Preacherfound Eleazar and Charlie. They had not gone far, just deep enough into the woods that they wouldn’t be overheard, and far enough off the path that they wouldn’t be seen. Preacher snuck up as best he could. It would not have satisfied Addie, but the two were in such deep conversation that they did not notice him.
“Are you certain that is enough food, boy?”
“I am, sir.”
“I don’t think it is. My instructions were clear. We will be walking in this forsaken wilderness for at least two days. We need more food.”
“I have enough, sir. Much of it is dried.”
Preacher paused, shaking his head as if he was mishearing. It was not thecontentof their conversation. While he was startled to hear they were leaving together, that paled against surprise of the voices themselves. Of who was delivering which lines. He was hearing wrong. He must have been.
He crept forward until he could see the two figures. Charlie was bent on one knee, examining the contents of a pack, while Eleazar stood behind him.
“This money and these goods are not the full accounting,” Charlie said. “There’s eleven hundred dollars and perhaps two hundred more in goods. That’s five hundred short.”
“Yes, sir,” Eleazar said. “I imagine it is. But this is not a wealthy village. They are gathering more, but I presumed you wanted to be gone before the children fully woke.”
“Don’t be smart with me, boy,” Charlie snapped.
Eleazar cleared his throat. “Given the situation, sir, I might suggest you’ll want to stop calling me that.”
“In private, I’ll call you what I want. How long would it take to get more from them?”
“Too long. And that was not the primary purpose of this trip. We got you something far more valuable than money, did we not?”
Charlie snorted. “A child’s body is not particularly valuable. Now, a strong young man’s…”
“It will be such in a few years. We ought to count ourselves lucky that there was a boy of goodly age in the last week who died. You’d not have wanted to be brought back as a toddling child. Or a girl.”
More grumbling. When Preacher had first heard them speaking, his mind had reeled. Then something in his gut steadied it, saying,Yes, this makes sense. Of course, in the larger scheme of things, the fact that an old man’s soul had been put into the body of a dead boy didnotmake sense, but given all that Preacher had seen, it was more sensible than any explanation he’d considered.
The soul was the essence of life. Charlie’s was long gone. In heaven, he trusted. And if one believed that, and one believed the scriptures, then a merciful God would not allow a child to be stolen back from paradise. The body would need to be returned to life with a soul still wandering this world. The soul of someone recently departed.
It had seemed odd that Rene had been Eleazar’s assistant, but the man had been so doddering that it would have seemed more shocking to realize the situation was reversed. Now it seemed it was indeed the case. The old man—the leader, the teacher—had been in need of a new body, and they had taken it here, in Chestnut Hill.
As for the other six children…
Dear God. The other six.
Timothy James’s soul. The souls of five others. Murdered, only to awaken in the bodies of children…children whose parents they would hold responsible for their deaths.
Preacher turned away from Eleazar and Rene. What they had done was a horrible thing, deserving a terrible punishment, but right now, there were others about to be punished even more terribly, others who’d known nothing of the murders, who’d only wanted their children?—
“You do realize we are not alone, I hope,” Rene said, his voice as easy as if he were discussing the possibility of rainfall.
“What?” Eleazar said.
“Someone watches from the woods. I trust you plan to take care of that.”
Eleazar let out a curse. Preacher began to run, not caring how much noise he made, only that he got back to the village in time to warn them before?—
Something grabbed his legs. He did not trip. He was certain of that. He felt the pressure, something wrapping about them as he ran, and there was no time to stop. He fell face-first to the ground.
“Preacher Benjamin,” Eleazar said, crashing through the forest behind him. “You are a persistent man. I will grant you?—”
“No, you fool,” Rene exclaimed. “Not him. I meant?—”
“Preacher! Run!”
