“Did he also leave more lashings on your skin?”
I tapped once, although my finger shook. Telling on my betrothed was against the rules. He was allowed to do whatever he wanted to me except for penetrating me, of course. He could starve me, boil my skin, set me on fire if he so chose, and I could do nothing about it. It was his God given right, and mine was to obey.
He went quiet again, and for several minutes, we sat in that silence. What was he thinking? Why was he so loud yet so silent at the same time? If I could speak, I might have asked him“What happened in your world while I was away to make you feel so loud in your silence? Was it the spades? Was it the Jabberwocky? Or was it something your Wonderland has never seen before?”
“There are more people in my world than I ever wanted there to be,” he finally said, my mind latching onto every word. “They don’t understand that meddling will only hurt my world. Will only damage it, but now I have no choice.”
Was his world in danger now?
Would we have to save it too?
“The information you have, little sinner, will aide in bringing this corrupt kingdom to its knees, but my plans were only plans when they weremine. Now there is a Cheshire Cat sitting in the sanctuary. She is fierce, her fur red and black, and her blue eyes glow like a predator in waiting, but while she is cunning and vicious, sometimes her need for the absolute clouds her mind from seeing what’s right in front of her.”
But the Cheshire Cat was friends with the Hatter. I remembered that. They were friends. Why was she here? Why was she sitting in the pew? Why was she watching? And why couldn’t I tell her gaze apart from the rest of the congregation?
“I will do my best to control the narrative, but the thing about stories is that sometimes the characters have their own plans, and the writer must allow them to be free or the story will collapse in on itself. Time is not our friend, sinning doll, no matter where the story goes. Tonight, I will meet with the cat, the white rabbit, the queen of the chessboard, and others to discuss what they know and why. Tomorrow, there might be a shift in the air, one this entire Kingdom will feel. You must prepare your mind for the spades, little sinner. For they may come in the night, but don’t you worry, your Hatter won’t stop until the blood is spilled.”
I swallowed, gripping into my skirt, feeling that tightness in my chest grow. How could I prepare for something I didn’t know was coming?
“They mean well,” I heard him say, but the way he said it made me think that he was no longer speaking to me. “They’re ruining the game. We must do what we have to. Tick tock tick tock tick—” I heard the soft scrape of the cane across the carpet, his breathing strangled and rough. “Their punishments will be great, their suffering worse. Nothing will be left if we stay on course.”
I talked to myself too. In the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep or the nightmares woke me up, I spoke riddles in my own mind. Sometimes, I didn’t even understand them. They were just meaningless words, but they always helped.
He laughed quietly, the sound disjointed and irregular. “My world was built brick by brick, I will not allow them to affect this. To affectme. They want to controlme?” Another disjointed laugh. “The rivers can run red with their blood too.”
That laughter made my heart race and my thighs tighten. It made my head spin, and my body feel lighter. As if I were floating. I liked that laugh. I wanted to be a part of that laugh.
Seconds passed before he spoke again, the laughter gone. “Were all the churches at that convention last week?”
No, they weren’t. One of the churches was missing. Pastor Masters had to contact them about what happened at the convention. Thomas had talked about it once. Said it was pointless because Azrael had already picked me as his Favorite, but Pastor Masters claimed that it was needed.
“How many were absent?”
I tapped my finger once.
“Was it the newest one?”
I angled my head ever so slightly, thinking back to who I had heard. I barely knew the Leaders of the other churches or their Pastor’s, but I know who introduced themselves to Thomas. All of those names I had recognized. I tapped my finger.
“Do you know where this new church is located?”
It had to be in California. That’s where the last one had closed down.
No, no, I remembered the conversation. The one in California had been so severely compromised and they decided not to open another one there. Any gathering of the Daylighters there was done without an official Church of Daylight building. They decided to name it a branch rather than an official church.
The new church had been opened in…
I straightened and tapped my finger.“Yes, it was—”
“Is it located in Russia?”
I lifted my finger only a little because part of itwaslocated in Russia. They had had a church in Moscow, but that church had a branch here. That’s what had burned down last year, the fire that took the rose.
“I’m sure you’ve heard bits and pieces of that story. How tragic it was that the Delepski’s died in that fire, that it was a loss for the church,” he hummed. “Them being such new members, making suchbigmistakes.”
Theyhadmade a mistake, Thomas had mentioned. They had come here acting careless, taking Favorites that weren’t theirs to take. Their place had been in Moscow, yet they had come here and disrespected the Church of Daylight. Pastor Masters had said after the event that The Family finding them had been God’s punishment for doing what they had done.
“I’m sure many questioned what they were even doing here. Why join a new church in Moscow only to come here and betray them with their insolence?”
