Wolves Among Us (29 page)

Stefan took a breath to begin a prayer, waiting for inspiration. He had no idea what to pray with a knife in the church and innocent women in the jail. Bjorn groaned behind him. Feeling a strong light piercing the darkness above, Stefan looked up and fell to his knees. A bright image of a man in blinding white robes—a vision from his imagination, surely—towered above them both.

Bjorn crouched down, shaking. The image grew brighter, and Stefan covered his face with his hands.

Wind blew past them, knocking over the candlesticks on the altar, and then the room fell into darkness.

The moonlight on the altar moved over the course of the night. Stefan watched it, dumbfounded by the hours, unable to use human language to describe what he had seen. Bjorn remained facedown for a long time too, and when he rose, he would not look at Stefan.

Stefan noticed the shadows had moved down the altar steps as dawn approached. “Bastion intends to try the women today,” he said.

Bjorn nodded.

“Let them go, Bjorn. God is not happy with this work. Resign as sheriff and confess to the people. Send Bastion away.”

“It’s too much to believe in all at once. That all of this is my fault, not God’s.”

Stefan reached for Bjorn’s shoulder, resting a hand on it. “That is a step toward true faith.”

Bjorn stared at him, a lost, blank stare. Whatever hope those women had, it was not in Bjorn. Stefan had to end what he should never have begun.

“How could you not see Bjorn for who he was?”

The women were talking to Mia now. Why had she ever wished for that? Their words were painful.

“How could you not see me?” she could only reply. “I was lost. If you had befriended me, it could have changed everything. I did not know what had happened. I was caring for a sick child.”

“If we had spoken to you, even hinted at what we knew, Bjorn would have hurt you. Or us, for telling you.”

“Shut up,” the jailer bawled at them. “You’re a bunch of clucking hens. A man can’t get any relief.”

“Oh, I don’t know. For a drink and a bite of bread, maybe he could.” Mia recognized Dame Alice’s voice.

One woman stifled a giggle, but the hysteria caught. All the women began giggling. The jailer cursed the day of his birth, which made the women laugh harder. A sigh swept through them before silence returned.

“Mia?” Dame Alice asked in the darkness.

“Yes?”

“Why would you never come in and eat with me? Why did you hate me so?”

“I never hated you!”

“You ran. You refused to hear my voice. You knew I called your name.”

“I was afraid.”

“Of me?”

Mia could not answer. The answer floated in the darkness above her, too big to put into words.

“I was afraid. But I am not afraid anymore. I am sorry.”

“How many hours now?” someone asked. Mia could not tell who was in each cell around her; she could only judge the distance between them as near or far. She wondered if horses in a stable felt this disoriented.

She looked out her window into the hall, trying to judge by the light. “It’s not quite noon, I’d guess. They’ll be coming for us in a few hours.”

“Do you think we’ll die fast or slow?” someone asked.

“Do not give up hope,” Mia said. “We don’t know what might happen.” Mia had courage to say this. She believed in miracles now, and in strange and wonderful timing.

“I know what will happen, They will torture you.” The voice sounded like Mary, the girl from the village with the dry cow. “They’ll tell you that the Devil puts a spell on his witches so they can’t reveal his secrets. He erases their memory, makes them go mute. That’s when Bastion takes a hot poker to your body, or tears out your fingernails, or pulls your shoulders out of their sockets. Innocence is the worst thing you can claim when you go before them. It’s a trap.”

Mia sat back on her bench next to Alma, covering Alma’s ears.

She heard the jailer thanking someone. A hooded figure appeared at her jail window in profile. She could see nothing of the face, just shadows where the robe fell forward. Alma began to squirm in her arms, and she pressed her face into Mia’s stomach.

Mia’s jail door opened, its hinges grinding, giving Mia a cold shudder. Bastion pushed the robe off his face and came to sit next to her.

He put one hand on her neck and pulled her ear to his mouth.

“When you stand before me, say nothing, and I will save you,” he whispered.

Mia tried to say something, but he pressed a hand against her mouth.

“Do not try to thank me. It would give us away.”

She shook her head. He eased the pressure against her mouth, and she whispered. “Do you have any food? For Alma?”

Bastion released her, pushing back and standing as if he had never seen the child before, a shocked look on his face. He began patting the bag on his belt, bringing up a nibbled rind from a bit of cured pork. Alma turned her back to him, refusing it.

Mia took the rind and forced it to Alma’s lips. “You will eat this, Alma.”

The jailer appeared in the square window, tapping his keys on the door. Bastion threw the hood back over his face.

Mia used her sternest voice. “I said to eat this, Alma. Keep your strength. We do not know what will come. To starve is to die.”

“I know what will come,” Bastion whispered before he stood to leave. “Remain silent. I will save you.”

If deception had damned them, just as it had Eve, Stefan knew the one true cure. He led Bjorn to kneel at the altar, telling him it would be wise to pray for wisdom and strength. If Bjorn prayed for anything other than his own desires, Stefan could not guess. But it gave him time to slip to the cupboard where the Bible was kept. He had no time for anyone to teach or interpret.

“I cannot wait for help to arrive, Lord,” he whispered, bringing the book out and laying it across the top of the cupboard. A wind blew through the hall, flipping the pages of the Bible, and Stefan turned, expecting to see the mother cat, come round to beg for food. The door leading outside was still closed. Stefan turned, slower this time, back to the Bible. It was open to the book of John. Jesus was speaking:

I am come that they might have life and have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. A hired servant sees the wolfe coming and leaveth the sheep. The wolfe catches them. The hired servant runs because he is a hired servant and careth not for the sheep.

Stefan served as a priest, but he had chosen; he was no hired servant. He would be a shepherd. He would not leave his sheep, not while a wolf was here. Whatever happened, Stefan would never leave them.

Bjorn was done praying. He called for Stefan. Stefan left the book open and out. He would not hide it again.

Bastion’s face registered shock when he saw Stefan and Bjorn sitting on the church steps in the morning sun. Stefan held his breath, waiting to see what Bjorn would do.

“Are you joining us, Stefan?” Bastion asked, watching Bjorn. “Did Bjorn finally win you over?”

Stefan could not stay close to the women, but he could stay close to Bastion, which might prove of greater benefit to them. “Yes. I am looking forward to today. That may sound strange. But it was a strange night.”

People began approaching from the square, most walking straight to Bjorn or Bastion with beaming faces.

“Not a one of my hens’ eggs have broken since Dame Alice’s arrest,” one said.

“My stomach hasn’t gone sour in days. Praise be to God for your good work here, Bjorn.”

Stefan watched the two men receive the praise, his own stomach taking on an infirmity. More people came into the square, craning their necks to get a view of the condemned women waiting for their trial. Ava sat in her cage, watching the other women with a look of great envy.

Bastion took Stefan by the elbow, surprising him. “So there will be no trouble out of you today?”

Stefan tried to catch Bjorn’s eye before answering. “Not from me. I won’t even say a word.”

“As priest, you will, actually. If the women are found guilty of witchcraft, you must concur with death by burning. A formality, but it must be indulged.”

“I will not fail to do my duty today.” Stefan rested his arm on Bastion’s, as if to confirm his resolve.

“It is good for a man to love his work. Isn’t that what the Bible says?”

Stefan shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t know it as I should.”

“But you preach from it. You demand the people build their lives around it. And you don’t know everything it says?”

“I preach what I was taught. I’m afraid I’m not a very good priest.”

“You’re a fine priest. You’re just an odd man. I gave you the chance to win their hearts,” Bastion said, gesturing to the crowd, “to be their savior, and you rejected it.”

“There is still time.”

Bastion’s face brightened at that thought. “Yes, Stefan, there is still time. Come and join me, won’t you?”

He led Stefan up through the crowd to the chairs set at the top of the church steps.

There was time indeed for a savior.

Chapter Twenty-four

The women had been led out to stand below the church steps. Mia stood just below the spot where Catarina and Cronwall’s bodies had been dumped. The women said it had been Bjorn’s doing, but she still could not believe that, not with her whole heart. She had lived with him, and, while she knew he hid secrets, she never suspected he could hide something quite so terrible. Could anyone really be so depraved and yet appear so normal? Didn’t all devils look frightening?

Mia searched the faces of the gathering crowd. She saw some of the men of the village and a few of the women brave enough to leave their homes, but mostly she saw strangers. Word must be spreading about the so-called witches of Dinfoil. A man she did not know pointed her out to his wife. Mia wondered what her reputation would become if she did not live—the witch who was married to the sheriff. She decided to ignore the crowd as she kissed Alma, willing herself to soak in every bit of her child, the softness of her cheek, the rough edges of her dress, her nose a tiny, perfect version of her own.

“You are beautiful, Alma,” she whispered. “I see God in your face. It is a fallen world, Alma. But you have been God’s grace to me, my reason for believing that good was still possible. Pray hard, Alma. Pray for God to save you once more. Pray He will grant you one more miracle. He alone healed you, Alma, I believe that now. While everyone chased devils, while I slept and dreamed of these strange days, God walked right into our home and healed you. Do you understand? He didn’t need me to be perfect. He doesn’t want our perfection, Alma. He just wants our hearts.”

Alma reached up her hands and touched Mia’s face. Mia closed her eyes. She would remember Alma’s soft touch. She would think of that no matter what happened.

Mia handed Alma to Erick, who stood behind the condemned women. She met his eyes and tried to communicate the worth of her little girl. But Erick nodded, solemn. He understood.

“Who shall be tried first?” Bastion called out.

“I will.” Mia nodded at the three men seated above the church steps just in front of the doors: Stefan, Bastion, and Bjorn. Bastion shook his head at her, his back straight in his tall, unforgiving chair. No one sat in a trial except the judges, and they sat in high, stiff chairs, a sign to those not wise enough to attain such a position.