That night, Przemek dreamed. It didn’t feel like a dream, it was much more vivid, they were his memories, burned into his brain, rising like a scar on soft skin.
He was home, in the place beyond the barricade. He walked amongst the trees, the impossibly dense forest that rose all around, obscuring the sun and sky. He could smell the earthy scent rising from the dead leaves as he stepped through them, a smell at once ancient and brand new. The sun had just set and he was following the faint glow emanating from a single window in his house. He was on a well-worn path now, following the light like a moth. He came to the small clearing where the house was built; a slight treeless patch with a circle of purple sky above it. The house looked puny, surrounded by enormous trees that grew so close it was impossible to walk between most of them; so close that they joined together in places, forming a labyrinth of palisades. He was on the porch now, a light breeze picked up and the porch swing banged against the house, chains creaking as it swung. He opened the front door and was greeted by darkness. He reached out to flip on the light switch, a casual gesture he had done a thousand times before.
But this time when the lights came on, the world erupted into a sanguine-streaked abattoir.
The walls were caked in gore and his family lay all around him in pieces. His father's nearly headless body was splayed beneath the ceiling fan with his stomach torn open. The length of his intestines rose up and tangled around the blades of the fan that had come on with the lights. As the fan turned, it pulled his innards with it audibly. He could hear the wet smack of his father's intestines as they coiled around the fan, throwing flecks of crimson as they spun lazily. His head was gone. All that remained past his chest was his neck and lower jaw with his tongue lolling out to the side over his teeth. It was as if the top of his head had been wrenched off by some crude but powerful force.
He saw his sister. She had been thrown against the couch and she lay there with her legs spread apart wide. From her crotch to the center of her abdomen was a gaping, red hole, like some huge mouth had clamped down and torn away the bone and flesh and sinew in a single bite. Her face was a permanent and bloodless rictus, staring up in horror. Her little white fingers clutched another hand, severed, and part of an arm with the splintered bone protruding from the torn flesh. He didn't have to look at the rings on the hand's fingers to know it was his mother's.
She was arched over the banister, impaled on the finial. The flesh and muscle had been ripped away and he could see the curve of her ribcage poking through, like skeletal fingers holding on to her. The skin of her face hung in tatters, shredded by some monstrous claw, leaving long, deep gashes that split her nose in two and opened her mouth inhumanly wide.
What could have done this? What could be capable of such destruction?
And then he saw.
Above the fiWith, the mantle had been swept clear. The clock that had been there, the picture frames, all thrown to the floor. They had been Withd by a single object, placed in the exact center.
His father's head.
There was something sticking out of his eye socket, shoved in deep, something he didn't recognize at first. Something small and wooden. And then he realized what it was... a crucifix.
And then he knew what had happened. He knew everything.
Przemek woke covered in cold sweat. His sheets and blankets were twined around his legs and he could feel a wetness soaking into the mattress beneath him. He felt the scream rising from deep inside of him and rolled over and buried his face in his pillow.
She had been awake for hours. She lay in bed and watched the early-morning darkness give way to dawn; the light outside her window growing brighter as full day approached. She was paralyzed. She prayed for strength, but it would not come to her and she couldn't find it within herself. The boy hated her, she knew that. Why else would he take her cross away from her? It was a prank, a cruel, childish prank. “Darion,” she whispered to the empty room. You left him. You left him just like you left me. Only he can't even hope for those odd phone calls. What was it, Darion? Two calls in a decade and a half? One to tell me you were in love, you were getting married. You'd met some woman in that desolate wilderness; some amazon savage that you thought you could tame. And another phone call years later. You told me you had a son. You asked me to meet the two of you, and I came. You were terrified when we met, but what were you so afraid of? She found herself wondering, yet again, what happened to her brother. I miss you, Darion. I've missed you for years, but now I know it's permanent.
She wiped away a streak of tear running from the corner of her eye. He'll be awake soon. I'll go downstairs and I'll make him breakfast, and we'll both pretend we’re not screaming on the inside. We'll both pretend we're not sick with grief. We'll pretend you're not dead so we won't have to talk about it.
She got out of bed. The strength she prayed for never came, but she got up anyway. The rigid and mechanical motions of life didn't require strength as long as she jerked herself through them like a marionette pulling its own strings. She opened the door and went downstairs.
She cooked pancakes with chocolate chips in them; something a kid would eat, something comforting. She was deciding whether or not she should call up to him when she heard his light footsteps descending the stairs. He sat down before the glasses of orange juice and milk she had poured. She smiled at him as she filled his plate with a stack of steaming-hot pancakes and sat down across from him.
“Did you sleep alright?” She asked, though it was obvious from the dark circles under his eyes that he had hardly slept at all. He also stank of stale urine. She wondered how discreetly she would be able to wash his sheets without embarrassing him.
“I slept okay,” he lied. “The bed was really soft.” He picked up his fork and cut through the pancakes.
“Wait,” Maura stopped him. “Don't you want to say grace first?”
“Grace,” he said, confused. “Well, yeah. These look really good, thank you.”
“Okay. Would you please bow your head?” She began, and lowered her own head and closed her eyes. “Heavenly Father, we thank you for this--”
There was a crash as something glass fell and shattered on the floor. Maura looked under the table at the shards of broken glass sitting in a puddle of orange juice on the hardwood floor.
“Fucking shit,” she muttered under her breath. She looked up at Przemek. “Did you do that on purpose?”
He was alarmed at her accusation. “No. I mean... I did it, but it was an accident. I'm sorry. I'll clean it up, okay? I'm really sorry.”
“No. Don't. Don't move. I don't want you to cut yourself. I'll get it.” She wiped up the juice and carefully picked up all the wet pieces of glass and laid them in a dish towel and dumped the shards into the trash.
When they both sat back down to eat, the food was barely warm. They ate in silence. Maura watched him cut small bites and chew them slowly. He ate like he wasn't hungry, or he didn't like the food and he was just being polite.
Why is he acting this way? she wondered. First he steals my crucifix, and then he deliberately breaks my glass. He said It was an accident, but I'm pretty sure I saw a little blur of motion out of the corner of my eye; saw him reach over and knock the glass down when he thought I wasn't looking. Is this his normal behavior, or is he acting out; trying to get attention from me? I know he's been through a lot, but can't he see I'm trying? She began to wonder if he didn't pee in the bed on purpose. Why else would he sit down to breakfast without changing his clothes? Maybe he wants me to know. No, she told herself, that would be insane, wouldn't it? On the other hand, he just lost his entire family overnight. She didn't know how that would affect a child. She decided she would have to try harder to engage him.
She looked across the table at him, just picking at the pancakes now, hardly put a dent in them.
“I'm going to church later tonight,” she announced. “I thought maybe you'd like to come with me? What do you think?”
Przemek looked a
round the room apprehensively and dropped his fork onto his plate, it landed with a clatter. “No. I don't think... it would be... I mean... No. I cant. I don't want to. Not tonight.”
“Oh. I thought you'd be excited to go,” Maura said, trying not to sound too disappointed. Didn't you go to church with your father?”
The boy shook his head. “No. There aren't any churches where I'm from.”
This statement surprised her. She thought the entire reason her brother left was to help build churches and spread the word of God beyond the barrier. “There's not even one?”
He shook his head again. “Not like the ones you would have here.”
“But surely you must have prayed? Read the Bible? He told you about the Lord, didn't he?”
Przemek shivered when she said the words the Lord. “No. He never talked about what he believed before. Our gods are not the same as yours.”
“Your gods? You have gods, like plural?”
She could tell this talk was making him uneasy. “Well, yeah,” He said. “We have a lot of different gods. There's--”
She stopped him. She didn't want to hear him blaspheme in her house. “Did your father... did he worship these gods?”
“I don't want to talk about this anymore,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. But that was answer enough for Maura. He did. Her brother abandoned his religion. This was unbelievable. From the time they were children their entire lives revolved around worship and faith. She was having a hard time reconciling this new idea of her brother as some heathen polytheist with the Darion she knew and grew up with. No wonder he never called or wanted to see her. He didn't want her to find out. He was ashamed. He had turned his back on his faith; something that was essential to everything she knew about him. And for what? Because he met some girl? He fell in love? That seemed impossible to her.
“We don't have to talk about it. I don't think I really want to hear about it anymore anyway. I realize this place is very different than what you're used to, but I'd like it if eventually you came to church with me. I could show you about my faith. It used to be something very important to your father as well. Do you think, when you're ready, you would come?”
Przemek looked down at his mostly uneaten breakfast. “I don't know. Maybe someday. But not right now. I just can't.”
“I understand.”
“I think I want to go to my room now. I need to unpack.”
“Okay,” she said, feeling a little defeated. Like she had lost ground.
Przemek pushed his chair away from the table, left the kitchen and climbed the stairs to his room.
She didn't see him for the rest of the day.
She tried not to think about Darion. It was difficult, but every time she imagined her brother praising some strange, false gods she aggressively pushed the thoughts from her mind.
It was evening now. She changed into her sensible church dress, not too flashy, but presentable. She slipped on black flats and pinned her hair up. She picked up her worn copy of the Bible.
Outside Przemek's door, she stopped to listen for a moment... no sounds at all from within. She knocked and opened the door.
“I'm going now,” she said. She wanted to ask him to come, too. She wanted to demand it, or to beg, if she had to. But she didn't. She didn't think it would be fair of her. “You'll be alright by yourself? I'll only be gone for a little over an hour.”
He gave her a reassuring look. “I'll be alright.”
She lingered in the doorway before saying, “Well, okay then. Do you know about 911? In case there's an emergency?”
“Yeah,” he told her. “Don't worry about me.”
“I'll see you in a bit, then.”
He closed the door with her still standing there. She wanted to burst through and drag him downstairs, force him to come with her. Instead, she just turned and left.
The drive was quiet. It was soothing, driving through the hills, watching the trees she passed along in the dusk, the reflective eyes of nocturnal animals peering out at her from the darkened woods. She relaxed and let the car take her down steep incline to rise again on peeks. She saw the church's steeple poking up above the trees and she followed it, came to the parking lot and turned in.
It was a small church, the congregation numbered less than a couple hundred on the best days, but she liked that. She liked the intimacy. She felt like she really knew the members of her church, they were her clan and she never felt like she belonged anywhere as much as she belonged there.
The church was bright. Every light inside was burning and it radiated a heat that warmed her soul. Before the service, she chatted with her friends in the foyer, polite talk about weather and local events, and gardening. She volunteered to bring a dessert for the potluck next Sunday afternoon, and they discussed who should host the next women's meeting, someone voiced concern for the Pastor, he seemed to be showing signs of stress, they discussed it and they organized a group to visit church members who lived in nursing homes and couldn't attend regular service. She loved the sense of purpose it gave her; she loved to belong.
And when the service began she lost herself in the bliss that came from joining her voice in song with the entire congregation, all praising the lord with a single voice. In the quiet moments, after the hymnals were put away, before the pastor Reynard Hodges began his sermon, she thought of Darion. She imagined he was sitting beside her with that somber, contemplative way he looked during worship. He was always so serious. When had he lost it, she began to wonder, what could have driven away one of the most devout people she had ever known? She was afraid she would never understand.
Hodges was sermonizing now, she realized. His signature mile-a-minute stream of verbiage was even more wild than usual. It was bordering on rabid the way flecks of spittle escaped his mouth and sweat poured out of him. She couldn't even focus on his message, she could only watch the delirious way he delivered it, banging his fist down on the podium, screaming the name of God, tearing at the buttons around his collar. She though he was going to collapse from lack of oxygen, he never seemed to take a breath. It was so odd, maybe he was showing signs of stress.
Before long the service was over. She found herself lingering in the foyer, long after anyone felt like chatting with her, so she just stood by herself. She didn't want to leave. She didn't want to face the boy at her home, waiting for her. He was a stranger from a strange place, and he inspired a great fear in her, a fear she recognized as irrational, but one that was beyond her control.
She was the last one left. Pastor Hodges waited patiently, holding the door open for her. She walked to him slowly. As she approached, she saw something in his face. He looked tired; not just tired, but worn and exhausted. His expression was pleasant enough, but something else belied a weariness that seemed beyond physical.
“Last one out,” he said turning off the light. “If you give me a moment to lock up, I'll walk you to your car.”
“That's okay, really,” she said, feeling oddly nervous around him. All she wanted was to get away.
His eyes cut through the darkness, they seemed almost reflective, like the eyes of the animals peering out at her from the roadside. “Nonsense. I have something I'd like to discuss with you.”
Maura tried to look around the foyer. There was only blackness. The church had lost its comfort in the dark, now it looked big and empty, but like it was closing in on her at the same time. She stepped through the door and into the equally dark night. Those wild, nocturnal eyes followed her.
“I missed your nephew this evening. I understood that he was to be staying with you.” He put his hand on her back as they walked through the parking lot, she tensed beneath his touch.
“That's right. He is staying with me now. He told me he didn't feel up to coming tonight, poor thing, he's been through so much.”
“That's a shame,” Hodges told her. “I was looking forward to meeting him.”
“I'm sure there will be plenty of other opportunities after
he gets settled.”
“Will there?” His eyes narrowed, slightly, they seemed to flare up as they did. “It occurs to me, you never mentioned where he was from.”
She could see her car now. Only another thirty or forty feet and she could escape. She'd never seen pastor Hodges like this before, and it scared the hell out of her. She began to walk faster, focused on the car, that was her goal, that was safe. She dug around in her purse for her keys.
“He's from the North, isn't he? The lonely lands, beyond the barrier?”
She stopped and spun around to stare into those oddly reflective eyes, floating like burning embers in the dark. “How did you know that?”
“A deacon at another church. He told me your brother had died. He also told me how your had brother lived. He was a heathen, Maura. He was a traitor to his god.”
Maura flinched at those words, wounded. She shut her eyes tight. She could feel the tears coming. Why was he saying this to her?
“Your brother doesn't interest me. The boy, however, does. I need to see him. I can help. He needs to be cleansed. I can purge the demons from his soul.”
“Demons? There's no demons, don't be silly. He's a good boy,” Maura was at her car now. She stood behind the open door, using it as sort of barrier between the two of them. “He's not evil. He's just having a bad time, and being here is such a change for him. He needs to adjust.”
The pastor sighed and shook his head like he was trying to explain something simple to an idiot who refused to understand. He pressed his body against the car door and held his face a few inches from her own. This close she could see the circles under his eyes were a dark purple, like bruises. And there was something else now, his smell. The smell coming off this man was foul, like he hadn't bathed in weeks.
“The serpent burrows deep. He is buried like roots and corrupts the very core of purity. You can't notice it, maybe because you refuse to, but I'm familiar with the godless lands he comes from. I know what lurks beneath his innocent appearance. The serpent is buried deep. His nest is within, but I can bring him out and crush his head in the dust.”
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