“He shoots, he scores.” Pepper’s Mill First Baptist was too small for a basketball team, or any other kind of team, so he’d missed out on sports growing up. This was as close as he could get; the Reverend didn’t want him around the wrong kind of locker room talk. His only exercise was a walk around town and as much of a workout as he could get in this bedroom.
He stopped in front of the full-length mirror he used to coordinate his Sunday outfits, pulling back a few Scripture-covered sticky notes that blocked his view. Not bad. Those muscles were finally defining themselves. Now if that mustache would grow in and join the rest of his beard, he’d look like a man instead of a scraggly kid.
A thought came to him. He grabbed a notebook from his desk and flipped to the very last page. At the top was printed Preacher’s Kid Freedom List, with several to-dos underneath. Grabbing a pencil, he added Go shirtless in public. That would be the day. The Reverend would have a fit. He’d delivered more than one drive-by sermon against half-dressed joggers they passed on the road. How much more enraged would he be to find his son showing off his body and “causing women to stumble”?
An absent-minded smile crossed Abel’s lips as he wondered what Morgan would think of him shirtless. Then he shook his head. Better not to go down that path. “But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” He shrugged. Of course, she’d be doing the looking, not me. I can hardly be blamed for that. And if I look at her … well, she is beautiful.
He tugged on a pair of jeans, a long-sleeved shirt, and a cardigan sweater, and looked at his little garden on the windowsill. Mason jars of wet, black earth sprouted basil and mint, rosemary and oregano. A few strange growths poked up among the cilantro. He flipped through the pages of his notebook; the ones not dedicated to the Freedom List each bore the name of a plant, a description and sketch, and various uses and warnings. The offending weed was some kind of clover, based on the three round leaves, but that white band around the middle had him curious.
Bingo. White clover, trifolium repens. Common weed. Well, Mr. Trifolium Repens, you are not welcome in my garden. He plucked them from the soil, making sure the roots came up too, and dropped them in the trash can.
Then he fed each jar from a cup of water, careful not to oversoak the little plants. The mint grew thick and tall; he’d need to repot it soon, split it up or find a bigger jar. I bet it wants to grow free out in the open. I bet it feels trapped by those glass walls, not able to stretch out like it needs to. I know how it feels.
With a jolt, he remembered Morgan’s napkin. He fished it out of the pocket of his pants, now hanging next to his coat in the closet, and unfolded it.
Let’s leave these cages for good
My house
160 Plantation Rd.
8:00pm
Don’t keep me waiting
Abel stood frozen as the napkin dropped from his hands. Morgan was asking him, a complete stranger, to run away with her. Why him? Why wouldn’t she leave by herself? True, he had felt some connection between them when they first met, but this was moving way too fast, especially for small town South Carolina. What was so special about him that she wanted him with her?
And why should he leave? There was freeing yourself from a trap, and then there was abandoning the only people you knew to go off on your own.
He glanced back at the notebook. The Freedom List had always been more of a fantasy, or at most something to try during college. To put it into practice now … was he ready?
This room was hardly a prison. Or was it? His father’s presence was everywhere, from the sticky notes on the mirror to the junk drawer full of Bible Drill medals and Vacation Bible School crafts to the stacks of used church bulletins and Bibles in different translations and even the bookshelves crammed with theological nonfiction.
And where was he, Abel? An out-of-tune guitar in the corner from the time he’d been interested in music until he realized all he knew were hymns and identical-sounding worship songs, a few secular novels tucked away under the bed, a calendar of Irish castles he’d probably never see, and the windowsill herbs his mother had helped him plant. His hand dipped beneath his shirt and gripped the golden cross that hung on a chain around his neck. Another gift from his mother. Proof that the Reverend wasn’t the only source of faith in his life, that it wasn’t all rules and sermons and cage bars. Still, it was trinkets, all of it. Just a few shreds of identity, a meager reward to make him think this was home. Treats to make him drool on cue.
Abel fell back on the bed and let the air rush out of his lungs. He opened the notebook to the Freedom List and stared at it. He wanted to go. As little sense as it made to leave with a girl he barely knew, he couldn’t stay here. He had to get out.
But he couldn’t. Morgan was right. He was a trained dog, and the Reverend said “stay.”
He stood and smoothed out the wrinkles in his clothes until it fit like a second skin. He might not feel at home in this house, but he could at least feel at home in his outfit. Then he pulled on his tennis shoes and headed downstairs for dinner.
It wasn’t until he was halfway down the stairs that he realized he’d torn out the Freedom List and shoved it into his pocket with Morgan’s napkin.
3
In the kitchen, the Reverend sat at the table making notes for next week’s sermon. Dorothy hovered over the oven, praying over its contents. Now and then, she placed a finger on the church cookbook lying open on the counter, consulting the recipe and muttering about tablespoons and teaspoons.
Abel had seen his mother in these moods before, and he slipped into his seat without a sound. The Reverend, on the other hand, was oblivious as always and more distracted by her murmuring than usual. Slamming his pen down on the table, he said, “For heaven’s sake, darling, it’s just hamburger casserole.”
Abel’s mother’s breathing grew louder as she clutched the oven handle. Maybe it was the deeper breaths that warned her of the smoke, because she wrenched the door open, and a cloud of white billowed out. “Damn it!”
“Language,” the Reverend said, going back to his sermon notes.
Dorothy was too frazzled for a comeback. She grabbed the burning dish barehanded. The pain drove her to her knees. “Shit!” The dish shattered on the floor, spilling burned noodles and blackened meat.
Abel leaped to his feet, rushing to the potted aloe plant in the kitchen window. Breaking off a leaf, he turned to see the Reverend holding out a broom to his wife.
“Here you go, sweetie,” he said, as though handing her the tool to clean up the mess made it all better.
Dorothy glared at him through tears, but before she could say anything, Abel snatched the broom from his father.
“I got it, Dad.” He gently squeezed the aloe leaf’s pulp over the pale blisters already popping up on his mother’s fingers. “Here. Rub this on the burns.”
Dorothy took the leaf and tended to her wounds, still breathing like a charging bull. “I should have known better. Should have known I couldn’t do Mrs. Willoughby’s recipe justice.”
“Of course you can, dear,” the Reverend said. “‘I can do everything through him who gives me strength.’ You just need time is all. For now, I’ll go pick up some takeout. Chinese good with everyone?”
Dorothy went on as if she hadn’t heard him. “Every time I make one of her recipes, I can feel her little eyes staring over my shoulder and hear her sniffing like the Queen of England every time I add an ingredient. She probably put the wrong baking time in the book on purpose so when people tell her about the disasters their casseroles turned out to be, she can say, ‘Oh, why that’s just too bad! Of course, I never had any such trouble, but then I did make that recipe myself.’”
Abel focused on the broom in his hands, trying hard not to laugh at his mother’s spot-on impersonation.
“I’m sure that’s not true,” said the Reverend, his pulpit voice creeping up on him again. “And I don’t think it’s very
Christ-like of you to make fun of one of our church’s most distinguished ladies.”
“Why not?” Dorothy snapped, hurling the aloe leaf to the floor, twisted and broken. “They make fun of me. Or have you been too busy shaking hands and preparing sermon notes to hear them whispering about what I’m wearing or why I put on so much makeup that morning or what the dear, sweet Reverend Whittaker is doing married to her?” She slammed the oven door shut.
“If that’s your attitude toward them, maybe they have reason to talk,” said the Reverend.
Abel’s eyes widened. Please don’t go there. Not again.
But it was too late. Dorothy pushed herself to her feet and glowered at her husband. “Are you saying it’s my fault? Do you wonder why you married me too?”
The Reverend glanced at Abel, who shook his head, telling his father to back out.
“I know exactly why I married you. All I’m saying is you shouldn’t be so quick to insult the members of my congregation. Regardless of how you feel, we owe them a certain level of respect and respectability.”
“You and your respectability,” Dorothy huffed. “This isn’t a family, it’s a farce.”
The Reverend blinked. “I thought this was about Mrs. Willoughby. When did it become about us?”
“Eighteen years ago,” said Dorothy, “and it’s never been right since.”
“Calm down, Dorothy. You’re upset. I understand.”
Dorothy slapped him. Her petite frame couldn’t get much strength behind it, and considering how she winced and grabbed the burn welts rising on her fingers, it hurt her way more than him. Still, the shock was enough to leave the Reverend speechless.
Abel wanted to shrink until he could hide behind the broom handle. As tense as things had gotten in this house, no argument had ever blown up like this.
When Dorothy spoke, her voice trembled. “You’ve never understood how I feel, Charles. And despite everything, I hope you never do.” She turned and pushed her way out of the kitchen.
“Dorothy!” the Reverend called after her.
Abel went back to sweeping, this time with a vengeance.
“What happened?” The Reverend eased himself into his kitchen chair. “Everything was fine until tonight. Now all of a sudden she thinks everyone’s making fun of her and I don’t want to be married to her anymore. What did I miss?”
“Try everything,” Abel muttered.
The Reverend’s face hardened. “What was that?”
Abel dropped the broom against the table. “Mom was right. This hasn’t been a happy family for a while. You haven’t noticed because you don’t listen to what we want.”
“I know exactly what you want,” said the Reverend.
“No you don’t! You think I enjoy being the perfect preacher’s kid, always neat and clean and well-behaved?”
“What would you rather be?” the Reverend asked, his pulpit voice booming forth now unfettered. “A druggie? A jailbird? One of the millions of unfulfilled young people in this country?”
“I’m already unfulfilled, Dad!” said Abel. “I’m a shell that you’ve made look like you, with all your rules of what I’m supposed to do and not do, but what’s the point if I’m not happy? If I’m alone? If I’m suffocating in a box that’s too small for me?”
“Those rules are there for a reason.”
“And I’ve never seen the reason! All I’ve seen is the Ten Commandments with thousands of amendments and bylaws and asterisks with fine print. I can quote every single one of them, but what’s the point when they mean nothing?”
“The point is that they make you into the man God meant you to be,” said the Reverend, and Abel recognized the line from a sermon two weeks ago, almost verbatim.
“God,” he asked, “or you?”
The Reverend squeezed the sides of the table as though it were his pulpit. “This conversation is over, young man.”
“It’s not a conversation if you don’t listen to me!”
The Reverend leaped to his feet. “‘Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right!’”
“‘Fathers, do not exasperate your children!’” Abel shot back. “You can’t quote at a problem and expect it to go away. Could you try being a father instead of a preacher for once?”
He saw the pain in his father’s eyes and half-wished he could take it back. But no, it had been honest, and a truth that hurt was better than silence that killed.
Then the Reverend’s eyes darkened. “Get out.”
Abel nodded and shoved the broom into his father’s hands. “You’ve got quite a mess to clean up,” he said, nodding to the spilled casserole as he strode out the back door and out of the house.
He probably thinks I’ll be back in an hour, and in the morning, everyone will have forgotten our fight. Abel shook his head. He knew better. There was no going back, not now. Pepper’s Mill First Baptist was a deathtrap for their family, and someone had to make the first move to escape. If nothing else, this would shake them up, force the Reverend to think.
He pulled Morgan’s napkin from his pocket and read the address, but he already knew where he was going. It was where he’d been going all night, maybe even all his life, without knowing it. He was going to freedom. To her.
Sunday, October 27
7:40 PM
Hey, God. It’s me, Abel.
Why did you have to make him my father? Or if you did, why did you make one of your commandments “Honor your father?”
It’s not easy, you know. It’s bad enough the way he treats me, like I’m never going to measure up to the standard he sets for me, like even the most insignificant shortcomings are major flaws, like I’m some mistake. That at least I could understand. But Mom? Seeing him hurt her over and over again makes me want to take that broom and smash it upside his head. Doesn’t he get it? We’re people too. We deserve the same care and attention he gives his flock. Instead, he acts like we’re just set dressing.
Well, this is one doily-draped chair that’s walking offstage.
Yeah, I’m running away from home now, about ten years after most kids do it. And I can’t help feeling that it’s not biblical, or that I’m breaking some unspoken rule, or that I’m letting Mom down by leaving her alone with him. But I can’t stay here any longer. I can’t. And I have to see what’s going to happen with Morgan. Any change is good change right now. But give me wisdom for this road, because there’s no going back.
Thanks, God. Abel out.
4
Abel hadn’t realized Pepper’s Mill had houses this nice. The Hammond place was a mini-mansion, like one of those old plantation houses of the Old South, complete with tall columns and a white-railed balcony. It stood out against the surrounding fields like a castle. And here he was, Romeo visiting Juliet in her tower, although he hoped the ending to his story would involve less death.
Then he saw her standing on the balcony, framed by the window’s light and more beautiful than ever. She had changed out of her dress into a road-ready white tank top and black jeans.
“Took you long enough.” Morgan tossed him down a key. “Go through the cellar and meet me inside. I need your help with something before we leave.”
Abel caught the falling key and started to ask where the cellar was, but Morgan was already gone. With a shrug, he walked around the building until he spotted a small double door built into the side of the house at an angle and sealed with a padlock. He stuck the key into the padlock and, with some effort, clicked it open. Pulling open the doors, he descended into the damp darkness.
In the light from his phone’s flashlight, Abel saw boxes and old furniture left down here as food for mushrooms. The whole place stank of mildew and rotting meat. He stopped short. Rotting meat? Had something died down here? Probably just a squirrel or possum, but why was he so uneasy? And why did he feel eyes staring at his back? He whipped the light around, but wasn’t sure whether he saw something darting out of sight or the dust he’d kicked up himself. And was that hoarse
laughter or settling furniture?
It’s just your mind playing tricks on you, Abel told himself. But something ancient stirred in him, rippled through generations from before science and reason, slithered through dark waters of old magic and unholy terror, threatened to leap from his throat in a primal scream.
The door to the house proper swung open, bathing Abel in rays of artificial light and calming his hysteria.
“Took you long enough,” he said with a grin.
Morgan sighed. “Fair. Come on.”
“What exactly are we doing?” Abel stuck his phone in his pocket and bounded up the stairs to meet her. “If you’re planning some revenge scheme like stealing or vandalism—”
“Revenge comes later.” Morgan shut the cellar door behind him. “Right now, I need to get rid of this.” She pulled up the right leg of her jeans and tapped a thin iron band clasped around her ankle.
Abel peered at the band. It was etched with runes and Celtic knots and symbols so dark he didn’t want to think about their meaning. “Weird choice of accessory.”
“Cora’s choice, not mine,” said Morgan, “and it’s not just a bracelet. Think of it like an unconventional ankle monitor. As long as I’m wearing it, Cora’s got me on house arrest. I can’t go anywhere she doesn’t want me to.”
“She did this to you? That’s sick.”
“You don’t know the half of what she’s done to me,” Morgan said, rage shivering through her voice as her jeans fell back into place. “But I can’t get out and, until tonight, no one else could get in. It took me a few tries to find the one unguarded entrance to the house. If you’d come in any way but the cellar, you’d be dead right now.”
Abel swallowed. “You’re telling me she booby trapped the house?”
The look Morgan gave him told him she wasn’t joking. “Cora is the poster child for paranoia.”
He cast a nervous glance down the hallway. “Please tell me she’s not here right now.”
Morrigan Page 2
