I fell deep into that truth, wrapped myself up in that certainty, and worried no more.
Darkness slowly swallowed me up.
I woke up later. I didn’t know how much time had passed. My body said several hours. I was extremely hungry.
Blinking, I opened my eyes and gazed around a dark, cold room.
The window was open. Moonlight came in.
It’s already dark. Oh my God. How long has it been?
My head pounded.
Nausea rolled in my stomach.
I tried to move, but my hands were bound—tied behind my back. I sat in a wooden chair that was hard, with a high back. My ankles were tied to the chair legs too.
I looked down. I was strapped to the chair, nice and tight. I shifted from side to side and could barely move an inch.
A dark voice came from the corner of the room. “Haven.”
I turned my view in that direction.
Pastor Miller walked over to me. Shadows hid most of him, but I could make him out within the moonlight.
My voice cracked. “Why?”
“You know I was going to take you long ago. When you were a little girl, but your father kept his eyes on you. Same as your mother. Very good parents. You were blessed.”
“Pastor Miller, what are you doing? You have to let me go—”
“They’re going to lock my boy up for my sins.”
“I. . .I can talk to them, but you have to let me go.”
“How are you going to do that, Haven?” He stepped into the moonlight.
My heart stopped. No longer did he appear like sweet Pastor Miller. Horror decorated his face. “Those white boys want my boy. They’ll take him. There’s nothing we can do.”
“Then, why take me?”
“Because you caused this trouble.”
“P-Pastor, I. . .I just went with the evidence.”
“It wasn’t no evidence—”
“All the victims went to the church.”
“Nobody got that until you came down.”
“They would have.”
“Those white boys wouldn’t have connected the dots.” He leaned forward. “You know why? Because they don’t care. No one else cares about black girls. You see how they treat them.”
“Who?”
“Everyone. They leave them alone and discarded. Keisha won’t be watched like Molly. Nobody going to tend after Felicia when Becky is around with her little blonde curls and pretty blue eyes.”
“P-Pastor—”
“That’s why it’s always been easy to take black girls and give them back to God.” Pastor Miller walked off. “Too easy. And then you came.”
“Wait! Don’t go!”
He returned with a chair, placed it in front of me, and sat down. “Are you hungry?”
“Please, let me go. You don’t want to do this.”
“I’ve never wanted to do this, Haven, but when God calls, you must answer.”
“God is not telling you to kill girls.”
“I never kill them. You can’t kill a soul.”
“Pastor Miller, the bible says you should not kill.”
“Don’t you try and quote the bible with me. I bet last Sunday was the first time you’ve been inside of church in years. You were too busy chasing after white boys.”
I tried to move in the chair again. The ropes bit into my flesh.
“You always wanted to fight against God’s work.”
“God’s work. There’s nothing in the bible—”
“The Old Testament is blood, gore, and violence.” Pastor Miller leaned his head to the side. “How can a loving God cause so much killing and violence?”
“It was different in the New Testament.”
“People think God is vengeful because of the Flood and the allowance of warfare against Israel’s enemies, including the deaths of enemy women and children.” Pastor Miller leaned forward. “God does not intend evil. He permits it.”
“Why?” I scanned the room and spotted the door behind him.
“I would not know. I don’t know much about evil.”
“Killing girls is doing evil.”
“I never killed them. I sent them back to God.”
“That’s not your choice.”
“God sent me. He trained me as a kid, cutting all those little girls down from the trees as they hung.”
“What little girls?”
“The ones that those Thompsons and his KKK buddies would hang once a month.” He let out a long breath and covered his face with his hands. After a few seconds, he rubbed his face and dropped his hands to his lap. “I did what God needed. I helped my Pa cut those girls down—even my sister Lily. Every time they hung those girls up, I had to cut them down. Their eyes always watched me as I did it. Some started talking to me right from the dead.”
“The little girls?”
“Yes. They spoke to me. God spoke through them.”
“They were dead.”
“No. By then they had become angels.”
My bottom lip quivered. “Pastor Miller, what are you going to do to me?”
“Send you to God, Haven. When’s the last time you talked to him?”
“But my mother—”
“She’ll be just fine. I’ll help her grieve through this rough time.”
“The FBI know I’m with you.”
“It doesn’t matter if they do, they’ll never find your body. They’ll need that.”
“They’ll have you taking me out of the inn.”
“God protects those who serve him.”
“You don’t serve God.”
He frowned and stood. “The Devil got a hold of you, girl.”
“No, you do!” I looked around the room. “Help! Help! Help!”
He stared at me. “We’re long gone from town, little one. Only God and me can hear you now?”
“Where are we?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
I shivered. “I’m. . .I’m hungry. C-can I have something to eat?”
“What do you want?”
“A. . .chicken platter from Fanny’s—”
“That’s too far.”
“So, we’re not in Fullbrooke?”
“We’re in Colesville.”
“Why?”
“Because just in case it’s time for me to leave this earth, I would like to be where it all started. The place where God first spoke to me.”
My heart hammered in my chest. “W-where’s that?”
“I’ll get you something to eat. For now, Haven, make sure you pray to Him.” He shook his head. “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. Submit yourself therefore to God.”
With that, he left the room, shut the door, and locked it.
I sat there in darkness, wondering how I would get out of this.
All this time, it had been Pastor Miller. And from the sound of this, he had been taking girls long before the Fullbrooke Six. He’d gone crazy from what Thompson and the KKK had done by killing all the other girls in the Strange Fruit Murders.
Pastor Miller had to cut his own sister Lily Miller down from a tree and had never been the same again.
That’s why he put those black Calla lilies into all of the victims’ hands.