Chapter 8 Scarlett #2
For instance, I knew for a fact that the daffodils hadn’t been blooming. It was January. It hardly ever snowed in Seattle, but it still got very cold, it still rained and froze. There weren’t many flowers that survived this time of year, certainly not ones meant for the sun.
He must have been talking about a person.
A Favorite? Was he finally given the chance to have a Favorite? That would mean that he was officially a Pillar. I should have guessed that. I was smarter than this, despite what Thomas claimed. I should have known. He had been here for some time now, despite his absences, the timeline made sense.
Despite myself, my stomach fell at the thought.
Part of me had still wanted his attention.
I had still wanted to be a consideration even though I knew it would never happen.
I had even put a braid in my hair. Maybe I should have added two.
Maybe I should have worn my lavender sweater instead of my green one so much.
But I just hated the color lavender.
Maybe he liked it though. I know that Mr. Young loved lavender. Maybe Azrael did too.
But his aura felt so red, my favorite color. Perhaps that’s what I would choose then. Maybe next Sunday I would wear red and a braid. Maybe then he would see me and consider me to be his second Favorite.
I could be his favorite Favorite. I knew I could. Anything to keep his warm eyes on me. Anything for relief from the chill.
So, if daffodil was a person, that meant the puzzle was about her.
Azrael was smart, I could tell that just by the words he chose to use.
He was saying exactly what he meant to say, but Thomas was too stupid to understand it.
I wanted to understand it. I would do anything to understand his riddles.
It would give me something new to focus on outside of the voices I had been hearing since the day I was born.
“I haven’t seen any flowers.”
“Interesting,” he sang, a lilt to his tone. “Interesting indeed. Why am I here, Charles? Seems an odd gathering.”
It was odd, I thought it was just me.
Thomas and I, along with Mr. Kels, Mr. Alascer, and Azrael were all here. Pastor Masters was gone on a trip for a couple of weeks, which was terrible for me. Thomas made them follow the rules sometimes, but it was his father that laid down the law when they started getting too aggressive.
I had monthly appointments with the doctor just to make sure everyone was following the rules just enough, but with Pastor Masters being gone, that went out the window.
Since he left, Mr. Young had been requesting a few more private sessions with me, which was completely against the rules.
He liked to touch me in bad places. Places that would make me impure if he went too far, and he almost did, and I had paid the price for it because I didn’t speak up.
Which was why my back was a little straighter today.
It was too raw to touch my clothes, and I had a couple extra doctor appointments in the next two weeks to make sure the lashings wouldn’t become infected.
It hurt, but it was something I was used to.
“Well,” Mr. Alascer began, “Garrett has decided that you’re worth promoting to Pillar, so congratulations. Welcome to the Church of Daylight.”
My heart did that strange thing again. I was wrong, now he was officially a Pillar. Maybe the daffodil was the one he had already picked out, now that he was officially a Pillar, she was officially his Favorite.
“And he wants to immediately start testing you to be a Leader. Apparently, he sees…potential,” he went on, albeit bitterly.
Azrael hadn’t been in church much since June, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t test him. He must have been meeting with Pastor Masters privately, working his way up in the ranks without actually attending all the services.
What conversations had he been having with them outside of here though? I wanted to know. I wanted to know what they saw in him to move him up the ranks so quickly. Six months was a record, especially if the son of the Pastor disliked him.
It only intrigued me more. Azrael was an enigma in this church. He didn’t belong. His eyes, the way he spoke, the way he taunted and hummed. He was a black spot in a church bathed in sunlight. A snake in the lion’s den. How was I the only one noticing that he didn’t fit in here?
I suppose, on some level, Thomas had noticed, but not enough to see past his rage.
“I’ve passed so many tests already,” he purred, that strange lilt still hanging on. It was so familiar, that lilt. So very familiar.
Becoming a Leader meant knowing everything.
Not as much as Pastor Masters knew, but more than the Pillars.
I didn’t even know everything the Leaders knew.
I didn’t know where Absolution was in that state of Washington or what happened there.
I didn’t know what happened when a member was excommunicated, or even where the branches of every church were located.
We had some in this city, branches of our church, and I had no idea where they were.
I listened to everything, and I still didn’t know enough.
“To become a Leader, it requires more,” Mr. Alascer said tightly. “More than just simple little tests. More than questions and answers. If you’re not up for it,” he paused, “fine. You will remain a Pillar forever.”
I heard something like the swift swish of air.
No, not air…
Something was spinning in the air and then it stopped. “It seems to me that the risks of this outweigh the benefits,” Azrael noted, bored.
That’s because they’ve never done this before. The risks did outweigh the benefits, but that didn’t matter because if he failed, if he made the Leaders doubt, he would disappear just like other Pillars had.
But this…why was Pastor Masters doing this? He was always so careful. Azrael must have been the richest of them all. It couldn’t have just been the transportation job.
“Garrett seems to believe it’s worth that risk,” Mr. Kels said bitterly.
But they didn’t. None of the Leaders liked this. I could feel it in the air, hear it in their voices. They must have thought—believed—that Pastor Masters was making a mistake. That the risks were far too great to push him through the ranks this hard and this fast.
Azrael was quiet for several seconds before he responded, and I heard the smile so fully, I could almost see his razor-sharp teeth. “Very well. I accept.”
Suddenly, I knew what it was, that lilt. I knew exactly what it was.
That was the sound the sea made right before the tsunami hit. A sound telling the world that it was already too late. You can’t run. You can’t hide. You can’t escape what’s about to happen. The tsunami was coming, and it was going to destroy everything and anything that stood in its way.
It was just a matter of time.
~ ~ ~
February 16th, 2020
They say you can feel the second a tide shifts.
Something about the air feels similar to a storm. An electric pulse or the oxygen changing slightly.
Whatever it was, today, I felt it.
His eyes were just as warm as ever, but there was a weight to them I could feel on my skin this time too.
When the sermon was over, Thomas immediately headed for his father, which meant I did too.
“We have to excommunicate him,” Thomas said under his breath the second his father turned off the microphone.
“No.”
“Father, they’re going to come after us the second they connect him to—”
“They won’t,” Pastor Masters stated, pushing by him. “Now, I’m going to greet the congregation. If you want to throw a fit, go do it on your own time.”
“Charles is a problem,” he said under his breath.
Oh. His Claimed daughter and her new position in The Family.
They hadn’t brought it up since that day a couple of months ago.
I wondered what was happening regarding them, but I honestly couldn’t believe that they were really doing it.
That they were taking on The Family. I wondered what the Elders said about it. I wondered what they were going to do.
I wondered what The Family was going to do.
I had so many questions. Questions I would never be able to ask.
Why did Mr. Edgars tell Mr. Alascer to release his daughter from Absolution? What kind of fun was he referring to? She found refuge in a family far more powerful than the church. How? How did she do it? How did she find the strength?
If they challenged The Family, how would this end? Would they kill us all or try to rescue some of us?
Would it be worthwhile to rescue me?
No. I was born of the church. Raised for them. I would surely die alongside the rest of them, and I would probably spend the rest of eternity with them in Hell.