The Tithe

by Elle Hill

  Josh looked away briefly, then turned back to him. “I didn’t. I was raised by imrabi.”

  “Your entire life?”

  She nodded.

  “It’s no wonder everyone here sees you as the closest thing to an imrabi.”

  Josh wriggled uncomfortably, and a flap of fabric uncovered her feet. Sucking in air, she lunged forward, grasped the flap, and threw it back. For added protection, she tucked it under her feet this time.

  She straightened, caught Marcus looking at her, and glared.

  “You seem to have foot abnormalities,” Marcus said smoothly.

  She gritted her teeth against the sting in the back of her eyes. “None of your business,” she growled.

  “Is it just your feet?” he asked, as if she hadn’t spoken.

  If she hadn’t been naked under a sheet, Josh would have left the room. She stared at him, eyes narrowed, for a long moment.

  Perhaps her mentioning his epilepsy had stung just as badly.

  “It’s from the knee down,” she said.

  “Your legs hurt, don’t they?”

  “Almost all the time.”

  “Especially when you walk and stand, though.”

  She nodded.

  “Avery tells me you were the rab’ri’s library caretaker.”

  “Imrabi make use of everyone. They hate idleness.” As if he didn’t know.

  He nodded, and they sat in silence.

  When Ryland returned with their clothing some time later, Josh waited with closed eyes for Marcus to dress. Before he left, she told him she’d send Lynna or Blue with her clothes next time. “This is a little too much public nudity for me,” she said, and Ryland giggled.

  When she returned to the Great Room, Lynna was nowhere in sight—likely helping prepare the meals. Blue, however, instantly raised his face and turned his head so that his left ear faced her.

  Sometimes, it didn’t hurt to be missed.

  She shuffled to him, surprised by the upward twitching of her lips. A smile for Blue, a man who could not see it, a man whose greatest incapacity was his ignorance of common social rituals, a man who only earlier had defended her with a disturbing viciousness. Yet still she smiled.

  Josh sat down beside him and used her foot to rub her burning calf through the leather of her boots.

  “I’m back,” she announced.

  “Your clothing smells sweet, like a flower,” he told her.

  She wondered how he knew what flowers smelled like; she’d never smelled one. Maybe it was an expression in his town.

  “Are you going to get your clothes cleaned?” she asked.

  “Do you think I should?”

  “I, well, yeah. You don’t want to smell bad.”

  Blue tilted his head toward her. “Do I smell bad to you?”

  She leaned toward him, hovered her nose over his arm, and inhaled. “You smell good,” she murmured. Then, realizing what she’d said and done, she straightened and glared down at her hands. She’d sniffed him, for heaven’s sake.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  They sat together, a few inches apart, saying nothing. After a time, Lynna brought them plates of food.

  “RJ is a culinary genius,” Lynna gushed.

  Josh agreed with her that the food, some kind of tomato and vegetable casserole topped with mashed root vegetables, exceeded anything she’d ever eaten in the rab’ri.

  After dinner, Josh rose to her feet to tend to dishes.

  “Sit,” Lynna ordered. “You’ve done enough today. RJ says you can sit and dice some canned vegetables tomorrow morning for our breakfast.”

  Instead of feeling embarrassment, Josh sighed in relief. She turned to Blue, and he said immediately, “I can do dishes.”

  Lynna’s eyes crinkled.

  After dishes, Lynna, RJ, Blue, and Josh sat together, talking and joking. As the evening progressed, their words grew sparser, their breaths a little quicker. Eventually, Josh rose to her feet and took a few steps toward the bathroom near the elevator.

  The lights extinguished.

  Josh’s heart slammed against her ribs. She realized she’d been waiting all day for this.

  The snap and hiss of wings rolled through the room. No sooner did the sound begin than Josh felt hands grab her shoulders and tug her to the ground.

  She screamed, but then again, several people were shouting.

  Wait, why would an angel yank her to the ground?

  Josh should have slammed into the ground, but a body broke her fall. Breath hiccupping in her throat, blood slicing like ice through her veins, she shoved against the warm body.

  “It’s me,” Blue muttered into her ear.

  Josh stopped struggling.

  Blue wrapped his arms around her and carefully rolled her onto her back. She felt a rush of air near her head and gasped, but it was only Blue throwing his cloak over them. His arm wound around her shoulders. The side of his face covered hers.

  Whoooosh. The sound shattered the air. Probably because of the cloak and the face pressed against hers, Josh couldn’t tell where it originated. Her breath cloyed in her throat.

  She snuck her arms under Blue’s and around his waist.

  Nearby, someone chanted the word “No.” Several people gasped, shouted, pleaded to be spared. Louder than all of them, the wings thrummed in the air above.

  “Please,” Josh whispered, unsure to whom or for what she pled.

  With a final crack, the sound of wings ceased. A moment later, yellow-white light traced the edge of the cloak covering her and Blue’s heads. Josh’s breathing hitched and then released on a sigh.

  They were safe.

  Blue’s breath blew across her face, and she realized they’d been sharing breaths for the last minute or so. Never, in all her years had she been this close to someone, this intimate. His breath smelled slightly of garlic and tomatoes.

  “We’re still here,” she whispered.

  “I don’t want them to take you,” Blue said.

  A small ball lodged in her chest. “You can’t stop it,” she murmured.

  He moved slightly against her. “You’re right. However, I can promise I will do everything I can to keep you here as long as possible.”

  Blue rose from her, and light seared her eyes. With his help, she stood then and peered through squinted eyes around the room. Still holding the hand he’d extended to help her stand, she looked into sixty-plus other confused, frightened faces.

  Four feet from her, Lynna sat blinking. Thank heaven.

  The silence hummed. Finally, Josh asked the question: “Who’s gone?”

  “Little Chaney was sitting beside me,” Avery replied, voice and face pinched.

  Josh stared at him, eyebrows pursed.

  “Little girl, about eight, cleft palate,” the normally eloquent Avery clipped. “She was right here, now she’s gone.”

  Josh pointed at the woman who’d tended Marcus last night. “Go see to Marcus,” she said, and the woman moved. She pointed at three people she knew had no problems walking or seeing. “Check the hallways for Chaney.”

  Two other people leapt to their feet and bustled out of the room. Ten minutes later, one of the five, a short, stocky woman with a garden of gray hair, reentered the Great Room and strode with suspicious nonchalance to Josh’s side.

  “I found something you need to see,” she said in a low, meaningful tone. A ball bounced once and lodged in Josh’s chest. “Can you make it to a closet down this hall?” She pointed toward the hallway almost directly across from Josh and Blue’s.

  “Of course,” Josh said, but her legs trembled.

  Blue at her side, dozens of eyes tracking each movement, Josh scuffled her way out of the room. Several paces later, she reached for the handle to the closet, only to have the woman tell her it was two more down. Teeth gritting, heat prickling her scalp and down her neck, Josh dragged her legs forward.

  The woman, who briefly introduced herself as Parsey, reached the closet before the duo
. Her fingers splayed like tense white spider legs around the knob. Josh tilted her head, and Parsey shook hers. The door swung open.

  The scene before her made no sense, in part because it looked nothing like what she’d expected. Instead of a cowering or crumpled child, she saw instead someone sitting on the concrete floor, legs splayed in a loose V, hands resting palms up on their thighs. But the person’s head . . . their head . . .

  Maybe she moved too quickly, or perhaps her legs just gave out. Either way, Josh found herself tumbling to the ground. Her derriere met concrete with a painful thump.

  Parsey merely glanced back at her, as if Josh had reacted exactly as she’d expected. Blue extended a hand to her.

  “I’m okay,” she murmured. From this angle, she could see the person’s, the man’s, face, encased in heavy, translucent plastic. Tied though it was around his neck, the plastic hadn’t been drawn tight across his face; it sagged almost down to his chest, weighted with some kind of sour yellow liquid. Urine? No, that was ridiculous. Had he vomited?

  “He’s dead,” Parsey said in a tone supposed to sound nonchalant but that instead seemed overloud.

  “Did he suffocate?” Josh asked.

  Parsey took a breath, glanced back at Josh. “There’s liquid in the plastic bag. I think it’s poison.”

  “What kind?” Josh murmured, unable to look away. Beneath the plastic shroud, black curls and bits of dark skin pressed together wetly.

  Parsey shrugged. “I don’t know, but there are a lot of cleaning chemicals in here.”

  “It’s Len,” Josh said through numb lips, and then felt bad.

  The older woman nodded.

  I shouldn’t have said “it.” Len is still a “he.”

  They stared at him for a moment longer. Finally, Josh snapped her head back and forth. “We need to figure out what to do with his—him.”

  Parsey’s look quite clearly said, No kidding.

  “Blue, would you . . .?” With the help of the doorframe and Blue’s immobile strength, she regained her footing.

  “Let’s tell the others.”

  Back in the Great Room, Josh and Blue walked to the front of the room and lowered themselves in chairs near Marcus’ usual place, which sat abandoned. After recovering from his seizure, Marcus had stumbled off to bed just minutes ago, someone told Josh.

  The searchers returned moments later.

  “No Chaney,” the last one announced, shaking his shaggy head.

  “No Len, either,” Josh said loudly, smoothly.

  “What do you mean?” someone gasped.

  “Did the angels take Len, too?” asked another.

  Voices rose, flowing toward her in a wave. Josh raised her hand, and the wave broke.

  “Len wasn’t taken. He’s . . . Len is dead.”

  After the voices had once again silenced, Josh explained the situation, finishing with: “Does anyone have any idea where we can put, uh, Len?”

  “Why in heaven would he do that?” Hollyn demanded.

  Josh took a deep breath. “He was scared.”

  “He didn’t trust Elovah,” someone called out, and from Josh’s seated position, she couldn’t see who.

  “It’s sinful to take from Elovah what is Hers,” another loudly agreed.

  “He shouldn’t—”

  “Stop it,” Josh commanded. To her surprise, the voices ceased. “Whether you think this was a sin or not, this is not the time to speak ill of him.” She took a moment to peer into each of the sets of eyes staring at her. “He was scared. We’re all scared. Maybe he did something you wouldn’t have, but it’s done now. Show him the same respect we owe Millen and . . . and little Chaney.”

  A long, silent moment passed.

  “He probably, uh,” Lynna’s voice cracked when everyone looked at her.

  “Lynna?” Josh asked.

  “I mean, I know someone who died from inhaling gasses made by mixing chemicals. Len probably did, too.”

  The poor man. “Thank you for the insight, Lynna,” Josh said quietly.

  “I mean, we probably shouldn’t move him too much and risk letting the gasses out. Maybe we can, um, seal off the room?” Her eyes flashed from face to face. “Or something?”

  “Maybe seal off the chemicals from all of us,” someone agreed.

  “But that’s not how we should treat the dead,” Hollyn disagreed, shaking her head. “It’s blasted disrespectful.”

  The discussion—filled with phrases like “recycled air” and “health hazard”—continued for nearly an hour. Finally, they decided to cover Len and seal off the room as best they could.

  Much to everyone’s relief, Parsey offered to cover Len with a tarp from the closet and seal the room with spray foam. Josh had no idea what that was, but she felt immensely gratified that someone else did. As Parsey rose, a middle-aged woman with springy gray hair offered to accompany her and pray over Len.

  Into the silence that followed their departure, Josh thought longingly of her tiny, cell-like room. One thing remained, however.

  “I’m sorry for everyone who knew Chaney,” she said.

  “Is this how every day is going to end?” Marcus’ nurse asked.

  “I don’t know,” Josh said, but she thought she might. Three nights in a row. One a day, always night.

  Maybe this is the significance of time in here, she thought.

  An hour or more later, people started trickling toward their rooms. Their eyes darted, their feet shuffled. If they didn’t fear looking afraid, Josh thought they might prefer sleeping among others in the Great Room.

  Devout, doubter, young, old, invisibly incapacitated or in chronic pain: They were all scared.

  Josh stayed in the Great Room until most of them had left. She had to, in case someone needed to talk, to make sense of the tragedies of the day.

  I don’t want this, she thought. Marcus can have it.

  Later, after walking with Blue down their hallway, they both hesitated outside his door. Even Blue, she thought, feels it. For all his determination to keep her safe, he, too, felt the weight of their mortality crushing them toward tomorrow night.

  “Do you pray?” Josh asked him. He stood before his door, facing her.

  “No.”

  “Don’t you believe in Elovah?”

  “I believe.”

  “But you don’t pray?”

  “No.”

  “I pray every night and every morning, like the imrabi taught me,” she confided, gazing down the hallway. “I don’t know what to pray for anymore.”

  Blue leaned toward her. She often forgot how much taller he was. “Pray you’re the last one harvested,” he told her, and entered his room.

  Once inside her own room, she removed her shoes and clothes and sat nestled among the crumpled covers. Covering her face with her hands, the way the imrabi had taught her to, she recited the nightly prayer. Afterward, she inhaled deeply. “In Your wisdom, might you help Ima Reena remember the difference between shelving religious philosophy and synasch dictates. And please take good care of Chaney and Len. And in Your wisdom”—she paused for a moment—“In Your wisdom, might you comfort everyone here and maybe, if it suits You, not take Blue and Lynna right away.”

  That night, she intentionally left the tiny bedside lamp aglow. A moment later, she slipped her pillow out of its case and piled the limp fabric over the lamp’s shade. Dim, but not too dark to see the shining eyes of an angel if it chose to visit her in the middle of the night.

  Chapter 5

  Tears slicked Josh’s face as she snuffled.

  Blue appeared instantly beside her. “Would you like me to finish?” he asked.

  “No,” Josh hiccupped. “It’s my turn.”

  They occupied the kitchen, where RJ, Lynna, an older man named Juss, and the two of them helped prepare breakfast. Each took a turn chopping onions for the hash RJ was making. Meanwhile, the rich scent of frying vat meat sizzled in the air.

  “Blue, why don’t you get the plates
out of the cupboard and pile them near the stove?” Lynna said.

  Josh heard the smile in her voice.