The Diviners (61 page)

“The old church,” Will said, making quickly for a large square in the center where a raggedy mess of charred timber lay in silent testament like a mausoleum. Carefully, Evie stepped over the splintered threshold, ticklish with tall weeds, and into the remains of the church. In all their late-night philosophical wranglings about the nature of evil, nothing had prepared her for the feel of it, the actual weight of some hungry wickedness pressed against her bare skin. For the old church of Brethren carried within its decay the unmistakable heft and patient persistence of evil. Under the wind, she could nearly make out a child’s laugh, a swell of moans, a
threat of whispers. She wanted to run. But where was there to run? What place lay beyond the reach of evil?

Piles of crumbling bricks formed a semicircle in one corner, and Evie recognized it as the fire pit she’d seen when she’d held John Hobbes’s ring. It was nothing but a blackened trough now, the bricks gone gray and slick with moss. Just behind it in the grass lay a branding iron. Evie picked it up delicately. The Pentacle of the Beast. She dropped it quickly, startling a tiny grass snake slithering out from under a pile of stones. Evie peered into the abandoned pit and saw fresh kindling, half nubs of candles. Someone had used it recently. Her heartbeat quickened at the thought of who or what could be out there in those woods.

“They’re still using it as a meetinghouse,” Will said, as if reading her thoughts. He pointed to the arrangement of flat rocks placed in a circle around a tin sign. With his shoe, he nudged the sign over. The back was also adorned with the five-pointed star and snake.

Will gazed up at the fading light. “Let’s find that grave.”

Dusk fell quickly now. The woods were shrouded in dark-blue shadow. A half coin of gauzy moon appeared as they walked beyond the burned church and down the hill. The low stone wall of the graveyard appeared in the light of Will’s lantern. Behind it, blackened gravestones tilted like crooked teeth in a rotting mouth. Evie shone the flashlight from stone to stone, trying to read the names there. Jedidiah Blake. Richard Jean. Mary Schultz. Each gravestone bore the inscription
HE WILL RISE
.

“Look for anything out of the ordinary—animal bones, a pentagram, charms or other offerings. They’d probably want to venerate his grave,” Will instructed.

Evie stuck close to Jericho. Her heels sank into the soft ground,
and she tried not to think about what was buried beneath that ground. She wished she had on her woolen stockings; it was much colder here than it was in the valley. Their breath came out in small gray puffs, their lungs expelling ghosts of air. The last of the light had slipped from the sky, like a hostess shutting the door on lingering guests. A smattering of early stars twinkled awake. The beam of Evie’s flashlight bounced over gravestones made ghoulish in the glare.

“What if we can’t find it?” she said.

“We’ll have to dig up every grave until we do,” Will answered.

The wind whistled over the mountain again. It felt like fingertips brushing her skin, turning her about in some child’s game where she was blindfolded.

“Over here,” Jericho called. Will came to his side and held the lamp over a spot marked by a simple wooden cross hung with charms. The skull of some small animal had been left at the base of it.

“Do you suppose this is it?” Evie asked.

Will wiped a smudge of dirt from the cross, revealing initials carved into the wood:
YHA
. “Yohanan Hobbeson Algoode,” Will said. “Let’s start digging.”

Will parked the lantern by the cross. He and Jericho removed their jackets, rolled up their sleeves, and got to work with the shovels. Evie’s job was to keep the flashlight trained on them and keep alert for sounds. She jumped at everything, swinging the flashlight wildly.

“Just hold it on us if you would, please,” Will advised.

Evie needed something to keep her mind occupied, and so she watched Jericho’s forearms working the shovel, paying attention to the pull of muscle, the strength of his grip. She remembered the feel of his hand over hers, like a shield. He was a mystery
to her in many ways, and she found that she wanted to know his secrets—not ripped from him via a wallet or favorite pen, but given to her as a gift. She wanted to prove trustworthy. Special. There was something about him that unnerved her. He was slightly dangerous; so was she. It would never work for her to be with a man who didn’t understand that about her, the darkness behind the devil-may-care facade, who flirted with it but who would run scared if faced with the storm inside. She watched Jericho’s large hands work and imagined those hands caressing her bare skin, imagined the taste of his mouth, the press of his body against hers.

Just as quickly, she tried to rid herself of those images. Jericho was Mabel’s fella. Evie thought of her friend’s many letters on the subject. But they were romantic schoolgirl fantasies. Jericho and Mabel weren’t right for each other. If they had been, it would have happened already, wouldn’t it? Evie couldn’t take away what Mabel never had, could she?

Silently, Evie scolded herself for even thinking it. Jericho probably needed someone like Mabel. Good, steadfast, sensible Mabel, who would remember to turn off the lamps and bring in the milk. A girl who would take care. Evie had the terrible feeling that she, herself, was the careless sort: Clothing left on the bed unfolded. Books stained with coffee spots. Tabs not paid until the last possible second. Boys kissed and then forgotten in a week’s time. She understood this, but understanding it did not bring comfort.

A hollow thump echoed from the grave as Jericho’s shovel struck wood. Despite the cold, he and Will were soaked in sweat. Jericho hopped down into the hole. He jimmied the thin edge of the shovel around the edges of the coffin’s pine top, loosening the seal. With a grunt, Jericho pried off the lid, exposing the rotted corpse of John Hobbes.

They’d had no body to bury when James died. Nothing to commemorate his passing. There was a grave, which they visited every year on his birthday, but it held no bones, no uniform, no essence of her brother.

The body of John Hobbes lay quietly in his wooden trough in a plain woolen suit, the Pentacle of the Beast pendant shining around his neck. His lips had been stitched together with thread that had sprung free in the corners, revealing long, yellowed teeth. His body was as hollowed of life, as decayed and ruined, as the abandoned cabins of Brethren. He was a thing. Inert. Like a stone. Like a memory. This, then, was what death looked like. Irrefutable. And Evie felt a strange relief that she’d not seen James’s body after all, as if in that refusal, she could pretend he had never died.

Jericho reached in and removed the pendant, handing it up to Evie, who held it like she would hold a lizard by the tail. He climbed out and brushed his palms against his pants—a useless gesture, as his pants were as filthy as his hands.

Evie stared at the thing she held. She wanted to throw it out, to burn it right then and there.

“I don’t think I should hold this,” she said. “Could I have your handkerchief, Unc?”

Carefully, Evie wrapped the pendant in its protective covering. She was just about to hand it over to Will when a high-pitched trill sounded off to the right. Evie swung the flashlight in the direction of the sound. The light trembled over autumnal branches scratching together. Dried leaves scuttled over the ground in the empty space between headstones. Nothing, and then the sound again, from her left. This time she swung the flashlight quickly in that direction. The beam caught a fleeting movement. Evie’s hands shook. Another birdcall, straight ahead. Another from behind. To
her right, then left. Perched on the edge of the grave, Evie swung the flashlight wildly.

The men from the fairground stepped into the light. Evie counted five of them, plus the boy who’d muddied her coat. They carried rope and hunting knives. The boy held a hunting rifle rigidly at his side. The rifle seemed too big for him, as if he were playing dress-up.

“This be private property. Hallowed ground,” the boy said.

Evie concealed the handkerchief-covered pendant in her fist and moved her hand behind her back.

“Yes, yes. Of course,” Will said. He sounded frightened, at a loss, and that scared Evie more than the men did.

“What transgression be you about?” the man pressed.

“We heard there was gold buried here,” Jericho said suddenly. “It was wrong of us. We see that now. We’ll be going. Sorry to have troubled you.” Calmly, he bent to retrieve his shovel. A rifle shot punctured the stillness of the graveyard, startling Jericho into dropping the shovel.

Jacob Call came from behind, the rifle still smoking in his hands. “Our enemies deceive us. The Lord said, in the times of tribulation before the Judgment Day, your enemies will be more than the sins of man. They will deceive you,” he preached. “This is the word of the Lord’s messenger here on earth, the Blessed Pastor Algoode. Amen.”

“Amen,” the others chorused.

“The faithful have kept his covenant. We be awaiting the Lord’s will and purpose. The comet confirms it: ‘When the light burns the sky as a dragon’s tail.’ The Beast will rise.”

“He will rise! Hallelujah!” the men exclaimed.

“Judgment Day be comin’. Blessed are we. Hallelujah!”

“Hallelujah,” they echoed.

“Please. Listen to me.” Will put out a hand to stay them. “John Hobbes is not the Beast his father prophecied. He has no intention of returning to the spiritual plane once he is fully manifest. He is only fulfilling the ritual of the offerings so that he can rule—”

Jacob Call slapped Will hard. “The Beast will slay the wicked. He will bring forth plagues and pestilence upon their Sodom and Gomorrah. The faithful will be anointed.” He pulled open the neck of his shirt to show two brands, and Evie could only imagine that there must be more. “We will be known by our marks and spared. Our great army will rise and throw the Beast back into the fires of hell, where the chosen one will be resurrected and glorified! He will rise to the heights of heaven and sit on the heavenly council with Pastor Algoode, and this country will be a Godly country. Hallelujah!”

“Hallelujah!” the faithful echoed.

“How will you send him away once his task is finished? What if the Beast refuses to be vanquished? Have you thought of that? What if, having gained the whole of the earth, he decides he doesn’t care to relinquish control?”

“It be ordained. The path be promised in the Book of the Brethren. It is God’s will. What God has set in motion, no man may put asunder.”

“Hallelujah!”

There was no reasoning with these people. Evie could feel their hatred. Their conviction. They might destroy the pendant and the ghost of John Hobbes, but they couldn’t kill what lived on after. The world was a bully.

The boy whispered to Jacob, who trained his narrow eyes on Evie.

“What have you there, Daughter of Eve?”

“Nothing.” Evie kept the hand holding the pendant behind her back.

“The harlot lies,” the boy said. He brought his gun off his shoulder.

“Don’t believe you.”

Evie looked to Will, who nodded. Slowly, she brought her hand forward and showed them the pendant.

“Thieves. Idolators. Fornicators. Sinners. What be the punishment for the enemies of God?” Jacob Call thundered.

“They shall burn!” one of the faithful called out. A torch was passed from hand to hand till it reached the tall man, who set it alight. The flame cast ghoulish shadows over the trees’ moon-pale trunks.

“You don’t want to do this,” Will said as a second torch was lit. “It will only bring the police.”

One of the men on the edge of the circle began rocking and speaking gibberish, his upturned palms gone stiff. Spittle foamed at the corners of his mouth.

“It will bring attention before the Beast can rise! He will be angry with you!” Will continued desperately. The torches had all been lit. Two of the men approached with the rope. Jericho grabbed his shovel, ready to fight.

“Quiet the deceivers!” Jacob Call ordered. The men came for Jericho, who swung the shovel, keeping them at bay.

“Just let us go and we’ll never come back,” Will said. But the men kept coming. Jericho swung again and the boy cocked his rifle, ready to take his shot. They were trapped. Helpless. They’d come all this way for nothing. The bullying world would win, just as it had the day her brother was blown apart, leaving nothing to bury and everything to mourn. They were as good as dead.

“The Lord will brook no weakness in his chosen,” the boy shouted, and something broke inside Evie. Her fear turned to
anger. She glared at the smug, triumphant boy who would burn the whole world in order to be right. She spat in his eye.

“Then that son of a bitch will really like me,” she growled. With one quick move, she threw the lantern hard into the grave, where the flame caught on John Hobbes’s old woolen suit, setting his corpse ablaze.

“Run!” she yelled and took off into the woods at a clip.

The action and the startling heat of the blaze stunned the new faithful of Brethren into a few necessary seconds of stasis as they tried to decide which was more important: saving the body of their beloved elder or giving chase. It was enough for a head start.

“This way!” Evie shouted, racing down the hill in a direction she hoped was correct, for it had gotten darker, giving the woods a uniformity of color and appearance that made it hard to know where they were.