Geoff blinked, and the man was gone, but something else caught the corner of his eye. Three men, moving from the back of the church. Between them they dragged something bulky and white. One edge flapped in the wind.
Geoff gunned it and nearly skidded off the side of the road. Then the tires caught, and the Buick shimmied once, twisting and righting itself with a roar. He took the first curve twenty miles an hour faster than was safe and only slowed a fraction as he raced past the church, skirting the town and veering to the right toward the mountains. He knew he had to get out of there, or lose what sanity remained.
Behind him, the dark man stood to the side of the road, dust swirling around the carefully pleated cuffs of his trousers. He leaned on a cane of polished wood, hands sheathed in skin-tight white leather gloves and wrapped tightly around the top of the mahogany shaft. His expression was contemplative, as if he were considering something important. When he turned back toward the church, his smile widened, and he stepped forward briskly.
The congregation milled about the church grounds, gathering in small groups and muttering among themselves. No one seemed to know what to do. Reverend McKeeman was a large part of their lives, and they were too far up the mountain to expect a replacement any time soon.
“Pardon me,” the dark man said, his voice soft, but carrying so that all present turned toward him. “I realize that this is a bad time, but I’ve come here in search of a dear old friend, come a very long way, in fact. If one of you would direct me to the home of Reverend Forbes, I will be on my way and leave you to your grief.”
There was no sound. Even the breeze stilled in that moment. The sun beat down, heat doubled and glare flashing brilliantly from the man’s teeth and from his cane, glowing in the depths of his eyes. He shifted his gaze from one side to the other, the quizzical expression returning.
When no one spoke, he continued. “Do none of you know Reverend Forbes? I’d thought he would be here today, it being the Sabbath, but . . .”
“Mister . . .” Helen Saxon began tentatively, “Reverend Forbes—he’s dead.”
The man grew even more still, a dark statue against the brilliance of the sun, shadow to its light. Unwavering.
“Dead,” he repeated, rolling the word off his lips as if tasting something for the first time. “Now, that is a shame,” he added, the words a quiet afterthought, all the action imbedded in his eyes. A multitude of expressions scrolled across his features, moving from quiet anguish, through pain, and shifting slowly back to the smile. “Dead.”
The second time he spoke it, the word rang with finality. His features shifted, and he leaned in closer. “Who performed the ceremonies for him? Who prepared the feast?”
More silence, and some shuffling of feet, far back in the crowd. The man whipped his gaze toward the sound. He strode forward through the crowd, which parted before him, backing away from the glitter in his eyes. Near the back, he found one old man, bent nearly double from arthritis and leaning on a crooked wooden cane of his own.
“Who prepared the feast?” The question was whispered, directed at Tom Braddock, who’d been caretaker of the church nigh on fifty years, since he’d hurt his back in high school.
“Tweren’t no ceremony,” Tom mumbled. “Ain’t been a feast such as you mean here since the good Reverend passed.” Tom’s eyes dropped lower, staring at the ground as he repeated words he’d never believed. “Those ain’t our ways no more.”
The dark man stared. He didn’t turn to the others, who were gathering around slowly, but focused on old Tom. There were no words at first, and Tom withered in the heat of that gaze, felt things shifting inside and rising to the surface of his mind. Old things. Things he’d have done better not to forget. Things his Papa had told him. For a moment, Tom closed his eyes, and remembered.
“They said it wasn’t right,” he said softly. “They said to let it be.”
“They?” The man spun on his heel, taking in the crowd, one at a time, studying them. “Who were they, Thomas?”
Everyone started. None had spoken that name.
“Who were they, Thomas? Who told you it was a good thing to let a man like Reverend Forbes die without his due? Who decided for a dead man how his spirit would reach the heavens?” He spun again, eyes flashing now. “Was there a famine? Was there no food? Were there no strong backs to raise and stake the tent?”
His voice softened. “Does he no longer walk the trees? Alone? Does he not hunger?”
Somewhere in the crowd, a voice whispered hoarsely. “He does.”
“Who decided, Thomas?” the man hissed now. “Who chose for that dark one that his days would end in hunger? That his sacrifice would be for nothing? Who will succeed him? Who is going to take your sins, Thomas?” The man stepped forward, poking a finger into Thomas’ chest. “Who?”
There was no answer, but the man’s expression softened in that instant.
“I am sorry,” he said, withdrawing his hand. “I have spoken out of line, and in the home of a dear friend. Dear—departed friend. I shall miss him deeply.” One last moment of silence.
“I have lost a friend,” the man went on. “You have lost a spiritual guide this day. Who will perform the services for Reverend McKeeman?”
“Mister,” Wendell Ames said, stepping forward from the crowd. “No disrespect, sir, but just who the hell are you? You come waltzin’ in here, giving Tom there what for, and spouting off about Reverend Forbes, who, God rest his soul, has been dead nigh on a full year. I’m sorry to say I don’t find you very welcome with your questions and your fifty-dollar suit. No sir.”
The man blinked once, leaning on his cane and staring at Wendell, who stood his ground, though there was a twitch at the corner of his eye that hadn’t been there moments before. For a long time, nothing was said, and then the man began to speak again.
“Funny you should speak to me about God resting his soul, Wendell.”
There was a murmur among those gathered. Again, no name had been offered, and yet this man spoke with familiarity. Wendell took half a step back into the crowd, fighting valiantly to hold his ground.
“Funny you should mention the one thing that you denied him, and that, if I were a betting man, I’d be laying odds you plan to deny the Good Reverend McKeeman as well. Something your fathers and your mothers received in their time. Something your grandfathers received as well. A gift, and a service, a promise of Godspeed to the heavens. God rest his soul indeed.”
“I was not raised here, but I know you. I know each and every one of you from letters, and postcards, from long phone calls in the middle of the night. From prayers shared among brothers. I am sorry not to have introduced myself before. I am Reverend Payne. Nathaniel Payne. I attended the seminary with the late Reverend Forbes.”
Another long silence. Payne watched them all, and then turned away, staring at the church itself quietly. He started to turn again, toward the road, but again, Wendell Ames stepped forward.
“Reverend?” he said quietly, as if he didn’t want to break the silence with his words. “Reverend, I’m sorry. I was out of line. It’s just . . . well, it’s a hell of a thing when a man dies. Worse when he dies serving the Lord. You’ve come at a bad time.”
Payne nodded. He didn’t turn away from the church, but he did begin to speak once more.
“I would be honored,” he began, “to assist in your services. I don’t know if you’ve another man of God present. I would be honored to do this thing for Reverend Forbes, and for Reverend McKeeman, but I am a man of certain faith.”
Payne turned to face them. “It would have to be the old way. I could not, in good conscience, send them to the afterlife without that. It is the right thing, the righteous thing to do. It is what Reverend Forbes would have wanted, and what God demands. There are prices to be paid, in life, and in death. There is hunger, and there is sustenance, and there is faith.”
He turned then, not waiting for an answer, and started to walk off down the driveway of the ch
urch, toward the curving road where Geoff Culpepper had fled what seemed hours, and was only moments, before. He took a step, and then another.
On the third step, Wendell called after him. “Where will you be?”
The emotion in his voice, the pain riding just below the surface, brought a sly grin to Payne’s lips, though none was in a position to see it. He was not smiling when he turned.
“I will be finding a room in Friendly,” he answered. “I’d thought to stay with Reverend Forbes, but as that is no longer an option, I am afraid I have no idea.”
Thomas stepped forward, blushing furiously as he cut in. “There’s the apartment out back of the rectory,” he stammered. “I mean, I’ve kept it up, since Reverend Forbes . . . it’s as he left it, Reverend Payne. If you was his friend, maybe you might ought to stay there?”
Something transited Payne’s eyes. He didn’t exactly smile, but neither did he frown, or turn away. He thought in silence, and then he nodded. No words, just that quick motion of his head, and everything shifted.
The crowd moved forward, each with a word of condolence, and welcome. Tentative questions were asked about his own parish, how long he would stay. A weight shifted, from their hearts and shoulders to his. Quietly, and without much effort, Reverend Nathaniel Payne moved into the church, and their lives.
As he turned to follow Thomas around back of the church, Helen Saxon called after him. “Shall . . . shall we prepare a feast, Reverend?”
Everyone grew silent. That one question hung in the air, hovering like a cloud. The difference between life under Reverend Forbes’ guidance, and that of Reverend McKeeman, had been night and day. They hovered on that twilight moment, and with a quiet word, he drew them in.
“If you would do that for me,” he said softly, “for them, and for their souls, it would be an honor to remain for a time, and to serve as God’s messenger here in the home of my friend. It is the least I can do, and the most.”
Without waiting to see how they would react, Payne turned, and Thomas stumbled around the edge of the church building, leading him away. Invisible strings of pain and doubt unraveled from the hearts of those who watched. Memories clouded reason, memories of earlier times, of stories told by parents long dead and grandparents even longer. White tents flapped in the breezes of each mind, and along the tree line, a shadow stalked. Hungry, and alone.
Before the sun had set, a group of men dressed in dark work clothes arrived at the church, moving with Thomas to the storerooms that had been so long locked. There would be repairs to make, mending and organizing. What once would have taken a day would be at least the full week in preparation. None among them smiled, but they worked as a unit, patching canvas and mending lines, dragging cases of metal stakes from the shadows. In the field, along the edge of the trees, another group worked on the table. Sanded and whitewashed, you could not tell the wood had been so long in disrepair. A very few minor repairs, new nails where the wood had warped. It might have been last week that it had last been used.
As they worked, they watched the trees nervously.
Madeline was back at her window when the candles began to spring into life. The sun had long been set beyond the tree line, and the owls had begun their mournful dirge. They asked, and Madeline’s heart knew the answer.
“Who?”
The candles flickered, a wavering line to each side of the road, winding down the mountain toward the church and curling back into Madeline’s past.
Why do the candles lead to us, Mommy?
She shook her head and thought about moving away from the window. Closing the door. She thought about putting water on for tea and turning on the lamp over her desk. She could sit there, back straight in the rough wooden chair, and write to Elizabeth. She could explain things she’d never taken the time to explain, things that mattered. She’d never even explained to her daughter why she had to stay. Why it was so important to her to be there for him. How she felt she’d failed them both.
And now, with the circle closing and those damnable candles springing to life, one after another, drawing nearer with each indrawn breath, Madeline felt the need to confess. She wanted Elizabeth to know and understand. Nothing could mend what had been broken. Nothing could erase the years of pain and solitude and anger. Nothing could give her back her husband, or her daughter, but at least Madeline could, for once in her long life, give something herself. There was no time. The one thing she’d had so much of she could scream, all squandered.
Beyond the crosses littering her lawn, the flicker of soft, yellow light grew closer. Madeline heard the soft chorus of the choir as they marched along the road, and despite the terror threatening to stop her heart, Madeline felt tears in the corners of her eyes. It had been so long since she’d heard a choir. So long since any living being had acknowledged her presence at all without anger, or scorn. Now they wound their way down the road as they had so many times in the past, and she fluttered against the windowsill like a moth—trapped by their light and wanting to flutter away into the shadows. To hide and never come out. To scorn them as they had scorned her.
Instead she watched, and as the shadowed figures placed twin candles on the posts of her gate, swinging it inward and starting down the walk, she moved to the door, opening it slowly. Some things could not be denied. She knew Brian was out there, somewhere. She knew he was watching, and this time she didn’t intend to let him down. This time she would do what she could.
And there was the matter of the other. The one who’d passed her home earlier in the day. It was no coincidence that the people came this night. Something had happened, something bad had happened, and for once, they didn’t know what to do. If they came to Madeline for assistance, it must have gotten bad.
It was Thomas who stepped forward, Thomas from the church, and at his side walked Wendell Ames. Wendell was turning his hat over and over in his hands, and Madeline thought this was odd, because she could never remember Wendell wearing that hat anywhere but church. He was dressed nicely, as was Thomas, and the two of them had their eyes turned to the ground before them. Madeline couldn’t decide if they most resembled shy young men courting or children caught in the act of doing something naughty.
“Evenin’ Madeline,” Wendell said, as she stood silhouetted against the soft light from the interior of her home. The candlelight didn’t quite reach her, sending dancing shadows around the two men’s feet, but not quite reaching the frame of the door. Madeline felt as if she were a shadow, conversing with ghosts from her past.
“Hello, Wendell,” she answered. “Long way from home.”
“Reverend McKeeman,” Thomas burst in quickly, “he died today, ma’am.”
Madeline digested this in silence. “I’m sorry to hear that, Thomas,” she said, committing nothing.
“He died in the middle of his service,” Wendell added. “Right behind the podium. Hell of a thing.”
“I’d imagine,” Madeline answered, waiting.
“We’ve come to ask a favor, Maddy,” Wendell said at last, letting loose a long breath and shifting to the familiarity of years long past. “We’ve come to ask your help, and your forgiveness, if you will offer it.”
Madeline allowed herself a small frown. This wasn’t what she’d expected at all.
“The Reverend, he was a different sort of man from Reverend Forbes,” Wendell went on. “Reverend McKeeman, he knew God, don’t get me wrong, but to my way of thinking, he never really took the time to know us. Our ways. Our past.
“To our shame, Maddy. Neither did we. It was the easy road. The safe road, for those of us still living. Brian was a friend of mine. I wanted to be the first to tell you how sorry I am things have come to what they have.”
“We got the tent all fixed up,” Thomas cut in again. “Fixed the table, too. Took a couple’a coats of whitewash, mind you.” He trailed off to silence.
Madeline wanted to speak. So many things she wanted to say. She wanted to spit in Wendell’s face, to scream at him an
d rail and step out through that doorway to pound the man’s chest with her fists. She did what she always did. She stood, and she waited.
“They are planning the feast,” Wendell said softly. “For Reverend Forbes, and for Reverend McKeeman. For others as well. All those who’ve died. It may be too late, but damned if it don’t seem the only right thing to do.”
Madeline was shaking, and a soft moan gave away the tears that had begun streaming from her eyes. She tried to speak, but only a squeak of sound escaped. Too much at once. Too many images surfacing, too many questions. She bit her lip, concentrated. Thomas and Wendell stood, Wendell still twisting that damned hat, waiting for her to compose herself and answer.
“Who?” she asked at last, forcing the word between quivering lips. “Who will perform the service?”
“His name is Payne,” Wendell answered, “Reverend Payne. He was a friend of Reverend Forbes. He’d come here to see him. Hell of a day for visiting, if you take my meaning. Hell of a day no matter what you think. We’ve come to see if you will forgive us, Maddy. I know we don’t deserve it. Hell, I don’t even know if Brian is out there. I figured you might know. We all did. You’ve asked so many times about the ceremony . . .”
The words trailed off. Madeline’s mind spun crazily, and she leaned against the doorframe for support.
“They don’t remember, ma’am,” Thomas cut in. “They don’t know what we know, begging your pardon for lumping such as myself together with you. They need your help to get it right. They just don’t understand any more.”
Madeline gulped down the tears. She straightened her shoulders and breathed deeply.
“That is one hell of a lot of sin,” she said softly. “What makes you . . . what makes this Reverend Payne, think that it should happen all at once? Why? Wendell Ames, when have you ever heard of so many deaths and a single feast? Do we know what will happen? Do we know how long is too long? Reverend Forbes could have told us. He always said it had to be soon. Before the soul could slip away tainted. Why is it different now?”
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