Chapter 19 #3
“You can mock me all you want, but I know you’re the reason this town is in such dire straits. I may not be able to convince everyone else of exactly what you are, but I don’t need to. All it will take for them to shake you off is for me to show them a better way.”
“Yeah, yeah, I heard your speech the other night. I saw how they lapped it all up.”
“And you don’t care? It doesn’t bother you at all that your friends and neighbors would throw off this yoke you’ve burdened them with, if only they knew how?”
“ ‘Burdened them’? I’m the reason this valley doesn’t burn or flood.
I’m the reason they get their crops planted on time and can bring in a full harvest without a loss.
I’m the reason they’ve never had to conserve water.
I’m the reason they still see fireflies every summer, and you want to tell me I’ve burdened them? ”
“Fireflies don’t pay the bills.”
“Neither will your fucking church.”
“You’re free to think that, Miss Wynne, but it doesn’t make a difference. This is my land, and I’m going to use it to build my church.”
The belladonna vision painted itself before my eyes; the tree line burned to ash and became dyed mulch and concrete, and the meadow grasses were swallowed up by artificial turf.
The driveway turned to rich black asphalt beneath my feet, and I knew if I turned, I would see a great white church at the top of the hill.
The pastor opened his portfolio and withdrew a sheet of paper with a flourish.
He glanced at it, then at me again, and thrust it in my direction.
At the top, I recognized the old Burrsville village clerk’s letterhead—very old, multiple generations removed from the current version.
The ink was faded to gray, and it was difficult to read the mix of ancient typeset and looping handwritten script.
Or, it would be, if I didn’t already know what it said.
This deed, effective this eleventh day of March…vendor grants…the real property located at 66 Grayshore Road…purchaser Norman Abdee.
“Well?” the pastor asked. There was so much gloating stuffed into that single word that some part of me tried to shake off the chains of dread to scream at him, but I had no voice.
I felt like I was drowning again, because even though I’d seen the destruction of my sanctuary coming, I could do nothing to stop it.
Now it was here, and the future was upon me, and the water was closing over my head.
“Nothing to say, Miss Wynne?”
Strange that it was pride that shook me out of my despair.
Pride was, perhaps, truly what separated us from the animals—the thing that flew in the face of survival instinct, the thing we either clung to or abandoned when desperate.
His triumph was a whiplash on an already raw wound, and the sting woke me from my stupor.
“I already told you, I’m not leaving,” I said, obstinance the only thing I had left. “I’ll tie this up in court for years. We’ll see how long your congregation’s enthusiasm lasts.”
“Years?” Zeke snatched the paper back from me; my fingers left a damp stain on the corner. “I have the deed. You don’t think I can get a judge to wrap this up quickly?”
I didn’t doubt it, not for a moment. “Fuck you,” I snarled. “I don’t care what you do. You won’t get your hands on this sanctuary unless it’s over my cold, dead body.”
“I will have it,” he said, “so you do what you want with your body. But I’ll pray for your soul, or what’s left of it.”
He tucked the deed back into his portfolio and adjusted his glasses. The first few drops of rain began to fall as he turned his back on me to return to the truck.
Stupid, stupid man. You don’t turn your back on a predator.
This was the only thought in my head. I was not conscious of bending to retrieve the wrench, of its warm metal in my hand, nor the movement of my own feet. That one thought was enough, a guiding tether toward the end.
He must’ve heard something, because he’d begun to turn back as the wrench struck him. It cracked into his lower jaw with a force that reverberated through my arm. It was no glancing blow, and he went down, putting one hand toward the truck to catch himself—and missing.
I did not stop. For all my rage, I was cautious; wounded things were dangerous, and men were vicious when afraid.
I struck the right shoulder next, to disable him.
He sagged, forehead pressed to the earth, and strings of blood fell from his mouth.
I raised the wrench once more and brought it down on the back of his head.
His skull caved. I felt the sensation clearly, the bone plates splitting between the force of the wrench and the unmoving solidity of the ground. There was no blood here, for I hadn’t broken the skin, and yet even through his hair I saw the distortion, the wrongness in the shape of his skull.
Sound returned. The first thing I heard was my own breath, dragged between my teeth in ragged sobs. The next was the irregular pinging of raindrops against the hood of the truck. Then a low rumble of thunder from the west.
The pastor didn’t move. Patches of his shirt began to darken with rain. A small stream of blood crawled away from where his face was pressed to the driveway.