Deliverance

by Samantha Schinder

  “What did you think would happen, unnatural girl? Bringing a cure to the island like that?” A snaking voice hissed over her ear. The Abbot rounded on her, battered, arm hanging limply at his side. “We will find the cure and use it for ourselves. It is better the women see the Fades than be tempted in their evil ways with new powers. You saw Mistress Effie. It was horrid—that spiteful, disgusting girl wielding such power. It cannot be allowed. We must save their souls before they corrupt them past the point of achieving the Fields in the afterlife.” The Abbot’s eyes glowed with the raging conflagration, both on the roof of the hall and from the madness within.

  “And so you mean to burn them alive!?” Jack puffed, he and Effie finally arriving.

  “Jack! Help me! Hold them back while I tried to break down the door!” Deliverance screamed.

  Effie stalked around the Abbot like a wild animal, her eyes crazed with vengeance. Deliverance did not have time to pull her back from that abyss.

  Jack positioned himself back to back with Deliverance, watching as a group of men descended upon them, war on their faces, clutching pitchforks and machetes.

  “Break down the door!” Jack shouted to her. “I will hold off this bunch.”

  The men started to converge on Jack, assured in their large numbers against one man. Jack looked up at them, a strange, almost ecstatic expression alighting his features. “You will stand down,” he commanded. The men, looking around at their superior numbers, chuckled to themselves and started to advance on him.

  “YOU SHALL STAND DOWN!” Jack commanded again, both his arms reaching out to the sides. From his hands shot the most intense fire Deliverance had ever seen him produce, roaring from his palms in either direction, creating a wall between the men and her.

  Deliverance wasted no time, heaving herself against the tall double doors. They were stout and locked with a chain lock. Inside she could hear cries of fear and pain. She heaved against the doors harder, the metal on the doors growing hot and searing her shoulder through her tunic. Still it did not budge. Again and again she careened against the door, hearing her bones crumple and snap with each blow. Still, she persisted as Jack held everyone off with his wall of fire. Over and over she struck the door, heaving with all her magical might. But it did not budge. Rage and tears threatened to overcome her as she began pummeling the wood with her bloodied fists.

  Suddenly, she became aware of Niles at her side. “Stop,” he commanded her. When she did not cease, he grabbed her from behind, pinning her arms down. “Calm yourself. We shall try again, together. But you must concentrate. Build your power up inside you before you release it in a burst of speed.”

  “How!?” Deliverance cried.

  Niles spun her to meet his eyes. “Sun…moon…truth,” he repeated the mantra. Slowly, Deliverance gained control of herself. Sun…moon…truth. “Feel it growing in you. Feel it circulating in your blood, blooming like a lotus flower. Feel it gathering…gathering… gathering. Breathe and let it build.”

  Deliverance breathed with him and felt it. She felt her blood singing, a magnetic pull drawing energy into her. The more she steadied herself, the stronger the pull became. It grew, swelling like the rising tide.

  “Now we shall try in unison,” Niles instructed her. “On three. ONE…TWO…THREE!!”

  They both shot forward like rockets, fueled by the gathered energy between them. In the slowed moment in which Deliverance actually sped up, but the world seemed to still, she felt the devastating impact of the solid door. For the smallest portion of a second she despaired as she thought it would not give way. Sun…moon…truth. She focused as she gave every ounce of herself in that last push. The door groaned, and as the world came back into real time splintered and cracked off its hinges, dropping inward.

  Several of the village men fighting on their side rushed forward through the doors, shouting for their loved ones. Effie was amongst them.

  “TOBIN!” she screamed. “CHARITY! AMITY!”

  Niles and Deliverance did not waste another second, but sped into the building, dragging people out. Soon the entire group was working in unison, attempting to pull the rest of the survivors from beneath the caving wreckage of the roof. It wasn’t long before only Jack and Effie would withstand the heat of the fire, but they kept going, carrying badly burned victims out rapidly, handing them off, and going back for more.

  It was hours before they stopped trying. No one left in the hall was alive and the roof had fully collapsed in, a smoldering, ember-ridden wreckage.

  Reinforcements had arrived, carting the casualties off to the field hospital where Addie, Cat, and Eleanor were waiting with a score of recruits to do triage.

  Deliverance, Jack, Effie, Niles, Stevens, and the handful of men who had opposed the Abbot and were not tending to loved ones sat slumped on the hill watching the hall finish its burn to the ground. No one spoke. No one had the energy or the will to move. They simply numbly stared at the ashes and carnage. They sat there as the light of morning began to work on the blackness of the night sky, turning ink into indigo, stars stubbornly refusing to give up their posts.

  Finally, one of the relief workers came and tapped Jack on the shoulder. “Doctor Pennington is ready to see you now,” she informed him. “Does anyone need mobility assistance?”

  Jack shook his head and sent the girl on ahead. Slowly, the group gathered themselves. As Jack lifted Deliverance from the dirt, his touch broke through the din of her shock.

  “Oh, Jack!” she cried, and clutched him to her, burying her face in his chest. His strong, sure arms wound around her, and the tears came. “How could anyone be so heinous…so entirely evil?” Her sobs came with big hiccups. Effie and Stevens joined in the embrace, sharing the sadness only Deliverance was ready yet to express. They would come to terms with their grief and shock at the events in their own time.

  Finally, they dropped their arms. And one by one, their group started to amble in the direction of the beachhead and the camp.

  Jack took Deliverance’s hand, lightly squeezing it, careful not to exacerbate the already swollen joints. “Come on. Let’s let Addie clean you up.”

  As they walked across the knoll together, they came upon a body, staring lifeless up into the sky. Around his throat, the charred flesh blackened perfectly in the shape of two, feminine hands. The Abbot. Both of them knew who had dispatched him, and neither commented, as they stepped around him.

  When they reached the large hospital tent, Cat swept Deliverance into a fierce embrace. “Ye were so brave, my love! I’m already hearing tales of your deeds.”

  “Oww,” she replied, wincing at the pressure.

  John was also there but patted her in a far gentler hug. “Have Doctor Addie clean you up, Del. I am already detected some internal bleeding. It needs to be tended to as soon as possible,” John assessed, ever the clinical observer.

  Deliverance nodded. “Thanks, Dad.” And walked on before her choice of words could be registered.

  When Addie spied her over the tops of heads, relief scrawled across her face. “There you are!” she exclaimed, collecting her friend and leading her to an empty cot. Eleanor was following at her heels with a tray of medical supplies.

  “Wait,” Deliverance said. “Where is E
ffie?”

  “Oh she’s fine, but gosh you took a beating!” Eleanor declared, setting her tray down on the table beside the bed. “She’s just over there.” The girl pointed out a scarlet head several cots down.

  Next to Effie stood Tobin, the abused orphan from the trial, covered in ash but appearing none worse for the wear. Charity sat on the cot next to hers, holding Amity’s hand. Charity and Amity both had suffered some minor burns, but none too severe from what Deliverance could gather from her vantage point. The group of friends was leaning together, giving each other solace and comfort.

  “I need to treat you now,” Addie said, snapping her fingers in front of Deliverance’s face to grab her attention away from the moving scene.

  Deliverance nodded her assent. And Addie began a thorough examination of her dozens of injuries. She called out conditions to Eleanor, who attentively scribbled them down on a notepad as she went. With each proclamation, Jack’s frown deepened. He hated seeing her pain, Deliverance realized, and reached out to squeeze his hand. He was truly heroic, the evidence mounting daily. Of course, the stark contrast between her fellow islanders and him aided in this thought process.

  “She must have used blunt force at a level so much higher than her body could withstand,” Addie told Jack as she poked and prodded Deliverance.

  “Aye, if it had not been for Niles and her, they never would have broken the door down and rescued the people we could save,” Jack replied grimly, his jaw clenched in empathy and worry.

  “Deliverance, I am going to have to sedate you again. Are you okay with that?” Addie said finally. Deliverance could tell by the look on her face that she’d confirmed what John suspected. Her internal organs were bleeding, and it would take all of Addie’s skill to remedy them.

  “Do what you need to,” Deliverance replied, lying back on the cot. Jack took her hand and clasped it in both of his.

  “I’ll be right here the whole time,” Jack told her, and Deliverance did not doubt him.

  Blackness overtook her suddenly. The last image she saw was a handsome face stretched in worry, dark eyes filled with concern.

  CHAPTER 33

  Deliverance

  She did not dream, thankfully. If she had, it would have been filled with fire and screams. But Addie’s drugs kept her mind blissfully blank. Emerging from that comfortable nothingness took effort. She did not want to leave the peace behind. It was so enthralling in its tranquility, not cold like one would expect but warm like a familiar quilt. Begrudgingly though, her traitorous body began to rebel, pulling her back into the world like a fisherman pulls in a large catch on his line, slowly and into the light.

  Deliverance groaned before she blinked blearily, trying to make sense of the hazy world around her. It did not come into focus readily, but her eyes adjusted in their own time. She was not in the hospital tent anymore, but a different, smaller one. Hers was the only cot in it, she realized as she attempted to sit up. Ensconced around her were all her friends—Effie, Eleanor, Stevens, Mrs. Potter, and her mother and father. The only two missing were Jack and Addie, although she quickly realized Jack was behind her, asleep in a chair with his head propped on his hand. All the others were sound asleep too, taken with fatigue from their vigil.

  Jack’s eyes popped open as his head slid forward, and he blinked.

  “Oh thank God!” he whispered and gathered her in his arms. He sat on the cot next to her, holding her, rocking. Soon, Deliverance realized he was fighting back tears.

  “Whatever is the matter?” she asked him, in a low voice, careful to not wake the others.

  “What is the matter?” Jack whispered back incredulously. “My love, you’ve been out for three days. No one could revive you. Addie said your body needed time to come to terms with the extensive healing she had to accomplish. We nearly lost you.” His voice dammed up, croaking.

  “I really did all that damage to myself, trying to open that blasted door?” Deliverance asked him, once she thought he might have control of his voice again. It did not seem possible now, after the fact.

  “Aye. You were bound and determined to get those people out. You’re a hero…heroine. Whichever you prefer,” Jack replied, taking her face in both his hands and kissing her forehead tenderly. “Please never ever be a heroine like that again.” He pulled her back to him, Deliverance guessed so she could not see the couple tears she felt land on her shoulder. And he held her like that for a very long time, reassuring himself she was alive and well.

  There was much rejoicing when everyone awoke to find Deliverance sipping on a mug of “instant” coffee, chatting with Jack. Hugs and laughter abounded.

  “I am very proud of ye, daughter,” Cat said, squeezing her shoulder.

  “I as well,” John seconded, which Mrs. Potter and Stevens echoed.

  Deliverance pulled her knees up to her chest. “I wish we could have saved more people… The death was…” She choked. She could not continue putting the brutality into words. So many had perished, either fighting against them, or in the fire.

  It was Effie who broke the melancholic silence. “Aye. ’Tis a terrible tragedy we will all never forget. But we’ve work ahead of us now. People to cure. Lives to rebuild.”

  “When did you become so wise, friend?” Deliverance teased her.

  “Ah, I’ve always been wise. It twas just all that pent up fire wanting ta escape that masked it!” Effie replied cheekily and the rest of them laughed. It felt good to laugh. To breathe. To be alive. To love.

  ***

  Over the next few days, Eleanor readied herself and then began the healing process. She would tire after several cases and have to rest. Though the girl grumbled about having to take respite, she was dogged in her determination to heal the villagers.

  “Come on, love,” Jack called to Deliverance, once she was rested enough to get up and walk around. “There’s not much for us to do here, but I know a chore that needs to be sorted.”

  Deliverance followed him, curiously, as he walked out of the camp. He strode purposefully north for a few steps, before turning to her.

  “Actually, I have no idea where we are going. You’ll have to lead,” he admitted, grinning at his own folly.

  “All right. But where are we going?” Deliverance agreed, coming up to take the lead.

  “Home,” Jack replied simply. “Your home.”

  Home…it felt odd upon her tongue now. The idea of it had altered so much in the past weeks. But Jack was right. He wanted to take her to the homestead, to see if there was anything they wanted to bring along, and also, he admitted, because he wanted to spy her childhood home.

  “I want to see where baby Deliverance was raised. Where the feral girl roamed the woods. I want to have a picture in my head of you and yours,” Jack told her, as they ambled along. It would have been faster astride a pony, but if Charity were telling the truth, the ponies were all safely pastured on her family’s homestead south of the village. They would have to be collected for boarding the ship.

  When Jack had told Finley they were bringing their farm animals, the man had exclaimed, “What am I? Noah? And this is my ark?”

  Deliverance had replied insouciantly, “If Noah has a ship full of ponie
s and pigs, then yes. You are Noah.” And that settled that.

  She did not mind, she found, walking along with Jack. They chatted easily, freely, about the future. Where they would go, what they would do.

  “I’ve commissioned a relief team at the ready at our estate in Cornwall,” Jack told her as he swung a pilfered stick along, carefree.

  “This is your country house you speak of?” Deliverance asked.

  “Aye. There is room enough for everyone. The relief team is ready to help with gift coaching and to teach everyone usable skills. I have a few farm tenancies vacant as well, for those who would wish to retake up farming,” Jack informed her. He turned to her, radiance shining from within. “You will love Morwenchase. It’s large and open, and right on the sea, just like….oh.”

  He stopped talking when they finally came into view of the homestead Deliverance had shared with her forebears for hundreds of years. It was no longer.

  “Someone must have burnt it to the ground whilst Cat was imprisoned,” Deliverance commented, picking through the wreckage. The once cozy house, sprouting like a benign tumor from the mountain wall, was no more than a few charred timbers on the ground. The inglenook where she and her mother shared their many evenings over their cups and tales was reduced to cinders. A great black blight on the otherwise picturesque hill.

  “Are you so very upset?” Jack asked her, apprehensively searching her face for signs of sadness.

  Deliverance stood back on her heels and considered for a moment. “I suppose I will miss it in a way. The days of my youth spent here in what I thought was relative freedom. But I’ve learned that home is not a place. It is wherever you are, and my loved ones.”

  Jack grasped her hands, bringing them to his lips. “I feel exactly the same. I love you, Deliverance.”