Chapter 8 #2
Cici snorts. “She’d make you get rabies shots before coming within a foot of her.”
“Not when she needs them herself,” Matt adds, pushing the last of his breakfast around his plate.
Mumbles of agreement round the table. I pick up my final piece of bacon plucking it into my mouth, feeling Miss Onida’s presence as she sneaks up behind me and gives my braids a good tug.
I turn, still crunching on my bacon, and offer her a gentle smile.
The lines on her face wrinkle with weariness.
“Why are you staring at me like that?” I ask through my crunching.
Miss Onida tugs again, twirling an object in her pocket. “Because your thoughts are louder than you’re chewing, child.”
She slips her hand out, cupping my cheek, her features softening as I lean in. “We leave in the morning, come see me tonight?”
She turns her head to Bear, who is eating straight out of the warmers, breadcrumbs tumbling into the floor.
“We will see. But if not, make me proud, ?? ??.” I tilt my head in her hands, brows knitting in question.
“Atsi Waya,” she repeats. Fire wolf.
I roll my eyes, grinning as she roughly shakes my chin. She releases me, slipping a wooden spoon from her apron and aiming it straight at Bear. He stands oblivious, ravaging the remainder of the biscuits.
As I return my attention back to the table, Cici pats my knee underneath, quickly retreating as I flinch. “Don’t worry, Florence. We’ll get them this time.”
I sigh heavily, racking my nails across my palms to calm my nerves. We don’t have a choice; it’s now or never for those wolves.
“Ow!” Bear yelps, running from the warmers, his biscuits tumbling to the floor as he makes a break for the doorway. Miss Onida shakes her wooden spoon in his direction, yelling something toward him we can’t understand.
My lips thin in a hollow smile as I turn back to meet Cici’s stare. “Yeah, we will. I’ll make sure of it.”
I stop at the edge of the field, my Mustang rumbling in the old gravel.
The church stands alone against the sky, small but faithful, its white paint neglected by time and weather.
The sky behind it glows in soft pinks and golds, like a promise whispered instead of spoken.
The rattle of the crickets consumes me as I cut the ignition and step out.
I feel small standing here, but not insignificant.
This is the kind of church my mother would have loved, not loud and well-known, just a “you and Jesus” type of space.
The kind of space I need right now with whatever comes with tomorrow.
I step closer, the grass brushing against my ankles, and I can almost see her here, standing stronger than she ever let on.
As always. The kind of woman who kept moving because stopping meant giving in.
The kind who fought with kindness, when anger would have been easier.
I swallow dryly, my throat tightening as the shame of my life choices press in.
My mom believed in this kind of place. She had faith that didn’t need walls or crowds.
Faith that stayed when the Lord took my brother.
Faith that stayed when the doctors shook their heads and bad news piled up like weight on her chest.
She never asked why. She never bargained. She just held on, smiled, and prayed harder.
“If you’re listening,” I whisper to the wind, unsure of who I’m talking to…
God, my mother, or both, “I don’t know how to do this.
” I pause. The church doesn’t answer and the sky doesn’t part.
But the stillness settles around me. I remember her hands raised, eyes closed, singing like she already knew where she was going.
I push the door open, the hinges rough against the rust. The church is narrow and carved by weather, the wood beneath my boots smoothed down by decades of people who came here carrying their burdens and left a little lighter.
Rows of simple pews stretch toward the altar, their edges nicked and soft.
Sunlight pours through tall, arched windows, dust motes drifting lazily in its wake.
I step carefully down the center aisle, my footsteps echoing louder than they should as I slide into a pew near the front.
The bench creaks beneath me as I sit, elbows resting on my knees, hands clasped loosely together, not folded in prayer.
Not yet. I stare at the rugged cross. My mother would know what to say here.
She always did. She would have bowed her head without hesitation, eyes closed and her faith unshaken.
A dove, pure, gentle, and unwavering. Nothing like the blackened raven I have become.
I exhale reluctantly, wiping the sweat from my palms against my thighs.
“I’m not like her,” I murmur into the stillness.
“I don’t know how to trust like that, or even where to begin.
” Silence answers me back. I close my eyes anyway, even though it feels awkward.
“If you’re listening, I could use a sign,” I whisper, my voice barely carrying past the pew. “Or a direction. Or something.”
The door opens behind me, and I swiftly bend down, drawing a knife from the strap above my ankle.
“This place suits you,” a familiar voice speaks behind me.
I huff a soft, humorless laugh. Nyx. “You’ve got me confused with someone else.”
“No,” he replies, taking a seat. “I don’t.”
We sit in silence for a beat, sunlight warming the side of my face. He doesn’t rush me.
“You come here often?” He asks gently, the creak of the pew sounding from behind me as he leans forward.
I look across the unfamiliar area, smiling to myself. “I do, just have never made it inside.”
He clears his throat and stands, walking past me down to the altar. He lowers himself on the aged step, setting his leather journal beside him and nods like that makes perfect sense. “How come? If you don’t mind me asking.”
I hesitate, fingers tracing the edge of my blade. “It’s silly,” I admit.
He doesn’t respond, but gestures for me to continue.
I clear my throat, my fingernails grazing my palms. “I was doing my homework one night.” I stare at the wooden cross, searching for the right words.
“My dad came in late one night from working on a tractor in the shop. I was little. But he sat in the computer chair.” My voice is steady as I speak, but my hands are not.
I clench them tightly in my lap, nails digging in hard.
“He asked me if I’d ever asked God for anything.
Like really got down on my knees and begged him for something.
” I swallow. “I told him no.” I laugh once, but there’s no humor in it. “He said he did.”
I spin around in the pew, dropping my elbow over the back as I hide myself from Nyx.
“He said he begged God to save his son. But in the end, God didn’t.
You see, um, my brother had a blood disorder…
he was very sick.” Nyx’s stare is unwavering as he waits.
“After that night, I started asking God for our family to stop being angry, to rip the grief up by the roots and make it disappear.” I pause, my eyes searching the floor.
“I kept waiting for it to work.” I turn back around as the wind moves through the broken rafters above us.
“It didn’t.” Silence stretches. “So, I figured something out. I must not have been someone God listened to either.” The words leave before I can stop them.
I squeeze my eyes shut, immediately regretting speaking.
“I shouldn’t have said all that I’m sorry, this is childish?— “
Nyx pushes off the pew. “You think being unheard means being unseen,” he says, cutting me off, understanding written all over his face.
“There are many prayers I’ve thanked God for not answering,” he continues.
“Things I begged for that would’ve destroyed me if I’d gotten them.
We go through things we don’t understand while we’re in them.
Not because God left… but because we can’t see the whole road from the middle of it. ”
“God saw you in that house, Angry Bones,” he says quietly. “He heard you. He heard your dad. Whether you understand that now or not. It’s a privilege to meet Jesus early Florence, especially the ones who suffer the most on this earth. You don’t know the road your brother would have had.”
My heartbeat stumbles.
“So don’t stop asking,” he says gently. “Keep asking. Keep talking to Him. You don’t lose the right to pray because life hurt you.”
I exhale, examining the specks of blood on my palms. “What if he still says no?”
Nyx walks over to the stage of the pulpit, hiking his pants up before carefully taking a seat. “Then he’s still answering.”
He lifts his journal, eyes skimming across the blank cover. I slip my hand down quietly, as if something is guiding me, and sheath my blade back into place.
Tears threaten my eyes as I jolt to my feet, shielding my face from my partner. “I’ve got to go. I’ll see you later,” I grit out. I push through the door, but pause, taking a glance back. Nyx is still sitting, journal in hand, and without looking up, he bows his head.