ust (Silo, #3)(95)

“Leave me,” Father Wendel said.

She was tempted to, but she didn’t. “Father, it’s me, Juliette. What’re you doing here?”

Wendel sniffled and sorted through the pages as though he were looking for something. “Isaiah,” he said. “Isaiah, where are you? Everything’s out of order.”

“Where’s your congregation?” Juliette asked.

“Not mine anymore.” He wiped his nose, and Juliette felt Raph tug on her elbow to leave the man be.

“You can’t stay here,” she said. “Do you have any food or water?”

“I have nothing. Go.”

“C’mon,” Raph hissed.

Juliette adjusted the heavy load on her back, those sticks of dynamite. Father Wendel laid out more pages around his boots, checking the front and back of each as he did so.

“There’s a group down below planning another dig,” she told him. “I’m going to find them a better place, and they’re going to get our people out of here. Maybe you could come to one of the farms with us and see about getting some food, see if you can help. The people down below could use you.”

“Use me for what?” Wendel asked. He slapped a page down on the bench, and several other pages scattered. “Hellfire or hope,” he said. “Take your pick. One or the other. Damnation or salvation. Every page. Take your pick. Take your pick.” He looked up at them, beseeching them.

Juliette shook her canteen, cracked the lid, and held it out to Wendel. The candle on the bench sputtered and smoked, shadows growing and shrinking. Wendel accepted the canteen and took a sip. He handed it back.

“Had to see it with my own eyes,” he whispered. “I went into the dark to see the devil. I did. Walked and walked, and here it is. Another world. I led my flock to damnation.” He twisted up his face, studied one of the pages for a moment. “Or salvation. Take your pick.”

Plucking the candle from the bench, he held a page close to it in order to see it better. “Ah, Isaiah, there you are.” And with the baritone of a Sunday, he read: “In the time of my favor I will answer you, and in the day of salvation I will help you; I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land and to reassign its desolate inheritances.” Wendel touched a corner of the page to the flame and roared again: “Its desolate inheritances!”

The page burned until he had to release it. It moved through the air like an orange, shrinking bird.

“Let’s go,” Raph hissed, more insistently this time.

Juliette held up a hand. She approached Father Wendel and crouched down in front of him, rested a hand on his knee. The anger she had felt toward him over Marcus was gone. The anger she had felt as he instilled outrage in his people toward her and her digging was gone. Replacing that anger was guilt – guilt from knowing that all of their fears and mistrust had been warranted.

“Father,” she said. “Our people will be damned if they stay in this place. I can’t help them. I won’t be here. They are going to need your guidance if they’re to make it to the other side.”

“They don’t need me,” he said.

“Yes, they do. Women in the depths of this silo weep for their babies. Men weep for their homes. They need you.” And she knew this was true. It was in the hard times that they needed him the most.

“You will see them through,” Father Wendel said. “You will see them through.”

“No, I won’t. You are their salvation. I am off to damn those who did this. I’m going to send them straight to hell.”

Wendel looked up from his lap. Hot wax flowed over his fingers, but he didn’t seem to notice. The smell of burnt paper filled the room, and he rested a hand on Juliette’s head.

“In that case, my child, I bless your journey.”

????

The trip up the stairwell was heavier with that blessing. Or maybe it was the weight of the explosives on her back, which Juliette knew would’ve been useful for the tunneling below. They could be used for salvation, but she was using them for damnation. They were like the pages of Wendel’s book in that they offered plenty of both. As she approached the farms, she reminded herself that Erik had insisted she take the dynamite. There were others eager to see her pull this off.

She and Raph arrived at the lower farms, and she knew something was wrong the moment they stepped inside. Cracking the door released a surge of heat, a blast of angry air. Her first thought was a fire, and she knew from living in that silo that there were no longer any water hoses that worked. But the bloom of bright lights down the hall and along the outer grow plots hinted at something else.

There was a man lying on the ground by the security gates, his body sideways across the hall. Stripped down to his shorts and undershirt, Juliette didn’t recognize Deputy Hank until she was nearly upon him. She was relieved when he moved. He shielded his eyes and tightened his grip on the pistol resting on his chest; sweat soaked his clothes.

“Hank?” Juliette asked. “Are you okay?” She was already feeling sticky herself, and poor Raph seemed liable to wilt.

The deputy sat up and rubbed the back of his neck. He pointed to the security gates. “You get a little shade if you crowd up against them.”

Juliette looked down the hall at the lights. They were drawing a ton of power. Every plot appeared to be lit at once. She could smell the heat. She could smell the plants roasting in it. She wondered how long the skimpy wiring job in the stairwell could withstand such a draw of current.