The Year of the Witching(28)
After a long, meandering ride, they approached the cathedral to find it full. It was a weekday, but the farmers had left their fields early and all of the apostles had assembled.
Immanuelle hopped out of the cart. The crowds shifted, the yard full of men and boys dressed in sweaty shirts and bloodstained slacks, their clothes reeking of the fields.
In the distance, Immanuelle saw the stream where she and Leah used to meet after church, reduced now to little more than a bleeding gash carved into the hills. The jutting river rocks were smeared with gore. The whole ravine looked like the scene of a slaughter, and Immanuelle caught the stench of rot from where she stood.
“This way.” Martha urged her on. Together, they ducked through the gathering crowds, dodging carts and carriages. In comparison to their Sabbath fellowships, this was a solemn affair. Everyone seemed to be speaking in low murmurs as if they feared they’d provoke the Father Himself if they talked any louder.
Martha and Immanuelle made their way up the steps and into the cathedral. Indoors, the air was thick with the tang of blood and sweat. People crammed the pews and spilled into the adjacent aisles. Up front, standing in a row behind the altar, were the apostles and other high-ranking saints of the Church, but Ezra wasn’t among them. He was on the cathedral floor, walking from pew to pew with a bucket of milk and an iron ladle. He stooped in front of an old man and put the ladle to his lips. A few moments later, when a little girl wandered to his side, he lowered his bucket to the floor, dropped to one knee, and whispered something that made her laugh. After she drank her fill, he dried her mouth with his shirtsleeve, picked up his bucket, and walked on.
When he crossed into the center aisle, his eyes met Immanuelle’s. He faltered for a moment, as if embarrassed to be caught in the midst of his ministry. But then he recovered and started toward her, crossing through the crowds to her side.
He raised the ladle to her lips. “Here,” he said, his voice ragged. He sounded as if he could use a drink himself.
Immanuelle leaned forward, the cold rim of the ladle pressed against her bottom lip. She took a small swallow. Then another. The milk was warm and sweet. As she drank, it soothed her chapped lips and eased the burning in her throat. She drained the ladle dry, and Ezra was dipping it into the bucket again to offer her a second drink, when Martha called her name.
The woman’s hand closed around Immanuelle’s shoulder in a tight grip. Her eyes flickered from Immanuelle to Ezra, then back to Immanuelle again. “Come now, we ought to find a place to sit before we’re made to stand.”
“She’s welcome to sit with us,” said Ezra, and he nodded to a pew a few feet away, crowded with his friends and half siblings. His invitation seemed to pique their interest. As the rising heir, Ezra was a prize among Bethel’s young bachelors and was known to court girls when it suited him. But if their shocked expressions were any indication, Immanuelle was quite certain his friends had never seen him entertain a girl who looked like her.
Martha seemed aware of this too, and Immanuelle could tell that she scorned the attention. “Immanuelle will remain where she belongs, with me.”
“Very well,” said Ezra, perhaps realizing that his will was no match for Martha’s. Gingerly, he took the ladle from Immanuelle’s hand and returned to his friends. In turn, she started after Martha, acutely aware of the gazes that followed her as she went.
Shortly after they were seated, the First Apostle, Isaac, stepped up to the altar. He was a tall man, pale and hawkish, with a dour mouth and a hard chin. Immanuelle imagined he might have been quite handsome in his day, and she knew he had the wives to prove it. His voice bore the rich timbre of a well-tuned organ, and it reverberated through the cathedral as he spoke. “We gather today to address a grave sickness. I’m here on behalf of the Prophet, who has—in the wake of this great evil—retired to his sanctuary, for a period of prayer and supplication.”
This declaration was met with a chorus of murmurs. In the past year alone, the Prophet had spent weeks locked in the Haven, engaged in fasting and meditation. But there were growing concerns that his abrupt sabbaticals were actually due to his failing health.
“Our lands have been tainted,” said the apostle, pacing at the foot of the altar. “A great evil moves through our waters. Our rivers run with it. I know that you fear for your families, crops, and land. You’re right to do so. This plague is not the work of nature, as we know it. It’s more than happenstance. Someone among us, maybe even someone sitting in the pews tonight, brought this curse upon us.”
Gasps echoed through the cathedral, and the whispers began, a great hissing like the sound of cicadas in the summertime.
Apostle Isaac raised his voice to a near yell. “The Prophet is certain that someone convened with the forces of the dark to wake this once-dormant evil.”
Immanuelle’s breath hitched. She thought of Delilah wading through the shallows of the pond, of the Lovers writhing in the dirt of the meadow, the glimpse of Lilith’s bare feet as she emerged from the shadows of the Darkwood. Was it possible those brief exchanges were the start of something far greater and more horrible than she’d realized at the time? Was it possible that she had some part in this?
“Tell me, how was this evil conjured?” A voice echoed from the back of the cathedral, thin and warbling. An old woman stepped forward, and Immanuelle instantly recognized her. It was Hagar, the first wife of the previous prophet, and one of the last still living. Leaning heavily on her cane, Hagar limped into the aisle and glared up at Isaac. “You say this sinner must have convened with forces in the Darkwood, but it must’ve been more than that. Many fools have walked the wood and borne witness to its horrors without spawning plagues like this one. We haven’t seen power like this since the days of David Ford. Why would such a grave evil awaken now, of all times?”