The four councilmen, two sitting on each side of the mayor, wore pinstriped suits. They almost looked like replicas of each other, with their thin faces comprised almost entirely of mustaches and beards. Until one of them spoke, it had looked like they didn’t have mouths for the abundance of facial hair that covered their lips, chins, and jaws in such a finely groomed manner that they would have impressed even Miss Sadie. It amazed Thomas how alike they looked.
Of course, if rumors were true, each time a new council member was elected, they collectively went up to Zion’s Canyon, atop Angel’s Landing, and petitioned for the blessing of a oneness of spirit.
Their bowler hats hung on a hat rack in a corner behind them. At the same end of the room, a podium sat on a small riser. Thomas and his siblings sat on a bench facing the council, but remained separated from them by a low railing. Fifteen rows of benches filled the room behind them, split down the middle by an aisle. Mr. Milne and Papa stood on the opposite side of the rail, at a wooden podium that faced the council. Eli and Miss Sadie waited outside with Stanley, Mama, and the horses.
“With all due respect,” Papa said, “a man needs his wife.”
He scooted to the side, to stand directly before the podium, forcing Mr. Milne to move over. Papa, with his worn-out overalls and scruffy tanned face looked like a misfit next to the council members. All the Bakers probably did. Franky in his overalls and no shoes. Clara May in her drab dress. Charles in his fancy riding boots and second-hand button shirt. Thomas with his messed up hair, pants stained with red farm soil, and suspenders faded to gray.
“Yes,” the mayor said, his Irish accent thick. “We know every man needs a wife.”
Papa continued as if he hadn’t heard the comment. “I’ve tried and tried my whole life to live the law and follow the Lord, and I’ve done nothing but get spat upon by my circumstances. Ever since my petition for a blessing failed, I don’t have the strength to even work. And my good wife has—.”
The Mayor raised his hand and shook his head, making his chins jiggle. “You’ve already made this argument, Mr. Baker. I’m very sorry, but we cannot grant permission to resurrect someone based on the fact that you’re going to miss her and because you need her to cook for you.”
The pronouncement left the room in silence. It already felt stale and stuffy, as if no one had bothered to air it out after a recent meeting had packed the place to overflowing. Not that some enterprising person couldn’t have aired the room out. The wide double doors in the back opened up to a foyer that led directly to the street, and the half-circle windows that adorned the top of the high walls like a crown could have opened inward to let fresh air in. Maybe they simply hadn’t had time.
Papa began to speak, but one of the council members interrupted him. Thomas liked them more every moment.
“Imagine if we let you bring her back,” the council member said. He sat on the far left. If his accent were any indication, he hailed from England. “We’d have people asking us to resurrect anyone that died early. Children, parents, friends. It’d be chaos. We’d be no different than the Moabites, then.”
The council member sat with excellent posture. All of them did, and throughout the meeting thus far—not much more than five minutes—whenever someone spoke they turned their heads, but never rotated their shoulders or bodies. Their eyes never seemed to move in their sockets, as if they could only look in the direction their face turned.
“Might we suggest,” said the council member on the far right. Thomas could not place his accent. Southern United States, maybe? The heads of the rest of them swiveled to look at him. “That you find a new wife if you need someone to cook for you?”
Thomas repressed an amused grunt; as if there existed a woman who would marry Papa. Mama had married him, but Thomas suspected that Papa’s true nature hadn’t yet shone forth, or he’d essentially deceived Mama. But Papa would find it hard to hide his laziness and unpleasantness, now.
“Gentlemen, please,” Mr. Milne said. He spread his hands in a grand gesture. “This family is destitute without their matriarch. And she deserves to live again, to have more days.” He half turned and gestured at Charles. “Her son has agreed to sacrifice four years of his second life to her.”
The council regarded Charles with curiosity.
“Four years?” the Mayor said. “That’s significant. A great show of dedication.” Something seemed to occur to him, and his brow furrowed. “Do all of you think she should be resurrected?”
The question, directed at the family children, made Thomas’s heart race. Since they’d completed the first part of the spell the morning before, he’d considered what he might say to the council.
Now is your chance, Thomas. Don’t blow it!
Clara May said, “Of course.”
Charles said, “Yes.”
Franky said, “Why not?”
Thomas frowned at Franky. The boy didn’t know any better, but he should have. He had more sense than most people, even if he had less brains, and Thomas could have used his support. He shook his head and spoke in a firm voice.
“No, she should not be resurrected.”
The council members turned their heads to him, most of them with raised eyebrows. He looked down the row, trying to meet each of their gazes in turn.
Papa rushed to fix the catastrophe.
“You can’t listen to that one. He’s always hated his mother. His endless tormenting of her is practically the reason she’s dead.”
Thomas clenched his fists in his lap, but kept his composure. He wanted to look like the reasonable person in the group.
“Tell us more,” the mayor said to Thomas.
A myriad of reasons flashed across Thomas’s mind. He chose to use those most charitable toward Mama.
“I doubt she wants to be resurrected. She’s worked her whole life and spent all of her second-life days in service to her family. She’s labored and lived hard.” He gestured at Papa, who had his back to him, and remembered how Mama had screamed back on the farm, when he’d tried to get her to stay with him as he dug her intended grave. “I can’t believe she’d want to return to this, to near slavery.”
Charles, who sat to the left, on the other side of Franky, leaped to his feet and turned to Thomas. His face flushed with crimson.
“That’s a lie! You always hated Mama. If anything, she wouldn’t want to come back to you.”
Steady, Thomas! Steady!
Thomas didn’t respond. He just sat there and gave the council a patient look, as if to say, See what she would come back to?
“Charles,” Mr. Milne said, “that’s not helping.”
“He never loved Mama!” Charles said. “You shouldn’t even be considered her son.”
Thomas’s calm broke. “And you never lifted a hand to help her all her life. All you ever did was make more work, when you should have lightened her load. Instead, you go and get that horse. Who had to support that horse? Who had to cover your work while you went off and earned the money? Who—”
“Thomas!” Mr. Milne said. “Enough.”
Thomas glared at him. Why did he care, anyway? Why was he so bent on resurrecting Mama? He really had no business here.
“Charles,” Mr. Milne said. “Enough. Sit down.”
“It does seem unnatural,” the Mayor said, “that a son wouldn’t want his mother back.”
The indirect accusation stung Thomas. He wanted to respond, but kept his mouth shut. None of these people understood. Not one of them.
He thought of Mama in her last hours, laying there in her bed, just staring at nothing, breathing slow, flesh as cold as the river she’d floated down the next day. He seemed to hear her chiding him again, as he had then.
Don’t you let them bring me back, Thomas. Don’t you dare. I’ve served my time. I’ve done my part. You do anything you can to keep me dead.
The Mayor shrugged and looked down each side of the council in turn.
“But it doesn’t matter either way. We
won’t grant your request. We simply cannot do it.”
Thomas raised his eyebrows at Charles, and smiled in celebration of victory. He’d succeeded. Despite his inability to hide the bumblebee and spoon, his failure to bury her, and his indecision in pushing her up the canal, the council had made its decision. Charles scowled and shook his head. He glared from the council to Thomas.
“Well,” Franky said, “that’s that.”
Clara May began to cry.
“Gentlemen,” Mr. Milne said. He straightened his back. “I have more to contribute to the discussion. Critical information that may change your minds. However, it’s of a sensitive nature, and best kept to as few ears as possible.”
Thomas didn’t like this. He wanted to object on principle, but couldn’t find a principle upon which to base his objection.
“Well then,” the Mayor said, “it’s a good thing this isn’t a public meeting then, isn’t it?”
Thomas liked that man. He would have to learn his name.
“Yes,” Mr. Milne said, “but I also think it would be best if I could speak with you privately on the matter.”
The mayor frowned. “I don’t understand, Mr. Milne. You want to discuss the raising of this family’s wife and mother without them present? And without the council?”
“That’s correct, sir.”
Papa gave Mr. Milne a steady look. “I don’t know what reason you can give that would exclude us. You’ve done a lot for our family, but she ain’t your wife. She ain’t your mother. Any reason you can give the council, can be given to all of us.”
For a brief, incomprehensible moment, Thomas almost felt respect for Papa. Then Papa opened his mouth again.
“The Lord knows we ain’t beholden to you or any other man or family. We take care of ourselves.”
Not a person spoke as Mr. Milne gave Papa a steady look. The tick-tock of a clock in the back of the room, hanging above the double doors, filled the silence.
“Very well,” Mr. Milne said. “As inappropriate as I think it is, you can stay. You can hear it as the head of the house. But everyone else should leave.”
“Very well,” the Mayor said. He motioned at the bench where Thomas sat with the others. “Go ahead and step out into the foyer, so Mr. Milne can give us his secret information. But, Mr. Milne, you’ll have to talk with me and the entire council. Anything you say to me, you can say to them.”
Mr. Milne nodded in acceptance, and looked expectantly at the Baker children.
“Go on,” the Mayor said. “We’ll notify you once we’ve heard Mr. Milne’s plea.”
* * *
The foyer, with its wooden benches and chairs, could have sat twenty around its edges, and another twenty could have crammed into the floor space. On each side of the double doors that led outside, windows gave a wide view of the street. Eli and Miss Sadie sat out by the horses, where Mama lay slumped over Mr. Milne’s saddle. Not many people walked the street.
Franky went outside. Charles sat in a chair. Eli and Miss Sadie came in. Clara May ran to her fiancé and sobbed into his chest about how the council wouldn’t let Charles resurrect Mama. Eli tried to comfort her by reassuring her that they would, although Thomas didn’t understand upon what basis he made his argument. What could Mr. Milne possibly say to the council?
Miss Sadie sat in a chair and folded her hands in her lap. Her dress still seemed pressed and newly washed, although dirt smudged her face and she might have used a brush run through her hair. But still, Thomas had never seen anyone so elegant.
He ignored everyone by examining the pair of oil paintings hanging on opposite walls. Gilded wood framed the pictures, which depicted the war nineteen years before, at the time of Charles’s and Thomas’s births, when the Moabites had invaded. Thomas could have spread his arms wide and not spanned the width of the paintings. One showed the Moabites lined up in battle formation outside of Gateway, their city of tents spread out behind them. A little brass plate at the bottom of the painting labeled it as “Impending Doom.” The opposite painting, called “Unexpected Victory,” showed the zombie ranks burning, and the human forces fleeing, leaving their tent cities behind.
Swords hung on virtually every other available space on the wall. Long, thin, curved blades—cutlasses rather than rapiers—some with plain hilts, others bearing elaborate ornamentation. A plaque indicated that the swords dated back to the war, and that they played a role in the victory against the Moabites, but as far as Thomas understood history, not one of them had actually decapitated a single zombie. The barrier spell had both started and finished the job.
As Thomas worked his way around the room, turning his hat in his hands, looking at the ornaments, he passed by Miss Sadie.
“Interesting weapons,” she said. She pointed at them with her folded parasol, almost as if it were a sword. “Old-fashioned.”
He shrugged, remembering their brief conversation about swords the day before. “How else would you kill a zombie?”
“As vile as they are, why would you need to kill a zombie?”
He grunted and pointed over at the painting of the Moabites before the barrier spell went up.
“Because if you don’t, they’ll invade, eat your brains, and steal your land.”
“I lived with them my entire life, and I still have most of my brains. At least, as far as I know.”
Thomas shrugged again. He didn’t understand her point. Did she think to deny that an army of zombies had attacked and slaughtered the people of Monument Valley, then invaded Hurricane and Gateway with similar intentions? Maybe the zombies did have some of her brains.
By the time they’d waited about five minutes—just long enough for Eli to calm Clara May—the doors to the courtroom opened. Papa emerged first. A triumphant grin lit his face.
“They gave us permission,” he said. “We’re headed to Zion’s.”
“What in the holy blazes of hell are they thinking?” Thomas said. How could it even be? He’d only heard of the council allowing the resurrection of one person, for about three days in order to settle a trial.
“Yes!” Charles said.
He jumped up from his chair with his fists clenched in celebration. He gave Thomas an exultant smile. It felt far more demoralizing than even the beating Thomas had received two days before.
Clara May began to cry again.
Mr. Milne followed Papa out of the room. He looked pleased, but not smug. The council came out in a line, with the Mayor emerging last. They looked relieved, puzzled, and worried all at once.
“How could you do this?” Thomas said. “What did he tell you?”
The Mayor gave him a sympathetic look.
“I’m sorry, son. But what Mr. Milne said to us should, indeed, remain secret. Know, however, that we do not grant this permission lightly.”
“Oh, I feel much better,” Thomas said.
They shuffled out of the building, followed by Mr. Milne and the Bakers. Thomas remained inside with Miss Sadie. She patted his arm. He just stood there, shaking his head. She tilted up on her tip-toes, leaned into him, and gave him a sympathy kiss on the cheek.
“I’m sorry you’re so upset,” she said.
He almost didn’t hear it, though, for at the exact moment her lips had touched his cheeks, bells started to ring. Her kiss thrilled him, sent electricity down his spine. It took all his effort to remind himself that girls offered nothing but a trap, a lifetime of servitude.
But still, the bells rang.
“What is that?” she said. She headed for the door.
“What’s what?”
He watched her back, how the dress outlined her shoulder blades. She moved with such grace. Practically slid across the floor.
“Those bells,” she said. “Can’t you hear them?”
He started as if awaking from a daze, and realized that the bells in fact didn’t originate inside his head. They came from outside. On the street, the people scattered, ran in every direction in a panic. The door flew open and
the council members filed in, in a perfect line, each looking like a replica of the other with their worried faces and erect postures.
“What are those bells?” Thomas asked.
“It’s the alarm,” a council member said. “Zombies are coming.”
* * *
The mayor came in from the street, behind the council, followed by Mr. Milne, Stanley, and the Bakers. Franky and Charles had lifted Mama off of the horse and brought her inside. They set her down in front of the chairs beneath the painting of the zombies burning. They extended her legs, crossed her arms over her chest, and lined up with the rest of the group in front of the windows, to watch the street.
“It’s a whole mob of zombies,” the English councilman said.
“With a white flag of truce,” another said. He also had an English accent.
Thomas thought of the night back on the farm, when the zombie had attacked his home, tried to steal Mama first, then his sister. He remembered the chill skin and the removal of an arm and head in the moonlight. He thought of the day before, how the zombies had outrun Brady’s horses, then come up the bridge against a rain of bullets. One had struck Charles and forced him off the bridge. A few moments later, a zombie had chased him through the water, and only with luck—the well-timed kick to the face and the rock to the head—had Thomas survived the encounter. The ashen skin. The collapsed head. The moaning and untiring pursuit.
Zombies. In Hurricane.
Clara May’s tears—nearly unabated since the courtroom—had now become tears of worry. It seemed she could cry forever, at the slightest surge of any emotion. Was it just the pregnancy?
Thomas started toward the window, to peer outside. Between the four council members, the mayor, the four other Bakers, Mr. Milne, and Eli, he couldn’t squeeze in, so had to look over them. Even Stanley stood on a chair by the window, tongue lolling. Only Miss Sadie didn’t crowd around the windows. She stood with her back to the courtroom doors, her face calm but colorless. She looked ready to faint.
“Are you okay?” Thomas said.
She nodded, eyes wide. She licked her lips and dry washed her hands.
“Fine. Perfectly fine.”
Keep Mama Dead Page 17
