Gideon

by Alex Gordon

  Petrie held his breath, and listened. Yes, even the crows had gone quiet. The Lady’s birds, Eliza Mullin had called them. They flew between this world and the next, bearing news to the Lady, and returning with her wisdom and her grace. Listen to the crows, Mistress Mullin had said. Rough and wild, yet they speak with the Lady’s voice.

  “Master Cateman said the new meetinghouse is a pile of ash. The official Book of Endor is gone. All our history. All the Lady’s words.” Waycross’s voice emerged winter-cold. “She did this. Every time you seen her, she’d be walking down along the river or standing where the old meetinghouse used to be, talking to someone no one else could see. Who the hell knows what she got up to in that house, all by herself.” He hoisted the shovel to his shoulder and started walking. “She did this, to get us back for killing Blaine.”

  “But she died. What’s the point of revenge if you have to die to get it?” Petrie scanned the rows of bodies, in search of something from the Mullin house that he had seen before. A curtain. A blanket. A familiar object that marked the resting place of the only Mistress of Gideon he had ever known. “Besides, you found her alone. You said weren’t nobody else—” He quieted when Waycross stopped and nailed him with the look he had brought home from the war, the look that made even Alice Hoard flinch.

  “We found a body of a woman. It had a wedding ring, and that locket she always wore. Alice Hoard said it was her.” Waycross resumed walking, the slow step of a man headed for a place he didn’t want to go.

  “So she’s gone.” Petrie hurried after him, that final horror of the hallway explosion echoing in his head. No one could have survived that. No one.

  Not even a dead man.

  I told you, Joe.” Alice Hoard pulled the blanket back up over the sere remains of Eliza Mullin. “They found her in the room near the kitchen, just as Edward said.” She smoothed the rough wool with a veined hand. Then with her thumb, she inscribed an X enclosed in a circle across the nubby brown. The Lady’s sign, a plea for mercy and protection. A gesture of farewell to a departed soul.

  “You blessed her.” Petrie smiled for the first time in days. Not many in Gideon cared for Eliza Mullin, even though they all called her Mistress. He had heard the stories same as everyone, but he had never believed them. Eliza Mullin had always been kind to him, even when that kindness opened wounds. It was that kindness, along with the grace, the quiet dignity and lack of self-pity, that convinced him. He could never reconcile the woman he knew with the one the others talked about.

  Petrie felt a tingle along the side of his face, and looked up to find Alice regarding him, brown eyes dull as mud.

  “She was my mother-in-law’s friend, not mine.” The woman straightened, then wiped her hands on an apron streaked with blood and ash. “Maude set great store by her. Most of us felt different.”

  “She took in Sam and Janey after Maude died, and raised them like her own.” Petrie knelt beside Eliza Mullin’s body, stomach clenching as he caught a meaty whiff of burned flesh. “And after you and Sam married, she helped bring you into Gideon’s ways. Taught you spellcraft.”

  “Wouldn’t be the first time a guilty conscience made for a generous heart.” Alice leaned close and her lips drew back, snaggleteeth as pointy as fangs. “I know you thought well of her, Joe. She treated you kind and gave you work. But to call herself Mistress after what she did? To put herself above the wife of the Master of Gideon?”

  “It happens sometimes, when the wife of the Master isn’t skilled enough or another woman is just plain more powerful—”

  “A scandal—that’s what it was. A pure disgrace.” Alice turned and swept past the rows of covered corpses, the hem of her skirt dragging along the parched ground and sending puffs of dust and ash into the air.

  “She was a good woman.” Petrie lowered his voice when the others turned to stare. “Never asked me to do nothing improper.” He placed his hand on the blanket, the barest touch. “A good woman.” He bowed his head and prayed for Eliza Mullin’s safe passage across the border between this world and the next, the demon-infested wilderness beyond. If her soul survived that journey, if the Lady deemed it pure enough, it would live out eternity in a place of fertile fields and sparkling streams, a land of peace and plenty. A refuge that offered freedom from pain and hunger and illness, and nights of dreamless sleep.

  Dreamless sleep. How often had Petrie considered self-destruction in order to obtain that precious gift? He had spoken of it with Mistress Mullin more than once, and had been shocked when she told him that she had pondered it as well.

  Suicide. Petrie straightened a corner of the blanket that now served as Eliza Mullin’s shroud. He would never forget the smell that filled the sitting room that day, the skunklike stink of strong coffee boiled almost to syrup. The sick thinness of Mistress Mullin’s face, and the way her hands shook. It was the evil, she told him. It permeated Gideon, grew stronger with each passing day. She could not fight it anymore. It invaded her every waking thought. Her dreams. Oh, how she dreaded the night, the things she saw every time she closed her eyes. None of the others sense it, Joe. Because it comes from within. And it will destroy us all.

  “It was the heat caused the fire, Mistress. Been so dry.” Petrie whispered to the form beneath the blanket, tried to comfort a soul long past such mortal kindness. “Blaine turned up because, well, fire was his, wasn’t it? It was what killed him, and it called to him. That’s why he showed up. It called—” He fell silent as the sounds of soft pounding reached him, a rapid thrum like a racing heart.

  Hoofbeats.

  Petrie stood, turned this way and that, tried to fix the direction of the approaching rider. Ed Waycross soon joined him. Billy Petersbury. Master and Mistress Cateman, Alice Hoard and Millie Corey and the rest of Gideon’s survivors, emerging from the ruins swift and silent as revenants from their tombs.

  First came the crash of underbrush. A cry followed. “Lady help us all!” A man’s voice, tight with panic.

  Then they burst out of the woods, horse and rider. The horse slid to a stop on the rock-hard ground, sending ash and dust roiling into the air. It wheeled in a tight circle, eyes rolled back in its head, flanks heaving, chest coated with a mess of blood-streaked foam.

  “It burns! It burns!” Micah Corey slid off the beast to the ground. “Chicago.” He staggered, arms flopping like a scarecrow’s in the wind, until Waycross and Petersbury grabbed him and held him upright. He wore heavy boots and the rough clothes he saved for the smithy, a homespun shirt and trousers from his old army uniform, faded and mottled with patches.

  Shed of its rider, the horse stilled, head hung low, every breath a rale. Micah’s gelding, it was, the calm old bay that pulled his farrier’s wagon. It took a step forward, and stumbled. Then it let loose a thin, horrible wail, and crumpled to its knees as the stuff that flowed from its mouth and nose turned thinner and redder.

  Petrie ran to the animal, reaching it just as it collapsed onto its side. He touched its neck as it closed its eyes, as its breathing slowed and the flow of blood from its nose and mouth stopped. It shuddered once, then again, tail flicking as though warding off flies. Then it stilled.

  “I spelled him. I witched him. I drove him to his death. Poor old Bob. Lady forgive me.” Micah Corey struggled in his friend’s grip. Then he quieted, eyes widening as he took in the blasted scene around him. “It is hell upon the earth.”

  “Micah?” Master Hiram Cateman strode forward, hair and beard bright as polished silver. “What has happened?”

  “Master. I come from the Raleigh place, outside Sycamore.” Micah straightened as Cateman drew near, and shook off the other men’s hands. “I’d just started work when Andrew’s son came from the telegraph office.” His voice cracked. “Chicago. It’s still burning as I speak.”

  “Chicago?” Master Cateman took a step back, then pressed a hand to his heart as his wife gripped his arm. Mistress Barbara, her hair as black as her husband’s was white, her face as smooth as his was lin
ed. They looked at each other, wife and husband, her fine brow arching as his drew down.

  Then Master Cateman shook his head and turned back to Micah. “Are you certain of this?”

  “I swear by the Lady. I do swear. It began last night. The city still burns. It still—” Micah squinted past Cateman to the sparse crowd surrounding them. “Millie?” He held out a hand to his younger sister, a slight figure in a filthy dress, then looked toward the burned-out stores, the bare chimneys. “Where’s Ruth?” When Millie hung her head, Micah ran in the direction of his house and the new bride he had taken leave of six days before. “Ruth? Ruthie!”

  Ed Waycross and Billy Petersbury ran after Corey, took hold of him, and led him to the bodies. They walked along the first row, stopped before a form covered in blue damask, and steadied the new widower as he sagged to the ground.

  “She did it.” Alice Hoard shook off her husband Sam’s restraining hand and stepped out in front of the crowd. “Eliza Mullin. She brought the fire down upon us just as her foul lover brought the snows down upon you thirty-five years ago.”

  “Alice speaks truth.” Ed Waycross stood over the mourning Micah Corey like a guardian spirit. “It took her years, but she finally got her revenge.” One corner of his mouth turned up as a rumbling passed through the crowd, and he nodded toward Alice Hoard.

  Petrie caught the look that passed between the two, the shade of a grin that Alice offered in return. “It’s not true!” He struggled to his feet. “Mistress Mullin was afraid. She couldn’t sleep for the dreams. She knew that evil had come to Gideon, but she lacked the strength to stop it.”

  “So speaks her champion.” Alice Hoard shook her head. “What sort of witch would use such a poor, addled soul as a confidant?” She paced back and forth in front of the others, pointing at each in turn. “A witch who knew no one else would believe her.” She used her convocation voice now, a schoolmarm scold that brooked no argument. “A witch who knew that she had lost her hold over us.”

  “So what she could no longer hold, she destroyed.” Ed Waycross left Micah Corey’s side and stepped to the edge of the gathering. “Took her a while to get us, but get us she did.” He scanned faces, narrow-eyed gaze fixing on Petrie for the briefest instant before moving on.

  “Mistress Cateman is our rightful Mistress.” Millie Corey’s voice piped, high as a child’s. She wiped her eyes with her sleeve, then walked to her brother and knelt beside him. He leaned against her hard, almost toppling her, and she wrapped her spindle arms around him and held him as he wept.

  “Yes, Millie, yes. You are so right.” Alice Hoard folded her hands and nodded. “But the wrongful Mistress is still among us. What are we to do?”

  “Get rid of her.” Billy Petersbury stepped over corpses until he came to Eliza Mullin’s body. “She’ll find a way to get at us from the grave if we don’t.” He grabbed the ends of the old brown blanket, hefted it, and tossed it over his shoulder. “Break her up and scatter the pieces. Grind her bones to dust.”

  “Grind them to dust!” Alice Hoard shouted, and the survivors of the flame answered her as one.

  “To dust!”

  Billy Petersbury strode toward the woods, the rest of Gideon hooting and hollering after him, his burden jostling against his back as though struggling to escape.

  Then one flame-blackened hand fell out through a gap in the woolen folds, open, pleading.

  “No!” Petrie ran after Petersbury, but stopped when Ed Waycross stepped in front of him.

  “Choose your side, Joe.” Waycross held him with a cold stare. “The living or the dead.”

  Petrie started to argue. Then long-banked anger filled him, rage he had spent so many times against strangers, but never against someone he called friend. He lowered his shoulder to bull past Waycross and knock him to the ground, clenched his fists so he would be ready when the man rose and came after him—then felt a tug on his sleeve, so strong that it yanked him backward.

  He will kill you, Joe. A gentle voice, but strange, like a buzzing in his ears. Protect yourself. Nothing they do or say can hurt me now.

  “Mistress?” Petrie stumbled as dizziness swept over him, then fell to the ground as Waycross shoved him.

  “Stay here, poor addled soul, or share the whore’s fate.” Waycross spat upon the ground, then turned and trotted after Billy Petersbury.

  Petrie waited until Waycross entered the woods, then scrambled to his feet and scurried after. He stayed low to the ground, ducking behind bushes and trees and forest wreckage as every trick he had ever learned about moving soft and quiet came back to him. He tossed up what protections he could muster despite his anger and his fear, so that none could get the sense of him. Not Alice Hoard, or mouse-faced Millie Corey.

  The quiet place. He knew they would gather there. A low clearing hard by a bend in the River Ann, where troubled souls went to ponder their fates and courting couples to seal theirs. The border between this world and the next stretched thin there, the darkness that seeped through, touching every Gideonite.

  Petrie sensed the pull as he darted behind a rock pile that overlooked the clearing. It coursed through him like liquor, calmed and emboldened him. He could save Mistress Mullin—he felt it in his bones. He could dash into the clearing, grab her remains, and be gone before anyone could stop—

  They’d kill you, Joe. Stay here.

  “Mistress?” Petrie’s knees shook as the surge of strength ebbed. “You’ll always be here, won’t you? To talk to me sensible?” He leaned against the cold stone and waited for an answer, but no sound, living or otherwise, came to him. Even the crows had gone quiet.

  Petrie peered over the top of the rocks at the scene below. They stood in a circle around Billy Petersbury, the faithful of Gideon, and watched in silence as he laid the remains of Eliza Mullin upon the ground and pulled back the blanket, exposing the burned and shrunken form. A few moments passed. Seeming hours.

  Then Millie Corey picked up a rock. “For Ruthie!” Her cry pierced the stillness as she hurled the missile at the body. It struck the chest dead center and stove it in, the force sending bits of rib and dried flesh into the air.

  Then Alice Hoard picked up a rock and threw it. Susan Petersbury. Deborah Watt and the others. When they ran out of stones, they beat the corpse with branches, and when they ran out of those, they tore at it with their hands, kicked it and stomped on it. Eliza Mullin’s arms and legs crumbled and the body broke apart as the men whooped and hollered and the women screeched and clapped.

  Petrie’s eyes stung. Tears spilled. He should have tried to save Eliza Mullin, and damn the consequences. He should have tried—

  “Joseph?”

  Petrie stiffened. Then he wiped the wetness from his face, and turned. “Master.” He tried to close his ears to the roisterous hoots and chants, but they filled his head like nightmares and he knew he would hear them forever. “They’re like dogs tearing apart a deer.”

  Hiram Cateman drew alongside and looked down at the scene below. “We will offer prayers in her name. That she find what peace the Lady allows her.”

  “You won’t get any prayers from that crowd. Tried and executed her, they did.” Petrie started to wipe his nose with his sleeve, then pulled a rag out of his pocket and used it instead, in deference to the company. “The truth will come out eventually. That’s what she always told me.”

  “All Gideon knows the truth.” Cateman sniffed. “Eliza Blaylock cleaved to Nicholas Blaine when first he arrived. It pained Uncle Jacob greatly—his letters to me were filled with self-recrimination. He begged me for counsel in spite of my youth. He wanted to know what he could have done to dissuade her, to help her.”

  “But she didn’t—” Petrie quieted as Mistress Mullin’s words filled his head, soft as a whisper yet loud as a cry. Protect yourself. So he bit back his arguments, met the older man’s blue-eyed gaze, felt the power behind it—and something that he had never sensed before. Doubt. Uncertainty.

  Fear.

&nbs
p; Cateman looked away first. “Gideon shall begin again, Joseph.” He raised his voice. “For we shall be reborn from these ashes like the phoenix of myth.” He paused, and waited until the mob below stilled and fell silent. “We will forget the betrayal that brought us to this, forget the evil that birthed it and the hatred that gave it refuge.” He glanced sidelong at Petrie. “Don’t you agree, Joseph?”

  “It’s not for me to agree or disagree, Master.” Petrie imagined Eliza Mullin standing next to him, guiding him, prompting him. “It’s for me to obey. By the Lady.”

  “In her name.” Cateman held out a hand to his wife, who had appeared by his side as if from nowhere, cat-quiet as ever. “For amid this tragedy, our Lady has granted us a boon. The chance to rid ourselves of evil influence. To rebuild. A new Gideon. A new beginning. We will rival Chicago, Joseph. We will, indeed.”

  “Yes, Master.” Petrie looked down at his shirt and dungarees, filthy with sweat and dirt and ash. Felt the hatred and loss and dread that saturated the air like fog. Eventually, the activity in the clearing calmed and slowed. Men and women broke into separate groups and talked in low voices, the men passing around flasks and pouches of tobacco. As if it were a day like any other, a day without fire and death and bitter vengeance. A day that saw truth scattered to the four winds along with the sad remains of a tormented woman.

  “I saw him.” Petrie’s voice cracked, and he stopped and swallowed hard. Alice Hoard had been right—he was the poorest of champions, and standing up for his Mistress would do nothing to make up for all the sinning he had done in his life. But someone had to speak for those who could no longer speak for themselves. “Nicholas Blaine. A face like Hell itself, and a voice to match. He tried to tempt her. Promised to bring Tom Blaylock back to her. But she said no to him.” He waited for a harsh rebuke, until the silence battered harder than any storm of words possibly could. Turned, and met the questioning eyes of his Master.