Holding Smoke

by Steph Post

  “All right, I’m sitting. So what is this?”

  Tulah leaned forward.

  “You know, in some ways, you are so very like your mother. She was beautiful, and she wasn’t an abomination like you, but she, too, was impudent. Full of herself. Rowena could make a face just like you are making right now. Such a high-and-mighty smirk. Our mother used to warn Rowena that her face would turn ugly if she kept it up, but it never did. She was the pretty one, even to the end.”

  Dinah kept her eyes half-lidded, her face indifferent.

  “Is that why your trained dog brought me out here? So you could compare me to my mother? You couldn’t come up with nothing better to do on a Friday night?”

  “She could speak with vinegar in her words as well. Now that you’ve gotten what you wanted from me, I suppose you feel you can say what you like. Well, you finally met your beloved brother. Was he all that you had hoped and dreamed of?”

  Dinah didn’t answer, and after a pause, Sister Tulah continued, talking almost to herself.

  “Felton has been such a disappointment as of late. So fickle, too. He left us, and now he’s back. He doesn’t seem to know what he wants. Felton never used to be so contrary. Felton never used to be anything at all. My, how times have changed.”

  Dinah’s stomach soured against the banter. She could feel the tentacles of the devilfish boiling up from the depths. She could feel them coming for her.

  “Just tell me why I’m here.”

  Tulah’s eye darted to the jar on the desk and Dinah turned to follow it. Sister Tulah spoke carefully, as if relishing each word, as if she had practiced saying them over and over in front of a mirror.

  “You are going to drink that.”

  The calmness of her own voice surprised Dinah.

  “What is it?”

  Tulah’s smile continued to grow until it was grotesque. Dinah had never imagined she would see something close to lust on Sister Tulah’s face, but there it was, lavished on the jar and its contents.

  “Lotan. My grandmother used to call it Attar’s Tears. It’s extremely difficult to make, but I’ve been brewing the antidote for years and just so happened to have all of the ingredients on hand. In The Order, it is a test of faith. It will not be so for you.”

  Sister Tulah didn’t flinch.

  “Yes, it’s going to kill you. And yes, you’re going to drink it. That is why you are here.”

  Dinah crossed one leg over the other and gripped her knee to steady herself, trying to feign a nonchalant pose. If she could keep her cool with a gun in her face, she could keep it in front of an old woman with a jelly jar full of poison.

  “And why would I do that?”

  Tulah ran her hands across the quilt, smoothing out the wrinkles.

  “For the same reason you’ve always done what I ask.”

  Tulah dropped her hands into her lap and clasped them.

  “Because of Felton. Only this time, it’s his life hanging in the balance.”

  The noose was tightening; the realization was setting in. Sister Tulah wasn’t trying to scare her. She was trying to murder her. Dinah had been a fool.

  “I don’t understand. Why? What did I do?”

  Sister Tulah shrugged.

  “You failed.”

  “What?”

  “You were ordered to kill all of the Cannons. You only killed Levi. Therefore, you failed. As a mercy, as a kindness, I still allowed you to visit your mother’s grave. Still allowed you to meet your brother. But let’s be honest, you’re a loose end, Dinah. A complication. You didn’t succeed and you know too much. For all your faults, you’re a smart girl. You should have seen this coming.”

  Dinah slowly uncrossed her legs, placing her boots carefully, where she knew she’d be able to get the most traction when she spun around and bolted. She gripped the edges of the wooden chair beneath her. If she twisted right, she could swing it up toward Tulah, blocking her. Creating confusion. Buying herself a few seconds. She had to try. She had to. Sister Tulah, however, was already shaking her head.

  “Don’t, Dinah. Two things will happen if you do.”

  Dinah cut her eyes toward the open door and inched her heel back.

  “One, the Elders will stop you before you can leave the grounds.”

  Arched her foot, centered her weight over her toes.

  “They will catch you.”

  Leaned. Locked her elbows. Braced.

  “They will make sure you die in agony, begging for a drop of the poison in that jar.”

  Ready to spring. To fight. To fly.

  “And two.”

  Sister Tulah tilted her head conversationally.

  “I will kill Felton. I will kill him before the Elders finish with you, so you will know that I have killed him. And how. You will know what I have done and Felton will know that it was because of you, and yes, I will regret the loss of my nephew, I will mourn the man I have raised up from a child, but I will do it nonetheless. This, I can promise you.”

  Tulah tilted her head back in the opposite direction.

  “But the choice is yours, Dinah. As ever.”

  Dinah went limp. The Leviathan had her. The water was over her head, the suckers coiled, dragging her into the abyss. It had always had her. Sister Tulah had always had her. Dinah had been cast aside by her aunt, kept at arm’s length, but still kept. What other way could it ever end between them? Dinah turned to stare at the jar. She doubted very much that Tulah would kill Felton—even if he had turned rebellious on her, he was still her successor, he had still been her puppet, her plaything, all his life—but hurt him in some terrible way, yes. And she absolutely believed in the fate that would be in store for her. Even if she somehow, miraculously, managed to escape the Elders that night, they would hunt her into the ground. She would spend the rest of her life running, looking over her shoulder, and wondering how Sister Tulah had despoiled Felton. It would be no life at all.

  Dinah seized the jar, brought it to her lips, and swallowed.

  *

  Tulah watched dispassionately as Dinah flopped off the chair, fingers curled into hooks, clawing at her swelling throat, and writhed on the worn oval rug in the middle of Felton’s bedroom. Dinah thrashed, twisting half underneath the small wooden desk as her back jackknifed and her neck seized. She stretched an arm toward Sister Tulah, still calmly sitting on the bed, but Tulah knew that Dinah couldn’t see her. Though her body continued to convulse, Dinah’s senses had already left her. Tulah pursed her lips, waiting. She had enjoyed, had cherished, really, the moments leading up to Dinah’s death. The look of uncertainty on Dinah’s face when she first stepped into Felton’s room, then the seething hatred, the struggle to hide her fear, the snatch of hope, and then the final, ugly slide into resolute defeat. It had all been priceless.

  Waiting for Dinah to die, however, was tedious, even if the entire process took less than a minute. Sister Tulah sighed as finally a trickle of pink foam bubbled up from Dinah’s bloodless, white lips, and her jaw, after a few more involuntary spasms, went slack. Dinah’s death had been quieter, and less messy, than she had anticipated, and for that, Tulah could have thanked her. If she had been a disappointment in life, at least Dinah had been acquiescent in her death. Sister Tulah stood up, smoothed down the front of her black-and-gray hound’s-tooth dress, and stepped over Dinah’s tortured body. She squatted to pick up the empty jar Dinah had dropped, being careful not to touch any of the liquid that had sloshed down the side of the glass. She set the jar back on the desk, then righted the chair Dinah had knocked over when she’d crumpled to the floor. Sister Tulah put her hands to her hips and stared down once more at the contorted, blanched face with its blood-bloated eyes. To her annoyance, she felt a hitch of misgiving. Not a flash of regret, but just a glimpse of contrition. Dinah had been, after all, her own flesh and blood, her sister’s daughter, and now Tulah had no kin on earth save Felton.

  At the sound of the front d
oor opening and closing, however, Tulah waved the feeling away as she would a slight nuisance, a buzzing mosquito to be squashed. Satisfied that Dinah was indeed dead, she left Felton’s room and marched down the stairs. One of the Elders was waiting in the foyer for her with his shoulders hunched and head bowed. Three steps from the bottom, Tulah stopped abruptly. The Elder raised his head. Elah. In the dim light from the frosted globe above, she could just make out his harelip scar.

  “Is he here?”

  Elah responded with, as usual, no expression whatsoever. The light overhead reflected off his black glasses in two sharp, bright points. It was distracting.

  “The desire of the righteous is only good: but the expectation of the wicked is wrath.”

  Sister Tulah gripped the carved oak bannister. Proverbs. She hated Proverbs. And the Elders knew this. Tulah frowned as she thumped down the remaining stairs. She gave Elah a questioning look as he reached for the front door handle, but he only rested his long, gnarled fingers on the knob and waited. Tulah nodded and the door swung open.

  It was not who she had expected. Not even close. Still, Sister Tulah couldn’t help herself as she snorted out a foul, croaking laugh.

  18

  Though she had been involved in both the death of his father and his older brother, the maiming of his younger brother and, in many ways, the crooked stitch in his own life that had lead him back to the Cannon family’s life of crime, it occurred to Judah, as he stood across the threshold from her, that this was only the second time in his life he’d ever laid eyes on Sister Tulah Atwell. When he and Ramey had barged into her church back in May, before the Scorpions arrived behind them and all hell had broken loose, Judah had been more focused on confronting Sherwood than the preacher his father had stolen from and then tried to broker a deal with. Tulah had been merely the old woman in the background. In fact, Judah hadn’t even exchanged words with her, hadn’t given her much more than a wayward glance before the shooting started. Now that he was standing face-to-face with her, he wasn’t sure if she was more or less the looming behemoth, the harbinger of ruination, he’d imagined. Judah cut his eyes to Ramey next to him before turning around to the three old men who had set upon them as soon as they’d parked at the end of the long driveway, following at their heels as they walked up through the dying light to Sister Tulah’s house. He got nothing from the men, their faces cast in wax, and only the barest of shrugs from Ramey. Judah waited until Tulah’s eruption of laughter abruptly ceased before stepping squarely onto the bristly God is Within doormat before her.

  “Sister Tulah. We need to talk.”

  Just behind her in the open doorway, Judah could see another old man, bathed in sallow light. Tulah bent forward, looked to the right and the left down the length of the front porch and then out past them, seeming to scan the yard, the church, and the eclipsing woods beyond. Judah’s thoughts had run the gamut for how Sister Tulah would react to his unanticipated arrival, but disinterest and distraction hadn’t been at the top of his list. Tulah’s eye snapped back to Judah and she huffed.

  “This isn’t a good time.”

  Again, not what he had been expecting. Alarm, maybe. Hellfire raining down. Immediate and unchecked violence. Not annoyance. Not an abrupt dismissal.

  “Sister Tulah, do you know who we are?”

  “I know who you are, Judah Cannon. Though this time it’s nice to see you don’t have a firearm pointed in my direction.”

  Sister Tulah ran her eye up and down Ramey, sniffing with disdain.

  “Either of you.”

  Judah dipped his head.

  “Good. Now let me in.”

  Tulah crossed her arms, blocking the doorway.

  “I said, it’s not a good time.”

  “It never is.”

  Judah could feel his nerves unraveling a thread at a time. It was one thing to charge into a place, guns blazing, or chase after someone with adrenaline pumping through his veins, but this. This was the sort of game Judah hated to play. Willpower and words. It gave him too much time to think. To second-guess himself, especially with what lay before him. He had twice caught Sister Tulah glancing down at the small, ratty gym bag hanging from his shoulder, and now Judah hoisted it up so she could better see inside as he unzipped it. Tulah’s expression didn’t change except for a single eyebrow twitch, but she nodded and stepped aside.

  “Unarmed. And only you.”

  Judah yanked the .45 out of the back of his jeans and handed it to Ramey to keep her 9mm company. Now that he was going inside, he couldn’t look at her. They’d already said what needed to be said, now it was time for him to follow through. Judah kept his eyes on Sister Tulah as he held his arms out to show he wasn’t carrying any other weapons.

  “Fine. But she’s got two.”

  Ramey’s voice was strung like wire.

  “And don’t think I’ll hesitate.”

  Tulah flicked her eye again to Ramey and narrowed it.

  “I don’t imagine you would.”

  Sister Tulah opened the door wider and turned her back, lumbering away into the gloom. Judah felt Ramey’s fingers brush against his shoulder as he disappeared into the house behind Tulah, the door shutting firmly behind him.

  “Follow me.”

  As Sister Tulah led him through the house, Judah glanced over his shoulder, expecting one of the silent men to be right on his heels. He was alone, though, with the old man still standing like a sentinel at the door. To keep him in or Ramey out, Judah couldn’t be sure.

  In the stuffy dining room at the back of the house, Tulah slowly circled around a massive oak table, cleared except for an empty wicker basket in the center and a single woven placement at the head. She walked to the far wall and twisted a dimmer switch before gesturing for Judah to sit down. Once the room was illuminated, Judah took in the jade crushed velvet drapes, the row of ceramic figurines on the sideboard, and the portraits of Jesus, weeping or praying or petting a lamb, but judging him nonetheless from every darkly paneled wall. He also noticed that there was only one way in or out of the room. Ten high-backed, ornately carved chairs girdled the table, but Judah waited until Sister Tulah sat down with an ungainly thud before carefully choosing a seat of his own, two chairs away on Tulah’s right. He slung the bag up on the lacquered table and slid it in Tulah’s direction. She made no move to touch it.

  “So you know it was me.”

  Judah tried not to think of Levi. Tried to stay only in the moment. This was about so much more.

  “I know it was you.”

  Sister Tulah nodded thoughtfully.

  “My niece was a liar, even up to the very end.”

  “I don’t know what she is. And I don’t know what you promised her or if she received it. I don’t care. But yes, Dinah admitted she was acting on your order.”

  Tulah’s eye flicked briefly toward the ceiling.

  “Well, no matter now.”

  She jutted her chin toward the bag on the table.

  “I wouldn’t have thought you the sort of man to offer a bribe. What are you hoping this will get you?”

  Judah turned in his chair to face her straight on.

  “It’s not a bribe.”

  “I also doubt you’re the sort to try to buy your way into heaven, so perhaps a surety against the ravages of hell?”

  She leered.

  “My hell, that is.”

  “It ain’t that, neither.”

  Judah stared as Tulah’s smile melted into a glower.

  “How much?”

  “Fifty thousand.”

  Sister Tulah nodded. The light in the dining room was bright and Judah could clearly see the jaundiced skin sagging underneath her eyepatch. He’d seen pictures of Sister Tulah on the news right after the church fire, but her eye had then been bandaged in gauze. He still didn’t know how it had happened—there was so much he didn’t know about what had gone down after he and Ramey had fled the church—but Judah reck
oned Sherwood must’ve had something to do with it. Tulah drew the bag toward her and ripped the zipper open. She held it upside down, spilling cash onto the table in a fluttering cascade.

  “Why?”

  “I spoke to a friend who knew the details of your deal with the Scorpions. That’s the money you invested in them back in May. Your part of the cash my father stole from them.”

  Judah kept his voice steady, but with the money laid out on the table, he could feel the bitter knife begin to twist in an unknit wound.

  “It was yours, and I’m returning it.”

  Twisting.

  “So, you had my money.”

  And carving.

  “And you had Dinah kill my brother.”

  Severing.

  “And your father took my eye.”

  Exposing chipped bone.

  “And he died as well.”

  The marrow.

  “So why now?”

  And here it was. Sister Tulah’s ballooning face—her milky eye, her swinish, swollen mouth—baiting him, and there was nothing else save for revenge. The blood price his family demanded. Deserved. He stared in blindness and saw only himself. Lunging, hands around her throat, nails snatching out her single eye, incising, flesh splitting, digging in and tearing out, strewing and scattering the viscera. He saw the table running slick and red. He heard himself laugh. Unholy. Inhuman. The voice he had stolen bubbling up on his lips.

  Damning them both.

  Damning a soul that could perhaps still be saved. Or at least Ramey seemed to think so.

  “Because this is how it ends.”

  Judah wrenched himself back, holding on to all that he had left. Letting the broken knife clatter to the floor. Eye to eye to eye with Tulah, until finally Judah drew a breath. Guttering out. Disenthralled. Empty and free.