Hallowed Ground (21 page)

"My Dearest Elizabeth, I pray with all my heart that Our Father grants you peace until we can be together once more, Benjamin."

She lurched away from the altar, staggered and stumbled painfully into the railing.
 
The card fluttered to the floor like a dying moth.
 
Memories like ghosts flashed through her mind.
 
She tangled her fingers in her hair, gripped tightly and yanked fiercely at it.
 
She screamed and screamed and screamed and still they would not stop.

Her childhood – her father – Benjamin.

She stumbled forward and dropped to her knees before the altar as though in prayer.
 
Beside the altar she saw a battered old leather pack.
 
She knew it as she knew everything in this life.
 
She had no idea how she knew, but it was Benjamin's.
 
She remembered lying in the grass, the warm sun on her face.
 
Where were they?
 
A picnic?
 
And then she remembered his voice, and behind it, his smile.

Mariah took the pack by its strap.
 
Her hand trembled as she lifted it, and not just from the deathly chill that suffused the church.
 
She remembered the last time she'd seen the pack.
 
Benjamin had left it beside her bed because she had been too sick to go out with him.
 
Sweet as always, he'd said it didn't matter.
 
He sat with her and brought her tea and told her that he would leave the pack beside her bed.

"When you are well again we'll have our picnic.
 
I won't need it before then, and it will give you something to look forward to.
 
Until then, let it be a reminder of me."

She set the pack in her lap and loosened the leather ties binding the flap.
 
When Benjamin had left it in her room there had been a bottle of dark red wine, a tablecloth he'd intended to spread over the grass, a book of poetry he'd bought from a man who'd come in from the east, all tucked away inside.
 
They had shared the poetry, a verse at a time.
 
After each new verse, he tucked the book back inside the pack with the promise that the next one was for the future.

She rifled through the pack.
 
There was no bottle now.
 
She pulled out a blue silk dress, a gasp of recognition slipping past her lips.
 
It was the dress she'd worn the night he proposed.
 
It slipped through her fingers.
 
Something dropped to the floor, hitting the wood with a clink of metal.

She saw the locket on the floor and tears streamed from her eyes.
 
They ran down her cheeks, wetting the cotton gown she wore.
 
It was white, like the lilies.
 
She pulled at it with her fingers.
 
She knew what it was, there was only one thing it could be given the coffin and the altar and the offerings: a shroud.

There was a book in the pack, and she lifted it out, expecting the volume of poetry.
 
It wasn't, but she knew it well enough.
 
It was her journal, bound with a ribbon.
 
The end was frayed from all the times she'd teased it open and tied it closed.
 
She started to unfasten the knot, and then thought better of it.
 
She tucked it back into the pack, rolled the dress around the locket, and stuffed it all back inside.
 
She tied the flap, shouldered the pack and rose.

As she did, the church door opened, and a man stepped through.
 
At first he didn't notice her.
 
It was obvious he expected to be alone.
 
He was humming
 
a mournful little tune.
 
He wore a dark suit and a tall hat, and his name came to Mariah's lips unbidden.

"Reverend Criscione?" she said softly.

He spun as if slapped across the back of the head and backed up against the door.
 
His hands came up instinctively, as though to ward off more unseen blows.
 
Mariah took a step toward him.
 
She held out her hand, but stopped when she saw the white terror blazed onto his face.

"Father in Heaven," the preacher rambled, tripping over every syllable before he got it out of his mouth.

He crossed himself and reached behind his back for the door handle.
 
He fumbled the latch, tried again, and then turned, slamming the flat of his hand against the wood in blind panic.
 
He gripped the door and yanked it wide open.
 
Daylight streamed into the chapel.

"Please," Mariah called after him.
 
"Don't leave me.
 
I need help…"

But he wasn't listening.
 
There was no help to be had in this room, no salvation for her lost soul.
 
Reverend Criscione disappeared into the light beyond the door, and Mariah didn't know what else to do but follow.
 
Her legs were weak.
 
She stumbled twice before she reached the door and had to clutch it to stop herself from falling.
 
She called out to him again, but her pleading fell away, unheard.
 
As she stepped out of the church she saw his back disappearing down the main street into town.

"Reverend, wait!" she screamed.
 
"It's me.
 
Don't you recognize me?
 
It's Mariah…it's," she frowned and shook her head.
 
No, it wasn't.
 
"It's Elizabeth – Elizabeth Tanner."

Her words echoed from the buildings, but no one heard because it seemed there was no one to hear.
 
She started toward town, clutching the pack's straps tightly.
 
She had to find her father.
 
He would know what to do.
 
She had to make him see.
 
It had all been a mistake, a horrible mistake.
 
She had been ill – very ill – but she wasn't dead.
 
They'd got it wrong.
 
She wasn't dead.

Sunlight hurt her eyes.
 
She walked with one hand up to shield them as she neared the edge of town.
 
She had to squint to see more than blurred outlines and darker shadows.
 
She heard voices.
 
She sobbed with relief and stumbled forward.
 
She thought she recognized the reverend, but it didn't matter.
 
Whoever it was, they would understand.
 
They would help her.
 
She had so many friends in the town; she had grown up here with them, they all knew her and loved her.
 
Everyone did, and not only because of who her father was.
 
If she could only find Benjamin, she could make it all right.
 
They would find the wine, and the poetry book.
 
They would go to the meadow and lie in the long grass and everything would be good.
 
Everything would be as it was supposed to be.

"There she is!" a voice cried, cutting across the lie she was telling herself.

"Dear God!" another cried.

"It's true!"

"She's come back . . . from the dead," a fourth cut in.
 
This voice sounded drunk – and frightened.

Reverend Criscione stepped forward.
 
He held two silver candlesticks, one in each hand, and had them braced in the shape of the cross.
 
His eyes blazed with righteous fury, and though he did not step forward between his two companions, his voice boomed out loud and strong.

"Get thee gone, foul creature of Satan!
 
Return to the grave from whence you came!"

"Reverend?" Elizabeth said softly, confused.

He took a step forward and brandished his makeshift crucifix.
 
"
Begone
, foul spirit!
 
Leave us, or be destroyed!"

Elizabeth took a step back and the three advanced, gaining confidence as she faltered.
 
She started to speak, but the words wouldn't come.
 
Tears streamed from her eyes.

"She weeps like the virgin!" one of them cried.

"It's a lie!
 
A trick of Satan!
 
Kill her!" another barked, and that sparked a roar of approval from the others.

He fumbled at his belt, and Elizabeth realized he was going for a weapon.
 
She turned and ran, fleeing back toward the church.
 
Sharp chips of stone dug into her bare feet, but she didn't slow, and she didn't look back.
 
She heard more voices now, others shouting to her pursuers.
 
They fell away behind her, and she knew they were gathering.

She hesitated.
 
If enough of them joined the group, she thought desperately, maybe someone would listen.
 
Maybe someone could see the truth.
 
She snorted bitterly.
 
If the group laid hands on her she was as good as dead – again.
 
They wouldn't listen.
 
They would be rabid, hungry for the kill.
 
She laid her hand against her heart and felt it beating strongly.
 
She was alive.
 
She was no demon, no matter what they thought.
 
She was the same girl she had always been.
 
Surely she could make them see that?

These people had loved her . . .

She stopped running and turned.
 
The mob slowed, coming cautiously toward her down the dusty street.
 
Someone had brought out a torch despite the fact that it wasn't dark – and she realized they meant to burn her.
 
The flames flickered over his head, dancing in the breeze.
 
They all spoke at once.
 
Reverend Criscione called out to her, quoting lines of scripture.
 
She had never found him particularly comforting, and now – with torch's flame dancing off his sweat-coated face – he looked and sounded terrifying.

"Please!" she begged them to understand.
 
"It's me!
 
I'm alive!
 
I don't know what's happened, but you must believe me.
 
Please!
 
Find my father!
 
Find Benjamin – they will tell you.
 
They will show you.
 
I…"

A stone whizzed through the air, landing a couple of feet from her.
 
She followed its trajectory, shocked, watching it bounce away harmlessly.
 
Another landed closer.
 
The third wasn't harmless; it struck her on the thigh.

She screamed in pain.
 
A fourth stone flew straight at her face and she raised her arms to block it, turning her face.

"Do you think they'd be so quick to stone their risen Messiah?" Balthazar's mirthless voice echoed inside her head.
 
She spun around looking for him.
 
He would help her.
 
He would stop this!
 
He wasn't there.

The air exploded with sound.
 
A screech of rage blasted the silence.
 
A dark form dropped from the blazing sky like a black bolt of lightning.
 
It struck the fourth stone from the air inches from Elizabeth's face, and then soared upward with a powerful sweep of wings, screeching.

"A demon!" Reverend Criscione cried, pointing.
 
"You saw it!
 
A demon!
 
She called a demon to protect her!"

"It looked like an owl to me…" another chimed in.

Elizabeth didn't wait.
 
She turned and fled.
 
Blinded with tears she bit back on the pain and ran without a sound as the road tortured her feet.
 
She ran as she'd never run in her life, back to the church, and beyond.
 
She stumbled through the lichgate into the graveyard, running between the stones, and tripped, slamming her knee painfully into a gravestone.
 
She lurched away from it and stopped dead in her tracks.
 
Another step and she'd have tumbled into an open, empty grave.
 
She didn't need to look down.
 
She knew what it was.
 
She knew who it was for.

There was a wooden plank hammered into the earth to mark the plot.
 
Scrawled across it in dingy whitewash barely visible in the sun, her name shimmered back at her.
 
She sobbed and pushed herself away, moving through the graves more carefully.
 
Behind her, she heard them coming, their voices drawing nearer.
 
Without looking back, she ran on.
 
Her breath came in deep, heaving gasps, but she didn't stop.
 
She knew there was a narrow path beyond the graveyard, and that it curled down the side of the hill to the gulch.
 
She looked up.
 
The sun was still high in the sky.
 
Night was maybe an hour away.
 
If she reached it there would be places to hide.
 
They might not follow her across.
 
Not in the dark.
 
All she had to do was wait for the night.