Excerpt
“Leah Scarlett Jones,” Pastor Samuel starts, letting my name hang in the air, and though he has none of his Sunday best on, his voice booms in the church like he’s preaching fire and brimstone.
I swallow hard. I’ve never been singled out like this, so thoroughly, so publicly. I feel oddly ashamed in my too-short white dress but there’s nowhere to hide. I try to look around at the faces so I don’t have to look at Pastor Samuel. My eyes light on Mr. Benton, who manages the grocery store—he’s leering at me, his eyes trained on my chest. I look away.
“Your transgressions have led to a breach in the community,” Pastor Samuel says. “Between the hours of nine and midnight, by your own account, you allowed a demonic presence into your home and sacrificed your brother to the devil.”
I look at Jess, then at Trent standing in the pew behind her, both of their eyes wide with shock. “But that’s not what—” I start, but Mom’s hand lands heavy on my shoulder. She squeezes, her nails digging in again.
“In repentance, you will be cleansed with the spirit and sent on a pilgrimage to rescue that innocent baby and bring him back again.”
I’d rather face anything other than this. Anything other than the looming wood and the Lord who lurks there.
“Is there a witness?” Pastor Samuel asks.
Silence hangs heavy in the air. I swallow hard, scanning the people again. Nearly all of them have known me since I was a baby, have watched me grow up here. I wait for one of them to speak for me.
Just as Jess’s mouth opens, as she turns her head, my mother steps up before me. “I’m the witness,” she says, her voice flat and emotionless.
She pulls the bundle of sticks out of a bag she carries, holding it as tenderly as she would hold Owen. Red petals fall from the bundle, joining those already scattered on the floor. Someone in the crowd gasps, and though we’re far from Catholic, old Esther Fallow crosses herself.
“What did you see?” Pastor Samuel asks.
Mom doesn’t look at me, but I stare at her like I can see beneath her skin, understand the layers beneath her flat expression, know for sure how she could betray me like I’m not even her daughter.
“I left Leah alone with the baby. When I came home, the baby was gone and my home was marked with the hand of the devil.”
Any sympathetic gazes are gone. Jess isn’t looking at me anymore. I wish she’d turn her head, that her gentle brown eyes would focus on me, that she’d come and grab me and we’d run from this place.
“And do you think it’s Leah’s fault the Lord of the Wood visited your house and stole your baby away?”
There it is—the question, as blunt as could be. Still, Mom doesn’t look at me. Do it, I plead silently, full of old vitriol. Look me in the eye. Her free hand is balled into a fist at her side, the veins standing out in sharp relief.
“Yes,” Mom says.
I wish, more than anything, that I could hate her. That I didn’t want her to love me so, so desperately.
Pastor Samuel nods. He expected this—after all, it was Mom that made the call, Mom who got this motley assembly together.
“The devils from the wood have made their exchange and left their sign.” He kicks at one of the little drifts of petals, scattering them, crushing the delicate flesh into the carpet.
He reaches for a bowl and comes down the aisle toward me. When he’s close enough that I can see every strand of gray shooting through his dark hair, he stops. He’s tall, towering over me in my white dress like a terrible communion. I can’t see what’s in the bowl but it smells like hot iron.
He dips his hand in the bowl, flat palmed, and presses it to my chest. “You’re tasked with the salvation of the baby boy you destroyed,” Pastor Samuel says, “or you’ll face death at the hands of the wood.”
When he pulls his hand back, my chest feels sticky and wet. I look down, barely choking back my hysteria when I see what he’s done: My chest is marked with a handprint of blood, from nearly my collarbones over the swell of my breasts, bleeding over the top of the dress and onto my skin.
“To the river,” he says, and when he stalks past me down the aisle, the others shift to follow.
The procession is just as silent as we trudge across the grass, through the graveyard, down the hill. I cannot look at my mother, or anyone else, for that matter. No one speaks to me. I follow behind Pastor Samuel, my eyes glued to his back, as my heart thunders in my chest.
He stops at the river, right by the place Blaire fell in all those years ago. I wonder if she remembers—I think she’s behind me now, but I can’t be sure.
“Leah Jones,” Pastor Samuel says. He holds his hand out to me. It’s caked in blood.
I step forward. He takes my hands in his and slowly, slowly, he steps into the river, pulling me to follow.
We haven’t had that much rain so the river isn’t rushing like usual. The water is frigid as I step in and my shoes sink into the mud. I let out an involuntary hiss, but Pastor Samuel doesn’t even react.
I wonder how many times he’s done this. He’s only in his mid-thirties, maybe early forties—but he’s been the pastor of Winston for as long as I can remember. I wonder, if he went somewhere else he would come back craving blood.
He stops in the middle, where the water is nearly up to my chest and just around his waist. His gaze is terrible as he looks down over me, hungry and wanton. Goosebumps rise on my skin. I want to let go of his hands, to use them to cover myself as the white fabric of my dress goes muddy and see-through. I think—terribly, irrepressibly—he’s enjoying this.
“Once you get to the other side,” Pastor Samuel says, just to me, “he’ll come for you.”
“And then what?”
Pastor Samuel doesn’t answer me. Louder, so everyone else can hear, he says, “On this day, I cleanse you of your sins. Leah Scarlett Jones, you have been tasked with repentance. Here is your sentence: You must find the Lord of the Wood to recover what you have lost. Do not squander your only chance at redemption.”
I have so many questions rising from my chest, but no time at all to ask them. Pastor Samuel puts his hands on my shoulders and pushes me down, until my knees buckle and the water closes in over my head.
I only just remember to hold my breath. For the briefest of moments, I consider what would happen if I opened my mouth and let the water in.
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