by David Boop
Nonetheless, Margaret strode up like it was her house and shook Joan’s hand. Joan had maybe a foot on her, but Margaret looked her in the eye. Her handshake was as strong as a boy five years older, and stronger than some men she’d met.
“You can’t go anywhere else in town, Joan. It ain’t safe.”
Joan nodded. “I think we ought to barricade the door. Help me move the pews?”
“I can do that myself,” Margaret said, standing straighter. “But you can help me.”
* * *
After they’d shoved a couple of pews in front of the doors and checked all the windows to make sure they were secure, Margaret did something unexpected. She lit an oil lamp and asked Joan to hold it. Then she led Joan all around the perimeter inside the church while grasping a stick of chalk. The whole way, she stared at the floor where it met the outside walls. Joan saw that a single line of chalk lay along the entire length. It followed the shape of the church rather than a circle, but she knew a magical barrier when she saw one. I guess I shouldn’t have worried about getting struck down entering a church, at least not this one. This kid knows her witchcraft.
Margaret touched up the line here and there. When they reached the front doors, she reconnected a stretch Joan had smudged with her boot when she’d come in.
Now that Joan was examining things more closely, she saw a handful of chalk drawings of people among the pews. When they got back to the vestry, she saw two figures, quite detailed, on the wall to either side of a boarded-up window. Margaret approached them with reverence, careful, Joan noticed, not to touch either one while she examined the floor beneath them. The figures were drawn from behind, but the faces were in partial silhouette, as if they were gazing out the now-boarded window.
When Margaret finished her task in the room, Joan met her gaze. “Did you draw those?” Joan nodded her head toward the pair. “They’re good.”
Margaret looked stricken for a moment, before a blank look fell into place like a door slamming shut. “No. And before you ask, none of the others in town neither.”
Joan shrugged. “All right. Just making conversation.”
“Well don’t.” Margaret brushed past her into the sanctuary, where she put the stick of chalk on the pulpit next to the Bible. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be rude.”
Joan followed her in and sat down in the front pew, facing Margaret, who fished for something from behind the pulpit. The girl brought out an old sack, a hunk of cheese, and a large jug, then came to sit beside Joan. She placed everything on the pew between them.
“It ain’t much, but I’ll share. We’ll need to find food tomorrow, though.” Margaret opened the bag, and Joan saw that it held communion bread.
Joan glanced at her saddlebags, still lying forlorn in the aisle. No food there. “I thank you.”
Margaret nodded. “Then let’s eat. Afterward, you could tell me about your troubles, if you please.”
The kid didn’t offer to say grace, so Joan didn’t either. With her Bowie knife, Joan sliced the cheese in half. The jug held water from the stream. Not as cool as what she’d had earlier, but just as pure. The communion bread was stale, dry as dust, and hardly filling. She wondered how old it was. She’d never had any before, hoped she wouldn’t again, if it was like this.
After they’d finished the cheese and as much of the bread as they could stand, Joan took one more swig of water before she began. She’d been wondering how to tell her tale, especially to a kid, but she decided the unvarnished truth would be best. “I had this friend who was married, and—”
A thud and a creaking sound came from behind them, as of something very heavy stepping on wood. They both spun around. Two more thuds, then a pause, then a pounding on the door, loud. Once, twice, three times.
Joan looked back at Margaret, saw she was crouched on the floor, behind the pew. “Get down!” the girl hissed. “It’ll peer in through the crack.”
Joan did just that. The noise had stopped. Perhaps whatever was outside was looking through the narrow gap between doors. Perhaps it was just waiting.
They crouched in silence for several minutes. Joan knew this wasn’t the Thing Behind Her. That was large, true, but not heavy. Light as feathers, in fact, like smoke on the wind. Whatever this thing was, it was the kid’s monster, not hers.
As no more sounds came from the front, Joan grew impatient. Her limbs still ached from riding, her fall, and the ten miles she’d walked. They were beginning to scream at her now. Surely it must have left. Could it have flown off? Finally, she whispered, “I think it’s gone.”
Margaret glared at her. “Shhh!”
Another pounding came, and this time the doors shuddered. Whatever it was, it was throwing its bulk against them. Wham! Again. Behind them, the chalk rolled off the pulpit and clattered onto the floor. Wham! The wooden doors creaked with the impact, but they—and the pews blocking them—held, though barely.
Joan drew her Colt and held it close to her cheek, aimed toward the ceiling.
“Bullets won’t stop it,” Margaret whispered. “Just wait. It’ll give up. It probably can’t come in here anyway.”
“Because of the chalk?” Joan whispered back.
Margaret gave her a funny look. “No. Because it’s a church.” She waved away Joan’s next question, glaring her into silence.
A minute more, and they heard three huge footsteps from the front of the church, then nothing. Apparently, it had gone.
Joan released a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. “Okay, kid. Maybe you should tell me about your own troubles first.”
Margaret frowned. “I thought you’d heard. Ain’t that why you were seeking shelter?”
“No, like I said, I got troubles too.”
“All right, but the chalk ain’t for that thing. That’s just the golem. Chalk won’t stop it, only walls.”
“Then what in the hell is the chalk for?” Joan used the Colt to point to the nearest bit of the border.
“That thing down in the mine!” Margaret was the picture of frustration, like any fool should already know the town had two monsters, only one of which couldn’t cross chalk. “That good-for-nothing golem was supposed to take care of it, but it didn’t. It didn’t do squat. I mean, look at the town. Just look!”
And that did it. Something came loose in Margaret, and she fell into Joan’s arms like a drowning man, her face already soaked with tears.
Joan held the sobbing child, but she didn’t really think about what she’d been saying, about there being two monsters on top of her own. No, all she could think was, This kid doesn’t weigh a thing. She don’t look that thin, but she’d float right down that stream if she fell in.
Joan knew it wasn’t just an impression. She’d found yet another unnatural thing in Truth.
* * *
Joan got the story out of Margaret bit by bit, but, in the end, she had all the pieces.
The silver mine, like the town, was pretty new. Three brothers had staked a claim and worked it hard. Other prospectors had started to come, but they hadn’t found any veins nearly as promising, not yet anyway. Still, word had spread. The town was on the cusp of booming when it happened.
Joan didn’t get the exact details, but Margaret said they’d found a forest down there in the mine. That didn’t seem to make any more sense to Margaret than it did to Joan, but the girl insisted it was true.
Something had come out of that forest, something ancient. And hungry.
“My pa was the preacher here,” Margaret said. They sat in the front pew again, facing one another, no longer touching. Margaret had composed herself. “But he had an old book that weren’t about Jesus or even no Christian. Instead, it was about this Jew, in a city back East, across the ocean.”
“Prague,” Joan said.
Margaret’s face lit up. “Yeah! That’s it. He said the man was from Prague!”
“Rabbi Judah Loew ben Bezalel.”
Margaret cocked her head sideways. “You sure know a lot a
bout this.”
Joan shrugged. “My ma was Jewish. She taught me stories.” And more than that, but it hasn’t been much help of late. “She told me about the golem. The rabbi made it to save the Jews of Prague, but he couldn’t control it.”
Margaret nodded briskly. “That’s what Pa said, but he said he could do better, being a Christian. He could improve on it.” She looked down, spoke to her feet. “But it didn’t work. It couldn’t stop that thing turning people to chalk. Faster if it bit you, but sooner or later either way.”
And there it was. There weren’t chalk drawings all over town, just victims of whatever had come out of the mine. Worse, Joan knew who the two people in the vestry had to have been. Poor kid. How long has she been holed up here, watching what’s left of her parents fade away?
“The golem tried,” Margaret said, “but it couldn’t do nothing about it. Went kind of crazy after that. That’s why it comes around. Like maybe it’s got to fight someone.”
Joan started. She felt something in her chest, an unknotting. Hope. Something she hadn’t believed she’d ever feel again. “It wants a fight, you say?”
Margaret looked up and faced her. “Yeah. It’s like a mean drunk, comes around spoiling for it.”
Joan wondered how much this kid knew about mean drunks. She hoped it was just from her pa’s sermons. “Maybe it can help us, after all.”
Margaret shook her head. “I done told you, it ain’t no good against the thing from the mine.”
Joan offered a sympathetic look. “I’m sorry, Margaret. That’s not the only problem this town has now. I brought something with me.”
Margaret narrowed her eyes. “Your troubles.”
Joan nodded. “Like I said, it all started with my friend.” She paused, sniffing the air. There it was: sulfur and frankincense. Speak of the devil, even in a church. “Damn.”
Margaret wrinkled her nose. She’d caught it too. “What’s that smell?” She looked at Joan as if maybe she were the source.
Joan stood and turned to face the doors. “My troubles. They’ve found us. Quick, get the lamp.”
To her credit, Margaret didn’t ask any more questions, just hopped up and grabbed the lamp off the pulpit. Joan retrieved her saddlebags and opened the one with her box of matches. She struck one and began lighting the candles at the head of the church. She knew only one thing besides walls that slowed the Thing down, and that was light.
By then, the smell was impossible to ignore. Margaret was looking around in all directions, white-knuckle gripping the lamp in front of her chest with both hands.
“Come on out, honey,” the Thing whispered. The voice came from the front doors, but also from beyond the boarded-up windows to their right. Despite its whispering, they both heard it clearly enough. The Thing was large, and its whole self vibrated when it spoke. It didn’t talk with Prudence’s voice, or even that damned wizard Hank’s, but “honey” was what Prudence had called her. “I got something for you. Come look.”
“What is that thing?” Margaret squeaked, her voice thinner and reedier than before.
“Like I said, it started with my married friend.”
“You cheated with her husband?”
The unvarnished truth. “No, she cheated on him. With me.”
Margaret glanced at her sideways, but she didn’t say anything. Perhaps this whispering monster outside made a good distraction.
I should consider always waiting for times like this to bring it up. Joan took one of the candles out of its holder and went to stand by Margaret near the first pew.
The Thing outside kept whispering, but a bunch of things at once, a susurrus that now came from the front and both sides of the church. Damn. It’s grown. Joan heard “honey” and “love light,” another term of affection Prudence had used.
“Well, I don’t know about that,” Margaret said after a pause, while the sound outside gradually rose and the smell gradually worsened. It took Joan a moment to realize Margaret was still talking about Joan’s affair with a woman. “I just know you shouldn’t covet another man’s wife.”
Joan chuckled. “That’s the truth. I wish I hadn’t. This thing wouldn’t be here right now.”
Margaret moved closer to Joan. She looked small and terrified. “I’m…I’m kind of glad you did, Joan. You wouldn’t be here neither if you hadn’t.”
How long has the poor kid been alone? Joan nodded once, teeth gritted. “Let me know in an hour if you still think so. That is, if we’re both here to talk about it.”
Now the Thing Behind Her—which had become the Thing All Around Them—started pounding on the church wall. It banged on the front doors. It smashed against the windows. It drummed on the slanted roof above them. It didn’t sound like the golem trying to get in. That had been the pounding of fists. This was more like giant waves crashing one after another, like thunder getting close.
“What is it?” Margaret cried, looking up at the ceiling.
“Don’t know exactly. Something her wizard husband called up when he found out about us. He got jealous.” It had gotten so loud outside, she had to shout.
“That’s one heck of a jealous man. Must have come from Cain’s line.”
Joan thought of the tall man, darkly handsome but mean, so no temptation at all for her. Prudence had married him for his money, and because her parents approved. “Might be, Margaret. Might be.”
With one final blow, the window above the church doors shattered. In poured the Thing. It roiled and curled about itself like smoke from a volcano, gray and black and red with rage, with a thousand bright green eyes looking everywhere, searching for targets.
Joan held the candle before her at arm’s length. Without needing to be told, Margaret raised the lamp. The part of the Thing that had entered the church rose up like a wall, a huge wave, green eyes all fixed on the two of them now. It screamed in inchoate rage. It hated freedom to act, freedom to sin. It hated everything, everyone. Most of all, it hated Joan.
The wave crashed down upon them, parting only for the lights they held. They moved to stand back to back. Each waved her flame around in arcs, keeping the Thing at bay. It glared at them from everywhere.
“What do we do?” Margaret screamed over the churning cries the Thing spewed out. “We won’t last the night.”
“I have an idea,” Joan said. “But we need to leave the church.”
“Okay. It’s not like we can stay here forever.”
Joan looked down at her feet. She saw the floorboards and part of the front pews, before they vanished into the body of the Thing, spread out around them like a dome. “We need to follow the aisle outside.”
They moved slowly, carefully. They each had to focus on moving their light here or there between themselves and the Thing, which kept putting out tendrils. Eventually they made it to the front of the church. Using her weight, Joan pushed the pews out of the way while Margaret held the Thing at bay.
When Joan had finished and opened the doors, the girl hesitated a moment before she stepped over the line of chalk. But only a moment.
Then they were outside, where the Thing was a howling maelstrom around them. Jade-colored eyes spun so fast that they blurred, each one a shooting star on its own course through the red-gray-black of its amorphous body.
“Now what?” Margaret cried.
“Depends,” Joan said. “Which way you think that golem went?”
“The golem?” Margaret shot her an angry look. “What the heck is that gonna do for us?”
“Its job. Besides, I’m half Jewish. Maybe that’s extra incentive.”
Margaret pointed with her lamp. “That way. Toward the stream. It lurks near the mine, for all the good it does.”
Joan nodded grimly. Well, I’m bringing two monsters together. Might as well bring all three.
It was a bit like dancing, how the two of them swirled and swung their lights all around, as they made their way down the street. The Thing picked up the dust and hurled it, causing them to cou
gh as they moved. Margaret’s dress fluttered this way and that, her hair like a crown of fire. Joan wondered that she didn’t get lifted into the air, given how unnaturally light she was. She also wondered when the girl would begin to tire. Like her, though, she seemed to be buoyed by terror alone, at least for now.
With a splash, Joan backed into the edge of the stream. Though it didn’t soak through her boot, she almost slipped and fell. That would have likely doomed them both. She stepped back to the shore.
“What now?” Margaret screamed.
“Yes!” The Thing cried, its first coherent word since they’d left the church. “What now, honey? You can go no farther, and your love lights will soon go out.”
Joan glanced at the oil lamp. It still shone brightly, but maybe a little dimmer than before. Her own candle had burned down considerably, although the flame hadn’t wavered in the unnatural wind, perhaps because it was sacred. That wouldn’t matter in the end, though. Neither of them had light enough to last until morning.
The Thing reared up until it was no longer a dome around them, but a circular wall. Joan saw a patch of sky above, the myriad stars spread along it like chalk marks on velvet. It was taunting her. Showing her a way out she couldn’t take. Though perhaps the kid. Margaret’s so light, maybe I could get her out with one good toss. If I aimed right, she could land in the stream. I’d have to throw down my candle, use both hands. She knew what would happen to her next.
Still.
“Margaret,” Joan shouted. “I think I can get you out.”
Margaret bashed an especially eager tendril directly with the lamp. It burst into smoke, and the stub retreated. The Thing’s howl of rage grew louder in response. “How?”
“I can throw you. You’re light. I don’t understand it, but you’re really light. I could throw you up and over, and you could run away, far away from the mine and the golem and my troubles, which I am so sorry to have brought to you here and would take away again.”
Margaret shook her head. “Don’t you understand?” With her free hand she reached up and grabbed a lock of her own hair, held it out. “I’m not blonde, not normally, and I’ve got olive skin, like you.”