Thomas didn’t know, and he didn’t understand exactly why someone might fail in receiving a blessing. He just wanted to obtain the blessing of a green thumb. He would have one chance to ask for the blessing. If he petitioned and didn’t receive it, he could not ask again, as a second petition never succeeded.
“Did you hear me?” Miss Sadie said.
“What? Yes?”
“No, you didn’t. The spell has two parts. They’re going to cast one part today, and will have to cast the other part later. That means you can still stop them.”
He looked at her, startled not only because he hadn’t realized that, but because she’d suggested it. She’d become his ally. For that, he was grateful. Now he had Franky and her and Stanley. Well, most of the time he had Stanley. When the dog wasn’t off chasing squirrels.
“I guess you’re right.”
Already, his mind started racing to figure out how to stop the next spell. The most obvious way was to keep them from taking her body to Zion’s. But might he also convince the council to not grant permission to cast the second part of the spell.
Thomas, if you let them resurrect me, you’ll pay for it. I’ll make your life miserable. You’d best stop them.
“What happens if the second spell isn’t completed?” he said.
She shrugged. “She dies, like normal.”
“She’s not stuck in some purgatory? Some in-between place?”
“No.”
“But she’s there right now, isn’t she?”
“Not sure,” she said. “I only know that normally when you’re going to be resurrected, your soul stays in your body.”
“Right,” he said. “During that time your life passes before your eyes. You see everything in a rush.”
“The Life Vision. I never could figure out why you would want to see your life again.”
Thomas shrugged. The preachers said it was so that you could see all your mistakes, so that when you resurrected you could change your life. Live better and prepare for your final judgment. Thomas just figured it was a way for people to suffer through another life.
“Maybe,” he said, “we should go see what’s going on up there right now.”
As she led her horse up to the house, he told her about the zombie encounter the night before. She stopped and stared at him, her pretty mouth open just a little.
“You killed it?”
“Chopped its head clean off as it tried to drag Clara May away. It thought she was you.”
“Where is the body, now?”
“We took it out to the side of the yard.” He motioned to the left, where the field ended. “We figured you might want to look at it, so we didn’t bury it yet.”
She shook her head and started forward again, her eyes hard.
“I won’t look at it. I hate those things.”
“Were you a zombie raiser?”
“No need to look at it. I’ve seen plenty of them and seeing one more won’t tell me anything new.”
He made the decision to not press the issue.
Up at the house she tied her horse next to Mr. Milne’s. Thomas stood at the foot of the stairs, waiting for her. When she came to him, he ascended the stairs and started to say something about Papa not being in his rocker, but stopped. She hadn’t climbed the stairs with him.
“Aren’t you coming up?”
“May I?” she asked. “May I enter your house?”
He frowned. “Of course. Come up and in.”
She lifted the hem of her dress and climbed the stairs.
Though the house smiled on the outside, on the inside it felt dead. Cold. Since he’d left a little more than an hour and a half before, it was as if all warmth had seeped from the house’s wood, from the furniture. A strange chill hung at the door. Thomas touched the doorpost as he paused, and shivered.
Mama was dead.
Papa, Charles, and Franky sat at the table. Mr. Milne stood in the doorway to Mama’s room.
“By the Good Shepherd’s mercy,” Papa was saying, “I’m thankful that you could gather that information for us, Mr. Milne. For asking the council about resurrecting her.”
“Which we shouldn’t do,” Thomas said. He stepped across the room to stand in the doorway to his room. “She used up her second-life days so that she wouldn’t have to come back to you people. Why defy her wishes?”
“Now Thomas,” Papa said. “We know you’re grieving, but there’s no reason to be harsh. We’re all cut by her death.”
“She doesn’t want to come back,” Thomas said. “I swear she doesn’t.”
Clara May came into the kitchen from her room, and moved to the table. She leaned on it as if she otherwise would have fallen. She looked pale and drawn, like she’d been sick.
“Did she say it to you?” Charles said. “Are you certain?”
Thomas frowned. He couldn’t remember her ever saying she didn’t want to come back. But why would she want to? He couldn’t remember her ever exhibiting happiness for any prolonged period. She had flashes of pleasure, at times, but even those seemed long gone. More than a decade old. Work and family seemed to consume her life—neither of which she particularly loved. Well, except for Charles. But maybe she didn’t even love him. She just let him do whatever he wanted.
“I sure wouldn’t want to come back,” Thomas said.
“We need to bring her back,” Mr. Milne said.
“Why do you even care?” Thomas asked. “It’s not like she’s your family.”
He nearly said something about his suspicions about Franky, but held his tongue.
“I need my Mama,” Clara May said.
She pushed past Thomas toward the doorway to Mama’s room. For a moment it looked like she’d lose her balance, and fall into Mama’s room. Even Mr. Milne moved to catch her. But she grabbed the door post and steadied herself.
She closed her eyes, raised her eyebrows, and shook her head.
“A girl needs her Mama at times like this.”
“Times like what?” Thomas asked.
Clara May didn’t answer. She just shook her head. Miss Sadie looked at Clara May, her face both worried and appalled. Thomas thought of their meeting in the barn the day before.
“We’re going to bring her back,” Charles said. “And I’m going to do it.”
“You should know the risk, first,” Mr. Milne said.
“Risk?” Papa said.
Mr. Milne gave Charles a solemn look.
“It’s dangerous to bring someone back without knowing for certain they wanted to come back. Before they died, they could have cast a spell that would . . . punish you for bringing them back.”
“They can steal all of your second-life days,” Miss Sadie said.
“Or,” Mr. Milne said, “they can steal all of your first-life days, and kill you instantly.”
“Why would someone who didn’t want to be resurrected do that?” Thomas said.
Mr. Milne shrugged. “To punish you. Or to get a longer second life—one they could actually do something with. When you’re resurrected this way, the person resurrecting you must transfer some of his second-life days to you. Most only give you enough to bring you back for a little while. A few years at most. Not long enough to use much magic.”
“That still makes no sense to me,” Miss Sadie said. “Why wouldn’t they just cast a spell to prevent you from even resurrecting them?”
“I know of no spell like that,” Mr. Milne said. “Do you?”
Her mouth opened and closed several times, and she shook her head.
“Well, zombies don’t have that problem. They’ll live forever. Or until their body rots to pieces.”
“Well then, there you go!” Thomas said. “Let’s bring her back as a zombie. Problem solved.”
Everyone glared at him. He glared back. He was done with them. Done. Done. Done. And he wouldn’t help them resurrect her.
He sighed and pushed past Clara May, so he could visit Mama. They continued talking about the spe
ll, and he ignored their voices.
Mama sat on the bed, propped up against the wall, her eyes closed. The air in the room made Thomas’s lungs cold as he breathed and moved around the bed, to the stool where the doctor had sat the day before. He couldn’t take his eyes off of Mama. She looked different than he’d ever seen her. Wrinkles still covered her tanned face, and her hair was still pulled back in the same ponytail. Random wisps hung or stood out. She still wore that same tattered dress that matched the color and quality of her face.
He pulled her covers down and lifted her downward, so that she could lay flat on her back. She slumped into the pillow and bed sheet without trouble, with only the sigh of cloth against cloth. He pulled the covers back up to her neck, and looked at her laying there, just a head sticking out of the bed.
She looked so different.
He sat on the edge of the bed and reached under the covers for her hand. Finding it, he held it. It was cold. Very cold, almost as if it was her body that cooled the house. He just sat there and looked at her, trying to figure out what made her look so different.
“Are you trying to break her hand,” Charles said. He stood in the doorway, where Clara May had been. Thomas hadn’t seen him there.
“Go away,” Thomas said. Nevertheless, he released her hand, put it back on the bed. “Go away, or I’ll kill you as dead as her.”
It was true. He hadn’t realized it until that moment, but the sight of Charles set his soul to seething. All of his emotions for Mama and Charles and his family boiled up. Such loss and sadness and anger and bitterness. He could feel it in the pressure he placed on the balls of his feet, in his boots. It tingled in his fingers and rang in his ears.
Somehow he knew that Mama had tried to turn him into a copy of her. And she’d let Charles do whatever he wanted.
He didn’t know who to hate more.
Mr. Milne entered the room.
“Thomas,” he said. “We’re ready to cast the spell. I’d like you to leave, please.”
At first, the Lord gave me two sons. One to love me, and one to suffer with me. Or so I thought.
Chapter 13: The unfelt wind
Papa sat at the table and gave Thomas a wary look. Charles’s voice came strong and even from Mama’s room as he chanted the words of the spell. Mr. Milne stood in the doorway to Mama’s room, and turned to Thomas with a frown.
“Don’t try anything,” he said, for the fifth time.
Thomas grunted. “What good would it do?”
He stood close to the door to Clara May’s room, near where he’d decapitated the zombie only nine hours before. From this vantage point, he could see into his parent’s room. Clara May sat on the stool on the far side of the bed. He couldn’t see Charles, who knelt at the foot of the bed, or Franky and Miss Sadie, who apparently stood behind him.
Mama lay on top of the covers wearing her Sunday dress: a brown thing similar to what she wore everyday, except with a white collar and fewer holes. The bumblebee sat over one closed eye, and the bowl of the spoon over the other, with the handle resting on the bed next to her. Charles had shoved a sizable piece of stale bread in her mouth. Over her breast lay a folded piece of paper. Thomas had never seen it before, but it must have been the item meant to connect Charles to her. Something she’d written to him? A note of some sort?
Mama wasn’t exactly the note-leaving type. She’d had never written Thomas a note. What could it possibly say?
He bent to one knee and Stanley came to him. Thomas scratched the top of his head and his neck.
“I now sacrifice my second-life days for Mama,” Charles said. “I give freely, and command her soul to stay with her body for three days more. At that time, if she has not received the blessing of a glorious resurrection, she is free to go.”
Simple words, but powerful when combined with the ingredients placed in the right spot. Thomas braced himself mentally for the magic to take effect. It was the same every time. He’d cast spells dozens of times, himself, but none that required so many second-life days.
The sound of wind, originating from the bed, began to grow. At first it sounded like only a breeze through distant trees, but over many seconds its volume increased. It progressed from a breeze to a gust, to a wind, to a torrent. Stanley began to shake as he crouched at Thomas’s feet. He looked around with wide eyes. The windy sound filled the house like water filling a barrel.
The house began to shake. Plates and cups on the table vibrated. Boards creaked and groaned. Stanley eyed the door, whimpered. The noise covered the entire spectrum, both high and low. It pierced Thomas’s ears and vibrated in his chest. He’d heard the sound before, when he’d used his own magic, or when Mama had used hers. But it had never been so loud.
Yet there was no actual wind. Just the sound. Hearing it, Thomas couldn’t help but look inside himself with his mental eye, to the place where Mama had taught him to store his second-life days: a well.
She’d started teaching him immediately after he’d petitioned for the second life, while they still stood atop Angel’s Landing. He only remembered it now like standing on the top of a stone with cliffs all around him, and her kneeling, facing him, hands on his shoulders. The wind whipped at her hair, so that it almost covered her face. She’d been much younger, then, without so many wrinkles by her eyes or on her forehead.
“Look deep inside yourself,” she said. “Close your eyes and look inside yourself with your mind and heart. You will see a well.”
He had no idea how he’d done it. He’d just looked inside, and he saw it. A stony well, about waist high and surrounded by dry red ground. A kind of liquid light filled the well to the very top, like it did each time he returned to the well. It roiled and shifted like water in a bucket as you carried it. No sky above. Just a black void. A space of nothingness.
From then on, whenever Thomas used his second-life days to cast a spell, the non-physical wind came and lifted the liquid light up and out of the well, carried it into the black oblivion. The more second-life days the spell required, the more second-life days the wind carried away, and the louder the sound of the wind. He’d never used more than a few days at a time.
But this spell, the resurrection spell, required two months for each day Charles kept her soul with her body. Six months, total.
The sound persisted. It filled Thomas’s head. Clara May cried out and threw herself over Mama’s body, knocking the spoon and bumblebee away.
Thomas’s heart leaped—maybe she’d interrupted the spell. But the sound of the gale continued, louder and louder. A wooden cup bounced on the table near Papa, and fell over the edge and clattered on the floor. Behind Thomas, in his bedroom, a board snapped with a crack. Stanley, unable to take it any longer, yelped and bolted free of Thomas’s grasp and out the door. Papa grabbed the edges of the table to steady himself.
Thomas stepped toward Mr. Milne, who tensed and prepared to tackle Thomas, but Thomas only wanted to watch Charles. As far as he knew, Charles had never given so many second-life days at once. Thomas certainly hadn’t. It would cause considerable physical exhaustion. One could get used to using more and more second-life days, just like one could increase muscle strength with a conscious effort. But there was small chance Charles had made enough effort to condition his body to this rigor. The only way to do it was to cast spells.
Charles knelt at the foot of the bed, his face turned toward the ceiling and his jaw clenched. The veins in his neck bulged. He gripped the posts on the footboard with white-knuckled hands. The muscles in his trembling arms stood out.
Miss Sadie held Franky. Her face was calm, stoic, as if she’d seen this and more a thousand times and did not approve.
The sound grew yet louder. The rattling became almost as loud as the wind. It seemed the roof would collapse. More cups and utensils fell from the table or counter. If any pictures had hung on the walls, they would’ve fallen off.
Then came a sucking sound, like something pulling water down a drain much faster than grav
ity ever could. The noise grew louder, paused for an instant, and ended with a crack. Not like distant rolling thunder, but like a lightning bolt had struck inside Thomas's head. It didn’t rumble or roll. It just cracked.
Charles’s face pitched forward onto the bed. His body heaved in great breaths. His hands slipped from the bedposts, down to his side. He groaned.
Now that is a boy who is willing to sacrifice for his Mama. Even so, he’s misguided by his love. Thomas, you have to stop him. That is how you can show me that you love me.
“It’s done,” Mr. Milne said.
Thomas looked at him. “It’s done? Really?”
Charles stumbled to his feet, losing his balance and stepping backward into Franky and Miss Sadie. Crying out, they fell against the wall next to the window. Charles pushed away. Utter exhaustion filled his eyes—almost enough to make Thomas pity him—joined with determination. His face contorted in effort as he pitched forward, back toward the bed.
With a thud, he slammed his hand down onto the note on Mama’s chest. Clara May, still lying protectively over Mama’s head, jumped back in surprise. Charles clenched the paper, catching some of her dress. As he staggered away, toward Mr. Milne and Thomas, he pulled her dress for a moment, until he loosened his grip and the dress slipped out of his hand.
Mr. Milne caught him, kept him from falling, but Charles fought him. Thomas moved out of the way. Charles broke free from Mr. Milne. He staggered like a man who hadn’t seen the sober side of a morning in decades, and in a second disappeared out of the front door.
A minute passed in silence. No one looked at each other. Miss Sadie helped Franky stand, and he clung to her, wide-eyed and trembling. She put her arms around him, and Thomas remembered the feeling of her arms around him the day before. The warmth and softness. Mr. Milne shuffled his feet, looked away. Mama lay on the bed. Her face relaxed and peaceful, but some of the color had returned to it. She didn’t look so ashen.
Poor thing. She was halfway back to living.
Keep Mama Dead Page 11
