The doorknob turned slowly.
Elizabeth’s heartbeat slowed—seemed to stop.
The door opened slowly, creaking as it always did, somehow ominous in this moment of clarity.
Her father stepped through that doorway, and everything shifted. The first thing Elizabeth saw were his eyes. Those eyes. The hunger. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out, and before she quite recalled why she’d wanted to cry out, her father was on the couch beside her, wrapping her in his strong arms, too tightly. She didn’t resist. In fact, she leaned into it, pressing her cheek fiercely to his chest.
They rocked that way for a long time. Elizabeth felt her mother melting to her father’s back, lending her own support, and strength, to the embrace. Finally, all motion slowed, and her father pulled back. He watched her in silence, gauging the moment.
“Who is he?” Elizabeth heard the words she’d spoken as if from very far away. Detached from her. The answer distanced from hurting.
“He is your grandfather,” the words softly spoken.
Elizabeth let this sink in. It fit. The eyes, so like her father’s. The stares from the other families as they’d all made their way to the church. The silence, even from her friends. The odd tug at her heart as that man—that thing¾had met her gaze and held.
Elizabeth’s head began to shake back and forth slowly.
Her father’s hands, strong and supportive again, the hands of the father she’d expected to walk to church with that morning, gripped her gently by her cheeks and drew her gaze up to his own. His own eyes were deep and pained. Endless, but open. For the first time in years, so open they drew memories from a childhood suddenly faded and withered.
“What was he doing, Daddy? Why was he there, eating that food? Why haven’t you ever told me about him? Why didn’t he know me?”
Her father leaned back; only his arm, draped distractedly over her shoulder, remained of the momentary intimacy.
Dexter broke the mood, setting a large mug of steaming coffee on the table before her. Liz blinked, sat up, and looked around. Brandt was curled up against Synthia. Shaver had his hand on her thigh, resting gently, his arm around her shoulder. Liz started, the similarity to the image in her mind, her father’s strong arm, and Shaver’s proximity, shivering through her violently.
The room remained silent for a long time. Liz ignored the coffee, regaining her breath and easing the tension Shaver’s touch had brought, very suddenly, until she could lean in against his shoulder without shaking.
Synthia spoke softly. “He did know you.”
Liz turned, nodded. Her eyes were downcast, and her brow was furrowed with the effort of dragging the memories from deep repression.
“It’s okay,” Brandt cut in. “We saw.”
Liz’s gaze whipped up and around this time. Brandt met her eyes steadily. She studied his expression, seeking ridicule, or condescension. Finding none.
Brandt rose, extricating himself from Syn’s arms slowly—reluctantly—and moving to the side of the room. His guitar case leaned there, half-forgotten, and he reached for it, laying it flat on the floor and unfastening the hasps with practiced motions.
The strap was around his neck a moment later, his fingers brushing the strings. Everyone was watching him. Everyone except Syn, who looked right past/through him as if she saw some other. Something more. Brandt’s fingers pressed more tightly, and he strummed tentatively at the strings, minor-chord vibration of the moment, growing slowly in volume and intensity. He leaned on the corner of the couch, closing his eyes as the music rippled from the strings.
As the notes fell from Brandt’s strings, tears rolled down Liz’s cheeks. She closed her eyes, breathing deeply to regain control of her voice. When she spoke again, she was quieter, each word deeply entrenched in forgotten, or repressed, emotion. No one in the room moved, except Brandt. Brandt continued to play, softly. His eyes were closed, his head leaned back against the wall, long hair cascading over his shoulders and the guitar resting against his hip, undulating slowly to the rhythm.
“Home was like a dream after all that. As strange as the morning had started, it had become almost normal. Not quite, but close enough that my mother, and my father, were recognizable as themselves. As distant as they had been, now they were close, the expressions on their faces full of some deep, sad emotion I couldn’t understand.”
The room shifted slowly, the warmth sifting back in, borne by the soft rays of the sun and the tentative smile on her mother’s lips. Elizabeth sat on the couch, still shaking. A thousand questions sifted through her mind, but she kept them to herself. She knew what she wanted—what she needed¾to know, yet somehow it was important that one, or both, of her parents tell her without being prompted.
“He is your grandfather.” The words slipped from her father’s lips in a whisper. Elizabeth wasn’t certain she’d heard them at all. She watched his eyes, waiting.
“It has been a long time, princess,” he said at last. Tears welled in the corners of her eyes at that name. He only called her princess when things were very emotional. The best times, and the worst. “I haven’t seen him since you were knee-high to a grasshopper. I guess I thought I never would.”
“It’s that Reverend Forbes,” Elizabeth’s mother cut in. “He made it happen. Brought poor Hiram back.”
“Shhhh . . .” Elizabeth’s father soothed. “Papa is what he is. Forbes is maybe not the best man to come down the pike as Reverend, but he made no choices for any other. There are some things no one can control. Papa eats the sin. That is what he does . . . what he has always done. It is what his father did.”
There was more to that statement, but it was left unspoken. Elizabeth swallowed, averting her eyes. Images of Mr. Halprin’s body, decked out in roasted chicken and fresh fruit, surfaced to haunt her, overshadowed by the deep-set, hungry eyes that had watched her from the woods, and gazed at her from the table.
“It’s barbaric,” her mother asserted. “It isn’t right. There are a thousand churches in this country, Brian, a thousand churches full of righteous women and God-fearing men and not a one of them would stand for this. It is that Reverend and I don’t understand why you won’t stand up for your own.” After a moment’s silence, she continued, “He is your father.”
Elizabeth’s father lowered his eyes. His lips grew tight, and she knew he was thinking . . . but also that he wasn’t pleased by her mother’s words.
“I have lived here all my life.” he said at last. “I have seen preachers come, and preachers go. I have seen the church at its finest, and at its worst, but there have always been certain truths that we have lived by. One of those is the Sineater.”
Elizabeth’s mother looked away. Her features were drawn in a tight frown of disapproval, but she held her tongue.
Elizabeth turned to her father. “Why?”
“It isn’t a question of why,” her father answered slowly, his expression far away. “It is a question of what is right. There has always been a Sineater. No one ever asks why, or even who. The who is a set thing, and the why is in God’s hands.”
“I don’t understand.” The words were soft, whispered, all-inclusive of the moment and so inadequate.
“Men must atone,” her father began slowly. “There is a pattern to the universe, and we must conform to it. There is a pattern to the Lord’s work—a pattern we too often ignore. It is even more powerful than the pattern that governs your mind. It is more perfect than the best you can do in design, or belief. Perfect. That pattern called out to those who have come before.”
Elizabeth’s father sounded different, like a recording of some long-practiced speech. The words rang true, but the tone was wrong. Monotonic and forced. Elizabeth glanced at her mother. The expression in those deep blue eyes was more than enough to jar her back to the reality of the moment.
“Why!” she leaned in, letting her hands slap down hard on her father’s thigh. “Why Daddy? Why Grandpa? Why you? Why?”
�
��Sin.” He answered simply, not meeting her gaze. Something had caught at the corners of his lips, drawing them down. His expression was so serious Elizabeth wanted to draw back, pressing to her mother, but she could not. She had to know.
“It is the sin,” her father repeated. “It is everywhere. They tell us to repent, to feel remorse for things we do in the face of the Lord, but who listens? I’ll tell you,” his gaze swept up to capture Elizabeth’s, with a defiant glance at his wife before continuing. “The sin never slows. It is the substance that binds human lives together. It is the core of our hearts. We live. We love. We sin, hoping for forgiveness from a God we fear only in the last moments of our lives.”
“We are forgiven.” Elizabeth’s mother spoke softly. “That is the promise. That is the reason for faith. He died for our sins, that we may live beyond this world.”
“Not everyone asks for that gift,” came the practiced answer. “Not everyone begs forgiveness before passing.”
“You are not your brother’s keeper.”
“I am my father’s son.”
Elizabeth started at the sudden sob that broke free of her mother’s throat. She turned, but her mother was rising, moving away. Elizabeth started to rise, to follow, but she felt her father’s hand dropping gently on her knee, holding her in place.
“It is time,” he said softly. “You need to hear what I have to say. Your mother has never understood. You many not either, but you have to hear. He is your grandfather.”
“Why,” she asked, “hasn’t he ever come to see me?”
Her father stopped, shaken somehow by that simple question, his own train of thought derailed.
Elizabeth heard her mother gasp again, turned to that sound and watched the flush spread over those familiar features.
“He can’t, Elizabeth,” her father said at last. “He never can, never will. Even if he would, I couldn’t let him.”
Elizabeth frowned. “I don’t understand. He’s my grandfather, your father. Why can’t he come here? What was all that food, Daddy? What was the Reverend Forbes talking about?”
“He’s the Sineater,” her mother hissed. “He is vile.”
Elizabeth’s father turned like a snake and growled. “Enough. You don’t believe that any more than I do. Don’t you dare put it in Elizabeth’s head.”
He turned back to her. “He was there because Reverend Forbes drew him there, Elizabeth. He was there to help Mr. Halprin along his way to heaven.” There was a long moment of silence, then he continued. “I have not seen him in a very long time. I thought he would be left in peace.”
Elizabeth’s mind whirled with emotion and confusion. She started to speak again, but her mother gripped her by the shoulder.
“I never wanted to see him again,” her father continued. “No one did. It was to end with him.”
“What was to end?” Elizabeth asked.
“He is the Sineater,” her mother breathed, repeating herself. “He takes the sin, that the dead may leave us in peace.”
Elizabeth’s father’s eyes dropped. This time he did not silence his wife, only listened as she droned on, words they both seemed to know so well they flowed in a long monotonous chant.
“He takes the sin from those who have passed, consumes it, draws it from their soul. He must finish every bite, nothing to be spared, and the darkness will seek him, abandoning the dead. He carries that sin within him, dark and deep. He walks alone. He sleeps in daylight and each shadow is his brother. He can never return.”
“But,” Elizabeth whispered, “Why did he go? Why did you let him? Where is grandma?”
The soft torrent of questions was too much for her father. He scooped her into his arms and drew her tightly to his chest. Tears flowed down his rugged cheeks, and she felt them dampening her hair, but she didn’t pull back. She had never felt such emotion, such . . . pain.
“I was a boy, Elizabeth. I was no older than you are. He went because he had to go, as his father before him went. When the Sineater dies, who will eat that sin? Who will see him home to the heavens, if not his son?”
There was a long silence. Elizabeth had questions, questions that now screamed to be asked. She was not allowed the chance. Her mother spun, rising and stepping away. All that Elizabeth could see was her mother’s shoulders, muscles too tight, hands clasped to her breasts. No words, but tension rippled in the air. Elizabeth held her breath.
“My mother, your grandmother, stayed to raise me,” Elizabeth’s father continued slowly. “She never saw him again, except when there was a death. I haven’t seen him in years. When he was gone, no one knew for sure where he went. The mountain. No one wanted to find him. They took him food, people from the church, your grandmother. Others. They brought things to him, but never directly. Always they were left where they could be found, when he walked alone. They were quick to offer him the sins of their loved ones, but where did that leave the sin? Where did that leave him? Alone. The weight of a mountain’s sin on his shoulders.”
Elizabeth felt tears rolling down her face as her father’s voice trembled. “He looks like you,” she said. “I want to meet him.”
Her mother whirled. Elizabeth had never seen such anger, such absolute shock, on her mother’s face. “Never. You may never meet him. He may never come back. Don’t you see, Elizabeth? Didn’t you hear?”
Elizabeth’s father was up in an instant, moving to calm his wife, but she pulled away, the anger flashing in her eyes.
“He has eaten the sin! He walks alone, and he must walk alone. He is tainted. The Reverend Forbes has told us how it must be, how it should always have been. We have been wrong. We have sinned and he is our only hope.”
“That is enough,” her father said quietly. Elizabeth’s mother opened her mouth to speak again, but he was there, and she clamped off the words, turning and hurrying from the room.
Elizabeth watched it all with the surreal detachment of a child. She’d heard short arguments, quickly calmed. She’d even seen her mother cry. She had never seen anything to match this. Never felt the shiver of a crack, running up the smooth surface of her family’s close-knit love.
Her father took a step to follow her mother’s retreat, then stopped. His shoulders crumbled, and he dropped his head to his hands. Elizabeth could see that he was shaking. She rose, moving quickly to hug him, letting her cheek rest on his hip. She wanted to say something, to do something, that would make it better, or even different. She couldn’t rid herself of the image, her grandfather, staring at her from the trees. He had known who she was. He must have seen her before—must have watched her.
She felt her father’s arm circling her at last, and he turned, drawing her into a tight hug. He held her like that for a long time. Elizabeth felt the thudding echo of his heart in his chest. It was a warm, safe moment. Then it was over. As he pulled back, she glanced up. In that instant, she didn’t see her father’s face, but her grandfather’s.
Patterns shifted and words clicked into proper perspective in her young mind.
I am my father’s son.
Who will eat the Sineater’s sin?
Her father whispered to her, breaking the spell. “I’m sorry, Elizabeth.”
Then he turned, following her mother from the room, and Elizabeth was left in her too-nice Sunday clothes, the room still scented with her mother’s perfume and her father’s cologne. The door to the kitchen stood open. She could see the dishes left from her mother’s baking. The food prepared for the feast that was not a feast. Cooking sin? Was that it? Or did the sin come only from Mr. Halprin, soaked into the food like a sauce?
How could one man eat so much? How was it possible he could do that, be so thin—live in the mountains with no one else there to care for him, to cook for him? How could any man or woman walk alone?
It was a long time before she slipped out of that room and down the hall to her own. She heard the muffled sound of her parents’ voices from their own room, but she ignored them. Slowly, Elizabeth unwound the r
ibbon from her hair, brushed it, tied it back, and began to undress. She slipped into jeans and a t-shirt quickly, leaving the Sunday finery carefully folded on her bed. She knew there would be no attending evening services. She didn’t know if she could ever go to that place again. For anything.
Her window opened onto the back yard, opposite her parents’ room. The edge of that yard skirted the forest, trees rising and rising in a green blanket as the mountains disappeared above. She couldn’t see the church from her window, but it was there. You could just make it out from the porch, gazing off to where the mountain fell away to the road. She felt its presence, felt the Reverend Forbes’ eyes on her, accusing. Her mother’s voice echoed in her mind.
Never.
Elizabeth gripped the window and shoved it up, the old wood grating slightly. She’d read a thousand books about children sneaking out their windows to avoid the eyes of their parents, but it had never occurred to her she would be one of them. The screen was more difficult, but Elizabeth had seen her father slide it up many times, and eventually she was able to apply enough pressure to the small, corroded catches to press them out and unlock the slides. The air was still warm outside, the sun on the downward slope from noon. It seemed as though lifetimes had passed since they’d fled the church, but it had really not been so long. She was a little hungry, but the memory of the morning’s feast nauseated her, and she knew she couldn’t eat.
With a quick, nervous glance over her shoulder at the door, she slipped one leg over the sill and slid out onto the grass. The woods beckoned. Had he watched her? Was he watching now? Without taking time to think about it, Elizabeth took off for the tree line, running through the soft grass as quickly as possible. She knew she couldn’t allow herself to be seen. There would never be a second chance, but she had to know. Had to see. He was her grandfather.
“You went after him?” Shaver’s voice cut through the visions. He drew her against his side and circled her in his arms. “God, you were just a kid!”
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