Chapter 5 #2
Inside, the air is musty and thick but welcoming all the same.
Spiders have decorated the space with gauzy webs, all strung like garlands throughout the corners and doorways.
It’s true that they keep the other bugs at bay for the most part.
He respects them, appreciates them, yet fears them all the same.
It’s how his life has always been, fear and respect drunk from the same cup.
He likes order. In every other aspect of his life, he carefully controls everything, manipulating situations and environments to suit his endgame and manage his appearance.
But in the cabin, he allows nature to reign.
He never interrupts it or tries to change it.
So even though he hates the spiders, they’ve stayed, because it’s not his business whether they do or not.
It is the complete opposite of the quaint little cabin he moved into after separating from Kathryn, like his outer and inner selves.
In this cabin, his actions are dictated by the Lord himself. His hands cleanse. His hands punish. That’s their purpose here.
Opening his bag, he removes a Bible his father gave him when he was four.
It’s cracked and ancient, but the name stamped in gold on the cover marks it as his.
When he was gifted it, his father told him it was precious and powerful, and Philip accepted that with his very soul.
Next he removes a large water bottle and slams it down onto the wooden vanity next to a soiled washbasin.
He brushes a spiderweb from his shoulder, letting the bag drop to the floor.
Dust rises into the air. Dirty plumes curl around his feet like tentacles, and he clears his throat, trying to dispel the polluted air from his lungs.
He looks into the filthy mirror, and it distorts his reflection.
He doesn’t recognize the monstrous figure staring back at him, but in the cabin, he rarely does.
It’s just the form he takes in this place, where he can reveal himself to a captive audience, becoming the last thing their eyes see before eternity.
Walking away from the mirror and the disfigured version of himself that lives inside it, he pulls another rickety old chair to the center of the room.
It’s ancient, but it’s always felt like it was made just for him.
He sits, and it squeaks and creaks loudly under his weight, sending shockwaves of sound through the silence, shattering it.
He stares at the thing in front of him for a few minutes, not really taking in its details at first but staring through it.
A million things run through his mind, but he quiets them.
This place allows him to do that, to clear out the noise and just work.
He has a calling to rid the world of impurities.
Not everyone understands it, but he believes in his purpose.
Brian Hawkins knows he’ll be gone for a few weeks on a “mission trip.” Philip plans to savor his stay this time.
And he can figure out what to do about that rat police officer who keeps hounding him.
Once he allows his eyes to focus, he notices how dirty the thing in front of him is.
It’s filthy, really. He took it because it’s a sinner, a jezebel.
Now its exterior matches that interior. Smears of dirt cover its skin, and he finds that they are all he can look at.
The lantern light bounces off it, casting shadows all around and distorting its shape slightly, so he reaches out and touches it.
His fingers graze its cheek, and it trembles in response.
He strokes his thumb over the soiled blindfold, noting that the cloth is pulled so tightly, it has made indents in the thing’s skin.
He slips his finger under the tight fabric, and it tries to shrink back into the chair it’s tied to.
There is nowhere for it to go, though. It turns its face and whimpers, unable to put any distance between itself and Philip.
Philip’s finger taps its closed eye under the blindfold.
He can feel the tightly squeezed lid and the fluttering of its eyelashes, and the feeling inside him is profound.
Fear emanates from this thing in front of him in tremendous waves, and it makes him feel sympathy.
A pit forms in his stomach, and for a moment he struggles to maintain his composure.
That feeling leaves almost as quickly as it came, and he pushes down with his finger, pressing onto its eyelid and eliciting what can only be labeled a squeal from the thing.
He thinks about pressing all the way down, pressing so hard that its eye turns to milk, pressing until it runs down its face like a tear.
He doesn’t.
“You have anything to say?” he asks, his voice measured and calm.
The thing sobs softly, a thread of spit hanging from its lip now.
“I’m sorry,” it says flatly.
“Sorry for what?” he asks, moving closer to its face, close enough to smell its sour breath.
It shakes its head, its mouth twisting into a pained shape. Quietly, almost too quiet to hear, it whispers, “I don’t know.”
Philip smiles. It’s a cruel smile that comes from somewhere deep and permanent. It’s the smile of someone who knows he doesn’t have to dispose of his toy just yet.
“Wrong answer,” he says gently, caressing its face with his fingertips, an intimate gesture that stands in stark contrast with every other part of the circumstances.
He stands, making his way toward the area that once functioned as a kitchen but is now peeling paint and a collection of broken cabinets. Pulling a container from a cabinet, he prepares to make tea.
Philip’s tea is special, containing the ingredients necessary to coax a moment of humility or clarity from those who ingest it. The secret to his potion is an ingredient that he has felt drawn to since coming across it in Louisiana as a kid.
The first time he saw Brugmansia candida, a flower better known as angel’s trumpet, he was transfixed.
The blooms look like bells that have been delicately hand-painted purple and white by an artist. When he asked his mother about it, she told him to never touch them because they were poisonous.
He was shocked, not able to align this information with what he was looking at.
How could something so beautiful be poisonous?
How could it be named after something so pure yet still bring such harm?
The more he researched it, the more it fascinated him.
This plant was indeed toxic, part of the infamous nightshade family and easily able to cause death if consumed in the right amounts.
The risks are plentiful, but angel’s trumpet can also create a hallucinogenic high that rivals the most potent LSD.
The only thing that distinguishes it from more euphoric types of hallucinogens is the kind of high it produces.