6. Song in the Night #4
He pulled on the right gauntlet, and the harrier relocated from the "No Parking" sign to his wrist. "One of the Hunters came in and got bread and Everything Cookies, Mr. Voigt complained about the price of all the things in the cooler case, Jeff the Journeyman almost dropped a flat of eggs, and that's it.
" The flat had a weak spot and had started to buckle before Marie slid her hand under it and the two got it safely to the mixing area.
"Not as bad as the mint bottle," Shoim observed, then fell silent as a quartet of tourists passed them.
"No, not as bad as the mint." He'd been smelling mint in his sleep for days after that, even though none of it had gotten on him.
They sidestepped out of the way of a man with a suit and a briefcase who was deep in a phone conversation and oblivious to the world.
"No, no, and I don't think that case exists.
You'd better look it up, and cross-check it with the books.
Their office has gotten bad about that. Yes, it should but—" Clatter. "Ow!"
Jude did not look. Shoim did, then faced forward again. "Weekly special sign outside the butcher shop," he murmured.
The office at St. Boniface Roman Catholic Church was open, so they went in. Miss Kleinfeld spoke with two young men as Fr. Antonio emerged from his office. The priest smiled. "I'm sorry. Scheduled phone conference. Can I help you?"
"Yes, Father. I'm Johann Pavlovich, and my younger brother Bartolomej, ah, Bartholomew. We have moved to Devon County, and are seeking a church."
"You found one," Shoim hissed before Jude could clamp his beak shut. Ft. Antonio gave the harrier a stern look. He subsided, mostly.
"Welcome, and welcome. I'm Fr. Antonio Manfredi. Please, come into my office. Do you need something Mr. Tainuit, Shoim?"
"Just to leave my tithe, Father."
Miss Kleinfeld pointed at Shoim. "I found his, Father. Not on the front door mat this time." The halo over the harrier's head failed to persuade, if expressions were correct.
Why me, St. Francis, Defender, St. Jude?
Why? Short list, please, sirs. Otherwise he'd be there until Easter of the next year, at least. The brothers looked, then did a double take before they caught themselves.
They were the Hunters he'd crossed paths with.
Be calm. You are under Lady's Peace, be calm.
Nothing can happen here, and they know not where you dwell, be calm.
After he paid and left the office, Shoim leaned toward him. "Talk to me, brother," he murmured in their speech.
"It is one thing for you to say that Hunters might be moving to Devon County. It is another to see them, to know that they might worship here as well." The old fear began to rise. He needed help on Hunts, yes, but should they speak of him to those who might recognize him ...
"Easy, brother. They do not know you, did not know Karol. You are a mage, one who aided their Hunt, nothing more or less. This is our hunting territory, not theirs." He sounded very certain. "Do not be surprised if they go wary around us."
The words brought a little comfort. The large vehicle ahead of them, however, did not. "I do not think he will clear—"
Krrruuuunch. The big dirt-moving truck clipped the edge of the building, ripping loose some bricks and bringing down part of the awning. It stopped. The door opened, and the driver jumped out. He ran southbound.
Shoim flapped twice. Jude tossed him and began to pursue. They cornered the driver two blocks later, just as Deputy Heinrichs bailed out of his cruiser and sprinted to meet them.
"That was interesting," Shoim observed later that afternoon, after Jude got dinner at the Courthouse Café and they filed their report.
Jude caught several uncharitable comments and settled for, "I am rather surprised he could run in a straight line, as intoxicated as he smelled."
"Perhaps he thought he was zigzagging?" The harrier sounded meditative. "I wonder how he managed to sign in and get that truck and load with so much booze on his breath and person."
So did Undersheriff Koch, based on the sounds that had come down the hallway.
"That will probably be looked into by both the sheriff and the county, since he was driving for the contractor working on the old Schnell Bridge Road.
" Someone would have a very, very bad day.
That someone was not him for once. Perhaps.
The next morning, once AJ had left for the dojo and his lesson, Jude and the others slaughtered and dressed the rabbit.
"You were right, Levi," Jude observed. Most of the rabbit's food had not passed through a narrowing in the central intestine.
The guts seemed healthy otherwise, but he trimmed out that part. Shoim did not need to eat it.
Levi preened, then made a face as Claire handed him the bowl with the rest of the offal and organs. "You may present it to His Harrierness," she commanded. He mock bowed, then trotted the bowl over to the wood pile, set it down, and fled.
"Yeeeeaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!" A very dark brown dart streaked into the yard, did a loop over the shed, then landed on the wood and began devouring. Jude pretended not to see the show. The children rolled their eyes, then came back to help him finish skinning and rinsing the meat.
"Levi was correct," Jude told his lady that night as they prepared for bed.
She hugged him. "Do we start teaching him shielding?"
He hugged back. "Yes. All the books agree that shielding comes first until he builds more endurance and control.
If he's an animal Sensitive, he needs to shield anyway.
Healing is the last gift to develop, and if he's a Healer of some kind, he has to grow into it, or so everything and everyone says. "
The embrace tightened, then eased. "Good. I want him to grow up, but not that fast." She smiled and wagged one finger. "And not too up yet, either. Not until we find him new pants. There's no more hem to let down."
"I am not the one who comes from a tall family of dairy owners, my lady my love." He kissed her anyway as she giggled.
On Monday night, Fr. Antonio handed out a new song. "It is an American folk hymn," he said. "It has become popular recently."
Mr. Frederick, one of the tenors, glanced at the title. "Oh, didn't the Mormons record this recently?"
"Yes, but not this arrangement. It is not sixteen part, so relax."
"But I thought you said we could do 'Spem in Alium' this year," Mrs. Farrell said, then winked. Fr. Manfredi studied the ceiling for the former storage room, no doubt asking St. Cecilia to intervene as two other choir members snickered and whispered behind their hands.
"If you recruit thirty more people, and they all have perfect pitch, then we will try that one." The priest played pitches on the small electric keyboard. "Let's see what we can do, sight reading."
Jude opened the score, found the bass line, and blinked at the text.
" O Jesus, my Savior, my song in the night,/ Come to me with Thy tender love, my soul’s delight.
/ Unto Thee, O Lord, in affliction I cry,/ My comfort by day and my song in the night.
" The melody rose and fell gently, a meditation and plea combined that spoke to his heart.
They sang through it twice. "I think we'll keep that one," Fr. Antonio said. "The text is based on a longer poem, some of which is used in 'His Voice as the Sound,' if you are familiar with that hymn."
After rehearsal finished, Lucy and another alto studied Lawrence Kupfer's phone. "That is very mystical," Lucy observed, pointing to something on the small screen.
"This says he was a Baptist, so maybe that explains it," Lawrence said. He didn't sound persuaded.
Catholics and Orthodox didn't have a monopoly on mysticism, that much he remembered, but a mystical Baptist?
Jude mused on the concept as he waited for Shoim to step onto his left gauntlet.
All the Baptists of his acquaintance seemed very grounded and skeptical, not that he knew more than four or five, other than Aunt Martha.
She had not been at all inclined toward the less common forms of spiritual understanding.
"No you don't!" he heard Claire calling as he and Lucy rounded the corner to the children's wing. "Come back here."
Did he dare? He leaned as little as he could around the end of the wall. Two small children raced toward the end of the hall, giggling madly, as Claire and one of the minders chased them. Neither was Gertie or AJ.
"How can they move so fast on such short legs, Uncle Jude?" Claire asked plaintively as they drove home.
He glanced into the back seat at AJ, who dozed.
"Better cornering ability, and they always get at least two feet of head start before you discover them, or so it seems." Which was why they had baby gates all over the house.
He'd caught Gertie considering how to climb over one, or so he suspected.
AJ had tried to vault the downstairs gate—once.
He'd split his lip open, and opted not to make a second attempt.
"Hmmm. Deer, passenger side, four by the fence."
He caught the eye shine and lifted his foot off the gas, ready to downshift and slow. The quartet remained clear of the road until the sedan passed. "Thank you."
"Am I old enough to get a deer tag, sir?"
He'd not even considered the possibility.
The last deer he'd dealt with had been in the garden, dining on the green beans, in the one place he had a clean line of sight and nothing behind the beast. Lucy had forgiven him for waking her that early when she tasted the venison roast a few days later.
Claire had not been home that day. "You qualify for a junior license, but I do not know if you need an adult license, given your birth date.
I will look at the game laws and see. You would like to go deer hunting?
" She'd need to take the class. He needed to as well, just to stay updated on the most current laws.