Keeper of the Lambs

by Sue Clifton

  “Not one bit.” She grabbed Hank’s hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze that caused Hank to smile.

  “Are we ready to continue now?” Zach looked at Cayce and Hank, who nodded, but Harri was first to speak.

  “Since Marissa was the one most hurt by her devil father, Abel Mather, did she mention anything in her journal about her father’s church, something that might help us send him away from Bar None? You know—a one-way ticket on the Grim Reaper’s Rapid Transit?” Harri was thinking about Belle helping Teesh and her to find the article about his death at Belle’s hands.

  “No, but there is a drawing on the last page of the journal I’m sure means something. It has haunted me ever since I saw it. It’s a wooden cross, and there’s a Bible verse under it, written in large script as if Marissa needed to make an important point. Here, I’ll show all of you.” Zach picked up the journal and turned to the last page and passed it so the rest of the group could see it.

  “That’s it! The cross I found in the old church! I tried to take it, but when I picked it up, an awful voice told me to get out. It was so terrifying, I left the burned ruins in a hurry and never went back for the cross.” Piper rubbed her knees, as if feeling the bruises of that day.

  Cayce ran her fingers over the cross and read the Bible verse aloud. “Romans 12:19. Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.”

  “I think I understand now why the evil Abel Mather has targeted Belle, the restoration attempts of Bar None—especially Belle’s establishment—and also Sara and the blue bubbles.” Cayce looked at her audience to see if they were following her thoughts, but they all stared at her, their eyes full of questions.

  “Belle, Sara, all prostitutes, and even the unborn fetuses aborted by Belle’s girls, all symbolized Marissa and her stillborn infant, Abel’s own child conceived by his weakness and cruelty. In Abel’s twisted and dark mind, he felt he had to rid himself and the world of everyone and everything connected to Belle and Marissa, his way of retaliation for those he blamed for his own transgressions. His pretending to be sent by God rather than the devil, his real master, was his own way of scapegoating and covering up his sins.”

  She sat up straight. “I have to go to the old church and retrieve the cross Piper found.” She closed the journal and handed it back to Zach.

  “Are you finished now, Zach? Dude, you laid some bombshells on us, thanks to Teesh!” Harri patted Zach on the back and gave Teesh a big hug.

  “Actually, I’m not finished, but this has nothing to do with the history of Bar None.” Zach was all smiles, and reached for Piper’s hand, giving it a great big squeeze.

  “The FBI searched Steve’s cabin as well as the homes of the other members of the Fold, and it seems Steve, alias Dr. Stephen White, who performed all the deliveries and examinations for the Keeper for years, had a secret room under his cabin. It was filled with medical books and other things. The FBI confiscated Steve’s computer and found all the information pertaining to young women abducted, both in Idaho and other areas of the West, and the children they bore. They also found records of who adopted these children after the mothers mysteriously disappeared.” Zach paused and watched the And so…? expressions on Harri’s and Cayce’s faces. Then he blurted it out in one gigantic breath.

  “I’m a father! I have a baby boy. Children’s Services has him in protective custody. They found him in a halfway house operated by the Fold, a place where they kept babies awaiting adoption. I’m going to see him tomorrow in Boise and get the paperwork and blood work started to establish he is mine so I can bring him home with me. Piper is going with me.” Zach smiled his biggest smile at the girl beside him as his friends congratulated him with hugs and handshakes.

  Cayce left the group and headed to the front porch. It was late afternoon, and she knew what she had to do. She stepped down on the first step, but turned when she heard the door open and footsteps behind her.

  “Surely, you don’t think you’re going to that old church by yourself?” Hank walked over and joined Cayce on the steps, putting his arm around her. Behind him stood Piper, Zach, and Harri. Cayce turned and smiled, appreciative for the support of her family and friends.

  When they got to the church, Piper looked for the cross, but it had been moved from where she’d dropped it in the front of the church.

  “It’s okay, Piper. I’m sure it’s back in the ruins, hidden under the debris. The Way will deliver it to me.” Cayce looked at the group but directed her next words to Hank.

  “None of you are to come in, regardless of what you see or hear. Follow me if I leave the church, but don’t come close. I will be fine. Do you understand, Hank?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Hank replied.

  “Piper, Harri, Zach?”

  They all nodded in agreement, and Cayce stepped over rotting and burned logs and what was left of the flooring. She stopped in front of what would have been the pulpit where the demon preacher hurled hellfire and brimstone at his mesmerized congregation. A dark mist formed in front of her.

  A deep, petrifying voice boomed, “Get out!”

  Cayce ignored the voice, walked to the back corner, and moved boards and logs until she saw the rustic cross beneath. She lifted the cross and stood silent, watching, as the old church transformed back to the way it had stood over a hundred years ago.

  Absalom walked into the church and stopped in front of a beautiful altar engraved with the Biblical words, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, Acts 16:31.”

  Cayce knew, immediately, Absalom had built the altar and carved the words with his own skillful hands.

  Absalom was carrying the cross he had carved for Yu, the same one he had passed on to Marissa for comfort during her own trials and discontentment. He’d carved it from one long piece of wood, red cedar like the kind that grew in the South, with deep red wavy lines running along its full length. A beautiful burl formed the midsection where a carved rendition of Christ could have been attached but was not. Absalom had been taught Jesus was resurrected, and therefore he refused to place a carving of the Savior’s body on the cross.

  As he openly cried, Cayce read his thoughts. He was seeing his beautiful wife Yu dressed in a white wedding gown, her long train laid out perfectly behind her. She held a bouquet of wildflowers, and she turned and smiled at her husband-to-be through her white veil.

  Absalom carried something else besides the cross. Cayce heard sloshing—a jug of kerosene. The emotionally distraught man yelled at the pulpit.

  “This church will not be desecrated by you or any of your followers any longer, Abel Mather. Your funeral will not be held here. I will destroy the church I built, leaving only memories of Christians and of my beautiful wife Yu. And I leave the cross I gave to your lovely, innocent daughter Marissa, whom you violated just as my brother violated my sister.” He propped the cross against the altar with new words he had just carved, promising vengeance.

  “Rest in peace, sweet Marissa.” He whispered the words, pausing at the end with his eyes closed as if praying, or, perhaps, remembering. Then he lifted his eyes to the ceiling and heaven beyond and continued speaking in hushed words, his eyes and heart overflowing. “You have been avenged.”

  Absalom’s whole demeanor changed. His voice blasted from deep in his throat, and he yelled in an angry, violent voice, shaking his fist in the air.

  “Burn in hell, Abel Mather!” After igniting the kerosene he had sprinkled, Absalom turned and left the church, refusing to look back.

  Flames shot up all around Cayce, but she felt no heat. She picked up the cross, Marissa’s cross, left by Absalom to burn with the church, taking with it the sadness of Yu, Marissa, Absalom, and all those Christians whose church had been desecrated by a demon who pretended to be a follower of God.

  As she left the church with the tarnished cross, the black fog screamed at her, demanding she stop. The loud, swarming mass surrounded
Cayce, but she was not to be deterred. Holding the cross tightly to her chest with both hands, she left the blazing ruins and headed down the dirt road toward the cemetery.

  The others followed only a few feet behind her, at Hank’s insistence, with Hank taking the position closest, just in case.

  She walked through the cemetery as if in a trance, each step instinctively measured and sure, passing the monument of Jesus and the mass grave of aborted fetuses, passing Sara’s grave and Charlie’s grave, and all the graves of other former residents of Bar None. She saw Belle, dressed in her mourning clothes, standing near the back of the cemetery, and headed toward her. The black mass circled Cayce, growing larger and louder, drumming hundreds of invisible wings in satanic warning, but she ignored it.

  When she reached the shadow, Belle held her hand out and dropped something to the ground. Cayce stopped and laid the cross at Belle’s feet and picked up what the madam had dropped. She pulled the drawstring of the small leather pouch open. The bag was filled with gold dust like Charlie had hurled at the black fog the night he saved Sara and the blue bubbles. Cayce scattered all the dust over the ground that showed no indication it had ever been a grave, and hurriedly moved back, sensing what was coming next.

  Lightning shot across the clear skies, its jagged energy striking the gravesite and the black fog that hovered over it. The ground rumbled and shook as the demon screeched in suffering and fear, writhing and twisting like a giant snake in its death agony. The ground pulled the beast toward it like a magnet, causing it to burrow itself into the grave like a crazed tornado. The black fog vanished.

  Cayce locked gazes with Belle, but there was no smile or sign of any emotion from either of the women. Cayce turned to walk away, but turned back when she heard something drop to the ground behind her. There at her feet was the small, framed snapshot Joshua had taken of her several months ago, the picture that had disappeared from his room in Belle’s quarters. Cayce picked the photograph up and put it in her pocket.

  “Thank you,” she whispered to the silent and empty space where Belle had stood. Then she turned and walked out of the cemetery with her followers close on her heels. Hank moved to her side and took her hand. As the group passed by on the road outside the rusting, fallen fence outlining the history of Bar None, they stopped and looked back to the distant spot where Cayce had left Belle and the black fog. The cross stood like the monument it was meant to be, a talisman sending the demon to eternal damnation.

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  That night, the moon was full and the stars were out by the millions. Harri, Cayce, Hank, Piper, and Zach walked to the old cemetery, wanting to share their last night together in Bar None with Charlie. Teesh drove the old green Studebaker, still with Charlie’s last shine on it, to join the gathering of friends.

  Teesh sat on the base of Jesus’s statue, and the rest of the group sat on the ground in His golden radiance created by the moon.

  Yu was no longer visible. Zach and Piper had been to the cemetery earlier that day, and Zach had delivered the special information to Yu, just in case she was listening. Yu Lin, Beautiful Jade, had found the peace to move on, knowing her baby girl had lived a long, happy life.

  All of their eyes focused toward the brilliantly shining white angel tombstone that now marked the spot where two earthly angels rested. The friends sat silent, waiting, hoping for one last visit with Charlie and Sara. Then it happened.

  First, the sky filled with celestial clouds backlit by rays of light that could only be heaven-sent. A passageway opened in the midst of the clouds, shining like a Milky Way of sparkling gold dust. They all watched, mesmerized, hoping for a manifestation of translucent figures. Harri abruptly stood and pointed toward the path, her gaze widening.

  A black shadow limped up the glittering trail. The dark figure was a hag dressed in men’s clothing, an old black hat pulled low to conceal the scars of a mother who had tried to save her children but failed, only to save the children of others later. At the top of the path, beneath the clouds, stood a handsome man with his arms outstretched. A lovely young girl stood by his side, an angelic glow surrounding her like a full-bodied halo. A small, tow-headed boy in short pants, white shirt, and suspenders held to his daddy’s knee. His free hand opened and closed, opened and closed toward the woman approaching, and his dimples deepened as his smile filled his face.

  The figure’s peg leg made her walking cumbersome, but she continued to climb slowly upward, her head held higher with each step. Halfway up her sparkling course, her darkness began melting away, beginning at the ground and moving up her stooped body.

  First, her peg leg and her miner’s brogan boot disappeared, leaving her with two small feet covered by shiny black, women’s lace-up shoes. Her pace quickened as her men’s clothing transformed into a long, full, gray skirt with a white lacy bodice tucked neatly in at her trim waistline. The old hat vanished, uncovering beautiful long, brown hair that hung in big curls down her back. She reached out and placed her hand in the strong hand of her husband as her children joined them, and all encircled the mother in a family embrace. The woman turned and looked down with the smooth, flawless face of a beautiful young woman. Her face erupted in a jubilant smile aimed at Harri.

  “Goodbye, Anne Marie!” Harri called out, smiling at her friend. She gave a farewell wave as Annie and her family turned and disappeared into the cloudy mist.

  Next, the blue bubbles appeared as if propelled from the monument of Jesus. They bounced close together, like a cast of hundreds of tiny blue dancers waltzing to Bach’s “Minuet in G,” heavenly music played by an orchestra of angelic musicians. The bubbles dipped down, beckoning to Sara and Charlie, and began to swirl faster as they escorted the two new angels upward.

  The sky exploded with long sparks of brilliance emanating in all directions like festive, muted fireworks. The sparks beckoned to the bubbles, and they merged again, undulating to the silent strings of angel harps. A meteor shower of aqua blue rose higher and higher; waves oscillated on a magical sea of blue clouds and stars. The onlookers strained their necks and shaded their eyes so they could see into heaven’s dazzling beacon.

  The bubbles parted, allowing earth’s angels to continue up their gold-strewn course alone, but before they reached the end, the two best friends, Charlie and Sara, turned, holding hands, and smiled down at the people they loved.

  Two star-wrapped objects floated gingerly down, glistening against the mountain’s silhouette, sailing and dipping in long waving motions, caught in the mountain breeze like feathers from angel wings. The old brown hat, a forest ranger’s hat, its security no longer needed, glided slowly and gently down to land at the feet of Jesus in front of Teesh. A delicate blue ribbon followed, spinning gracefully like a tiny ballerina, and curled itself softly on top of the hat.

  Cayce, her eyes full of tears and her heart overflowing with joy, stood and began singing and the others joined her:

  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, Jesus loves me.

  Yes, Jesus loves me.

  The Bible tells me so.

  A word about the author…

  Dr. Sue Clifton is a retired principal, fly fisher, paranormal investigator, and published author. Dr. Sue, as she is known, can’t remember a time when she did not write, beginning with two plays published at sixteen. Her writing career was placed on hold while she traveled the world with her husband Woody in his career, as well as with her own career as a teacher and administrator in Mississippi, Alaska, New Zealand, and on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana.

  Dr. Sue appeared in October 2015 in A&E’s five-part series for television Cursed: The Bell Witch and was also featured in USA Today in articles about her nonfiction book which included the truth about the Bell Witch Legend as told through clairvoyant Angel Leigh.

 
Dr. Sue now travels and writes with her sister Nyoka Beer in search of places and material for their new series “Sisters of the Way” with The Wild Rose Press.

  Dr. Sue divides her time between Montana and Mississippi and loves all things vintage. With her vintage camper “Delta Blue,” Dr. Sue attends events of the national outdoor women’s group Sisters on the Fly.

  Dr. Sue is the author of twelve books: seven novels in series with The Wild Rose Press, Inc.; and two nonfiction books, two paranormal mysteries, and a children’s book elsewhere. Dr. Sue supports Casting for Recovery (CFR), a national organization providing fly fishing retreats for women with breast cancer. A portion of her profits from all book sales goes to CFR.

  Visit Dr. Sue at www.drsueclifton.com

  and at Novels by Dr. Sue Clifton on Facebook.

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  Also available from The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  The Breath of Spanish Oaks

  by Dr. Sue Clifton

  Cayce McCallister and sister Harri Wellington, fifty-year-old "magnets for trouble," live by the philosophy of their father, giver of their gift of seeing into the past. Through a bloodstained cookbook in Natchez, Mississippi, restless spirits channel Cayce and Harri, beckoning them to follow the path leading to Spanish Oaks Inn in south Mississippi.

  Here the sisters come face to face with spirits of slaves related to the current owner and his distant cousin, the resident fortuneteller. Joshua Devaux, present owner of Spanish Oaks, is smitten with one of the sisters and becomes ghost-hunter-in-training as he joins Cayce and Harri in solving the mysteries haunting the plantation since the 1840s.