I thought about what Nagi had said—nightfall, when predators come out—and tried not to squirm.
“Right,” I said.“Right.”
“Your kitchen is lovely, but I’m certain the rest of your facility is even more beautiful,” Brother Al said.“Let us go further.”
“Right,” John Jacques said.“Honey.There’s some guests in the dining room still.”
“I’ll make sure they’re taken care of,” Patti said, a grin on her face.
“My good girl,” John Jacques said, kissing her.“Alright then, you two.Let’s go on.”
John Jacques tookus through the whole of the farmhouse.We skipped the second floor and the attic and the basement—there weren’t enough wheelchair accessible areas of entry, so we decided to check out the churchyard in the back.
“My family built this churchyard back in the day,” John Jacques said.“Great great great great grandfather Hardesty got inspired.Heard the word of the Lord ringing in his ears.Of course, times was different back then.Didn’t need but a roof and some bleachers to get a congregation going.We still have the occasional meetings.Of course, my brother Sawyer is the religious one.Went straight into his vocation.Hit puberty and then was when God called him.I’ll say it.He got the good family genes.Reckon we’ve always been a bit holy, you know.Blessed by God, so to speak.Able to communicate with him.Bend to his will.”
“Is that so,” Brother Al asked, and his voice was weirdly… dry.
The churchyard was a cemetery in front of a large white-boarded building.A belltower leaned from the top.Most of the grass here was dead, with muddy paths that tromped between the tombstones.What looked like a groove—heel prints, two of them, seemed dragged into the front of the building.
“I’m very interested in the architecture of your church,” Brother Al said.“May we enter?”
A bloodstain on a headstone.It looked fresh.
“Let me just peek inside,” John Jacques said.“We had a rather rowdy get together last night.You know—strichnine drinking, carousing, wine watering, eucharist eating.That sort of thing.Let me make sure Sawyer cleaned up his mess.”
John Jacques entered the church building, and then, before the door had finished swinging shut, he came out again.I saw a splash of red on the floor behind him.Beads of sweat had popped up on his forehead.
“Still a bit dirty,” he said.“Gonna have to go in there and clean up myself.Patti’s gonna have his head if he don’t clean up his act.Oh well.Nothing for it.‘Fraid this little bit is off limits for now, but we got other sights to show you.”
“A shame,” Brother Al said.“Stacey, you don’t want to try and get a picture?”
“I’m good,” I said quickly.
“Ah.You ain’t seen the barn yet, have you?No, I don’t reckon.Y’all like animals?”
“I love eating them,” Brother Al said.
“Is that right?”John Jacques asked, and he laughed.“Well, come on then y’all.This a-ways.”
We trompedthrough the heavy undergrowth and past a line of fence decked with skulls.I stared at them.Mostly bovine and pork, I thought, or I hoped.Barbed wire stretched the length of the field.In the distance, there were some goats chewing grass and chickens pecking around.
“Sawyer, Carol-Anne, and myself take turns caring for the beasts,” John Jacques said.“David—my brother—he used to be the best with a steady hand.Really a friend of the flock.Patti used to help as well, but she ain’t had a proper walk out of the house since David died.I keep thinking we need to hire someone, but I don’t know.We kind of have our own system of doing things.Anyone not family might not get it, you know.”
“I understand,” Brother Al said.
“I’m glad,” John Jacques said.“You know.Normally I get real.I don’t know what the word is.Suspicious-like with people in our house, but y’all seem real nice.Patti don’t seem overwhelmed by you.”
“Glad to hear it,” Brother Al said.
“She gets overwhelmed easily.She’s a simple woman when it comes down to brass tacks.Amazing chef, hell of a woman.Knows her way around a butchering.Part of why I married her.Of course, she don’t ask for much.Just a roof over her head and shelter so she can work on her crafts.Y’all seen the Dolls, right?She makes ‘em.Real crafty, that one.Has a whole process.All of those dolls have one hundred percent human hair sewn into ‘em.”
“Fascinating,” Brother Al said.
“I knew there was a reason I hated them,” I said.
John Jacques laughed.
“I get it.I can’t go in that room by myself past dark.All them staring eyes gives me the heebie-jeebies.Hang on.I hear noise from the barn.Sawyer?That you?”
