“I know?—”
Dobbs stepped forward. “I said you don’t belong here.” He lowered his voice. “I would suggest you run on home, preacher boy. Back to your wild brat and your pretty wife. You ought not to leave your family alone.”
Preacher looked up into the man’s eyes and his gut chilled. There was nothing there. No compassion. No compunction. Perhaps there had been, when he’d undertaken his task, but now that it was done, Dobbs had severed any part of himself that might have felt guilt. He’d done right, and if Preacher dared suggest otherwise…
“He’s right,” another voice said. It was Mayor Browning, moving up beside Dobbs. “Go home, Benjamin. You aren’t wanted here.”
“But, Preacher,” someone said. It was Maybelle, pushing through the crowd. “What do you think of this? Can you speak to us about it?”
“No,” Browning said. “He cannot. This isn’t your preacher. It’s a false man of God, one who would deny this miracle, who would tell you it’s wrong, sinful.”
Behind Browning, Eleazar stood watching, lips moving, and that chill suffused Preacher’s entire body.
It is as if he is putting words in their mouths. As if they are puppets to his will.
“This preacher would take back our children,” Browning said. “Steal them from us again.”
Preacher started to argue, to say that was not it at all, but there seemed to come a growl from the crowd, and when he looked about, he felt as if he were surrounded by wolves, scenting a threat in the air—a threat to their young and to themselves. He saw that and knew what he must do. The only choice he had.
He closed his mouth, backed away from the crowd, and raced home.
Addie
Addiewas arguing with Sophia when they heard Preacher coming up the steps. Sophia wanted to go out, to see what was happening. Addie had to block the door to keep her in.
“You ought not to see,” Addie was saying. “Preacher doesn’t want it.”
“I’m not a child, Adeline?—”
“But you arewithchild. You cannot be upset. You might lose the babe.”
That had stopped her, as Addie knew it would. Then Preacher’s footsteps clattered up the steps, and he threw open the door and said, “Pack your things. You’re leaving. Now.”
Sophia argued, of course. She often did. Addie had never seen a woman who felt herself so free to dispute her husband’s word. Or a husband who allowed it. Certainly, in her own home, her mother had only to issue the smallest word of complaint, and she’d be abed for days, recovering. To actually argue? Addie had only seen that once. And when it was over, her mother would never argue again.
But Sophia did. And yet, even as she disputed her husband’s word, she did not stand there and holler at him. She could seehow agitated he was, and she immediately set about packing as he asked, while arguing about leaving.
Preacher wanted them to go. Her and Sophia. Immediately. He told Sophia what had happened, in the gentlest terms possible, but they still shocked her into a near trance, gaping at him as if he’d gone mad. Addie confirmed it was true, all of it. Rene and Timothy James had been murdered to bring back the children, and there was something very wrong with the children, and they had to flee.
“But…but the villagers,” Sophia said. “They are almost all innocent in this. We cannot abandon them?—”
“I’m not. I’m sending you and Addie on ahead. I need to find out precisely what has happened here and warn those who will let themselves be warned. Then I will join you.”
Sophia pulled herself up to her full height—which barely reached Preacher’s chin. “I am not going anywhere without you, Benjamin.”
“Yes, you are. You and Addie and the baby. Dobbs has already made his threat against my family. You will leave, and I will do what I can here, which I cannot do if I’m worrying about you.”
“Preacher’s right,” Addie said.
She walked up beside Sophia and took her hand. It felt odd, reaching for another person, voluntarily touching another person. But she took her hand and squeezed it.
“You need to go,” Addie said. “For your child.”
Sophia looked down at their hands, then at Addie.
“All right,” she said. “I’ll go. For mychildren.”
Preacher
