The Twins of Noremway Parish (31 page)

“
Damn it to blazes!”

“
I know.”

“
What are we going to do?”

She didn’t respond. She only cried. This was something most people celebrated, but their joy could not be had because of social forces that were somehow beyond their means to manipulate.

Finally, after several minutes of crying together, Decon said, “We change the laws. By God, if we have to do it ourselves, we’re going to change the laws.

***

They picked up the twins—Teret with Gaylen, Decon with Julian—and put them in the large crib at the center of the room. Then the star-crossed lovers kissed again, wrapping each other in a warm, passionate embrace. Decon stripped off his cloak and under-garments and then proceeded to carry his lover into the bedroom. “Decon, I love you so much.”

“
I love you too, darling. Everything is going to be alright,” he said with a tearful laugh as he dropped her on the bed and helped her out of her gown, exposing her breasts. He kissed her neck and her chest and then tore her gown the rest of the way off. The little swell in her belly was noticeable, but easy to work around as they made love more passionately than ever before.

***

The rumors had been circulating, but when Rita Morgan saw the growing nub in the parochial vicar’s belly over the preceding weeks, she kept her mouth shut. She’d been keeping quiet about a lot of things these days. She’d not told anyone about her husband’s death, or her daughter’s, and no one suspected that either was dead. James was such a forgettable person that even his brother, Peyton, hadn’t noticed he was gone.

The sight of the chancellor as a wolf had frightened her. She was aware of the public opinion of her: that she was crazy, that she belonged in a nut house, and maybe it was true. Without the passive anchor she had carried with her for all those years, i.e. James, she had no choice but to reflect, and what she found within horrified her.

She was a spiteful woman who always had an agenda. As innocent as she tried to appear, she always had everything already planned out, and she knew how to touch the right buttons. That was how she had always been. Whether right or wrong, she wanted to be in control.

So when Ghora Urey offered her the control she sought, she took it. He came to her in the evening asking if she wanted to care for the twins. They stood right outside her house, several miles from the main thrust of the parish, nothing but darkness and trees around them. There was a public outcry about Decon and Teret, that they were growing inappropriately close. I’d say! Rita thought with a smile.
If these fools don’t see that she’s pregnant, they are even dumber than I thought!

“
Rita?” the chancellor asked. “Will you care for the twins until we can get this sorted out?”

She sensed it immediately–she saw exactly how she was going to regain some control. Wait, not just
some
control, but
total
control. When it came right down to it, the chancellor was weak. She said: “Don’t pretend you don’t know that Teret and Decon are ravishing each other right now.
In front of the twins!
We can’t let this stand. We can’t let this go on another night. Oh, don’t pretend you don’t think old Rita Morgan isn’t just some crazy old kook trying to get everyone all riled up over my crazy sense of righteousness. I know that’s what you think!” She paused, waiting for the kill. “And besides, don’t tell me that you haven’t noticed that Teret Finley is pregnant!”

Suddenly from the dark, Franz spoke up for the first time. “Of course everyone has noticed.” Then he cackled a sardonic laugh.

The chancellor interrupted, attempting to seize control. “Calm down, Rita.”

“
I am calm!”

“
No you’re not. Just stay calm.”

“
Chancellor,” she started coolly. “You know what I know. Let’s end this now. I get the twins, and you arrest those heathens.”

The chancellor’s heart raced. Franz wasn’t surprised at all that Urey had somehow lost control of the situation to Rita Morgan. There had seemed to be no way he could, but he did, and Franz knew that he could take control from Rita far more easily than he could from Urey.

***

Franz and the chancellor ran through the darkness toward Teret Finley’s home with Rita Morgan in tow. She had a hard time keeping up, being of the older and heavier variety, but neither the sheriff nor the chancellor cared. Wolves could be heard howling in the distance, but, by the sound of it, they were getting closer. “Why are we doing this?” the chancellor asked, interrupting his thoughts. “Decon and Teret are our friends. If they are guilty of an act of indiscretion—”

“
It’s a
forbidden
act of indiscretion,” the sheriff interrupted. “Besides, this isn’t about them, it’s about the twins. We need the twins. The Darkness needs them.”

“
I’d hate to think that we are just being manipulated; and I know we are. Our honor falls on this.”

“
Don’t have a choice, Urey, because, either way, this needs to be taken care of.”

The chancellor, still jogging, nodded. The house was just up ahead. Even in the dark, it was easily distinguishable. They came to the house together, presumably in complete agreement about what they must do if they found that Decon and Teret had violated the sacred oaths. Of course, with Rita right behind them (
assuming she hasn’t been eaten by a wolf
, Franz thought), it would be hard for either of them to do anything but enforce the law without the rest of Noremway Parish immediately finding out about it.

When they arrived at Teret Finley’s house, Franz was mesmerized by the ornate carvings on the hard oak door. But even so, he didn’t let the beauty stop him from kicking it in. A jarring pain shot through his knee, but he didn’t mind. All would be well. Wood sprayed up and in as the swinging door demolished the frame.

Immediately, the twins began screaming. Decon, flying out of the bedroom, naked, his erect penis an amusing ornament on a frightened man, cried, “Who’s there?” He first saw the chancellor and then the sheriff.

Decon’s erect member was all the evidence Franz needed. He rushed the naked man, wrestling him to the ground. The chancellor, who held the lantern, looked on in amazement at how rough Franz was handling Decon. “Chancellor, check the bedroom. Arrest Teret Finley.”

Rita Morgan rushed in, but when she saw Franz wrestling with the naked Friar she turned around and walked out the door, disgusted. Then she turned around and lamented, “The children!”

“
Well come and get them,” Franz said as he continued to struggle. She walked gingerly into the house, wanting to avoid any sight of Decon. The light was dim as it was, and his naked white body was cloaked mainly in shadow.

As she took the twins, the chancellor entered the room that Decon had just emerged from and saw Teret Finley, stark naked and screaming, attempting to find something—anything—to cover her breasts. “Get up!” the chancellor ordered. He didn’t give her a chance to obey before grabbing her arm and pulling her forcefully off the bed. He dragged her back into the main room where Franz was fighting with Decon. He stopped, shocked, when he saw the twins screaming in Rita Morgan’s arms.

“
Get off me!” Teret cried, but the chancellor kept his hold and then threw her to the floor next to Decon, who now had his arms banded behind his back.

“
I hate to do this,” the chancellor announced. “I really do. But I’m going to have to arrest the both of you and take the twins.” He nodded to Rita, who was working hard to calm them. “It was very poor judgment on my part in allowing the two of you to raise the twins together. I personally don’t fault you for breaking the sacred oath. It was an inevitable consequence of raising children together. I understand that. They will be handed over to the care of the parish, and then new foster parents will be chosen.” He had his eyes locked on Rita and the babies in her arms.

“
How could you?” Teret cried to Rita. It was clear to her that Rita Morgan was somehow behind this.

***

When they arrived at the chancellor’s house, the twins were still screaming in Rita’s arms. They went inside.

The chancellor led the sheriff and Rita to a back section of the house where there was a hidden set of stairs in the floor leading underneath the building. The various lanterns burned brightly in the stairwell underneath the house. This happened to be a part of the house of which Franz was completely ignorant. “Where are you taking us?” Franz asked, but the chancellor didn’t reply. They kept walking, the chancellor in front, Franz in the middle, and Rita bringing up the rear. Maybe taking complete control from Urey was going to be harder than he had thought.

There was a large, heavy looking door with a giant lock at the end of the stairs. The chancellor took out a thick ring of keys and unlocked it. Inside the subterranean room were four thick, concrete doors that lead to what could possibly be jail cells with concrete walls. Out of the four doors, three were shut. Franz gazed into the opened room. It was an eight feet by ten feet room.

“
What are these rooms for?” the sheriff asked.

“
Rita, if you want, you can set the twins down.” Franz took Julian and set him near the door of the open cell. Rita placed Gaylen next to him. “Thank you, Rita.”

“
What are we doing down here?” Rita asked. “Such a dreary place, and most certainly not a place for children!”

“
My apologies, to both of you, but I need to show you something. Something that neither of you know about.” He looked around, looking to see if there was anyone lurking in the shadows. “Look, we are all being manipulated by this Falcon guy, the Darkness, the imps.” At the mention of the name “Falcon”, Rita breathed in deeply, but then let it out slowly, trying to hide her surprise. “What?”

“
Nothing,” Rita lied. In fact, she was thinking about how she was trying to retrieve her life—her soul—from this monster. She could care for the twins, have a purpose, no longer be lonely, be in control, and be rid of the guilt and the burden of making a deal with the devil.

As Rita thought out a plan to make her life a little bit easier, the chancellor was explaining the use of the room they were in. “As you can guess by the three closed doors, those cells are currently occupied. Noremway Parish’s biggest secret; so secret not even the sheriff knows about them. The only other person besides me who knew anything about these was Tomias Waterman. Solitary confinement—a fate worse than death. Those charged with treason against the parish get locked away, no contact with anyone, nothing; locked away alone forever. I call these three occupiers ‘The Solitary Three.’ They’ve been in here for unknown years. They eat their daily rations, drink their water, and that’s about it. All three are still alive.”

“
I bet they’re insane,” the sheriff said.

“
No doubt about that, Sheriff. No doubt about that.”

“
I just want you to know what is at stake here. We can’t let ourselves be manipulated like this. These cells can hold any of us. Teret and Decon seriously did nothing wrong but violate an outdated tradition, and look what we’ve done. We’ve humiliated them and taken the children they love. It is us who are doing wrong, not them.”

With this back-and-forth that Urey seemed to be doing, he kept Phoenix off balance, and Rita totally confused. Was this part of his plan? Was this how he was going to keep control? By making them guess his true motivations?

***

Franz and the chancellor started back up the stairs, leaving Rita and the twins alone in the subterranean jail. “It’s probably safer for you with the kids down here, Rita,” the chancellor said. “I have a feeling things will get ugly.”

“
That devil,” she said quietly, thinking of Zuriz Falcon and her dead daughter.

“
Excuse me?”

“
Nothing. It’s okay, I’ll stay down here with the twins. That’s fine.” But it wasn’t fine. She knew as soon as she was alone in the dark room that the devil would come for her, tear apart her soul. Claw at her with his sharp nails, and ravish her until she could feel nothing at all. Her heart raced, but the twins were calm–for now.

As the sound of footsteps disappeared up the stairway, she heard a whisper in the dark: “Rita, you have done well. Now if you can do just one thing for me.” The voice whispered a command in the dark, and then disappeared.

***

They went back into the main living space of the house, leaving Rita Morgan alone to care for the twins downstairs. “We need to get back over to Teret’s house and straighten this out. This just isn’t right. It’s a big mess; a big mess that we caused.”

Franz looked at the chancellor. He was sweating a nervous sweat. Franz didn’t really care what happened next so long as he was in control. So he thought about it for a second, and said, “Alright, let’s get back to Teret’s. What are you going to do? Give them a big ol’ apology and say carry on with whatever it is you were doing?”

“
Something like that. Maybe take voluntary reprimands while we’re at it.”

“
Screw that. You can punish yourself if you want, Chancellor. Shove a nail in your eye for all I care.”

“
Excuse me?”

“
Let’s go. Time’s a wastin’.”

But then, Rita Morgan, who had crept up the stairs without their knowledge, skulked quietly behind them. She held a thick club-like stick and knocked Franz out with a blow to the back of the head. The chancellor turned around quickly, but not quickly enough. He caught the club in the face and fell to the floor.