“You’re one thick bitch. If I were a sympathizer, I’d have let them have your ass back at the inn. I’d have told Hause you fucked up and got yourself killed. I’d have taken my coin and run,” he grunted, working to shift into a comfortable position. “You didn’t think about that, did you? No, of course you didn’t. You’re a fucking sheep, Lerah.”
The thing was, she had thought about it. It scared the hell out of her. She pushed it down and closed her eyes. His words quickly faded away with the crackling of the waning cook-fire.
20
“How come Zach always gets to speak for you?” Toby looked pouty. Toby always looked pouty; it was just the way his face hung. But he was putting some effort behind it this time.
“We’ve all got our roles to play.” Mother was shuffling around the room, collecting her notes and pulling at her hair.
“Chin up, brother. Maybe someone will step out of line tonight and you can crack a skull or two.”
“No,” Mother gripped the back of her chair, “there will be no bloodshed in that sanctuary. You’re there to do the exact opposite. This is a delicate situation. I’ll not have you picking the last petals from the flower.” Mother walked around her desk like her bones were fused together at the joints. “Where is that page? I’m missing a page.”
“I can help—”
“Get back! I’ll tell you if I need you!”
Toby jumped back into place.
“Last thing I need is you crowding me.” Her whole body vibrated as she sank to her knees and peered under the desk.
“Mother, I can see from here, I don’t think there’s anything—”
“Shut up! Shut your mouth!” She jerked her head back and forth violently, her hair splashed wildly across either side of her face.
“Okay,” Zach held up his hands in surrender, “sorry.”
The floor beneath the desk was empty. Of course it was empty. She knew that before she got down on her hands and knees. She didn’t drop things. She wasn’t careless, unlike these two simple creatures sucking the oxygen from the room.
Someone must have taken them.
Light fingers.
Someone looking to come between her and the Creator.
“Have either one of you seen anybody in this room?”
Zach and Toby exchanged clueless glances with one another.
“No, Mother, ain’t seen no one,” Toby spoke on their behalf.
Mother struggled to her feet. Her body creaked and cracked the entire way. She spoke, as if she had eyes in the back of her head, “Boy, if you touch me, I will cut you down myself.”
Toby halted and stepped back once more.
The page she’d lost had been the most important piece of the Creator’s message. It had contained everything regarding Colton and Kati: the severity of their sins, the Fall, words of solace for the community. They were perfect words, words that would bolster faith and ensure order. Now those words were gone. The words in her head. The words on the page. Vanished. “No! No! No!” She swept the contents of her desk to the floor. “I need that page!”
“Mother—”
“Bring me the chalice!”
She was propped against the desk, shaking.
Toby clumsily made his way to the window sill.
“Mother, what was on the page?” Zach asked as Toby retrieved the cup.
She shook her head. “The heart of the Father was on that page. The rest of the notes… they’re just, town business.”
“Do you recall any of it?”
“Slivers remain. But the meat of it… I’ve lost the meat of it.”
Toby delivered the chalice, sliding it across the desk as if it might shatter beneath too much force.
“Maybe you can just give me the slivers and I can put it all together,” Zach said, optimistically.
Mother took a long drink and sighed. “I have faith Zach, much faith. But that’s asking a lot of me.”
“Mother, between the two of us, we can get it down,” Toby said, now standing back beside his brother.
Mother turned. “You’re to have no part in this. You know your role. You keep order. But under no circumstance are you to speak from that pulpit. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Zach, I’m placing that responsibility on you. You alone speak from the pulpit. If anyone else gets up there and starts jabbering, you’ll be held responsible.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Service starts soon, they’ll already be piling in.”
Toby laughed. “Except for them Holloway’s and them Chupra’s; don’t think they’ve ever been on time.”
“I can give you a skeleton outline. Do you truly believe you can capture the essence of our Creator’s message with such a meager script?”
Zach nodded. “Yes, Mother, I know I can.”
Toby slapped him on the back, his tongue stuck out sideways between his lips.
Mother moved quickly behind her desk and found a blank piece of parchment. “Toby, pencil,” she jerked her head towards the writing utensils she’d scattered across the floor. He rushed over and fell to his knees, gathering them together in his palms as if they were kindling.
A simple animal, but an obedient one.
“Here you go.”
She blocked the ledges on either side to keep the pencils from getting away again.
“How should I go about mentioning the tongue thing?” Zach asked.
“You shouldn’t!” Mother slapped a hand against the paper, causing Toby to jump as he moved back across the room. “Don’t say a word about it. No one is to know.”
“His parents?”
“No one is to know. Am I clear?”
“Yes, Mother. But won’t they know at the Fall, you know, final words and all?”
“There will be no final words.”
“But tradition says—”
She threw a pencil across the room, striking him in the shoulder. “I say! There will be no final words. Their faces are to be bagged. That little harlot is to be gagged. Am I understood?”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Yes, Mother.”
Her sons grew quiet after that. Only the sounds of the pencil working rapidly against the paper filled the room.
Blake sat at the back of the sanctuary, tucked into a small pew beside his wife and daughter. Judith, as usual, had her toy car. She was running it up and down the lacquered surface of the pew, jumping from her seat to catch the wobbly contraption before it could get too far away. Blake and his family were one of the first to arrive for the service. He wanted to get tucked in early, as close to the door as possible, so that he could duck out quickly once the final words were spoken. He had a feeling that tonight was going to breed a bit more chaos than usual and he had no desire to be a party to it.
The guards were already in place, six in total, toting rifles. Two of them stood on either side of the double doors. There were two more at the center of the room, facing each other from opposite sides of the sanctuary. The last two stood flanking the pulpit, beneath the wall sized mural of a water-bucket pouring its contents into the center of a swollen fountain.
They were starting to trickle in now: the Lashua’s, the Craig’s, the Heard’s, old Mrs. Napier, wearing her floral patterned hand sewn headdress. She extended a liver spotted hand to Riley, which she encapsulated gracefully in her own. “It’s in times like these that we must remember just how blessed we are.” She’d rolled out the same line after her husband passed. Her gaze moved from Riley and rested on Blake for an uncomfortable passage of time.
“Yes, blessed.” Blake was having a hard time recalling the meaning of the word. He was forced to look to his daughter, rattling around in the center of the pew like a windup toy, for a reminder. “We are blessed.”
“We are indeed,” Riley agreed, reaching out to grab one of Judith’s chubby thighs.
“Well, I better go grab my spot before someone runs off with it.” Mrs. Napier turned and shuffled
rapidly up the aisle. She was moving for the second pew on the right, her spot, being dutifully held for her by the outstretched palm of Mrs. Lashua.
“She’s such a nice woman,” Riley said as she watched her scuttle into her seat.
“Yeah, definitely, very nice,” Blake’s dismissive tone seemed to go unnoticed.
“It’s a shame about her husband.”
“He was up there in years, people die, it’s just the cycle of things.” Blake looked around as more families drifted in.
No sign of Colton or Kati’s parents.
No sign of Toby and Zach.
“I know. I just don’t like seeing anyone alone like that. People need family.”
“She doesn’t really have a lot of options, dear. Everyone is either married or abstinent.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“Besides, she’s got the community. The Lashua’s are quite fond of her,” Blake said, gesturing towards the two women, now chatting away enthusiastically on the second row.
“I know, you’re right. I just feel for her, like I said.”
“Me too, dear.” The loneliness of Mrs. Napier was the furthest thing from his mind.
The sanctuary door continued to swing open and closed as more families filed in and spaced themselves unevenly throughout the room. It wasn’t long before a familiar sound filled Blake’s ears.
A low throaty chuckle.
Cruel in its affect.
Unencumbered by social cues.
Toby passed by Blake without ceremony. He was too busy sauntering up the aisle and putting on a spectacle.
Zach was a different story. He stopped beside Blake’s pew and stretched loudly, popping his vertebrae, and yawning into a closed fist. “Look here, the whole family, what you got there little one?”
Judith held up her car with an oblivious giggle, almost as if she were offering it as a sacrifice.
Riley wrapped a hand across her wrist and forced the toy back down against the surface of the pew.
“That’s some lousy craftsmanship, Doc. Did you do that?”
“Found it like that.”
“You know, I heard that a man that ain’t handy, ain’t no man at all?”
“That’s a new one.” Blake looked up into Zach’s shadowy gaze. He didn’t want to get into a war of words and wits. Not right now. Not with everything so unstable. He didn’t want to risk endangering himself or his family more than he already had.
“What you got to say about that, Riley? He much of a man?”
Blake stood, blocking Zach’s view of his wife and child. “What do you say we keep this conversation between us?”
Zach puffed his chest and crossed his arms. “Fine by me.” Zach poked his head in closer, almost as if he were going in for a kiss. “The cuts on your face look a little sketchy. I expected you to be taking better care of them. Ain’t that your profession?”
“They’re just surface wounds. They’ll heal fine on their own. What can I do for you?”
Zach bared his rotten teeth, all too happy to get to the meat of their visit. “About that little incident you saw at the lockup today.”
“What about it?”
“Exactly,” Zach said, thinking he’d been clever.
“Come again?” Blake was genuinely confused.
“Are you being intentionally thick with me, Doc? You’re already skating on thin ice.”
“Okay, I get it, calm down. I really don’t know what you’re getting at.”
“You saw nothing. You heard nothing. What happened to that boy did not happen. Anyone goes off and asks you about it, you play dumb.”
“Point taken.”
Zach gave him a pat on the cheek. “Good.” He turned towards the pulpit and threw his hands up in exasperation. Toby was pacing back and forth across the stage with his rifle at attention, putting on a show for the growing crowd. “Come on, you know what Mother said, get down.”
Blake sank back into his seat and watched him go.
You saw nothing. You heard nothing.
Mother viewed him as a threat, something that needed to be silenced. He was thankful for the conversation. It beat getting snatched out of his house in the middle of the night with a gag in his mouth. Still, he felt uneasy. Mother was unpredictable; she could just as easily decide that a simple conversation wasn’t enough.
Blake wasn’t given much time to dwell on it.
“Oh, you got a lot of nerve.” It was Colton’s father, Terrence. Blake turned sideways in his seat, hoping to avoid any rogue blows to the back of the head. His wife, Sheila, was in tow, quietly crying into his armpit. “Where’s my boy, huh? Where’s my boy? What’d they do to him?”
Kati’s parents, Robert and Belinda, were there as well. “I want my Kati!” Belinda was like a wildcat, she leapt towards Blake, sagging across her husband’s forearm as he struggled to hold her back.
“We heard the screams. What happened in the lockup?” Terrence asked.
Riley stood. “My husband did nothing. He is not responsible for any punishment your children may have endured. Their own actions put them there. It is Mother and Scripture that—”
Terrence raised a stiff finger and wagged it inches from Riley’s face. “Shut your mouth, whore!”
Blake jumped up and wrapped his hands around Terrence’s throat. He pushed him backwards across the aisle and flipped him over the arm of an empty pew. “If you ever talk to my wife like that again, I’ll kill you! I’ll kill you!” Blake was throttling the man. He watched as his face turned a deep red. His tongue began to swell between his lips. His arms flailed aimlessly.
“Let him go! You’re killing him!” Kati’s mother was there, fruitlessly pulling at Blake’s arms.
Terrence’s face went from red to purple. His gasping turned to gagging, and then to silence. His pulse slowed beneath Blake’s grasp.
Something hit Blake hard, lifting him from his feet and sliding him backwards down the aisle. The top of his head came to rest by the double doors.
“There will be no bloodshed in the house of our Creator. Do I need to go fetch Mother?” Zach had planted Blake with a swift shoulder charge. “The Doc ain’t got nothing to do with any of this. If you got any issues, then you can take them up with me, right here. I’ll be sure to take them to Mother.” Every head in the sanctuary was turned towards the scene, every voice was silent. “So, nothing? Alright then, good, you folks take your seats. I don’t want to see you hassling Doc or his family again.” Zach shook his head and gave Blake an undefined little wink before heading back towards the stage.
Riley helped Blake to his feet and ushered him back to his seat.
He gripped her knee as he sat down. “I’m sorry, I overreacted.”
“He was out of line.”
“Yeah, but so was I.”
“You’re entitled to a screw up every now and then.”
If you only knew.
“Oh my, look who it is!” The shrill voice of Charlotte Rowson stung Blake’s ears. She appeared hand-in-hand with her husband Gregory.
Blake and Riley stood to greet them with handshakes and hugs.
“So, how’re we feeling?” Riley asked, bowing her head towards Charlotte’s stomach.
Gregory nodded enthusiastically. “We’re feeling pretty confident. She’s running three weeks late.”
Blake smiled. “That’s wonderful news.”
“We truly feel His hand on us right now.” Charlotte raised her eyes towards the ceiling.
“You’re simply glowing Charlotte, I feel His hand on you too. Isn’t she glowing?”
Blake was looking towards the pulpit, watching Zach fan through a loose stack of papers. “Yeah, glowing, I think there is some great news on the horizon,” he said, snapping back into the conversation.
“The Creator was cutting it close with us, had me sweating there for a moment,” Gregory laughed.
“You’re being dramatic; you still had, what, seven or eight months?” Riley asked.
“
Six months and twenty-six days.” Blake knew every last grain of sand in the hour glass. Mother insisted upon it. “Still, hardly the thinnest margin I’ve seen.”
“What’s the closest you’ve seen someone cut it?” Gregory asked.
Blake shrugged. “Two months and eleven days. I’ve seen couples get pretty close to the wire.”
“It’s all in His perfect timing.” Riley reached out and brushed Charlotte’s arm with the tips of her fingers.
Blake felt sweat break out across the back of his neck. He did his best to sink comfortably into their candy colored cloud of jubilation. “So, when would you like to come by? I need to check you and get a Declaration of Multiplication over to Mother?”
Gregory and Charlotte looked to one another, silently debating the issue with pursed lips and raised brows.
“Tomorrow?” Charlotte asked, flaring her eyes with excitement.
“Tomorrow it is. Around noon?”
“That works perfect for us. Thank you, Doc.” Gregory shook his hand and then stole his wife away to search for a pew.
“Such good news,” Riley said as they retook their seats. “It’s always nice to hear good news on days like today.”
“Yeah, good news is always nice.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, hon, I’m fine. Just a little tired.” He patted her hand.
Toby had taken up a position at the front of the stage, holding his rifle and doing his menacing jailer routine, jumping the barrel up and down in the palm of his hand.
Zach cleared his throat loudly, effectively silencing the crowd. “I think we got enough folks present to get this thing going. We’ll have our usual stragglers, but I ain’t gonna keep you folks on account of them.” Pandering laughter followed the remark. Zach was looking down at his notes with squint-eyed intensity. “As usual, Mother sends her greetings and her blessings. She wants you to know that she keeps all of you on her lips daily as she converses with our Creator.” He formed each letter like a child, terrified of dropping a syllable and demonstrating his incompetence before a gathering of his peers.
“We pray for her as well!”
The Fall of Man: The Saboteur Chronicles Book 1 Page 17