark and professional scoundrel. Once word spread of a new town, Daniels arrived like a locust, his sole intention to win buckets of cash by skill, swindle, or snatch. Chaim could smell scandal on the man and kept an eye on the consistently packed pool hall, serving as an intermediate lawman until the sheriff's office could find suitable (sober) volunteers. The other big draw was Chaim's Saloon. When he wasn't patrolling the streets or talking at length with Henri on the second floor of the Apothecary, Chaim was teaching any willing listener the game of Texas Hold'em.
And then came the night that a flock of beautiful prostitutes?
Word reached them beauties when Cant sent word to the Catlight Infinite (by proxy, sending Andrew and Vernon in his stead) to inform Marielle that all the boys had reached their destination, that everything was fine, and that they had no plan to return just yet. Since the brothel itself was being reconstructed root and stem, Marielle heard this news and decided to pack. With all of the women accompanying her (as well as Pellsley Grant and H.S.), they left for the town of Carpatheon.
Upon their arrival, Marielle and the ladies found themselves overwhelmingly welcomed into the town. They originally planned to stay a short bit before returning to oversee the brothel's renovations (they had recently come into a fair amount of money and were investing in massive improvements, this time hiring contractors to do the manual labor) but changed their minds after Chaim promised sufficient employment as barmaids and dancers, in addition to their natural occupation (if they felt so inclined to return to it). Them beauties that decided to stay (almost all of them except for the French girls, who felt uncomfortable around so many westerners) agreed to free room and board until the end of a month, when renovations on their brothel would be completed.
The only thing Chaim's Saloon lacked was a steady supply of top-shelf booze, as all liquor had to be shipped in hand-over-fist to meet demand and, even then, it quickly dwindled?and it was at his most hopeless over the situation that Chaim stumbled on a quiet shop-owner that had arrived with them beauties. The pudgy, wounded man had gained widespread popularity for his homemade whiskey back home and, after hearing this, Chaim excitedly offered to build a distillery and let the man oversee all future production of alcohol for the town. (It was by happy coincidence that the shop owner was looking to relocate his shop and distillery after suffering a gunshot wound he wouldn't expound on.)
Aside from the construction of the distillery, a large amount of Carpatheon's occupants devoted time to building a new, expansive church. (This had been an oversight: as a former Jew that long ago renounced his faith, Chaim forgot to build a place of worship.) The stable boys had also begun pleading a diversion of manpower to erect a barn so they could resume, once again, running and maintaining a stable. After many days and a lot of "Scat!"s from grumpy old Chaim, the boys' persistence finally succeeded (especially when they enlisted the help of them beauties). By the end of a week, construction had begun in some form or another on everything from the distillery and church to extra outhouses and an unnecessary barn, and Chaim even put the cross-dresser Novak in charge of fixing an old steam generator and the goal to supply power to the town by year's end.
With so much to offer, the town of Carpatheon had one major weakness: the barbershop run by a brother and sister, neither of whom had any experience whatsoever. Jokes of their atrocious haircuts spread, including several hand-written notes on the billboard over the store:
DONALD & ROSIE'S HAIRCUTTERY
FOR THE BEST LOOKING HAIR IN CARPATHEON
?ASK DIRECTIONS TO THE NEAREST TOWN
?FORCE YOUR HAIR TO STOP GROWING
?BALD SOLVES ALL
Aside from that one slight hiccup, the town was ideal. An occasional drunk would get thrown out of a bar or a fight would erupt over cards or a pool hustle would cause a ruckus but no one drew weapons, at least not after that first night.
Carpatheon was a world away from where it had been just one week earlier?
IV
A lot of guns were drawn.
Henri Ville had approached and Chaim Bialik welcomed her by pointing a gun at her heart. She didn't flinch or draw or move. Her eyes remained narrowed and focused. Her face was covered in a red handkerchief, over which lips had been sloppily drawn on in rouge makeup. She didn't have to care about his gun. There were plenty guns aimed right back at Chaim:
Children - three on one side and four on the other - already had guns drawn and pointed up at his face;
The young man he had spoken with earlier stood just behind him and pointed a weapon into the small of his back;
His girlfriend had a shotgun hovering around his ear to the left;
An adult male wearing a lace-frilled dress had a gun occupying each hand to his right;
And behind Henri, and the kids, were a mob of people, most of them armed.
At the moment, there were literally more gun barrels aimed to end Chaim's life than he could count. Because it was night and hard to decipher details - as the single source of light came from the torches of the mob - Chaim could only make out a small portion of the crowd, mostly just tired and angry faces and cocked firearms. One thing he could determine: dangerous soldiers these people were not, more like a worn down, well-armed church social. His eyes checked the empty stores for hidden shooters. (Some of the younger kids followed his gaze.) The empty stores were quite ominous in complete darkness. Windows were the dark eyes of despondent faces. Front doors opened into infinite black space. And the silence was maddening. Stillness from the crowd. Even the torchlight ceased flickering and became a constant. Somewhere in the back, a lone hammer clicked back. Silence. Someone stifled a cough. More silence.
Finally, Chaim pointed his gun off Henri's heart and up into the air.
"You're an old bastard," Henri Ville told Chaim Bialik as she kicked him in the shin.
The old man grunted, bending at his rickety hips to rub his leg.
"That was from Anson Sharpe."
Chaim stood straight and rolled his neck, flexing it and cracking it. The two motions were contradictory; the first, a crotchety, grumbling old man rubbing his leg; then, a tireless fighter. His eyes were a dark brown. The crinkles on his forehead crinkled more.
"Well then," Chaim scoffed.
***
Drewbell had seen her family in the crowd while she held a shotgun to the back of an old man's head. The night had been dark and the crowd had arrived, Henri Ville leading, and Drewbell had been drawn into a confrontation before she understood quite what was happening. Her gaze had drifted in those moments and there they were, her brother and younger sister and mother and father, standing amidst the thicket of faces. There were others that were familiar but she only stared at her family, and Cant noticed. After things calmed, and Henri and the old man (named Chaim) disappeared to talk, Drewbell approached her parents, brother, and sister for a brief acknowledgement.
They had arrived with Henri Ville, of all people.
The crowd dispersed in all directions to explore the dark town while Drewbell's family came together in the dirt street. No one showed much enthusiasm. Little Susan Marcy May asked, in a harsh tone, "Where you been at?" while her brother lovingly shoved her shoulder, passing to explore the desolate town with the others. Her mother showed the most emotion, wiping dirt off Drewbell's face with a smidgen of saliva. And her father rubbed his belly, re-asking, "Yeah, so where you been at, girl?"
"I was kidnapped," Drewbell answered emotionlessly.
"Well? good to see you're alright," her mother nodded, standing beside her husband and crossing her long arms over the low neck of her young daughter. The three of them faced Drewbell. Cant was standing a few feet behind, observing the situation as if he were watching the interactions of a pack of wild animals. He didn't understand why they didn't embrace. He didn't understand why the family faced her at a slight distance, or why her brother merely pushed her. He had never really had a family, the closest being his u
ncle. Even then, his first memories were of grey rafters and a hatred of doodling. But, in stories, families had always sounded wonderful. Caring. He would hear stories from the other boys about parents, how they supplied chocolate candies and presents and warm, forgiving love.
Not Drewbell's, though.
They spoke a few short words and then her parents headed off.
Before disappearing with them, Susan Marcy May walked over to stare up at Cant.
"Who's this boy?"
No one else seemed to notice him.
"He's my?" and she looked back at Cant, thinking of a term, "?He's mine. Just as I'm his."
The little one seemed perplexed and then left to wander alone.
"Is that what being in a family's like?" he asked, still a bit baffled about the encounter he had just witnessed.
Drewbell nodded.
"Yup."
V
The young child Rigby Briarwood had fainted in the doorway of a church many miles away from home. He once heard that churches might sometimes take in children, feed them or help them, something. When he arrived, he hadn't eaten in three days. The doors were shut and locked. He tried to wait but, when he went to lean against the door, his body gave way and he fell to the ground, unconscious.
"The first demon I ever saw," spoke Pastor Briarwood to the rapt congregation, "was a boy named David Browser when I was twelve. You see, on my twelfth year I had been so neglected, so forgotten, that I actually died. I died at the doorway of a church, of this church. As a child I had always been weaker, skinnier, tinier. That boy died on the steps outside a church. When I was found, it wasn't medicine that brought me back. It wasn't? it wasn't a doctor or magic that brought me back. It was God. I was found by a man of God and brought into a house of God and I. Was. Resurrected."
Some of the crowd cried softly.
Some were rocking back and forth.
Some whispered "Amen" after nearly every sentence Pastor Briarwood spoke.
"As I speak, it is not as a prophet. I am a man-of-God. He put? he put just the tiniest miracle of light inside me, and it brought me back, gave me reason. I have followers - many now."
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