Chapter 2 of Higher Climbs the Fire

The Bleeding Tree Trilogy is 3 new novels of mine coming out in late March that you can pre-order now at my shop.

Here is the second chapter of the first installment in the series Higher Climbs The Fire.

2. The Black Minister (4:06)

The veil is thin when lifted.

_From The Holy Liber, Book Four, Verse Six

I don’t need to tell you but the place this shadow of mine took me was somewhere dark. At least it was at first. It was like being swallowed up into the night or sunk down into the deep dark of the ocean. There was nothing, nothing at all where I was. I couldn’t even see my own hand if I shook it in front of my face. Not that I had a hand anymore. See, my body had been left behind. Whatever worked the levers of its earthly shell was trapped now in this black. And all there was here was sound. Not from me either. I had no voice. The sound here came from the hum. It coursed through the emptiness and even through me. I never could tell where it came from, it just seemed to move through the shadow place. To tell it true, it was a beautiful sound. It made every bit of me – every thought – sort of dance and shake. It let me know that I was alive and that there was good in the universe and maybe even in me. This might make you ask what was so bad about this shadow of mine then? Well, I’m getting to that.

See, this hum only lasted for but a skinny moment, then it would change. Sounding like it turned into itself somehow. And like it was pained in the doing of it. The hum became an ugly, ugly sound. Like laughter coagulated. Or the death rattle of the imagination. And this sound too moved through me and every part of what I was screamed along with its agony.

But we weren’t finished, no sir, we were just getting reacquainted. Now the sound started building. Cycling itself up faster and faster and louder and louder. And then – somehow – the sound became sight. And what was nothing was reassembled into wherever the shadow wanted to take me this time. Not that it was ever really different. The places might change but he’d always be there. The black minister, Buck Caleb – my true shadow – he was something that would never change.

I knew that he was unaware that I watched him like I did, that he couldn’t see me as I squizzed him from my shadow place but I still wished I could avoid looking him straight on. Like he was somehow behind all this, it was his big trick, and he was just waiting for me to get comfortable and then he’d reach out into the window between our worlds and his black rubber hand would be on my throat. The shadow had taken me far from the silo but part of me knew that my body was still back there unprotected. I couldn’t shake the fear that the minister would find me, in one world or another. I never could outrun him.

What the shadow had me watching now was Minister Buck Caleb moving like some wraith through the mostly empty streets of some town. I couldn’t place the name of it yet from what I was seeing. The sun was going down – which meant the place must have been west of where my body was – and it painted the place red and made the minister – what with his mask and pointed hat – look like some great crow out for a night on the town. There was a bell ringing out, which is why I supposed the streets were deserted, and as it made its seven rings the other three ministers that were with him separated from Buck who was the lead of their retinue. I could see them turning on down the main street toward town square, towards the church and it was then that I recognized the place. The town was called Red Coin and I was headed there myself. Me and Snowy and Karlin, all of us. We were headed there after we took care of some business down in Yont Nellum first. If I didn’t know better I’d have thought my shadow was attempting to warn me.

Buck’s hat had a crooked tip at the top that hung over like a dog’s ear – that was part of how I could also tell it was him even with his mask. The other part was just the way he walked and carried himself. Buck Caleb was skinny as a dagger – fast as one too – and even under his flowing turnout cloak you could see that. 

As he was hurrying through the dirt roads there came a wammel that stood on the other end of the road. Like me it was watching the black minister cautiously. Its hackle wasn’t raised, but even if it were the thing didn’t look as if it could inflict much damage. Being so dismal skinny and all, it was missing fur in patches too, and the worst of it, the poor beast only had four of its legs left. If I had stumbled upon such a pathetic creature I might destroy it out of basic human kindness. But what did the black minister do? Why, he stopped walking, squizzed at the wammel through the round lens of his mask and then he crouched down himself slowly. Looking like some great black rubber bullfrog about to leap. And the wammel was dumb enough – or desperate enough – not to spook and it only watched the minister. Buck took off his hat – his long white hair a ghostly tangle – and then he put a hand to the back of his mask and unfastened it. There was the face I’d been running from for years and years. If you didn’t know better you’d think it was a kind face. Cheekbones set high, lending it a sense of nobility almost; his eyes – blue grey – glinted whenever he smiled, which he was doing now. But I knew better.

What I didn’t know was what Buck was up to with this wammel. He reached into his turnout cloak and came back with a piece of red. It must have been meat because the animal started with whimpering, lowering itself down on its remaining larger middle paws to show that it wasn’t going to be trouble. Buck could have stood up and walked the piece of meat over to it but instead he whistled, patted his knee – made the crippled thing come to him. Which it did. The sound of the bells was all lost now and in the distance I could hear folks singing in the church. Buck held the bloody uncooked meat on the tips of his rubber gloved fingers and the wammel gave him a hesitant look but then took the piece into its mouth. It started to back off but Buck – standing now – produced another bit of meat for it. So it went down on all its remaining legs and begged properly. I was waiting for Buck to do what he always did but instead he dropped the meat into the grateful creature’s maw. He even put one of his hands through its patchy fur and gave it a pet between its dangly ears. I studied the scars from where the wammel had lost its two smaller front legs. I had heard stories from traders who made their way far down into the Lowlands that wammels had been known to eat their own legs at times if there was nothing for them to hunt or no one to take care of them. But I never put too much stock in the prattle of some of those traders – they’ve been far out for too long. Same ones who’d tell you that were liable to tell you about desert spectres and forest ghosts. Some will even swear that they’ve seen Scissor City. Skrobble, all of it. But of course looking at the wammel – and its wounds on its underbelly that were like two grisly tree stumps – well, it was hard not to think on it. Buck finished petting the thing and when it whined for more meat he gestured with his hand for it to leave. Which it did at a miserable stagger and Buck scattered himself to where he ought to be. I watched the wammel until it disappeared from out of the view of the shadow. It was a pitiful thing but Buck Caleb knew nothing of pity. If he was kind to something there was a reason. It amused him in some way. Furthered his game. The man lived for games. Believe that.

He walked up to a house at the end of the street, there was music coming from behind the door so he had to knock twice. The first knock got the occupant to turn off the music, the second invited inquiry into his identity. “Who…who’s there? Why aren’t you at church?”

            Despite the questioning the woman of the house went ahead and opened her wooden door and found the minister on her doorstep.

“Excellent question,” Buck said. “I might have to ask you the very same.”  

            The white cheeks on the woman’s face flushed red and her mouth hung all agape like some startled child. “Minister! Oh, of course, please, please forgiveness.”

            The minister, he held up his black rubber finger. “Now, Susan, we can’t have you begging for forgiveness so early. At least put up a fight and make this interesting for me.” He cut a smile, almost boyish with its mischief and this woman – Susan – she did the same back.

            “Very funny, Minister…you must be one of the travelling ministers, I’m sorry for I don’t know your name.”

            “There you are again, sorry. You’ve nothing to be sorry for in those regards, my dear. Though I think you might be telling me a stretcher.”

“I’d never lie to a minister.”

“Now, I’m sure you were only being polite. But I think just by looking at me you know not only that I am a traveling servant of the Church but my name as well. Is this not so?”

She nodded. “Yes, you must be Minister Buck Caleb. I have heard of you. I just didn’t want to assume from the way y­—”

            “Since we know each other’s names, Susan, won’t you let me in?”

            “Oh, I’m sor—” She caught herself and the minister gave her the grin again. And then this fool of a woman, she let him right into her home.

            And like it always was with the shadow I didn’t want to watch another thing but I had to. It being dismal hard to shut your eyes when you don’t have the lids. So I squizzed the woman asking the minister if he would like some coffee and then asking him to sit at her table. And I squizzed Buck agreeing to it, all pleasantries, taking off his pointed hat and sitting down at her table and looking comfortable there like he was some old friend and this was just a common thing between them. But nothing about him was common. The black minister looked out of place in her modest home but then he’d look out of place no matter the place. As she set the kettle to the fire I caught her stealing looks at him. I’m sure he saw ‘em too. If it bothered him I wouldn’t know – I’d be surprised though – Buck seemed to revel in the spectacle others made of him. He accentuated his uncommonness whenever he had the chance. He was unusual looking by nature – his skin the color of soured milk and his long hair – not the traditional length for ministers – was the same. It fell down his back looking like a bleached squid. The man looked unwell, as if perpetually fevered. And at times he even looked unnatural, the veins on his face too close to the surface, his build too gaunt and bony. Like he was some nursery rhyme bogen come to life. But when he smiled, people tended to look past all that.

“How do you take it, Minister…dark?”

            “Not at all, I’m afraid I take it sweet. One of my weaknesses.” When Buck shifted in his seat, the rubber of his turnout cloak made a series of sounds that oddly and comically were reminiscent of a babbling backside.

            The woman Susan sat across from him. “It shouldn’t be too long now.”

            “I can’t wait, it already smells delicious, thank you, Susan.”

            “Thank you, they’re Slade brand beans.”

            At this the grin on his face slipped a bit. “Ah, branding… Can’t say I much agree with these new notions and the liberties granted one family’s farms over all others. But it’s not my place to question the decisions from on high. And I will admit, the Slade family does grow a good bean even if they produced a rotten apple or two… However, I didn’t come here to talk coffee with you.”

            “…This about me missing church?”

He nodded to her. “As it says in the Liber, ‘The veil is thin when lifted.’”

“I know I’ve missed a few nights, and more as of late than is acceptable, I’ve just been frightful sick is all.”

            “Sick? You seem to me healthy as a lamb.”

            “Well, I have been maybe feeling a bit better tonight and I do try to keep my color around company.”

            “I bet you do.”

            “But I have been stricken as of late with fever of some sort. I’d not want to go to the assemblage and make any of the rest sick.”

            Buck just let her tell him all this. He had his hand to his chin and scratched while he nodded along to every poorly planned out word. Then he said, “Very kind of you not to want to spread this sickness of yours.” And this half-soaked woman, she smiled at this. “But you know, Susan, I am a traveled man. Unlike your good ministers of Red Coin here I’ve seen a stretch of the world, which is to say I’ve heard some stretchers before in my time but I dare say what you just put forth was nonesuch.”

            Her face fell. She took the leg o’ mutton sleeve of her dress into her fingers, fiddled with it. “I’m sorry, Minister—”

            “Now there’s that word again…” Buck’s eyes gave a little dance.

            “You’re right, I’m not sick. It’s just…”

            “Yes?”

            “I feel awful just thinking this.”

            “Thoughts may be the currency of sin but they are not the thing itself, understand me? In order to be free of our sin we must first plainly admit it.”

            “Yes, Minister. It’s just…” Her voice seemed to shrink. “Don’t you ever…”

            “It’s alright, child, you can tell me.”

            “Don’t you ever grow a bit tired of going to church is all? Just every once and again?”

            His features shifted and any aloofness on his face was cast away. And he laughed good and long. “You think you’re tired of going to church all the time, my dear, try living at one.” She laughed along with him but then quickly covered her mouth as if a bird was liable to fly out next. “No, no, it’s fine,” Buck told her. “Imagine not only do I have to live in a prim and staid old church, house of truth and perpetual glory by Savior’s name – though it may be – but prim and staid it is nonetheless. Not only do I have to live in a place such as that but my task is to travel back and forth to hundreds just like it. Susan, since you’ve decided to be honest with me I aim to return in kind; ministers get tired of church more than anybody.” He puts his hand to his heart. “Word true. I find it hard to get my dreams in the holy house. Too quiet for me. The most comfortable sleep I get is out in the dark of the land next to a dying fire looking up at the all tranklements that our Savior sees fit to shine over us. That’s one of the reasons why I travel so much I suppose… But I admit it freely, church can be a stifle to the part of ourselves that seek the comfort of disturbance.”

            Her brow creased. “Disturbance?”

            “Oh yes, disturbance…the music of the night.”

            “Oh, right, I see now.” With a slight bit much of enthusiasm she gave with some more nodding.

            “Tell me, Susan, what sort of music keeps you comforted while you’re away from church at night?”

            Her eyes swelled. “…Music?” The coffee kettle sang and she screamed. When Buck chuckled at her she signed then joined him. “I’m sorry, that scared me.”

            “I keep telling you, nothing to be sorry for. Nothing you’ve told me so far should give you fear.”

            “Thank you, Minister, I’m gonna get that coffee.”

            And as she left the table the shadow kept me on Buck sitting back in his chair. He seemed to be looking straight at me. Impossible but he was. The expression on his pale face seemed as empty as an animal. Reptilian almost. But then his lips curled and he grinned some and despite my better reasoning I could have sworn he was showing teeth right at me, his audience, who knew exactly what sort of show it was that he was putting on.

            Susan came back into view and sat down a clay covered mug in front of her guest. Buck blew on the coffee first before he chanced a sip. “Why, that is sweet,” he told her. On the opposite side of the mug were raised letters what spelled the word father. Buck turned the mug around and took himself a squiz.

            “Sorry, only other clean cup.” Susan turned her own mug around to show off the accompanying message, mother. “I’m sure Len won’t mind. He’d probably be downright honored to have a minister as famous as you having had drunk from his cup.”

            “Famous…” He took another sip. “If you’d do me the kindness of indulging me, what have you heard about me?”

            “Well, everybody knows about Minister Buck Caleb. I suspect even if you hadn’t had made this visit of yours, which was right kindly, and introduced yourself I’d have heard you were in Red Coin the minute anyone caught sight of y—” She faded off, seeming to realize the conversational cul-de-sac her words had steered her to.

            “It’s alright, child. I’ve looked this distinguished my whole life and done much on top of my appearance to further distinguish myself. It sits fine with me. I like standing out. Some would say I stick out a little too much, especially for a minister. But I know it’s right with Savior so that means it’s quite alright with me. Now this husband of yours, Len, he’s at the Red Coin Church as of right now, that right?”

            “Well, if he ain’t then he’s gonna have to answer to you and me.” She brought the mug up to her lips.

            “I like that. ‘You and me.’ You got a drollness about you. Playfulness. That’s good. Believe it or not, I too have a bit of a playfulness. And believe it or not, so does the Savior. Just look at some of his creations for evidence of it. I’ve never had the nerve to ask him myself but some of the people I’ve encountered in my many travels lead me to believe that they only exist to amuse the Savior.”

            “Oh, Minister…”

            “Take for instance this church of yours, the Church of Red Coin: fine place, fine people. The minister who runs it—”

            “Minister Malcolm.”

            “Minister Malcolm, he’s a fine man. A good servant. But the breath on that man sets my eyes to spinning.” Susan laughed at that. “Minister has the smell on him of hot fish when he opens his mouth. Now is that just random occurrence or is that the way it’s set I ask you?”

            She laughed some more. “…It happens more than it don’t I must report.”

            “Hmm… And the old woman, plays the organ…”

            “That’s Bernice. I think I know what you’re going to say.”

            “I know she feels the love of God in her heart but she must not hear it much in her ears anymore… I heard her play, I thought she was working it out on the spot, writing some new misguided cacophony in the Savior’s name, it wasn’t until the choir joined in that I recognized the song for the standard it was supposed to be.”

            Susan was still laughing. “It’s true, oh my, is it true.”

            “No offense meant to this child of god Bernice but she needs to step away from the instrument and seek out another means of expression for her gratitude towards the creator. And she needs to do it soon for she has not much time left in these Good Lands with us.” The black minister, ever the charmer, took a swig off the coffee as Susan’s laughter died down. He held the mug up in his black glove, ran his thumb over the word engraved therein. “Your daughter made these didn’t she?”

            “Yes, it was a gift from her last year.”

            “Fine work, that. Like poor Bernice in a way, your daughter…Johanna, that’s her name isn’t it? I believe Minister Malcolm said it was Johanna…”

            “Yes, Johanna is our child.”

            “Yes, well, like poor Bernice your daughter Johanna seeks to honor those who made her; you and your husband. And in doing so she honors her ultimate creator our Savior. All good things come from honoring where we come from, you see? Because it is what’s truest in us all. Before the distractions and disturbances lead us away from where we belong.” Susan had her eyes down, staring into her damn coffee like it was a reflecting pool. Buck kept on with it. “And I will say – since you and I have developed this habit of speaking truths to one another – that your daughter shows a much greater aptitude for mug making than our dear Bernice does for music making. Easier on the eyes than Bernice is to the ears anyhow.”

            “I think I understand what you’re getting at, Minister.”

            “Do you now?”

            “Yes, about how people get led away from where they belong and all.”

            He took another sip. “Your church misses you. When I spoke with Minister Malcolm he told me you and your husband were hoping to have another child.”

            “Oh yes, we’d love that more than almost anything, is that why you’re here? Does the Church send somebody like you whenever someone is hoping for a second child and…they’re finding it difficult? I can’t imagine my troubles are important enough for them to fetch you.”

            “What, you think you’re not important enough for a visit from me?”

            “…I just never heard of a famous minister such as yourself coming down to ‘ol Red Coin to visit a Churchgoer like me.”

            “Churchmember, you are a Churchmember now. Have been for…how old is your Johanna, fourteen?”

            “Yes, she’s fourteen…fourteen already.”

            “So that’s fifteen years as a member of the Church – not a mere ‘goer – important distinction I think.” He raised his mug up again as if he was going to toast her. “I think it’s a beautiful, faithful thing to want to bring more children into this world, Susan, I do. There are still so few of us in this land, I hope the Savior sees it fit to bless many more to share it with us. I do. But of course, if you want to get on his good side, you’re going to have to get to church a bit more often.” She nodded solemnly and the minister continued. “And remember, even though I am a traveler and you do not go to the church where I live that does not mean that I don’t make your salvation of the utmost importance to me personally. After all, we are all the same in the eye of the Savior, are we not?” He tapped the insignia on his collar, an eye made from a sideways letter W connected to a sideways letter M. Savior’s Eye.

            “I feel bad, I do. I’m sorr—” She caught herself. “What I mean to say is that I’ll be at church, I won’t miss any more days.”

            “Maybe I’ll suggest to Minister Malcolm – from a safe distance now – that he retire poor Bernice? See if we can’t get some more invigorating music for the next gathering? How’s that sit with you?”

            “Sits just fine, Minister. But ol’ Bernice ain’t so bad I suppose.”

            He took himself an uncommon generous sip off his coffee. “Really? Surprised to hear you say that, I must admit. See, I’ve been told you’ve a discerning ear when it comes to music?”

            Her head tilted. “Oh, who might have told you that? …Len?”

            “Tell me, with this discerning ear of yours, Susan, how do you like recorded music?”

            “Recorded music?”

            “Go get your gramophone.”

            She brought her mug up to her lip. “I’m not sure what you mean, Minis—” Her mug exploded into her face. For a moment the arc of coffee and blood hung in the air along with the sound of the shatter. It happened so fast that even though I knew firsthand how quick he was I was still unprepared for it. It happened so fast I had to figure out what exactly had happened after the fact. Buck had shattered her mug with his own. Susan’s face below her nose was covered in red with pieces of the clay mug sticking out of her skin in spots. The letters m, o, t and h clung to her jaw for a bit until falling off when she tucked her chin down.

            “Go get your gramophone.”

            She didn’t look up, both of her hands were held in the air shaking like eggs ‘bout to hatch. Buck took in a long breath and right about when it sounded like he was going to speak again Susan got up out of her chair and headed back behind the kitchen towards her bedroom. Buck waited and we both listened. Hearing the sound her dress made as she got to her knees, heard her moving something, maybe reaching under her bed. That’s where they tended to hide them. Like children with some cherished forbidden object tucked away foolishly in the first place father was to look. The handle to the clay mug was still intact in the palm of the minister’s hand and then – again – like he knew I was watching – he let it drop to the table. And as Susan kept busy Buck entertained himself with a game of moving the remaining letters of his shattered mug about. Spelling out words. From father he found f, a, t, e.

            Susan came back into view and under her arms there was a small red suitcase. She held it up to him like a servant would with a dinner platter. Bloodied face downturned, offering it balanced atop her upturned palms. “Place it on the table, open it,” Buck instructed. The suitcase unlocked with a hiss and a snap and out from it she took a small copper colored gramophone replete with hand crank and metal horn. Made in the Lowlands, Circus Town craftsmanship at its finest. It was a new model, I could tell by the shape of the horn. Next she took out a vinyl record contained in a crisp but slightly dog-eared jacket. “Spin the black circle for me,” Buck told her. She looked up from her bowed head, not believing it. “Let’s hear it,” he assured her.

            With her hands still a-shake she pulled the record from its sleeve and slipped it on the turntable. As she winded the crank, Buck reached over and picked himself up the emptied record sleeve. I don’t have to tell you but it was my face and my name on that sleeve. And watching him run the fingers of his gloves along the cover almost reverently made every part of me twist in revulsion. The record was called Heretic Prayer. It was my first. Most folks, they start with that one. It’s not my favorite but I can see the appeal. I could see what Buck liked about it too. On the cover there was an image of me with my checkerboard scarf on, which was nothing uncommon of course but around that was painted six red guitar strings standing up, feeding into an illustration of the guitar neck that hovered above my likeness. Buck smiled at it, admiring his handiwork I suppose. Then Susan stopped with the winding of the crank and put down the player’s stylus. Regardless of the circumstance I found myself admiring the ritual of it all. The way I always did. Out from the flower mouth of the horn came the crackle alive of music. The sound of an old wooden guitar, one I lost a long time ago. Up from the wooly murk of the recording came a voice you’d never forget. Even if you couldn’t much make out a single word it was saying. I don’t see much reason in modesty. I sounded damn fine on this. That old record of mine still had fangs.

            “What do you feel when you hear music?” Buck asked her. She wasn’t so half-soaked as to actually answer the man, I gave her that. So Buck answered for her. “Music is magic, isn’t it? Maybe the only magic. Unexplainable. Its power to affect us, to hold us under its sway. For those who can make it it’s the closest any of us will ever come to talking like God. Of course, I can’t make music. Don’t have the ear for it. Or the throat. Though I will admit a considerable amount of pride in my footwork. Yes…” He looked out, not quite at me but out. “I do love to dance.” There was a knock at the door. “Ask them, they’ll tell you.” It was true. I hated the black minister more than anything but yes, the man could dance. He moved like no other. I often warmed at the thought of one day taking his legs from him. “That’s my small connection to the magic and maybe divinity of music. Which is why it pains me so to hear this folksinger Leatherberry and her perversions of divine art committed to wax cylinder and set upon the once innocent ears of so many Churchgoing folks like yourself, Susan.” He tossed the record sleeve down to the table. Another knock. “Guess we caused a disturbance… Enter, brothers.”

            One by one the other three ministers came in, surrounding her at the table in all four directions. Unlike Buck they kept their minister’s gasmasks on. They looked down at her with empty black lenses for eyes. Each was dressed in a long black rubber turnout coat hanging below the knee like folded leather wings. Hands fitted with shining dark glove. Some of which gripped flamethrowers – their faithgivers – with hoses attached reaching into tanks that hung on their backs. Susan looked over each one seeming to wait for it to start. But they just stood there looking back like patient bats loitering in her kitchen. Buck looked up at the latecomers. “Brothers, I appreciate your theatrics as I’m sure Susan does as well, but the time for masks has passed, where are your manners?”

            “I only kept the helmet on to keep out that caterwauling heathen screech.” That was Brother Vernon Caleb.

            “That thing doesn’t even sound like a woman.” Brother Sara Caleb.

            “Doesn’t look like one either.” Brother Remus Caleb.

            “Can’t say it sounds much like a human being is supposed to sound at all.” Brother Vernon again.

            “Brothers…” Buck said and the three brothers of the ministry corked it and took off their masks. “Turn it off,” Buck told her and Susan did what he said. “Now, I see with this gramophone – which you know is forbidden in itself – and the particular music you’ve selected – that you think you no longer need a Savior. Or perhaps you think you’ve found a new one? Let me ask you, do you think this folksinger is going to save you?” She looked like she stopped herself from answering right away. Buck continued. “Do you think Leatherberry would even if she could?”

            And you know what this half-soaked poor woman said? “…Yes.” She said, yes. Gazzits.

            Buck’s eyes glinted. “Good, good Susan. Good to know that you are capable of such belief. Because so many aren’t. So many have closed hearts. But not you.” His smile spread and he pointed a finger at her. “Not you, and not me.” He got up out his chair. Leaned over her just inches from her face. “Susan, it is my belief that you can be saved…tonight.” Susan’s hands hovered over her lap and then I saw it, hoped that Buck didn’t. “Now take out whatever you had hidden with that gramophone of yours in the bed and now currently have hidden in your dress and place it on the table. Do it now.” But he did. With shaking hands she brought up a black handled knife and dropped it to the table. She wasn’t that half-soaked turned out. “Tell me, Susan, are you afraid?” Buck asked.          

            “No.” The woman had sand.

            “That’s an admirable lie. But I see through it. And if I can see through you then you better believe that he sees through you.” At this he tapped the sideways eye insignia on his collar. “God’s eye can always see behind your eyes.”

            “There is no god, Minister.”

            “Heresy and horseshit!” Buck let out a holler and a giggle. His brothers joined in.

            She steadied her voice. “You know that, right? The truth, what Mal Leatherberry is singing about… Your god… Your Church. This whole world…it’s all skrobble. Man made God in his image, not the other way ‘round.” She stammered the last of it out and those were my words she was using. From that scrammed record of mine she had hidden.  

            Buck picked up the vinyl record and spun it atop his finger. “Now at last we’re finally getting somewhere.” The black disc spun some more. “But how can you say God isn’t real when you’ve seen him with your own two eyes. When he’s blessed you with a child with his own two hands.” The record spun off to the floor and Buck didn’t bother trying to catch it. “When you’ve heard his voice and seen his face in your own head? How can something you feel not be real?” The minister opened his palms presenting the question to the room. Offering it to her in the air.

            And then I heard the music, the singing coming from outside. This was how it usually happened. Buck seemed to notice but didn’t hurry along any. He took out a flask from his turnout cloak. “Baptismal oil,” he said and removed the cap. “Fire is the only thing that can wash an unrepentant sinner of their sins. As you know this is called a second baptism. Susan, do you believe me when I say I’ve performed thousands of these baptisms as a minister of the Church?” She nodded. He let his flask spill a bit onto the table between them. “Hell is an ocean of fire, unending, always storming, where souls churn as embers in agony with no end. And it is only the faithful to Savior that will be spared that flame. And Susan, I want you to be spared the flame.”

            “I will not confess, I’ve committed no crime. I fear no devil.”

            “The Holy Liber makes no mention of a devil in Hell or here above. Hell is simply an estrangement from the creator. Now, that’s the Liber.” The singing from outside grew louder, closer and Buck showed teeth. “But what I always say is there’s no devils but us.” Susan could no longer keep up the act, she was weeping and shaking. I would have been too, word true. “Since I know you’re a woman of faith,” Buck said. “Even if it’s misplaced faith in this folksinger and her heretic notions, I will appeal to your faith and ask you to believe me when I say I will set your body on fire in order to save your immortal soul.” He took out a match, struck it and dropped it to the table which went up in burning. Susan pulled back away from it. “Imagine burning for all eternity. ‘Cause it’s real. Real as this fire between us. Hell is always so close…it’s all around us. And I will do terrible, terrible things to keep you from it, child.”

            Through her tears Susan managed to tell him, “I will never confess.”

            The singing was right outside her door now. “Do you know what happens to the orphans of heretics?” Buck asked her. “Do you know what will happen to your daughter Johanna?”

            “Orphan? What about her father?”

            Buck took out a metal wedding band, looked at Susan then threw it to the fire. “Oh, did you suspect it him that told on you?” Well, if she didn’t I admit that I did.        

            “So what then? If I don’t confess, what? Are you ministers threatening to murder my child?”

            “Goodness no. I’m informing you that you will wish I had killed her after hearing what she is to endure after your gloriously unrepentant heretic death.” The fire on the table was starting to swell to the edge. Buck stood up and walked over to stand behind her. He put one of his hands on her shoulder and the two of them stared into the fire together. “The orphans of dead heretics become wards of the Church. Some grow up and become Churchmembers, some even grow up and become ministers themselves. But some, the ones whose mothers and fathers never admitted their guilt to their families and neighbors, some of the girls… They grow up to become painted women for the ministers.”

            “But…you take vows…you’re not supposed to…”

            “Some of the boys too. Whores of every cast are needed. But yes, we take vows never to take a spouse or to have a family, but this sort of thing is permitted and sanctioned by the Church. Most folks in the lower territories and the more removed areas of the Good Lands know all about these houses – red houses,– we call them. But I can imagine a sheltered and spoiled little town mouse like you who’s too busy playing revolutionary would have never heard of the hardships that some people have to live with when they don’t have the luxury of boredom to incite them to riot.” She wept some more and the bastard kept talking. “It’s not the worst life imaginable for your daughter. They won’t touch her until she’s of age and then she will go about her day servicing the desires and lower urges of various ministers, ministers like my brothers and myself here. True, she will be tossed around and shared like a pecker spittoon by holy men such as myself. She will never be a mother like you, she will never be allowed membership into the Church but she will know the satisfaction of living a life on her knees relieving brothers of the faith of their earthly frustrations.” Buck released his grip on her and then unclasped his turnout cloak with a matador’s flourish to drape over the fire and extinguish it. “It’s a sad thing. But that is what happens to little girls whose mothers are too proud to admit when they are wrong.” 

            Then the singing stopped and there was a knock on the door. Susan didn’t look up at him, just said, “…Don’t touch her. I will do anything you ask. But don’t touch her.”

            The black minister picked up his cloak from the table sending a plume of smoke wafting up like some magician’s trick. “We’re ready to begin,” Buck called out and then he walked over and opened the door.

            Outside were Susan’s neighbors, her kinfolk, folks she saw every day; all of them waiting for her. It was a church night so I  figured it was a quick thing gathering them all up. As Buck took Susan out into the streets everyone started up with the singing again. The Churchmembers all wore white robes and the rest of the ‘goers, mostly younger folk, they were in their finest suits and dresses. All singing together, the same old song. Buck lead Susan by the hand like she was a debutante at her first ball. The other ministers followed in tow and the crowd trailed close behind them. The drums were coming on louder now and I heard a horn that sounded a might off. Made me wonder if that was old Bernice, no better on the brass than she was with keys. No matter, Susan marched along as her new beau showed her the steps.

            When they arrived at the stake in town square there was her man, her husband Len. Up against a black stake, strapped to it and decorated with snapped branches and a careful construction of wooden kindle. His face with blood all over, and I squizzed his left hand was missing its ring and pointer finger. Blood still dripping from the missing meat there. And now Susan was carrying on and trying to tell Len – who looked like he’d been beat something awful – that she was sorry and that she loved him. Most the words didn’t come out exactly right but the sentiment was easy to pick up. But then Buck hushed her and his brothers put her to a stake next to Len. The whole time Buck just held her hand like he was some kind of caring, trusted friend and not the black minister at all.

            I don’t know what exactly Susan saw when she looked out then. I imagined she squizzed a sea of familiar faces. People she’d known her entire life. Some might have looked solemn, some maybe furious. Some even stricken with carnival glee and grim anticipation. I didn’t know, I could only look on her face and I wished I didn’t have to do that. Of course I could see the black minister as well as he motioned to the crowd. The people parted and up to the square walked a young girl about fourteen years old, with straw colored hair who looked a bit like Susan. “Johanna, thank you for coming,” Buck told her. “And thank you for your help in saving your dear parents’ souls.” And at that Susan sunk her head and her chest heaved. That was one of the worst parts of the shadow showing me all this. Because it was always like that, people never suspecting their own family, especially their own children being the ones who turned them in. Never thinking what they made themselves could be their own undoing. This girl, Johanna, I could see her now and at first she was smiling. I don’t think she saw her folks just yet. She was too busy looking up at Buck, soaking up his admiration. He was probably her hero, stupid little ‘goer like her. The girl was probably still gassed off the same admiration from the crowd and all the members of her church. But then Susan’s head came back up and the look on it – beyond the blood – the look itself, it was unmistakable. The girl saw that and then saw her pa – him being so mangled that he barely looked alive – and the girl she upped and stopped her smiling. Her eyes went wet and her lips started quivering. A lot of the times the children of heretics, they’re little sunrays the whole way through. Content and pleased in the knowledge that they’re sending ma and pa up to heaven to save them a seat and wait for them to arrive at a later time. But not this Johanna. I could tell right then she knew what she had done was wrong. The look on her face also seemed to suggest what was worse, that it was too late to take back too. Mostly that’s the way that is with things.      

            The girl reached out a hand for her mother but Buck gave a look and his brother Sara took the girl back to stand at the front of the crowd. With her out of his way Buck raised his hand and the singing and the drumming stopped. All you could hear for a moment was a legion of cicadas out in the dark and beneath that the girl, and Susan and Len all whimpering to themselves, almost harmonizing. Then Buck said, “Now you see, Susan, that your new savior, this minstrel, this folksinger is a false savior who has abandoned you in your time of need. But I haven’t, and neither has He.” He tapped his collar. “Now speak his name and ask him for his forgiveness.

            For a moment I didn’t think she would say anything or maybe she’d even have the sand to tell the black minister to have a suck on a Banapple but instead what she said was, “…I am guilty, guilty of heresy. Guilty of betraying the Church and our Savior…”

            I could hear Buck whispering to her. “Speak his name, child. Do it now.”

            “I have betrayed our Savior Wes Mackabree, the one true God, and I beg for his forgiveness and Savior’s mercy.”

This made the minister happy and he said some empty holy words as was the practice. “The veil is thin when lifted.” And then the crowd repeated the passage to him.

But then Susan said, “I love you, Len. I love you, Jo.”

And the minister looked altogether less pleased. With the hand that wasn’t holding Susan’s own Buck took out a match and dropped it into the kindle and the fire came to life. “‘It is only through fear that we find truth, and it is only through truth that we find salvation’ from your Holy Liber, First Book,” he told the crowd and then he held Susan’s hand for a bit longer as the fire climbed, eating up her toes and her legs. She screamed at first, then thrashed. Buck still held her hand and looked over to another minister who put Len to the flame too. And then I watched Buck keep the woman’s hand in his grasp for a little more, until you could see the skin on her face start to change color and bubble like it was honey in a pot. Then he let go and walked down to where Johanna was. I understood why Susan had done it. Why she had begged for Savior Mackabree’s forgiveness. But I took no satisfaction that it made much difference for the life of her daughter. It wasn’t that Buck wouldn’t keep his word, I didn’t think he would send the girl to the red houses. It wasn’t that. It was that now I could see Buck behind the girl as she watched the result of what she’d done. The price of her betrayal. And even though she had tears running down her face I couldn’t tell if they were tears from the horror of it all or just tears of relief for the choice to finally be made. Finally knowing which side you were on and knowing that now there was no turning back. I knew those tears.

The shadow started to fade now, sound was getting low. Soon the vision would fade with it and then I’d be back. Returned to my body. Wondering how long until the dark decided to take me once again. The last thing I heard before I left sounded like the howl of a wammel in the distance. It could no doubt smell all the cooking flesh and probably wanted some. Or some more I guessed. I couldn’t tell if Buck heard it too or if he even cared. After all, he had already shared what he wanted to with the beast. But maybe it wasn’t the sound of the beast at all, maybe it was just the babble of the fire itself. Singing its secrets out into the night. Not that it made any difference, because soon the sound had faded, and with it the sight. And then I was free from my shadow, for a little while longer.