The woman gave Samuel’s father a tender look, which was odd to Samuel because many people never even bothered looking in their direction. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but decided against it, and turned away.
“You’re late,” a voice called from across the room.
The doctor stood up from the butcher’s bedside, her medical tools resting on top of the nightstand. Elizabeth Tulsan. She was a middle-aged woman with plain features, not skinny, but by no means overweight. She patted away the creases in her white apron and crossed her arms. “You said an hour. It’s been nearly two. He’s been fighting to hold on for this long.”
“Good thing I’m here now,” the sheriff mumbled. He turned to Samuel’s father. “Don’t just stand there.”
His father stepped cautiously into the room. Samuel followed. His eyes went to the large bed in the back of the room.
The old butcher was curled up on the mattress, wrapped in a bundle of sheets and quilts. His exposed skin was mottling and doused in sweat. His breaths were forced and unnatural, like a landlocked fish sucking in useless air. Samuel rubbed his fingers together. Working in his shop, the old butcher seemed so strong. But now he was just another dying man.
Samuel grazed the knife’s handle with the bottom of his palm, knowing full well what was going to happen next.
“Cleric,” the doctor said as she bundled her medical tools together and dumped them inside her leather bag. “It has been some time.”
His father bowed, and Samuel followed suit.
“Miss Elizabeth.”
The doctor gave her condolences to the butcher’s daughter, apologizing that she couldn’t do more to make him comfortable. She then went to the sheriff. “Are you going to be a gentleman, or am I going to have to walk home in this storm?”
“I’m not a chauffeur,” the sheriff said in annoyance, but he gave a nod, nonetheless.
The sheriff and the doctor exited the bedroom quietly, closing the door shut behind them. The butcher’s daughter peered with anticipation as Samuel’s father went over to the old butcher’s bed. He got down on his knees. He removed the scriptures from his jacket pocket and propped them against his legs. Samuel inched up beside his father. The old butcher moaned, forcing out nonsensical sounds. It made Samuel uncomfortable. It wasn’t as if he’d never seen death. He’d seen it several times before: a logger who’d taken a nasty fall and punctured his own lungs, a baby who’d caught the bumps, and the tailor who’d gone septic after suffering for years under some chronic ailment. For the most part, Samuel’s father performed the rites for those who were already dead. But occasionally, the dying would make a request for a cleric. This act was permissible by law.
His father carefully removed his coat, folding it together and placing it on the dresser near the door. He adjusted the sleeves of his shirt around his muscular arms, pulling them back and exposing his skin. Black lines of ink curled from his wrist down to the end of his forearm like the limbs of an old sycamore. A few of the thicker, longer lines branched out past his elbow up to his bicep, with smaller lines protruding out at the ends. It was a visual representation of Azhuel’s holy roots, and the required mark of the clergy.
“I’m here,” Samuel’s father said. He stretched his leg back, passing the scriptures to Samuel.
Samuel held the book, clumsily shuffling through the pages as his father removed his gloves. He forced himself to pick a passage, knowing it wouldn’t be long before he’d be ordained. His father would eventually take him to the high council, where the bishops would say a prayer of commission before he received the mark of the clergy. He’d be sixteen in a couple of months, a man nearly grown. He did not feel like a man.
“‘We are dirt,’” Samuel read softly. His voice lacked conviction, even though he tried to force it. He pushed his glasses farther up the bridge of his cold nose. “‘And to dirt we return. For Azhuel will draw out your flesh and pain, and in Him you will grow again, connected to the roots. In Him, there is always life.’”
Samuel exhaled and gave his father the knife. His father drew the blade out from its sheath and sliced it across his own palm, making a cut that would bleed but not scar. When Samuel was younger, he’d asked his father why a cleric had to cut himself to perform the rites. Because nothing good is free, his father had told him. If you want to reach a power greater than yourself, to connect yourself or others to Azhuel’s roots, then there must be a sacrifice. The price is always blood.
Samuel’s father squeezed into his palm, and red drops splattered from his hand over the butcher’s face. The old man groaned as Samuel’s father wrapped the wound with a thin strip of gauze the doctor must have left behind on the nightstand. The doctor did that on occasion. She never said much to Samuel or his father, but a part of him felt like they had more in common than most. Who else, besides clergymen and medical practitioners, spent so much time interacting with the dead or near-dead?
His father laid the knife down. He folded his hands together and prayed for the man’s soul, praying that Azhuel would purge his sins and embrace him with His roots. The butcher’s breathing worsened, his chest convulsing as if it was being crushed from the inside. Without warning, the old man’s bony fingers shot up and latched onto his father’s forearm.
The Litten woman ran toward the bed in a panic.
“Don’t touch him!” she yelled as she wrenched away the butcher’s wild hand.
Samuel’s father stepped back, his prayers silenced. The old man spewed nonsensical mutterings, his head bobbing back and forth like a thrashing toddler. The Litten woman tried restraining his arms, but she wasn’t strong enough. The butcher pushed her back, savagely clawing out for Samuel’s father.
Samuel was petrified, unsure what to do. The Litten woman persevered nonetheless, trying to cajole the old man back into lying down. “Father. Calm yourself. Please. Enough.”
The old man ignored his daughter’s pleas and thrashed his torso upward in blatant defiance.
“It’s all right,” Samuel’s father said firmly. He stepped forward and allowed the dying butcher to once again take hold of his marked arm. “Here.”
The old man’s grip instantly softened, and his breathing calmed. The Litten woman relaxed her hands, her lips quivering. She slowly retracted herself to the back wall.
“There is goodness in this world,” his father said as he allowed the old man to cling to his arm. “I’ve seen what can come out of darkness and pain. Sometimes the branches must be pruned in order for the tree to sprout again. Do not be afraid. Azhuel sees all. And tonight. You will find comfort in the embrace of His roots. You will be connected to Him for eternity. You will find peace. Peace.”
Samuel waited as the butcher’s tongue drooped out of his open mouth, waited for what seemed hours until the old man’s breathing stopped altogether. His father lowered the old man’s arm back to the bed. How had the butcher’s desperate fingers felt against his father’s arm? He could still see the red marks where the man had squeezed.