Deliverance

by Samantha Schinder

  Inside the medical tent, Addie and Eleanor were hard at work arranging cots and sorting through their medical packs. Deliverance hailed them to come meet them.

  “These are my good friends Doctor Adelaide Pennington and Eleanor Quentin. Addie and Eleanor, meet my mother Catalyst and my best friend…well we never use her given name, but everyone calls her Effie.” Deliverance introduced them.

  “It is truly an honor,” Addie said and stuck her hand out to Cat.

  Cat eyed Addie for a second before extending her own hand in friendship. “Cat. Sorry, we do not get many visitors here. I am out of conversational practice.”

  “She weren’t never good at it ta begin with,” Effie interjected and smiled tentatively at Addie. “I’m Effie.”

  “Charmed! Call me Addie. And this is Eleanor, Jack’s sister. Jack is the gentleman who helped you escape your imprisonment.” Addie replied, putting an arm around Eleanor’s shoulders. Eleanor for once looked a tad shy.

  Effie eyed the fuzzyheaded little girl with suspicion. “You aren’t as tetched as yer brother, are ye?” she asked accusingly.

  This brought a smile to Eleanor’s face. “No indeed. Although I’m told my gift is much stranger to behold.”

  “God’s teeth. It gets stranger than shooting fire out of yer hands!?” Effie cried, consternation written across her fey-like face.

  “Come, there is much to tell,” Addie said, inviting them in. And so they all sat in a circle on blankets on the forest floor, the canvas of the newly erected tent flapping and crinkling gently in the sea breeze. And Deliverance started to speak.

  ***

  “Fades,” Effie whispered in awe after Deliverance, with the help of Eleanor and Addie, had finished her recounting of the last few weeks.

  “’Tis rather a lot to take in,” Deliverance replied, noting the Narisi lilt coming back into her speech.

  “And you mean to bust out our actual gifts from wherever they’re hiding inside us?” Effie asked Eleanor, looking at the girl with intense curiosity.

  “Yes, that is rather the idea.” She giggled in return at Effie’s description of the healing process.

  “What if we want to keep our gifts we already have?” Effie demanded.

  “You want to keep your gift?” Cat remarked dryly.

  Effie shrugged. “I’m used ta it. ’Tis familiar.”

  “It is something someone else saddled you with,” Jack said, ducking as he ambled into the tent. “Wouldn’t you rather be who you were meant to be, rather than struggling along being what someone else decided for you?”

  Effie sat back and considered this for a spell. Finally, she said, “All right, but I hope I get ta shoot fire from my hands. There are a few heads in the village which are needing a little less hair…and some other body parts as well.”

  Eleanor giggled, and Deliverance smiled. Her friend, for her part, had not changed a wick since she had been away.

  “I suppose you’ve come to add your two cents in, Senator? To lecture us on how we aught to be?” Cat accused Jack snidely, just as he had made himself comfortable on the floor next to Deliverance.

  Jack regarded her coolly. “I do not presume to dictate to you, madam, on what choices you should or should not make. I am not like your island men here. However, if you are asking whether I judge you in your part of keeping the false narrative alive…well, I cannot. I was not here in your shoes, with a family to protect and limited means to survive. I suppose your mother must have brainwashed you into believing the necessity of the whole bit.”

  Cat leveled an equally cool gaze at Jack. “’Tis good you do not judge me as you really have no idea what it was like here, nor my mother’s motivations.” She turned to her daughter. “There is a reason you had no idea about the narrative weaving.” Cat, it seemed, also had a story to wind.

  “So, let me get this straight. You purposefully did not tell me of our familial obligation because you knew this would happen!?” Deliverance said incredulously after Cat finished piecing together the plan her mother, Independence, and she had hatched decades before.

  “Not precisely this, but I knew something would happen. Something earth shattering. Something large enough to rock the very earth beneath our feet. Why do you think I named you Deliverance?” Cat asked her.

  “I have never had any idea, mother. You know this,” Deliverance replied with annoyance.

  “Look about ye, girl,” Cat told her simply. So Deliverance did as her mother bade, and then she saw.

  “I delivered this opportunity,” she said, awestruck.

  “Aye. Without you, we wouldna be here, on the precipice of change.” Her mother confirmed, pride glinting in her usually enigmatic eyes.

  “And what of your name?” Eleanor inquired of Cat.

  Cat smiled deviously then. “Aye, most think my name Catalyst made me good at chemistry and herbs. Which is true for the most part. But a catalyst…now that is a strong word. Catalysts enable elements around them to bring change. My mother, Independence, was a shrewd woman.”

  Deliverance sat back, slapping a hand to her forehead. Of course!

  “So, you are not a subversive bent on keeping prisoners on tiny islands then,” Jack said dryly.

  “No, indeed. I tried to leave with Deliverance once,” Cat said, snaking her fingers through Johns and meeting his eyes. “But it was not written on the horizon yet. Now, we have a chance, a better chance. And I mean to convince as many Narisis to come with us as possible.”

  Jack nodded approvingly, a silent truce brokered between them.

  Just then a shout rang out across the camp.

  Their party had to shoulder their way to the front of the crowd gathered at the forest’s edge. When they got there, they were met with a line of men from the village. Their torches cast deep shadows across their faces, accenting the already deeply evident distrust and fear.

  The Abbot stepped forward, seconded by the Fishmonger-Reave.

  “Who are you? And why do you trespass here?” the Abbot called, his voice cracking though he was attempting to sound brave. Cat and Deliverance exchanged a glance and stepped forward. “You!!” he hissed, upon recognizing them. “How did ye escape the bonds of the gaol!?”

  The men assembled behind him rumbled suspicious murmurs.

  “With my help,” Jack said, casually ambling forward to look at the Abbot in the eyes. The Abbot shifted uncomfortably.

  “We have not had visitors to this island. Make your purpose known,” the Abbot demanded, in a watery tone probably less forceful than he intended.

  Jack circled the Abbot, sizing him up. “My purpose,” he called, so all the men could hear him, “OUR purpose. Is to offer you freedom.” This caused quite a stir.

  “What do you mean by that, intruder?” the Abbot replied.

  The entire village had not turned out, Deliverance noticed. It seemed only the men had. That meant the women, children, and elderly would not hear Jack’s words uncolored by the prejudice of these brutes. Out of the corner of Deliverance’s eye, she saw Eleanor and Effie come panting up, having disappeared for a while into the woods. Odd, she thought, b
ut turned her attention back to the events unfolding before her.

  “The Republic of Arcanton has granted a one-time reprieve. A chance to leave the island, to see the Outside, to have access to improved lives! Better medicine, more technology! Your children will no longer waste away with whooping cough and polio. Your wives and brothers will no longer succumb to consumption and cholera.” Jack spoke with clarity and authority, his proud features catching in the firelight.

  “And why have you never come before?” the Reave piped in.

  “We have not had a way to safely remove you from the island until now,” Jack replied.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” the Abbot shot back.

  It was Cat who stepped forward now, staring down the men of the village, daring them to not allow her to speak. Under the forcible intimidation of her green stare, they let her have her say.

  “It means you and I…all of us, for generations as far back as the Exodus, have been stricken with a magical plague. It lives in our blood. It binds the gifts of your wives and sisters in the naming ceremony and it renders your magic null,” Cat declared, chin up, shoulders back, unafraid of these men who for so long had intimidated her into hiding.

  The Abbot scoffed. “Do not be absurd, woman! The Naming God made us so—men have no power. It is only born of the intrinsically evil vapors of a woman!”

  “Is that so?” Jack replied casually, walking down the line of men. With a flick of his wrist, a ball of dancing flame hovered in his palm. The whispers amongst the men grew almost to a sea-crashing roar.

  “Unnatural!” the Abbot cried out, shying back away from Jack, pointing.

  “Nay, friend. It is you who is unnatural. You all have an illness in your blood. You have passed it to your children for generations. But we have a way to cure it,” Jack called out so everyone could hear him.

  “And wield the feminine powers, like you?” the cartwright’s voice rang out.

  Jack laughed. “Everyone has a power on the Outside. Men and women. Some are like me, fire bringers. Some call the rain. Some have mental powers, or gifts of extreme agility and strength. If healthy, one comes into their powers as they grow into adults.”

  “And we would also have powers?” the Abbot asked. Deliverance could see the oil-slicked gears in the man’s evil mind turning.

  “Aye, ye all would. Men and women,” Effie called, stepping out from behind the shoulders of those in front of her. Her appearance caused another stir in the crowd. Deliverance caught snippets of, “Thought she was in gaol,” “slut,” “whore,” and “unnatural.”

  Effie walked slowly, eyeing every one of her accusers, each one of her gaolers, challenging them to take her freedom again. Then, when she hit the center of the line, she looked the Abbot straight in the face. Raising both her arms high over her head, she sneered at the Abbot. Then she called forth a firestorm from her hands. The rolling flames shot up high into the night sky with a searing vengeance. The Abbot stumbled back, terror rising in his eyes at the sight of Effie’s unbridled power.

  That must have been where Eleanor and Effie had gone off to, Deliverance reasoned. Effie must have shed her fear of the transformation and Eleanor must have just cured her. One look over her shoulder at Eleanor confirmed her suspicions.

  “I figured she’d be a fire bringer. She rather looks the part,” Jack said in an aside to Deliverance.

  “There was no doubt in my mind,” Deliverance whispered back.

  “Do not be afeared, Abbot. I willna hurt ye,” Effie cooed at the Abbot. “That is…as long as ye have stayed away from my friend Tobin while I was rotting in your cursed gaol.”

  The Abbot swallowed, taking several more steps back. “We have much to discuss amongst ourselves.”

  “Aye. We shall be here at this encampment, waiting for any and all who wish to be cured and start a new life. It is worth it, I promise you all,” Jack declared, his clear voice ringing out so the whole crows could not miss the offer. The Abbot’s Adam’s apple jumped in his scrawny throat, and he turned and retreated. The rest of the crowd left as well, albeit more slowly, curiosity ringing in their stares.

  Once the torchlights from the villagers had disappeared, Effie turned to everyone and declared cheerfully, “That went well, did it not?”

  “No,” Jack said quietly, thoughtfully. “I do not believe it did.” He was the politician amongst them, after all. He would know.

  “What are you thinking?” Niles asked as he took a place in their group.

  “I’m thinking I don’t trust that slithery bastard. There’s no telling what he might do.”

  Deliverance, Cat, and Effie had to agree with his assessment.

  “What is our next move then, sir?” Stevens asked Jack.

  Jack paused for moment, considering. Thoughts flitted rapidly through his mind, displayed upon his open face. “Niles,” he said after evidently coming to a decision. “Care to bust out those reconnaissance skills of yours?”

  CHAPTER 32

  Deliverance

  Deliverance, Jack, Niles, Effie, and Stevens gathered at the top of the crest of the ridgeline overlooking the village square. The group of men had returned from their rendezvous with the party on the beach and appeared to be gathering outside the town hall. With the binoculars John had given them before they left, they spied on them from afar.

  “It looks like they’re arguing,” Stevens assessed, handing the binoculars down the line. They had lined up, flat on their stomachs, watching the dance between the village men unfold below them.

  A large swath of the men planted themselves in front of the hall, facing off with a small offset standing behind the Abbot. The Reave stood in the middle, gesticulating wildly, pulling his hair, looking as if he were distressed and shouting.

  “Want me to pop down and see if I can glean any more info?” Niles asked Jack. As soon as Jack nodded, Niles disappeared, leaving a puff of pine needles in his wake.

  “Wow, he’s really fast,” Effie breathed. “Are you sure they won’t see him?”

  “No, he’s an old hand at this. As stealthy as they come,” Jack assured her, not taking his eyes off the scene below. It was impossible from this distance to tell what was unfolding between the men, although whatever it was, there was a schism between the two groups.

  When Niles returned, covering an impossible distance in a few short minutes, he was gasping for breath. “The Abbot wants to burn the hall! I think there are people barricaded inside!” He gulped, urgency ripping in his voice. Sweat cascaded down his shiny brown scalp.

  “No!” Effie and Deliverance both cried. “Jack, we have to stop him! He might have the entire village in there!” Effie sobbed, grasping his arm in panic.

  “GO!” Jack shouted without hesitation. They sprang to their feet and took off in the direction of the village, careening down the steep ridgeline path. Deliverance and Niles were the first to arrive, although Stevens landed in a puff of dust, having catapulted himself with his gift through the air not far behind them.

  The moment of their arrival caused all heads to turn, startled, in their direction and the Abbot stole the advantage. Quickly, he heaved his heavy torch onto the thatched roof of the hall. Then he snat
ched the cartwright’s torch from his grasp before the man could pluck it away from him and threw that one as well. The thatch of the roof went up in flames almost immediately.

  “NO!” Deliverance screamed and flung herself against the barricaded doors. Hands grasped her from behind and ripped her away from the doors. She twisted painfully, before focusing on her gift and flipping back to unseat their hands.

  She landed in a crouch and surveyed the scene around her. Several men had turned on the Abbot’s group and were bent on violence against the man and his followers. Others circled Deliverance with the look of mountain lions about to pounce, their predatory stares maniacal in the firelight. She realized they would not let her or Niles break the barricade, while they were standing.

  “Here!” Niles said, tossing her and Stevens each an unlit torch. They grasped them like clubs but did not dare to wait to size up their opponents before launching at them. The fire was spreading too quickly.

  Stevens bowled over a score of men trying to take their flank and walloped the last man standing in the head, while Niles took rapid swinging arcs with his torch, knocking down swaths of men. Deliverance focused on the three men standing in front of the door.

  “Why are you doing this?” she cried, as she launched herself at them.

  “They cannot be allowed such power!” One of the men heaved, before Deliverance knocked him on his rear with a fist to the jaw. She swore, feeling the minuscule bones in her hand crack.

  “Who?” she yelled back, evading another man’s attempt to grasp her by rolling to the side and sweeping his legs out from under him.

  “The women…the children,” gasped one of the men, whose ribs Deliverance was sure she’d pummeled into a pulp.

  “You mean to take the power for yourselves,” she realized, eyes widening in terror.