Chapter 4 Daylan
four
Daylan
How are we meant to handle a trading day full of caravans and strangers when we are besieged by the devil and death dances in our most holy spaces?
Surely this is a horrible idea.
Father has at least put strict guidelines in place, having forced each cart and every vendor towards the same small circle in front of the longhouse where Elders and guards armed with axes and other weapons watch for any sign of malice towards us.
Another guideline he announced to improve the safety of this gathering is that while the trading will be permitted, the travelers must leave before the sun crests in the sky.
They will not be allowed to linger into the dark hours of the evening to share fellowship, food and prayer with us.
My trade tokens sit within a small leather satchel that hangs from a leather cord around my neck as I stand on the top step of the longhouse.
I do not know where these tokens originally came from, but they are quite old and well worn.
The images imprinted on either side of them have all but faded away with time, but if I squint and focus hard, I can still make out the shape of a woman’s portrait on one side and a tiny bird in a lake on the other.
While the rest of Bright Haven trades in goods, I trade these small, circular bits of metal for the items that catch my eye.
Sticky sweet pink honey from Ekksha’s bee farm, soft caramels for the children, unique dyes for the spinners that make the yarns from our sheep.
Anything I want, I am bidden to trade for with these tokens.
Vendors can exchange them for things from the Bright Haven storehouses before they leave the compound, and the tokens are then given back to me until the next trading day.
Today, I am not sure I will trade, though the bright pink sign with a beehive drawn on it calls to me.
That strange sense of unease still sits within me, and for the moment I will stay put where I am at the top of the steps of the longhouse, watching Bright Haven community members laugh and chat with the vendors.
On the outskirts of the circle, a small group of younger children raise their voices to the heavens in song, led by one of the women who provides care for the children while their parents work in the greenhouses or kitchens.
I scan the crowd carefully, as if I am going to stop whatever the devil may have planned for us with my own two hands while knowing that I hardly stand a chance if evil comes calling today.
Father stands at the edge of the circle, arms crossed and eyes scrutinizing the people that walk by as carefully as I am doing.
I am slightly surprised to see Arn by his side, though I don’t know why because Arn is always by Father’s side.
The bigger surprise would be stumbling across an Arn-less Father.
Timothy is nowhere to be seen, and that likely answers the question of who Father found to be at fault for Angelo’s death.
I bet if I looked in the hut where sinners await the cleansing rains, I would find him kept within, but betting is of the devil and that thought is dangerous.
I quickly genuflect, drawing a cross over my chest to prevent the devil from taking hold of that errant thought.
Arn nods to Father and heads around the circle of caravans towards me, his face dour as it always is. His muscles flex as he carries himself, fists clenched at his sides and dark hair flopping onto his forehead. He comes to stand at the base of the steps, looking up at me.
“Lamb,” he says, and that is all he says.
“Blessings,” I offer after waiting a beat for him to say something else.
“Are you not trading on this day?”
“I do not know.”
“Oh.”
Arn stands in silence, eyes boring holes into my own until I speak again. “Is there something you need from me?”
“No,” he says, but then quickly changes his mind, nodding. “Kind of, yeah. I just wanted to say I’m sorry about all that. You know. Angelo. Sorry you had to see that or whatever.”
I am slightly touched by his words, though they appear manufactured and disingenuous. Perhaps Father has sent him my way to offer these sentiments and given him the exact words to say. “Thank you, Arn. I regret you witnessed it as well.”
He snorts a soft laugh, shaking his head. “Ain’t nothing I ain’t seen before. I was here ten years ago, my Lamb. I saw things. You know what them things I seen are.”
Lazarus and the death of Ezekiel, of course. There are few older members of Bright Haven that weren’t here to witness the depravity of the sinner and the violent loss of their first beloved Lamb. “I am sorrowful that you witnessed that, Arn.”
“Yeah, well,” he says, shrugging. “Ain’t nothing really.”
“How fares Timothy?”
Arn scowls, his eyes hardening and his fists tensing. “Probably hot and pissed off. Father has decided we must dig Angelo’s grave as punishment. Timothy will dig until the lunch hour, then I will dig into the evening until it is done.”
“Ah,” I respond, for there is nothing else I have to say that isn’t laced in confusion and surprise.
If I speak what is on my mind, Arn will surely take it back to Father, who will be compelled to correct me.
The truth is that I am surprised Father has sent no one for cleansing because of this infraction when Angelo’s sin did not end in anyone’s death but his own, but I stay my tongue against speaking this to Arn.
I do not wish to be whipped for making an error today.
I do not know if my soul can bear such a thing.
“I swear I didn’t do shit.”
“It is not my place to pass judgment.”
“I am an Elder in this community. I have the brand on my back.”
“I am aware that you do, Arn.”
Arn’s face scrunches in frustration, his cheeks burning red, though I do not know if it’s from anger or the shame he carries inside him for whatever part he played in yesterday’s tragedy.
“You think whatever you want, Lamb. Angelo’s death is on Timothy’s head, and he will be made to pay for his crimes, eventually. ”
“Pay how?”
“We all must answer to God,” Arn says, with another dismissive shrug. “Upon our death or upon His return, we all must answer for the crap we’ve done on the earth.”
I nod in response, and he turns away from me, heading back around the small circle of caravans to Father’s side.
His words about Timothy being made to pay for his crimes linger in my mind, though.
Things spoken in anger often reveal more about the speaker than they ever intend to, and on top of the remnants of unease that flit at the edges of my soul, I find myself driven to check on Timothy’s safety.
I step down the wooden steps as Father glances my way, Arn already staring hard at me with the same frustration in his eyes.
I nod to them both, then turn away from the caravans to head towards the small cemetery at the very back of the compound.
A slight breeze ripples through the prairie grasses as I walk down the beaten path that loops the longhouse before heading straight back towards the fences and woods beyond.
As I draw closer to the spattering of wooden crosses stuck into the ground, the moaning of the damned ones tied to the inner fence reaches my ears.
They are restless, as always, frustrated and angry that they are kept as they are when their very nature insists they must always be seeking to devour flesh and spread their sins.
I stop for a moment, watching as one of them, who was once a young girl, screeches from beyond the barrier, her gaunt cheeks torn open to expose her teeth and her robe in tatters around her bony shoulders.
She is thin and frail now, though she wasn’t always this way. I remember when she was sent for cleansing. The way she begged God for mercy that did not come, falling to her knees in the grass and tipping her head up to the sky as the rain stole her humanity.
Ruth, she was once called.
Her sin was lying with a man she was not married to, engaging in depravity when such acts are meant to be divine and purposeful. Though Father knows the value of a young woman who can bear children for Bright Haven, he made an example of Ruth and sent her for cleansing.
Poor Ruth.
“Dear Heavenly Father,” I murmur, folding my hands in prayer as I watch what was once Ruth thrash against the fence and the rope that binds her to it.
“I pray for Ruth’s soul. Please deliver her from evil in this life or the next.
See her as she was, a sinner without mercy, and grant her peace upon her passing. In Father’s name I pray. Amen.”
“Terrible,” a voice comments. I turn and find Timothy, covered in a thin layer of dirt, standing behind me. “You’d never guess that that creature was once a human being.”
I nod, turning my attention away from the monster once called Ruth and offer a smile to Timothy. “How goes the dig?”
“Hard,” he sighs. “The earth isn’t easy to move, and I have been given the worst part of it. By the time Arn comes to finish, the rough soil will be loose and easy to shovel out.”
He sounds quite frustrated by it, but there is nothing I can do to make this change.
Though I suspect Arn playing the role of Father’s favored Elder has something to do with the arrangement of digging this grave, the question remains of who really is at fault for the death that requires it.
“Ensure you allow for breaks. Fall may be coming, but the sun shines hot.”
“No kidding,” Timothy laughs, shaking his head. “I have a water jug nearby, and Father has provided me with a cap to wear to keep the sun off my face.”
I nod as the damned ones grumble and groan behind the fence, every so often letting loose small squeaks and shrieks. “They are restless.”
“They are always restless. It is their lot in this version of life. I am thankful that Father did not find me solely at fault for what happened to poor Angelo, or I fear I would be one of them.”
“Are you so full of sin that God would deny you mercy?”
“The sin of murder is met with no mercy,” Timothy murmurs, his tone dark and low. “All who live here know the price to be paid for such a thing.”
Lazarus, again. His presence lingers like a weight on this community, but not since these devilish acts have started have I heard anyone make such frequent mention of him. “Dark times lead to dark deeds, but I do not believe that mercy is out of reach. We cannot claim to know the will of God.”
“Nor the will of the devil.”
I nod, for Timothy speaks truth, for if God exists, so does Lucifer, the fallen.
“I should get back to it,” Timothy says.
As Timothy heads back to the hole he is digging, I glance down again at Ruth’s frail bones.
Her hands are clawed as she grips onto the fence, and the tendons in her arms lie exposed to the world as her flesh decays, but something different catches and holds my attention.
Dread bubbles inside me as I take a step closer to the fence, squinting as I stare at the tattered edge of her robe where it lies just above her rotted breasts.
Though she won’t stop moving, growling, shaking the fence in her hands, I can make out something on her that should not be there.
She was not marked with anything before being sent out into the cleansing rains, and my blood runs cold as I make out the truth of what I am seeing.
Carved into the thin skin of her chest in crude, vicious strokes is the word ‘REPENT.’