The Hallowed Ones (21 page)

“Isis was gentler than Hera, I’d guess.”

“Yep. Isis was a mother and nature goddess. She was all about love and kindness. Isis took her in. Io became a priestess of Isis and married an Egyptian king. She never came back to Greece.”

I sat in silence when Alex wrapped up his tale. I absorbed the whole of it, then blurted out: “That’s terrible.”

He smiled. “Those were the old gods for you, though. Wrathful. And this was how Hera treated one of her priestesses, one of her most fervent followers, who never wanted anything to do with Zeus. The part that amazes me is that it took Io so long to renounce them and switch to Team Isis. I guess you stick with what you know.”

“Ja,”
I said. “You do.”

“Yeah. But the thing that I like about the story is that Io eventually gets her happy ending. I don’t know of another myth in which one of Zeus’s mortal women gets one. And she does it through sheer determination. Perseverance.”

He lapsed into silence. I stared up at the flickering lantern. Darkness had fallen soft and thick around us. The Singing was over by now, and I would be expected home.

“I should be getting back.” I stretched, stood, reached for the lantern. I felt bad taking his only good source of light. “My parents will be missing me.”

“I can walk you back,” he said.

I looked at the wound still angry on his temple. “I’m not sure that would be a good idea.”

“I’ll go with you part of the way.” He reached for the flashlight in the pile of his meager possessions and put it in his pocket. His sleeve hiked up as he did so, and I saw a black mark on his forearm.

I reached for his wrist. “Are you hurt?”

He shook his head, smiled. “No.” He rolled his sleeve up farther for me to see. “It’s a tattoo. See?”

The black mark stretched across his forearm, up to his elbow. It looked like something architectural, a stepped tower. I squinted at it, holding my lantern high.

“What is it?”

“It is a moment of folly from spring break one year. You might consider it my own
Rumspringa.
” He rolled his eyes at his own foolishness. “It’s called a Djed pillar. The backbone of the Egyptian god Osiris.”

“So you do believe in a god.” My skin crawled at the idea of someone worshipping those wrathful gods of fiction—for real. I dropped his wrist.

“Maybe abstractly,” he admitted sheepishly, rubbing at the tattoo.

We walked toward the mouth of the barn. I doused the lantern as he pulled the door shut.

“Osiris is a good god? Like Isis?” I wanted to believe that there was some nugget of good in Alex.

“Actually, he’s the husband of Isis. Unlike the tumult of Zeus’s relationship with Hera, there was no infidelity or jealousy between them.”

The sky was overcast, and I could smell rain coming. The night was soft and thick as lampblack, blanketing the field. I think that the crickets could sense the rain too; I couldn’t hear them.

“That’s something, at least,” I said, walking beside him. Some beauty in the fiction.

“Well, they weren’t without their challenges. Osiris was assassinated by his brother, Set. His body was torn into pieces and thrown into the Nile.”

“Again, your myths are terrible.”

I could see his teeth shining white in the darkness. “But this one has a happy ending too. Isis picked up the pieces of his body from the Nile and put him back together. Osiris was resurrected by his wife and became god of the dead and rebirth.”

I shuddered. There was something sinister about the idea of a god of the dead. “And you were moved to put his symbol on your arm?”

He shrugged. “I was going through a tough time. My grandfather had died, and I didn’t want to believe in the permanence of death.”

I thought about that. It was, in its way, similar to how Elijah was coping with the disappearance of his brothers. Trying to fight against the permanence of death. But I didn’t understand why Alex would choose something so . . . dark.

I pointed at a light in the distance. “That’s my house.”

He squinted at it. “Okay. I’ll watch from here . . . at least, as far as I can. To see that you get there.”

I smiled. “I don’t think you’ll be able to see much of me in the dark.”

He pointed to my white prayer bonnet and apron. “I can see you for longer than you think.”

This discussion seemed like a useless display of chivalry. If there were vampires in our midst, we’d be ripped to shreds. But it seemed like a bit of ordinariness that was sorely needed.

“Good night,” I said to him.

“Good night, Bonnet.”

I walked into the darkness. I felt the splash of a raindrop against the bridge of my nose. It woke me up from that dreamy world of myth and magic I’d let Alex lead me into. I shook my head. Blasphemous stories.
I should not have listened to them,
the voice of the obedient Good Girl in my head insisted.

But I was not sure that I wanted to listen to that voice right now. I wanted to crawl into bed and let today go. Release it. Pretend as if it didn’t exist.

I scanned the fields as I walked. I did not see any other people coming back from the Singing; it was too dark to even see the cattle in the fields. All I could see were the shadows of trees and the lighter shadow of grass.

Something moved. I froze. I thought I saw a flash of something pale flitting at the edge of the tree and the field. It could have been an apron, a white shirt. It could have been the white horse. Or it could have been . . .

I sucked in my breath and ran.

I sprinted toward the light of my house, scrambled up the back steps. I paused with my hand on the doorknob, scanning the blackness behind me.

I saw nothing.

Maybe it was my imagination, the guilty force of too many dark stories in my mind.

I closed the door behind me, leaned against it, and prayed.

Funny how the Lord’s Prayer was the first thing to come to mind when I was afraid, even in all my rebellion.

I was a hypocrite. When the roof came down, it was going to fall on me first.

By morning I had talked myself out of the flash of white I thought I’d glimpsed last night. I’d chalked it up to my overactive imagination, ignited by grief and fed by dark stories of old gods that no one except Alex believed in anymore.

I’d gone straight up to bed, pulling the braid out of my hair and the covers up to my chin. When I came down to breakfast, my mother spooned extra oatmeal into my bowl, as if she sensed my unease.

“Elijah came by looking for you last night,” my mother said.

Across the table, Ginger nodded approvingly.

I hastily filled my mouth with oatmeal so I wouldn’t have to talk. “Mmmph.”

“Ruth Hersberger was with him,” Sarah chirped, poking at the slices of apple on top of her oatmeal with her spoon.

The oatmeal scalded my tongue, and I took a swig from my glass of milk.

Ginger lifted her eyebrows. “Isn’t that Joseph’s girl?”

I swallowed, set my spoon down. “She was.”

My mother and father traded looks down the length of the table.

“How did the Singing go last night?” my father asked.

I stirred my oatmeal and watched the steam rise from it, not meeting his eyes. I was about to be caught in a lie if I wasn’t careful. I didn’t know what Elijah had told them. I settled on a partial truth. “I left early. Went to go sit with the dogs.”

“Elijah and the Hersberger girl said that they were concerned about you.”

“Oh?” I gritted my teeth.

“They said that you seem very emotional lately. That perhaps you might benefit from more prayer and devotion to the Ordnung.”

“It’s the end of the world,” Ginger blurted. “Isn’t she entitled to feel a bit out of sorts?”

My father and mother both shot her startled glances.

“Well, maybe it would be good for her to find some comfort in the word of God,” my mother began, her voice tense. Plain folk would try to be diplomatic, but they did not brook any interference in child rearing. I wondered if Elijah had told them about the makeup.

My hand tightened around the spoon, and I set it down. “May I please be excused to begin my chores?”

I felt the weight of my father’s gaze heavy on me. “All right.”

“Thank you.” I grabbed my bowl and scurried away to the sink to rinse my dishes out. I could not bear their concern or conflict between Ginger and them. And I was furious at the idea of Elijah strutting up to my house with that fickle tart and telling my parents what was good for me behind my back. I clawed at the crust of oatmeal on the inside of the bowl as if it were Ruth Hersberger’s face.

I snatched up my shoes beside the door and fled into the backyard without looking back.

I was in no mood to deal with people. I hastily fed Star, put together her gear, and harnessed her to the sledge. I loaded two bales of hay, working quickly in case my parents decided to come after me to have a heart-to-heart talk. I grimaced as I lugged the heavy bales into the back of the wagon. Caring for the cows would keep me gone for a couple of hours, at least. Maybe by then, they’d be occupied with other chores and leave me in peace.

I hoped. I knew better than to pray for it, but I hoped.

Star sensed something was amiss. She ignored her oats and snuffled against my shoulder. I petted her soft nose, sad to think that I would not be seeing much of her in the future.

“Yes, I love you, too,” I muttered as I kissed her nose. “But your owner is an ass.”

I rarely swore. But that stab of rebellion warmed my belly, even as Star rolled her eyes.

I led Star toward the western fields under an overcast sky. Maybe now that Elijah was feeling well enough to be interfering in my business, he’d also be well enough to look after his own chores. I would passive-aggressively fail to complete any other chores on the Miller property today, but I would not ever subject the animals to my ire. I would take care of them. But Elijah’s dirty clothes could rot. Or maybe Ruth could wash his underwear and bring him lunch.

Tears welled up in my eyes. I wondered exactly what it was that I grieved for. I knew that I regretted losing the easy friendship Elijah and I once had, and of course our
Rumspringa.
But what about our life together after that? Would it have been like this—him changed to a pious flogger of anyone who breaks the rules? I began to suspect that there would be no infractions whatsoever permitted in our house.

And did I have any right to expect anything different? I knew what was expected of me. And I thought that those desires for the things of Outside would dim after
Rumspringa.
That I’d be ready to settle down, obey the rules, have children, and live under Elijah’s direction. And the Lord’s.

But those
were
my hopes for the future. Not now. Now I bristled against all these things. Even the Lord.

Star shied and pawed, so I grasped her harness and firmly led her into the field. The steers were clustered up against the fence, mooing in an agitated fashion. I could not see over their broad backs. I had to struggle to push the gate open against the wall of cow flesh.

“You must be hungry.” I shoved them hard to move them out of the way, so that I could get the hay to their feeding area.

I noticed a swarm of flies buzzing through. I swatted at them. It was late in the season for flies, and perhaps that was what was irritating the cattle.

They didn’t show much interest in the hay as it passed on the sledge. The whites of their eyes showed as I crowded through, and I had to mind my feet to avoid getting stepped on. Finally, I was able to grab the pitchfork in the back of the sledge to put out their breakfast.

But Star had stopped.

“Go on, girl.”

She flicked her ears back at me but would not obey. From my vantage point behind her, I could see a shiver ripple through the skin of her back. Clutching the pitchfork, I came around to the front of her.

I stopped dead in my tracks and a fly landed on my cheek.

“Oh no,” I cried.

Four dead cows lay in the field, three brown, one white. Flies matted them, creating the seething illusion of life. I approached slowly, my heart thudding behind my ribs so hard it hurt.

But these were not downers, sick cows who’d taken ill. The spine of the cow nearest me was bent at an awkward angle. Blood trickled from its nose and a gash in its throat into the mud, creating a lurid lipstick color. Two others had their heads torn clean off, the blind eyes covered in flies. The last one, the white one, showed the most blood on its pale hide. It had been torn open from stem to stern, its ribs splayed open in the shape of some terrible butterfly and its entrails soaking in the mud.

I covered my mouth with my hand to keep from retching.

I backed up slowly, my gaze fixed on that white cow.

The vampires were here.

***

“They’re here!”

I reached the house, panting and terrified. My mother was washing laundry with Ginger in the backyard, with the spigot and steel basins and soap up to their elbows.

My mother grabbed me with soapy hands. “Who’s here?”

But I was looking beyond her, at Ginger. She let her washboard slide back into the water. Her hands shook.

I forced myself to look at my mother. “The things. The things that destroyed Outside.”

My mother knelt before me. “What’s going on?”

I took a deep breath. “There are four cows in the west field. Dead. Ripped to pieces.”

My mother’s gaze dug deep into me as she smoothed a stray strand of hair from my bonnet. “
Liewe,
they could be wolves. Or coyotes.” She was trying to be reassuring, but I could see the fear igniting in her gray eyes.

I shook my head. “No. Not like this. This is a . . . a savaging. No animal can break spines and ribs.”

“They’re here,” Ginger whispered. “The vampires.”

My mother’s head snapped around to Ginger. “What are you talking about?” she demanded. Her grip tightened on my elbows, and I winced.

Ginger’s breath was shallow over her words. “I got through to Dan on my cell phone. The contagion from Outside . . . it turns people mad. They are calling them vampires.”