Page 27 of The Serpent King

He hummed a new song he was working on as he walked from Floyd’s to Lydia’s house. He could smell lighter fluid and a charcoal fire from one of the houses near downtown.

He passed in front of the appliance repair shop, which was about to close. The door opened and a woman dressed in a plain, homemade-looking dress and two children—a boy and a girl—stepped out.

Dill stopped in his tracks. “Sister McKinnon?” He didn’t run into members of his old church very often. Most lived outside Forrestville. They weren’t big town-goers.

The woman jumped at the sound of her name and stared at Dill for a moment before recognition flashed across her face. “Brother Early? My goodness, I almost didn’t recognize you. You’re about a foot taller now than last I saw you. When was that?”

“Must have been just after my dad—so, I guess three years or so.”

“And how is your daddy doing?”

“He seems okay. I saw him about a week or so ago.”

“What a godly man. I pray for his protection and health every day.”

“Me too,” Dill lied.

“I’ve always been a believer, but to see how the signs manifested in him…if ever I had any doubt, he cast it away.”

“Come on, Mama,” the boy said, tugging on his mom’s arm.

“Jacob? Hush. Daddy’s paying the man who fixed the washer and then we need to get it in the van.”

Dill knelt down to give Jacob a high five. “This is Jacob? Whoa. The last time I saw him, he was half this size.”

“They grow up too fast. So are you and your mom attending services somewhere now?”

“We both work a lot, but we go to services at the Original Church of God when we can.”

Sister McKinnon nodded politely. “Oh, okay. Do they practice the signs gospel there?”

“No, not really. Just healing and speaking tongues.”

She nodded politely again. “Oh, well, God’s word is God’s word, wherever you hear it.”

“Mamaaaa.” Jacob tugged at his mother’s arm.

“Go inside and talk to Daddy. Go on. Take your sister.” The two children ran inside. Sister McKinnon turned back to Dill. “We go to services now at a signs church in Flat Rock, Alabama.”

“Wow, that must take—”

“It’s two hours each way. About a hundred miles.” She gestured at a battered white fifteen-passenger van. “We bought this and we give rides to the Harwells and the Breedings. They help pay for gas. Do you still run with Joshua Harwell?”

“No. We…grew apart, I guess.” A thick silence. “Are you a youth group leader like you were at our church?” Dill asked. “You were my favorite youth group leader.”

She gave a melancholy smile. “No. We don’t get callings because we live so far. How about you? Do you play in the praise band at your new church?”

“No.”

“That’s a shame. You had a mighty spirit for music.”

The shop door opened with a jingle, and Brother McKinnon and his son and daughter came bumping out with their washing machine on a dolly. Dill hurried and grabbed the door. Brother McKinnon thanked him without looking up, wheeled the washer to the back of the van, and stopped, panting and mopping his brow with a bandana. When he made eye contact with Dill, his expression soured.

“Hey, Brother McKinnon,” Dill said, extending his hand, hoping to break the ice. To be honest, this was the reaction he expected from his former coparishioners.

Brother McKinnon was having none of it. “Well, how about this. I’d have thought you’d be too busy spending your thirty pieces of silver to be bumping into us.”

Dill blushed and tried to form a response, but words didn’t come.