And then it clicks: that cloth waving behind the irontree was a priest, waiting. A priest who tried to drown me. I take a long step back into the cover of the oasis.
I could stay here, yes—but then what? Hide each time someone comes looking for water? Pilfer from the flower fields until I’m caught and hanged as a heretic? I gaze around at the mountains, so tall and terrible that no trader has risked their passes in nearly a decade. Never has the world seemed so small.
So I call out, just a wordless yell that carries over the snow and reverberates around the valley. The priest waves, waits.
I’m shivering by the time I reach him, my sweaty clothes gone stiff in the cold. But my knife’s heavy against my hip, which is no small comfort.
“What...happened?” the priest says, just as forced as I expected.
I must be a wonder to look at, between the frostbite and the sunburn, the frozen skirts and the exposed skin. “The ice gave way when I was getting water,” I say. “I lost both the buckets.”
“But you made it out,” the priest says. “That’s what matters.” He upends his sled and the load of firewood topples into the snow. “Here, sit. The wood can wait.”
The sled’s simple—just a few thin boards tied together to form a platform, with a wedge tacked onto the front to help it ride over the snow. I sit in the center and try not to scream.
The priest shrugs his robe off and drapes it over my shoulders. It’s heavy, much heavier than I thought it’d be, and it smells like clove and old sweat. But it covers me entirely, so I slip my knife free beneath its smothering weight, just in case.
“Thank you, Father,” I say.
“Of course.” He’s got a harness on, and his first few steps are plodding as he pulls the sled into motion, but then he’s found an easy rhythm and I’m gliding over the snow.
“Did you hear anything?” the priest says between breaths. “When you went under.”
“Like what?”
“Mmm,” he says, his voice dripping with disappointment. “You’d know it if you’d heard it.”
Maybe that was what he was after: to force me into a moment of need so that the Godflower could save the day. I wonder if he thinks it a pity that I saved myself instead.
But he wouldn’t see it that way, would he? He’d think the ice held because the Godflower willed it to hold. Oh, what I would give to see magic in the every day. Disbelieving is so lonely.
And no doubt the priest thinks his act a service; thinks himself more savior than slayer. Because what is a body worth if you’re certain it’s transient? Because if he’s right—and if there’s a better life waiting for me on the other side—then he’s faultless, no matter how cruel his methods.
“What does it mean?” I say. “That the Godflower didn’t sing to me. That it never has.”
He shrugs. “Perhaps your test is simply greater than most.”
“What do you mean?”
“What weight would your sacrifice carry if you truly knew it would be rewarded?”
“I’d still be dying,” I say. “Why isn’t that enough? Why can’t the Godflower just prove it’s what everyone claims it is?” I squeeze the handle of my knife, hard. “I just don’t see what the Godflower gets out of playing games with our lives.”
“We all carry doubts, child. But doubt does not a monster make.”
It seems to me that it’s certainty that turns men into monsters, though I bite my tongue.
“The moment is coming,” he continues, “when you’ll have to choose your path. And I hope that when you do, you consider the example you’re setting for the other children. This body of yours belongs to the Godflower—to all of us—and we’ll need your bloom to get through the winter, and the next, and so on.”
“I understand,” I say, my heart heavy, so very heavy. “A leap of faith.”
“A leap of faith,” the priest says, nodding.
In the end, it turns out that Brother was right—the knives really are sharp, so sharp that you can barely feel them bite, no matter how deeply they slip beneath the skin.
At least I think that’s the case, because the priest didn’t scream when I drove the knife into his back. But maybe he did feel it and I just happened to hit a lung. A miracle either way, I suppose.
In any case, I bury the priest shallow, so shallow that his head and hands and feet protrude from the snow and only a few inches of frozen dirt cover his chest. Then it’s my turn to wait.
When tomorrow comes, we will see once and for all if the Godflower is willing to feed upon holy flesh. We will see if a murdered body blooms the same as that of a martyr. We will see just how many of our sacrifices are necessary.
And I will face what comes with clear eyes. Not for me, but for the many children waiting to be born with a knife already at their throats.
© Copyright 2019 Kyle Kirrin
Kyle Kirrin - [BCS292 S02] - The Petals of the Godflower (html) Page 2
