Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
"He will not know Himself when the Bride and He join as one. He will speak with your beloved’s mouth, but His eyes shall hold the dark. Do not fear Him. He needs your body, and your love. Let the vessel enter you and you shall be made whole so He may awaken.
Bride and Bridegroom.
One flesh.
Two vessels.
Three deaths."
—The Sacred Text of The Hollow Bridegroom
Isaac had ignored the calls from his mom long enough, so when the next call came, he answered.
“Mom.”
Her voice was filled with panic as she immediately started begging him to leave the woman and come home.
“It’s okay, Mom. I figured it out.”
“I’m coming down there! Do not do anythi—”
“No, I’m not waiting for you.”
His eyes lingered on Lenoria’s exquisitely crafted face with her creamy skin and cinnamon freckles. “She’s ready. We both are.”
Whatever was shouted next, he didn’t let her finish. He ended the call and placed the phone back in his pocket before making his way out into the rain.
“She’s on her way,” he said quietly, kicking a rock into the grass. “She thinks she can stop this.”
“Can she?” Lenoria asked, wrapping her arms around herself as she leaned against the doorframe.
Isaac looked back at her and she could see the god behind his pupils now, watching. Where his eyes had once been a tender brown, they were now a mesmerizing shade of crimson.
“She already tried to keep me from here. Once my dad passed and I found out what she’d been keeping from me, it was over. That was all the power she had.”
He held his hand out to her and she stepped forward, the rain causing Isaac’s clothing to stick to her curves. Gently, he took her hand and pressed it flat against his chest. His heartbeat was steady and somewhere in the recesses of Lenoria’s mind, she wished she could feel her own beat once more.
“We finish this tonight,” he murmured and placed a kiss on her temple. “And then we’ll be together for eternity.”
Lenoria stood in the rain, barefoot, soaked, and smiling.
Her burial gown from the other night stuck to her skin like a second flesh.
Across from her, Isaac wiped the mud from his brow, eyes gleaming beneath a sheen dense fog that hung around them.
They had dug up her plot again—dug it together, laughing through the cold and wet, like it was all just a fun game between them. It felt right and strangely peaceful.
Isaac striped down to nothing before he knelt beside the plot and helped lower Lenoria into the ground.
She pulled him down, down into the mud, into the grave.
Their mouths crashed together in a kiss that tasted of the plans of gods that they would never know. And so He slid into her like it was the most precious thing in the world.
She moaned into the wind that had made its way into the ground with them, legs wrapping around his waist, back pressed to the earth.
Their bodies spoke for them—every moan a recitation of old lore, every gasp a secret from the texts they’d been raised on.
They moved in a perfect rhythm, not as man and woman, but as two halves of something vast and ancient and aching to be consumed by the god that had already infiltrated their minds and souls.
When they came, they came together. Each clutching at one another, gasping and writhing in the soil.
The storm had gentled to a light drizzle when Isaac finally pulled himself from Lenoria.
He climbed from the grave, naked and unashamed, and walked to the machine waiting at the edge of the plot.
A backhoe, rumbling faintly, waited to do its most basic job.
His eternal bride lay in the dirt, still trembling, as he lowered the bucket.
“Shall we?” he asked, voice calm and clear.
She looked up at him through the curtain of her hair as she held her arms out to him.
“Yes.”
Climbing back down, Isaac pressed the button to the machine just a few feet away and curled beside her, his chest against hers, his arms around her like he could carry her with him to the afterlife.
He pressed his forehead to hers as the backhoe began to dump the contents they’d loaded onto it into the plot. “I’ll see you on the other side.”
Lenoria squeezed him tight and whispered, “I’ll be seeing you.”
Then the dirt fell.