Rites.
Samuel blinked hard. How many dead bodies had Samuel encountered throughout his life? He never kept count. Wasn’t it supposed to get easier? He wasn’t merely haunted by the logger’s ghost, but also by the nagging guilt of his refusal to offer a prayer. It was illegal for anyone not ordained by the clergy to perform the rites, and he wasn’t a cleric. He needed the loggers and the other patrolmen to understand that, and they weren’t going to learn if he performed the rites. He’d done the sensible thing, so why did he feel so dirty? A chilly wind pushed through the barred window, so Samuel gathered fresh wood and rekindled the fire. The warmth quickly took possession of the prison cell. He rolled up his jacket sleeves and looked on his arm. Against his own volition, he imagined inked roots starting from his elbow and creeping down in complex motions until they reached his wrist.
Samuel heard the chains rattling and turned. Zei stood beside him, the top of her head barely reaching his shoulders. She softly held her stub with her good hand as if she were nestling it safely across her side. She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. But something about the way her slit-eyes were looking at him made him think she had an interest in his emotional disposition. He wasn’t sure what to tell her, or if she even cared to know.
“I watched someone die. I didn’t … I couldn’t help him.”
Samuel fiddled with the ends of his shirt.
“Have you watched someone die?”
He regretted the question as soon as he asked it. He already knew the answer.
Zei’s bare feet rapped across the dirt floor, the chains around her ankles following her as she made her way to the window. The breeze from outside caused her long red hair to sway in sporadic waves. As usual, Samuel found himself trying to decipher what was going through her mind. Did she care about him at all? Did his question upset her? How much did she understand him, or was it that there was only so much she wanted him to know about her? Where had she come from? What happened to her missing arm? And, since she wasn’t a demon, what was she?
The funeral took place outside, near the northwest corner of the woods, and those in attendance were mostly the loggers that worked for Josiah’s crew. Samuel went by himself, choosing to stay on the outskirts of the procession. A few of the loggers gave him a nod of acknowledgement, but most of them ignored him completely. He spotted the logger who’d confronted him standing in the front of the casket next to a crying woman dressed in black. There were three children huddled around her; the oldest one couldn’t have been more than seven or eight. The youngest one, a boy of about two, swayed back and forth as he kept a soft hold on his mother’s dress.
The crew leader went beside the open casket and said a handful of good things about the dead worker, and later shared a funny story about how the logger had managed to save a coworker’s life who was so busy taking a piss he didn’t notice a falling tree.
“Wilkens ran up screaming and grabbed Cully, who still had his cock in his hand, and yanked that fool out the way. Got piss all over the both of them. We gave Cully so much shit for that. Wilkens too. But he didn’t get mad or make a stink about it. ‘Got to do the right thing,’ he kept saying. That’s the kind of guy Wilkens was. I wish one of us could’ve done the same thing for him.”
Samuel fiddled with his fancy peacoat, still feeling inadequate in the garb. He’d come to the funeral in an effort to ease his conscience, but learning more about the dead logger only made him feel worse. He spotted his father coming out about a couple of miles past the square. Samuel squinted to focus his sight, and he could see how his father’s footsteps were heavy and slow. He must’ve walked nearly eight miles just to get to the ceremony. His father waited patiently behind the coffin as other men sang their fallen coworker’s praises.
When the loggers finished making their speeches, his father got beside the dead man’s coffin. He took out the leather-bound scriptures from his jacket pocket and loudly read a passage Samuel recognized from the book of Iskriel, the same passage he’d read to the dying butcher.
“‘We are but dirt. To the dirt we return. For Azhuel will draw out your flesh and pain, and in Him you will grow again, connected to the His roots. In Him, there is always life.’”
His father slit his palm open and squeezed until the blood dripped over the logger’s stiff body. Could the dead man feel any peace from beyond the grave? Could he take any comfort in somehow knowing the rites had been performed for him?
Once the rites concluded, his father stepped back and wrapped his hand with a strip of cloth to stop the bleeding. He’d used one of the old hunting knives to make the cut, and Samuel remembered how dull some of those blades were. He must have had to press really hard to make the cut. Samuel lowered his hand into his pocket and fiddled with the three throwing knives he’d bought from the blacksmith months before.
Many of the attendees left as the body was lowered into the ground. Josiah’s crew would have the rest of the day off to spend time with their families, but they would have to return to work the next morning or risk losing their jobs. That was the way the lumber trade was. Samuel’s father edged himself back near the corner of the woods, allowing the people to make their exodus before he would make his leave.
Nearly everyone except the three loggers who’d elected to bury Wilkens was a far distance removed. Samuel swallowed. It wasn’t as if it was against the law for a citizen to talk with a cleric. He took several steps toward his father but stopped. What if someone saw them conversing? Would they spread rumors that he was going back to the clergy? Would they keep treating him like the cleric’s bastard? He looked around to see if the volunteer gravediggers were watching before continuing on the path to his father.
Samuel petted his hair, buying time for him to find words. He stopped a few meters to the side, making sure to push his back against one of the pines. He glanced out of his peripheral. His father’s hand was far more bloodied than what was typical, the wet blood still dripping from the edge of his palm.
“It was a nice ceremony.”
His father nodded with his usual stiff demeanor, his uncut hand squeezing tight on the scriptures.
“How are you, Son?”
The way that he said the word son nearly sent chills down his spine.
“Okay. Good.”
“How is—”
“She’s not a demon,” he said sternly. He recalled the weight of his father’s fist across his chest, forcing his words to have an edge he rarely spoke with. “She’s really smart. And talented. And she’s not the monster everyone thinks she is.”
There was a long moment of silence shared between them. Samuel looked to his feet, kicking the dirt below. He didn’t want to fight with his father, and he didn’t come to discuss theology. He took a breath and reached into his pocket, carefully retrieving one of his throwing knives. He’d planned on practicing his throwing for a bit after the funeral, but the desire had left him. He held onto the thin handle, pinching it between his thumb and forefinger. He maneuvered his hold to the edge of the sharp blade and extended the knife forward.