by Logan Jacobs
“Thanks, gramps,” Freya whispered.
“Darwin,” I started, then hesitated, uncertain how to continue.
“I’ll keep him here,” Freya mumbled.
Darwin patted Freya’s cheek, but I could still see the angry set to his shoulders.
“Charles, you have to stay here,” I insisted. “You can’t go running after Michael on your own.”
Darwin glared at me, but Freya wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pulled him toward the sofa.
“You have to stay with me the whole time,” Freya declared. “Or I’ll make you go to this farm with Hex and Sorcha, and Beth will be the one who stays by my side.”
“Fine,” Darwin groused. “But once you’re on your feet, I’m not making any promises.”
“Once she’s on her feet, we’re leaving,” I replied. “I’m not staying around here any longer than I have to.”
“No argument there,” Freya snorted quietly.
Darwin was still angry, but I didn’t think I could wring any more promises from him. I had to hope that Freya’s demands would be enough to keep him in the house instead of wandering around Pastor looking for revenge. I glanced at Sorcha, and then at Simon, who both gave me a shrug.
“Simon, are you up for this?” I asked as I ran toward the back door with Sorcha right behind me. “If you would rather just give us directions….”
“No, no, I’ll come,” the Amish man insisted and hustled after us. “If you’ll get Ruth saddled, I’ll get Barnaby. It’s smarter to have one of the dogs with you if you travel out to the farms at night.”
I nodded and then ran out the back door. Sorcha and I plowed through the snow toward the stables, a feat made more difficult by the flakes that were starting to fall again. We pushed inside the small structure where the three horses started at our abrupt entrance. Our two bays whinnied when they caught our scent, and Ruth stuck her head over the stall door to watch us as we started to gather saddles and tack. Despite the late hour and the cold air that drifted into the barn through the open door, all three horses seemed game for a bit of night riding.
Simon and Barnaby arrived as we finished saddling the last horse. Ruth nipped at the dog, though the Weimaraner had been expecting the maneuver. He easily avoided the red mare’s teeth and turned his attention to the two horses he didn’t know. Both bays eyed him suspiciously, though once Sorcha and I climbed onto the saddles, they ignored the dog and turned their attention to the challenge presented by the road.
Simon turned out to be a good rider, though he wouldn’t have won any awards for style. The Amish man set a swift pace as we quickly left the town center behind and soon found ourselves among acres of rolling farmland. We rode past one of the spots where the mutants had attacked and kept going until the few lights of the town were little more than specks the size of fireflies. The sound of the horses’ hooves was muffled by the snow, and the only other noise was the call of an owl in the distant trees.
We were covered in snow and shivering from the cold air by the time Simon turned away from the road and guided Ruth across the edge of a field toward a rambling farmhouse. I could still see light in some of the windows, and somewhere nearby a sheep bleated at our passage. Barnaby, who had been keeping pace with the horses, charged ahead. The silver dog arrived at the door and barked three times, then stood and waited for someone inside to answer.
By the time we reined in our horses, the door to the farmhouse was open and a man with pale blonde hair and a wispy beard peered out into the night. It took me a moment to realize he had a pitchfork in his hands, though he looked more worried than scared.
“Simon, what trouble brings you here at this time of night?” the man asked as he glanced toward Barnaby who was trying to find a way to slip by.
“Hamrick, I-- we need your help,” Simon said as he slid from the saddle. “May we talk inside?”
Hamrick nodded and stepped aside, which was all the invitation Barnaby needed. He shot past Hamrick before the man could stop him, and Simon simply offered a shrug to Hamrick’s exasperated look.
We found ourselves in a large, plain room filled with a ragtag assortment of furniture and not much else. The only decoration was a needlepoint of something called ‘The Ten Commandments’, but the rest of the walls were empty. A small lamp on an end table and an open book seemed to indicate that our host hadn’t been in bed, despite the long johns and flannel robe.
“You must be needing medical help at this hour,” a woman mused as she stepped into the room as well.
“Leah, we do have need of your services,” Simon replied. “We need the cure for Michael’s demon drug.”
Leah and Hamrick exchanged quizzical looks, and then Leah spotted Barnaby, who had flopped down in front of what was left of the fire.
“Did one of the dogs become ill?” Leah asked in concern.
“Not one of the dogs, no,” Simon admitted.
No one said anything else for several moments, as Simon remained tightlipped and the homeowners waited for someone to explain what had happened.
“We were invited to Michael’s aerie tonight,” I finally said. “And now one of my friends is sick. But she’s not a demon, and she’s not your enemy.”
Hamrick and Leah exchanged another look, and then Hamrick moved toward one of the windows.
“Did anyone follow you?” the Amish man demanded as he studied the fields outside his window.
“No,” Simon assured him, though he shot a questioning look toward me.
“No,” I agreed.
“The mixture that made your friend sick only affects demons,” Leah stated.
“She’s a mutant, not a demon,” I snapped. “She’s not evil and she’s not the spawn of the devil.”
Leah held up her hand for silence and then glanced toward her husband.
“I don’t see anything,” Hamrick replied.
“Then quickly, into the kitchen,” Leah ordered. “It will take me some time to put it together.”
“So you did develop a cure,” Simon breathed.
“I did,” Leah replied as she led the way toward the back of the house. “It is always safer to have a cure to go with the poison.”
“But how do you know it will work?” Sorcha asked as we stepped into a large kitchen that smelled like dried grass and fried pork chops.
Leah and Hamrick exchanged another look, but it was Simon’s turn to answer.
“Leah probably gave it to Hamrick to test on the mutants that Michael poisoned,” Simon suggested.
Hamrick nodded as he invited us to sit down while Leah turned on several lamps, then set to work in her kitchen.
“We knew, well, mostly knew, what goes into his concoction,” Hamrick sighed. “Most of what he wanted he could only find in Leah’s black garden. Leah was able to figure out the rest of it. The men all know that Michael had the drug tested, but they only know about the first few. Michael kept working on the drug, trying to get the results he wanted. Leah and I….”
“At first, we went along with it,” Leah continued for her husband. “After all, these creatures attack our farms and our families. But after Hamrick saw one of the tests and described it to me, I decided I needed to follow my mother’s rule that I have an effective cure on hand as well.”
“It was almost a year before I had a chance to test it,” Hamrick sighed. “I’m not part of the inner circle, so I only heard about the tests. But I was there the day that Michael’s hunters returned with their catch, a boy really, that they had trapped while he was drinking from a stream. I wasn’t even sure he was a demon until they stripped him down and I could see the line of quills down his spine. He was so scared, and he begged them to let him go, but Jacob called him a demon and punched him so hard in the side of the head that the boy was knocked out. The cries that child made when the poison started to work….”
“The rest of them left before the boy was dead,” Leah picked up when Hamrick could only shake his head. “Apparently, Michael said it wa
sn’t quite right yet, and they all left with Michael while he tried to work out what he needed to adjust. Hamrick was able to bring the boy back here after telling everyone the boy was dead, and he was going to bury the body. Instead, he brought the child here, and I tested my cure on him.”
“And did it work?” I pressed.
“It did,” Leah assured me as she placed a pot on the stove and added a brown liquid and the contents of a packet.
“So what was it that he wanted to change about the poison?” Sorcha asked.
“It was too fast and too painful,” Hamrick replied. “The way Michael wants it to work is that it will leave the demon weak and defenseless, but not so much that it might draw someone’s sympathy. Then, the demon can be brought out before the people and have its evil nature exposed. Michael then kills the demon.”
“This has happened?” Sorcha demanded.
“Several times,” Leah said unhappily. “The worst was the woman with the feathers of a dove. She was one of the first, and the poison was still fast acting. She died a horrible, painful death in front of all of us before Michael could slay her. Many protested after that, but Jacob threatened to exile the doubters, so no one has dared to complain since then.”
“I wonder why it only affects mutants,” I pondered.
“And if Darwin is right, then why does it only affect mutants with animal traits?” Sorcha added. “Why not mages as well?”
“Michael has a seperate test for sorcerers,” Simon added. “I don’t know what that is, but he tests for sorcery at the aerie.”
“Those mage crystals in the wall,” Sorcha guessed. “One of them probably detects magic, but only someone who knows what each of those crystals is for would know which one to check.”
“He may claim he’s not a mage, but he certainly uses plenty of mage tricks,” I noted.
“You think he’s a mage?” Hamrick asked.
“He’s a fire mage,” Sorcha replied. “There’s no doubt about that.”
“Is that possible?” Leah asked from the stove. “Perhaps he just seems like a mage to you because you haven’t encountered a divine being before.”
“Trust me, he’s not divine,” Sorcha insisted. “My special magic allows me to… feel it in others. Michael is a mage.”
Leah shook her head and turned back to the pot on the stove. She took an experimental sniff, then added another packet of dried leaves, followed by a dollop of honey. The kitchen started to smell more like an apothecary, which did not blend well with the fried pork chop scent.
“What do you know about Peter and Molly?” Sorcha finally asked.
“The Shulkin twins,” Hamrick noted. “Michael took them in about a year ago when their mother died. He said they had a divine spark and he could show them how to use it for the benefit of Pastor. Again, I’m not part of the inner circle, so my knowledge is limited. My understanding is that he has taught them words that will help them summon divine intervention.”
“Divine intervention,” I repeated as I tried to imagine what that was.
“Michael will hear their words and send them the power they need,” Harmick said with a shrug. “I’ve only seen it once myself. Peter used the words to keep the creek from flooding Josiah’s land.”
“A water mage,” Sorcha noted. “Michael is teaching them how to control their powers, but he can’t have anyone know they’re mages since he’s declared all mages to be sorcerers and demons. So he tells you that Peter and Molly have a divine spark that allows them to receive power from an angel.”
“Have there been others with a divine spark?” I asked.
“A few,” Hamrick replied.
“And where are they?” I asked.
Leah and Hamrick exchanged another look, and Hamrick finally shrugged.
“Michael sent them on a divine quest,” the Amish man finally replied. “He said it had been ordained by God.”
“He probably kills them when they become too powerful,” Sorcha muttered. “Or if they start to suspect that they’re mages and not just some conduit for Michael.”
“But while they’re still young and uncertain what’s happening to them, he can use their gifts to make him look like an angel,” I surmised. “This guy is insane.”
“But brilliant,” Sorcha pointed out. “He found the perfect community to pull this off.”
“But you must know something about him,” I insisted as I looked back and forth between Hamrick and Leah. “He clearly knew something about the Amish before he came here. Did he grow up in one of the nearby towns?”
There was a long moment of silence while the three Amish studied everything in the room except for the other people.
“There was an elder,” Simon said quietly after what felt like an eternity had passed. “A man named Daniel Ojai. He was never officially Amish, but he had found his way here after the meteorite, and he stayed on. When Michael first appeared, Daniel claimed that the angel was a mage and he knew his real name.”
“Let me guess, something terrible happened to Daniel,” I stated.
“There was a falling out between Daniel and Jacob,” Hamrick explained. “I was there when Daniel said he would travel to this other town and find proof of Michael’s identity. When Daniel didn’t return, Jacob said that was a sign that Daniel had been wrong.”
“And people believed him?” Sorcha asked in disbelief.
“He is an elder,” Hamrick said with a shrug.
“And no one thought to find out what had happened to Daniel?” I pressed.
“A few went in search of him,” Simon offered. “I took some of the dogs as well. We followed his scent as far as we could, but….”
“But?” Sorcha demanded.
“He left the trail,” Simon replied. “And we found blood.”
“Mutants?” I guessed as I glanced at the Irishwoman.
“I don’t think so,” Simon replied. “The dogs didn’t signal that there were any nearby, or that they had been in the area recently.”
“You knew as soon as Freya stepped into the kennel yard that she was a mutant,” I declared.
“Yes,” Simon admitted quietly.
“But you didn’t tell anyone,” I pressed.
“No,” Simon agreed. “There didn’t seem to be any reason. Barnaby wasn’t worried once he had warned me.”
“Barnaby the dog?” Sorcha asked.
Simon nodded and looked toward the room where the silver dog was still basking in the last warmth of the fire.
“Well, that’s as good a reason as any I’ve ever heard for doing, or not doing, something,” Sorcha finally muttered.
“If Michael really is a mage,” Hamrick said slowly, “then what is his purpose here?”
“Off hand, I’d say he was looking to build his own little kingdom,” Sorcha replied.
“But that would mean he is mortal,” Hamrick continued. “He will age, and grow old, and die.”
“He may leave before that,” I mused. “Say he’s been called back to Heaven or whatever.”
“By that time, he may have his successor picked out,” Sorcha added. “Someone who can take over the role of guardian angel.”
“Or he could just leave you to defend yourselves,” I added. “That seems more likely, since he keeps sending all the local mages away on quests.”
Hamrick shook his head, then stared glumly at the table top. Leah refused to look at anyone, though it was hard to miss the tension in her back. Simon finally heaved himself to his feet and wandered back into the other room where I could hear him talking quietly to Barnaby.
“Tell me, do most of the Amish around here buy into Michael as an angel and his claims that mutants and mages are sent by the devil?” I finally asked.
“Most do,” Hamrick mused. “It is easy to believe his tales when you face attacks from the… mutants, and the mages who once actively worked to destroy your faith. Once Jacob and the other elders declared Michael to be an angel, that was the end of any discussion. It was simply accep
ted as true and the town continued on.”
“Because that’s what you always do,” I replied as I remembered Darwin’s description of the Amish faith. “You have to accept what the elders teach you. Challenging them will get you exiled, which will probably get you killed.”
Hamrick nodded as he glanced toward Leah.
“I lost a brother that way,” Hamrick admitted. “Before Michael arrived. He refused to accept that killing mutants was permitted by God. He argued that our Faith taught us that we had to find a way to live with the mutants. He was exiled, and for a time, Jacob threatened to destroy the rest of the family as well. My marriage to Leah was delayed until I could convince the elders that I did not share my brother’s views.”
“Even so, we are still closely watched,” Leah added as she finally looked toward us. “That’s why we are so careful about who we are seen with, as well as when and where we meet people.”
“That’s why coming here tonight was such a risk,” Sorcha surmised.
“Even now, your ride has probably been reported to the elders,” Hamrick sighed. “But, perhaps they will believe that one of the dogs has become sick. Simon has come here before and at all hours whenever one of the Weimaraners became ill.”
“I’m sorry if we’ve brought you trouble,” I replied.
“It’s not you that brings trouble,” Hamrick noted with the ghost of a smile.
“If I may ask, how do you feel about mutants?” Sorcha queried. “And you don’t have to answer if you’d prefer not to.”
“I have seen a wide range of mutants,” Hamrick said thoughtfully. “I have seen some that were little more than animals, who could barely remember how to speak. But I have seen others, like that boy, who were little different from you or I. I think my brother had the right of it, that we should not hunt them.”
“We have drifted far from the old teachings,” Leah added as she finally pulled the pot from the stove. She set it aside to cool, then turned to face the three of us still at the table. “There was a time when Amish men would not fight. The government even excused our men from service in the military because it went against our teachings. So how have we reached the point where we kill those who have been afflicted with something they cannot control?”