“I recall, yes sir,” said the priest. “I do recall smiling faces gazing up at me from the pews.”
“You gave quite a homily, I do declare,” said Cecily Bob. “I myself attended several services. Was raised in the church you know, don’t have much use for God, because God don’t hex people. People hex people, they steal and murder and kill. God just sits up there and fumes about it, if ever he gives thought to us at all. Maybe he whips up a hurricane and sends it our way a few years down the line. Don’t got nothing to do with me.”
“I think you will find,” said the priest, “that God is quite active in the world. Yes, I daresay he is the very thing holding the blood in your veins right now.”
“He didn’t keep us from torching your church though, did he?” said Mr. Hugo. “God didn’t protect you from that.”
“Perhaps,” said the priest, his voice trembling just a little, “God did save his church.” He knocked a hard rap on the pew with his fist. “The building of course is just a building, bricks and stone and wood. God’s church is people, it is, and he is active in the hands and fingers that heal, in the mind and eyes and heart of those seeking justice.” The priest held his arms out wide over the flooded church floor. “If ye squint even, perhaps you’ll yet see God hovering over this very swamp right now.”
The priest cocked a wide eye to the right and to the left, as if he might catch God unawares, tiptoeing across the water.
“You’re a creepy old loon, you know that?” said Mr. Hugo. “We already ransacked Baudelaire Quatro’s Place. Maybe we ought to burn your church a second time while we’re at it.”
“On a night like this,” said the priest, sticking his bald head under a stream of water leaking down from a hole in the ceiling, “you might find it difficult. I doubt the wood would catch!”
“Cheeky too, he is,” said Cecily Bob. “Might need to be taught a lesson there, eh Mr. Hugo?” He stroked the priest’s neck with the knife. Then he yanked the bottom of the priest’s beard and sawed it off in one swipe.
The priest fell over backward, cackling in the water.
“I’d wanted a shave!” he hollered, holding chunks of wet beard in his hands. “I’ve been meaning to see a barber! A barber in the swamp! You should go into business, the two of you!” He splashed in the water, laughing.
“Let’s go, Mr. Hugo,” said Cecily Bob. “The man’s got too many bats in his belfry.”
“Aye,” said Mr. Hugo. “We’ll get no truth out of him.”
When they were good and gone, the priest looked up to where Tally and I hid in the rafters.
“You see that?” he said. “I foxed them, I did. I foxed them good.”
Me and Tally made our way down to the pews, the water up to our waists now. The owls didn’t hardly fluster. They just watched on, not even curious, like they already knew what was going to happen ages ago.
“Thanks for saving us,” said Tally.
“That’s my job, little one,” said the priest. “Or it’s supposed to be, anyhow. Can’t say I’ve done too much saving the last few years. Glad to have the opportunity this evening.”
“So you knew my daddy?” I said. “Davey Boy Pennington?”
“Of course I knew him!” he said. “I knew all of them, Sinclair and Marina and the rest. Being priest here used to mean something, I tell you. I had respect, I did, and those who came to me knew I would tell them the truth, and they were safe to receive it as they liked. I was also a magnificent cook, if I do say so myself. That brought folks around, when the sermons didn’t.” He leaned down to me. “I even blessed you, child, on the day you were born, if you can believe that.”
Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I could. I didn’t remember much time in chapel, not when I was a kid, except getting bored and falling asleep in the pews. It made me happy, it did, to know that someone had blessed me along the way.
“Did you know Boss Authority too?” said Tally.
“Little Bobby Felix you mean?” The priest frowned. “Yes, I knew him. Quiet boy, he was. Sinclair was cruel to him, vicious even. They all were, except for your mother, Samantha Annie. Wild, she could be, but never cruel. Tell me, how does she fare these days?”
“Pretty good,” I said. “She runs a bakery up in Collardsville.”
“I do not know the place,” said the priest. “Is it far beyond the swamp? I don’t believe I’ve seen dry plains in nearly three decades now.”
“Yep,” I said. “Also I just found out she was a witch. Did you know she was a witch?”
“Samantha Annie? Of course I knew she was a witch,” he said. “Only question is how in the world you didn’t. I wager you ain’t the sharpest fang in the mouth, are you?” He turned to Tally. “And now tell me, little one, is the secret you bear of your own doing, a hex, or is it inborn, in your blood?”
Tally flinched back, like she was trying to hide herself in the shadows.
“Oh don’t be scared now,” said the priest. “I am friend of spiders and humans alike. Any little critter, really, even the ones who mean me harm.”
“I was born like this,” said Tally. “Me and my granddad, though it skipped my parents.”
“Extraordinary, what gifts are passed down in the blood,” said the priest. “Fearful to some, yes, but they can also be a marvel. I see God’s hand in all of this, child, do you not?”
“Easy for you to say when it ain’t you that looks like a freak,” said Tally.
“Freak? Freak?” said the priest. He whirled his arms around, pointing at the ruined church, the moldy walls, the cracked altar, the statues of saints slathered in bird droppings. “My child, there does not exist a beating heart that one could rightly call normal. We are all miraculous, each and every one of us. Miraculous and terrible, down to our darkest hearts. Seek the light, and the light shall burn out all the darkness. Seek the darkness, and yet, it cannot swallow all of the light. No, not even in the worst of us.”
“I still don’t like being spider-folk,” said Tally.
“That, my dear, is your prerogative,” said the priest. “But enough talk, enough idleness. Seems like we ought to get you two to Marina’s Place. Though I don’t think she’ll cotton much to that Parsnit deck you’re carrying.”
“How’d you know I had Parsnit cards?” I said.
The priest held his hands together at his chest, like he was praying, and gave me a little bow.
“The cards? I can smell them from here,” he said. “And Marina will sniff them out too.” He twirled the stub of his beard with his fingers. “No, Marina won’t like that one bit.”
“Whoever heard of a witch who don’t like Parsnit?” said Tally.
“Oh it’s not that she doesn’t like it, in some pure abstracted form,” said the priest. “It’s that she doesn’t like what it has become.” He bent down toward us and leaned in close, his eyes darting back and forth between Tally and me. “Want to know the secret about Parsnit cards?”
I nodded at him.
“They’re just cards,” he said. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
“But they’re magic,” I said.
“Ah yes, magic and miracles, miracles and magic,” he said. “It’s all anybody ever wants, magic and miracles, miracles and magic.” A blue-back damselfly flew up and landed on his outstretched finger. “As if all this ain’t enough?” He blew on the damselfly and it flew away and into the night. Lightning bugs blinked all around him, haloing his head in the darkness.
Who was this man, this priest who knew Pop, who knew my mom? Who kept watch over his sunken ruined church, same as he had when it was pretty and filled with people instead of just owls and riffraff? The swamp was full of more wonders than I could fathom, and that was the truth of it.
“Come now,” said the priest. “Let’s find Miss Marina’s. It is a safe place.” He looked around sadly at his church. “Perhaps it is the last safe place, if Mr. Quatro’s has fallen. Come children. We must hurry.”
“What about my skiff?” I said.
>
“They will know it. No, no, we must take mine.”
The priest led us through a burnt-out hole in the back of the church where a doorway probably once stood. A flat boat floated in a pool of water. It was patched and wretched-looking. Spiders flung their webs all over the bottom, and little water droplets hung everywhere in glimmers. It was the sorriest excuse for a boat I’d ever seen in my life.
“Does it float?” said Tally. “I mean, when it has people in it?”
“It’s floated longer than you’ve been on this earth, child. And it’ll float ages more.” The priest held a couple of mildewed sacks out toward us. “Crouch down and hide, crawl into these. We must pretend you are potatoes, yes? We must pretend you are ears and ears of corn. For the orphans, yes, a donation from the church. Why not? Why not?”
“But they’ll find us,” I said. “All they got to do is yank this sack off us and we’re done for.”
“They won’t dare,” said the priest, “because I shall be preaching. And they hate my preaching, yes they do. It afears them, I do believe. Or perhaps it just annoys. Whichever case, it’ll do nicely.”
We brushed the spiderwebs away and crawled into the boat and stuffed ourselves into the sacks. The priest poled us out into the swamp water. I had a nice eye-sized hole in my sack, just big enough to see through. The rain had stopped, and the night was all foggy and cloudy, barely a wink of moon up there, stars peeking out where you could see them. Deep in the distance burned what looked like bonfires.
“They do that when a prisoner’s on the loose,” said the priest. “When they’re after someone important.”
“They’re hunting us,” said Tally.
“Yeah,” I said, “but mostly I bet they’re looking for Pop.”
“It’s a takeover, it is,” said the priest. “Bobby Felix is finally having his revenge on the swamp.”
The priest pushed us away from the church, handling the long wooden pole like it wasn’t more than a twig. I realized he was strong too, this skin-and-bone priest, that he was something mighty hidden in rags. We left the narrow path and drifted into open water as far as the eye could see. Big bonfires burning on the high ground, on any dry knee of sand and dirt that rose out of the water. From holes in the sack we saw boats with torches passing, Boss Authority’s men scanning the waters. The priest poled us right up next to a canoe with two mean-looking fellas in it. One of them had an eye patch and a long cruel scar across his throat. He spat in the water as our boat came near to him.
The priest stood up tall in the boat. He leapt from foot to foot, rocking us wildly, and for a minute I was scared we would tip.
“Repent!” cackled the priest, his voice gone high and wily. “Repent and be saved! Cast off the old man, the flesh, the sickness of spirit! Wash yourself in the blood, I say! Cover yourself in the mercy of the divine father! He is not angry with them who seek mercy, no, his loving kindness endureth forever. But woe to you, rich! Woe to you, greedy and unmerciful! Woe to you, liars and thieves! Woe to you who would defraud the widow and the orphan, who would lie to those in need!”
“Be quiet, you old psycho,” said the man with the eye patch. “We’re trying to work here.”
“But where will the mercy be for you, sir, when judgment comes?” said the priest.
“Only judgment comes from Boss Authority,” said the man, “and if you don’t hush your geezer old yapper, then I’ll have to shut you up myself.”
“Mercy!” cried the priest. He fell to the floor of the boat. “Mercy please, on an old man!” He covered his face and bowed his head, all meek and terrified. He tossed me and Tally a wink.
“Just get out of here already,” said the man. “We’re out hunting, and you don’t want to get in the way when we find what we’re looking for.”
“Be blessed!” hollered the priest. “Blessed be ye in the name of the Lord!”
And he poled us onward.
“I can’t tell if this guy’s crazy,” whispered Tally, “or if he’s some kind of genius.”
“What’s the difference, so long as we get safe to Marina’s?” I said.
The night had gone low-down and spooky after the storm. A slit of moon burned above us, and only the brightest stars, clouds skimming over them like ghosts. Here and there the bonfires cast their glow, and Boss Authority’s men swept through the swamp, silent and watchful, their torches a burning warning to us in our hiding. But no one bothered checking the priest’s boat, no one bothered with the skinny bald man ranting and hollering about salvation. I realized the priest was his own kind of hustler, the same as me and Tally, same as the magician, same as Pop. Maybe he was hustling for a better cause—the salvation of the world ain’t exactly something to shake your head at—but he was putting on a show all the same.
We watched a man get yanked from an old stilt house. He was a tall fella with red hair, and two of Boss Authority’s men flung him into their boat, facedown while his wife and child hollered on, crying.
“What did he do?” I said.
“Looks like Boss Authority’s rounding up anyone he thinks might be an enemy,” said the priest. “This is the fifth anniversary of your daddy’s defeat, is it not? This is his hour, unless your pop steps up and does something.”
The man in the boat tried to stand, and Boss Authority’s men whomped him in the head with a club. He went slack, groaning from the floor of the boat.
The priest started singing then, a sweet high lovely song like it came out of a mountain, a cold song like the wind blew it straight down from a snow-covered peak, another song of hope and mourning. It wasn’t a swamp song at all, no sir, it wasn’t born in these parts, and you knew it had traveled a long way to get here. Boss Authority’s men paused from beating the fella in the boat and they perked up to listen, watching us pass in the priest-poled skiff, his song soft as fog among the waters. It was as if he stilled the moment, as if all the world had frozen and it was only us in this boat sliding like a lily pad across the water. I wondered if the priest didn’t have some kind of magic to him as well, or if that was just music, what music could do to any heart and mind, so long as the person had ears to hear it.
Where was Pop though? Why wasn’t he doing something to stop all this? Folks were hurting, folks were bound up and arrested, and anyone who wasn’t was scared out of their minds. I knew Pop was in the swamp somewhere, I knew he’d escaped from Cecily Bob and Mr. Hugo. Then why wasn’t he out here, fighting Boss Authority’s men? Why hadn’t he challenged Boss Authority to a rematch? Boy, would I love to see that, Pop finally whoop Boss Authority in a Parsnit duel for the ages. I wished he would show already. I wished Tally and me didn’t have to slink through the waters hidden on a crazy man’s boat just to get us to safety. And judging from what the priest said about Marina’s feelings on Parsnit, maybe her place wouldn’t be safe after all, at least not for me, son of Davey Boy Pennington.
Onward the priest poled us, deeper and deeper into the swamp. My leg got a cramp in it, and somehow a mosquito got into the sack. He was right going to town on me, probably drank near a gallon of my blood, but I didn’t dare slap him away. All around us the swamp was alive and humming, a wild, breathing place. I felt like we had been swallowed by some big ol’ beast and we were floating around in its stomach, warm and dark, a whole world down here in the great belly of everything.
“Come now, children,” whispered the priest. “We’re here.”
I peeked up out of my burlap sack and saw it, Marina’s Place. It was a big stilt lodge-looking thing, much bigger than I thought. It stretched for rooms and rooms, maybe two hundred feet long and lord knows how far back it went. Some sections of it looked newer than others, like Marina had been busy building more space for herself. I wondered what she would be like, this mighty witch. I wondered if she wouldn’t catch a glance at Pop’s Parsnit deck and chuck me right back out on my face in the muck.
“Out, out, children!” said the priest. “And hurry. Folks’ll be along here soon enough, and tha
t’s a fact. Yes, they’ll even come to Marina’s, for murder or for sanctuary, you can bet on it. Inside, quickly.”
“Aren’t you coming with us?” said Tally. I could tell she was a little bit scared of Marina too.
“No, no,” he said. “A priest doesn’t seek refuge, he offers it. So I’m off into the waters, to help where I can. Blessings, children, and God be with you.”
We climbed up to Marina’s porch, standing before her thick shut massive front doors, scared to push them open, while the priest poled off into the fog and the dark.
I was scared, you bet I was. Cecily Bob and Mr. Hugo were armed and after us, my pop was missing in the swamp, and there didn’t seem to be too much hope left for us. I looked up at the sky and said my own kind of prayer. The clouds were long gone now, all the stars like little old ladies peeking from dark windows. Oh yes, tonight had some magic to it, it had a shimmer of luck glistening in the mucky water. I just hoped that good luck was enough to counter my own.
I took me a deep breath and shoved the door open, and together me and Tally stepped inside.
15
THE DOORS OPENED TO A high-roofed room, like some kind of banquet hall, or a restaurant I guess. The room was maybe a hundred feet across, with tables scattered around, folks milling about here and there. Two ancient men sat at one of the tables, a black man and a white fella, laughing at their own jokes. One of them carried a rusty old war sword on his belt. A piano player banged away on an upright in the corner. Lines of strung lizards and baby gators hung behind an empty bar, and a huge fierce fish was mounted on the wall in what appeared to be a striking pose, fangs jutting from its jaw like broken shards of bone. I recognized some of the people from Baudelaire Quatro’s. A couple were wounded and bandaged, but there they stood, alive and together.
There were doors in the back and to the left and right, leading to different rooms where people came and went freely. This seemed like a safe spot, Marina’s Place. You could hide here, protected, like the priest said, and it felt as if even Boss Authority couldn’t touch you. It was sparse and lantern-lit, but cheerful a little bit, like the two old men there had been sitting quite happy in these exact same spots the last five years and they’d still be here five years later. On a red cushion in the far end of the room lay a bearded man in overalls, curled up and drooling like a dog, sleeping soft on a pillow. When we burst in he poked his head up and blinked at me a few times, then settled back down asleep.
The Rambling Page 14
