Charles embraced the doctor, then patted her back like she was a family pet. “You are amazing, doctor. Thanks. Let’s keep this just between us. No need to bother the mayor with this.”
The doctor stood stiff, wide eyed. “Don’t touch me.”
Charles let her go, wiping his forehead. “It’ll work. It has to work.”
Samuel returned to the cabin several hours past sunset. His father sprang up from the desk chair the moment the door opened, his back straight and his neck stiff.
“Where were you?” His father’s tone was repressed, but the pitch of his voice was higher than usual. He must have been worried. “Where’s your coat?”
The roar of the jeep’s engine from outside faded into the distance. Charles had driven him home, and he had promised not to talk about what had happened at the jailhouse. He rubbed his bare arms. It was the only coat he owned that fit him anymore, and he wouldn’t last the rest of winter without it. Somehow, he’d need to get it back from the girl. Or whatever she was. But he knew she needed it more than he did, and that gave him confidence.
“At the estate.”
His father shifted his weight. “The mayor’s estate?”
“Yes. I was with Charles.”
His father’s jaw clenched. “I don’t want you going there. Not again.”
“Why? I didn’t have a choice. He’s the mayor’s son. I have to do what he says, don’t I?”
“We all have a choice,” his father said as he went to the scriptures. “You should have waited for me. I didn’t know where you’d gone.”
Samuel found himself scowling. Most days his father didn’t seem to care that he was alive, and now the concern made Samuel angry. He would never be able to please him, no matter how hard he tried.
“You were busy. It was the middle of the ceremony, so—”
“I don’t trust him, Samuel. Not with you. Don’t go there again.”
Samuel bit into his cheek, his mind exhausted and his emotions somehow feeling completely out of his control. Why was his father angry with him? He’d done nothing wrong. If anything, he’d helped saved that girl.
“I’m not a child,” he said, trying not to mumble. “I’ll be a man soon. Isn’t that what you keep telling me?”
His father came closer, dwarfing Samuel with his height. His father was a bit over six feet tall, but Samuel was more than six inches shorter.
“You’re my child. Don’t forget that. You’ll do as I say.”
“I’m your son,” Samuel said. “Am I not your sin?”
His father’s eyes widened. A long silence fell between them.
“I mean, that’s what I am to you.”
“Don’t be foolish,” his father said curtly. He grabbed the scriptures from the desk, keeping his voice level as his steps fell heavy. “Everything I’ve done has been for you. The roots will free you from the bonds of darkness. This demon child, the mayor, everything. Azhuel will bring to light—”
Samuel swiped the scriptures away from his father’s hand and hurled them across the room, his body quaking with rage. He couldn’t take another lecture on righteousness and forgiveness and the holy roots. He hated the way his father always looked to the scriptures. He showed more devotion and care to that old book than he’d ever once dared to show his own flesh and blood.
“You’re a hypocrite,” Samuel said with a forced calm, his hands still quaking. “You don’t love me. Even if you do, you don’t like me. I know you don’t. I see the way you look at me.” He pointed to his mother’s photograph. “If I’m your son, and you love me, then why don’t you tell me about my mother? Am I even your child?”
“Of course you’re my child!” His father lifted his arms. “Is this not enough for you? I’ve raised you—”
“I don’t want to be your son,” Samuel yelled.
His father was stupefied.
Samuel cowered back, the taste of bitterness lingering in his mouth. His sight blurred from fresh tears. “I don’t want to be a cleric. I don’t. You never listen to me. I never had a choice. You had a choice. I don’t. And I hate it.”
His father nodded solemnly as he fetched the disheveled scripture, carefully adjusting the pages before setting them down alongside the photograph of his mother.
Samuel wasn’t sure what to do next, so he went into the cabinet and peeled off a strip of stale bread. He chewed it mechanically but couldn’t force himself to swallow. He poured a cup of water and drank, the liquid pushing the masticated lump down his throat. His father gave the photograph a weak tap with his index finger before climbing up the ladder to the single mattress he and Samuel shared.
Samuel adjusted his glasses, relief and guilt equally consuming him. He rubbed his arms as he got closer to the fireplace, watching as the flames devoured the dead branches until there was nothing left but smoldering ash.
“It’s a miracle.”
Samuel leaned into the metal bars, looking in disbelief.
The girl sat silently, her injured leg propped up slightly by the bottom of her heel. She was hunched over, tracing her middle finger along the dirt floor. The flannel shirt the doctor had dressed the girl in the day before fit her more like an oversized nightgown than a top. Her chains rattled as she doodled indistinguishable objects. She wasn’t wearing the jacket he’d left her. It was crinkled up against the back wall of the cell. The gauze on her leg was stained a bit, but otherwise held. His nostrils noticed the lack of rot.
“She looks so much better.”
Charles huffed excitedly. “I know. It’s only been a day. Can you believe it? That old hag was talking like the demon was as good as dead. Now look at it!”
Samuel crossed his arms. “Do you think it’s a demon?”
“I don’t know. What else could it be? I mean. I didn’t. Not at first. But look at it! Crazy eyes. Black, inky stuff for blood. It doesn’t even have any … you know. That’s insane, right?”
Charles wasn’t inside the jailhouse when the doctor undressed the girl. Samuel leaned forward. “How did you know that?”
“Huh?”
“About the … you know.”
“Oh.” Charles scratched his yellow hair. “Yeah. I saw that when I was trying to check out its leg before I got you. The demon wasn’t wearing undergarments, you know. It was kind of obvious. Freaked me out. Guess I forgot to bring it up to you in all the hustle.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter how I saw. It’s inhuman!”
Samuel nodded. “But she looks like a girl. Don’t you think?”
“Don’t think of it like that,” Charles said with a wave of his hand. “It’s not a person or anything. It can’t even talk or do anything but doodle on the ground and try to kill people!”
Charles jingled the keys, and Samuel stepped back as the gate became unlocked.