Page 13 of Chapel at Ender’s Ridge (Ender’s Calling #1)

Engulfed by Incense

T he lapse in sun sickness didn’t last long.

Decker’s skin blistered under his shredded shirt as he stumbled to his feet. Shielding his face, he huddled against one of the jagged outcroppings of striped hills waiting for the night in the hot shade.

Day dragged on and dusk fell, and he finally stitched together enough to begin the long, exhausted walk home. The boy on the train platform was gone, as were his newspapers, but it was for the best. No one was out to see a battered man limping over the bridge.

He’d never been so happy to see the swinging doors, light beaming through them as Safine and Willa hunched over a faro game. Cricket sat opposite them, his stolen watch sprawled across the table like its owner in the chair.

Safine stopped mid-pour at the table, the sarsaparilla overflowing out of Willa’s glass. She mopped it up with her bandana and hooked an arm over the back of the chair to look at him .

Cricket’s eyebrows raised. “You look like shit.” He shifted in his seat, his hand propped on the handle of his revolver. “I can take care of ‘em for you.”

The sun didn’t touch me. Then it did. Our old neighbor has a vendetta against us and wrote an article wrecking our town.

And he threw me off the train.

“Just a misunderstanding,” he said.

Safine hmmphed . “Need help?”

“I’ll be right in the morning.” He faltered at the steps. “Mr. Gibson’s cows are doing poorly. He needs your help. Tonight.”

Safine wrinkled her nose. “I’ll go fix his damn cows. How about—” she nudged Willa’s shoulder, flashing her a smile, “—you come with me and I’ll show you the town after I take care of it.”

Willa shrugged and drained the glass before tucking her soiled bandana in her pocket. “I’ve got nothin’ better to do on a day of rest.”

Cricket grinned and slipped his watch back on his wrist.

“We’re finishing this later, Conklin.” Safine narrowed her eyes at him and jabbed a finger in his direction and he carelessly shrugged.

“I’m a man of honor , Saf. You tell me, I do it.”

“Come help us with the damn cows and be useful.”

Decker and Safine both knew he’d do nothing but drink himself to sleep again if she left him alone here, so Safine—as she always did—helped him keep his mind busy.

Cricket heaved a dramatic sigh, and the doors banged behind them as they left, lightly bickering amongst themselves in the fallen night.

Decker limped up the steps. Soft footsteps followed him up the stairs. He turned his long-suffering gaze on the meddling preacher .

“I came by earlier to see you, but the saloon was closed—but I saw you come back and thought—” his words faded, taking in the way Decker held to the rail and his hunched back. “You’re not well.”

“Your eyes work wonderfully, Mr. Lane. Do you heal physical wounds as well as spiritual ones, or are you just here to bother me?” He was met with silence as Mr. Lane shifted, the floor creaking under broken-in shoes.

Unfortunately, the owner of the shoes wasn’t quite as affected by life here, and he stood rigid and formal.

Go away, preacher. There’s nothing for me in your pretty words.

The hall comforted Decker when he turned away, each detail sharpened and edged with red in the dark as he counted the doors to the last on the right.

While his room was practical and plain, colorful quilts and rich, catalog-ordered fabrics draped Safine’s room.

A dresser of dark wood filled with colored glass bottles of perfumes and tinctures rested against the back wall, and shelves overflowing with bones and dried scraps of flesh in round jars lined the right wall.

Decker slid off his scuffed boots, leaving them next to Safine’s pile at the door, then eased out of his shirt, tossing it over the wrought-iron bed frame in the corner.

He searched for blue glass behind the mouse ear and to the right of rattlesnake skin and in front of a jar of wrinkled, pale, skin-like things. Finally, he caught a glimmer of blue and carefully eased Safine’s salve off the shelf.

Twisting around, he strained to see what the train tracks had done to his back, and instead locked eyes with Mr. Lane, hovering in the doorway like he wasn’t supposed to be there .

Which he wasn’t. Decker had tried to ignore his footsteps down the hall as long as possible.

“May I?”

Decker eyed him for a long moment. The thought of the preacher’s touch made the pit of his stomach clench. Still, he nodded stiffly. He wouldn’t be able to reach it by himself, and Safine was gone.

He took a step inside, caught sight of the shoes at the door, and struggled out of his own, neatly slotting shined black next to buffed leather. His gaze settled on Decker, a quiet intake of breath cutting the space between them.

Wordlessly, he took the jar and scooped out the thick, smooth salve. Decker stilled under his hand, steady and warm, as it worked the salve into the cut along his shoulder, and the line of scrapes down his back, the beeswax softening and melting into his cold skin under his hands.

Mr. Lane had burned incense this morning. Decker smelled it when he first stepped over the threshold. Now the spiced scent lingered on Decker’s skin where his hand fell away and chased the fog from his head for a brief moment.

Mr. Lane’s thumb smoothed across the small of his back, dipping into the grooves between his spine.

Decker’s nails cut into his palm. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d been touched like this. Gently, like he would slip from his grasp and shatter if the preacher drew back.

Laurie . The preacher, Elias’s nephew, the man on trial. No preaching accompanied with thunder and lightning, just, Laurie , with careful hands, who didn’t ask why he hadn’t bled or what he’d done .

The lid clattered onto the glass jar and Laurie hesitantly reached around him, sliding it onto the shelf.

Decker stretched and twisted, shaking off the feel of warm hands trailing down his back before he turned.

A frown darkened Laurie’s face in the dim light from the lamp, and Decker traced the furrowed lines of his face, each light freckle, the honeyed hue of his eyes which studied his face and then caught his gaze.

“Nothing’s broken,” Laurie said. Concern tightened rose-bitten lips. “I’m sure you’ll want to ask your wife’s opinion when she returns.”

Your wife.

The way he said it was like thorns wrapped in linen.

Are you jealous, preacher?

Not of the facade Decker and Safine shared. Jealousy of family, companionship, friendship. A man with a family wouldn’t have left Boston for a strange life and trusted his new neighbors so soon.

Laurie’s heartbeat stuttered, and Decker cocked his head at him, taking in the flush rising past his preacher’s collar into yesterday's five o’clock shadow.

“Why didn’t you go with the others to Mass?” Laurie’s breathless question shattered the tentative silence.

“I was occupied. And I wasn’t going to, even if I could.”

“Why?”

“Don’t like church, don’t like priests—”

“I’m not a priest,” he said, as if he was an entertainer and it was a well-rehearsed line, written to draw people into his show .

Decker wanted no part of it. If his peace insisted on being disturbed, he could draw his own entertainment out of it. “Why not?” he shot back.

Laurie’s heartbeat skittered. “I told you, I couldn’t make it in seminary.”

He shrugged, uncaring. “Why not?”

“You can’t just-”

“Yes, I can.” A flicker of a smile curled up, and Decker raised an eyebrow. “You come into my saloon, expecting me to answer all your questions—”

“I don’t—” he started.

Decker pressed a finger over his lips, muffling Laurie’s sudden jolt of surprise.

“You do .” He leaned forward until he could feel the shuddering breath the preacher dragged into his lungs and see the reflection in his iris before his gaze darted away.

“I will make a deal with you, Mr. Lane.” Decker dropped his finger away.

Laurie’s throat worked. He nodded.

“Tell me why you left seminary, and I will tell you what I know of your uncle.”

Laurie flushed, shaking his head, as if trying to throw away memories. “It’s shameful—”

“You said once, no one was to blame but yourself, but there’s always another side, Mr. Lane.”

His flush deepened.

“A priest requires a vow of chastity. It would be hard for a young man to fully commit if there was someone else.” Decker’s lips twitched in amusement.

Laurie set his jaw, and Decker knew he’d hit and opened an old wound. “I almost was—”

“But you’re not.”

Laurie’s eyes flashed. “I would have been a priest if it wasn’t for men like you .”

There you are.

Laurie’s slamming heartbeat crowded the space between them.

The saloon door banged against the wall downstairs.

“Men like me,” Decker said softly.

Laurie spoke like he was grasping at marbles that slipped out of reach. “Men that see me. You see all of me, you speak with me like—”

“I’ve barely spoken to you.”

“It’s how you speak to me,” Laurie snapped.

Decker’s eyes narrowed. “And how do I speak to you?”

Laurie’s heart thundered, and Decker watched him like a hunter, searching for what Laurie buried inside of him on his way out West and knowing damn well he understood, but wanting him to say it .

“You speak to me like you know the deepest parts of me. Like you want to know me.” Laurie’s lips parted and his chest quivered with each breath. “Do you want to know me, Decker?”

The world narrowed to the blood pulsing through Laurie’s veins, and, god.

Sun-sickness was a powerful thing.

I want to know you.

Wanted to know what Laurie would sound like, what he tasted like.

Decker thought he knew.

The thought repulsed him, and he recoiled like a viper, but once he started he could not stop .

Laurie would taste like the warmth of incense and the sweetness of communion wine he’d never had, like the hush of wings in an attic and the bite of a pious man in a pulpit.

Decker wondered if the silver hanging at his neck would brand a cross into his hands when he dragged him forward, wondered if Laurie was so lonely he wouldn’t even mind. Wondered what sounds he’d make with teeth in the crook of his neck, turning white collar to crimson.

Heat thickened the stale air in the bedroom and Decker’s tongue flicked out against his own dry lips.

Safine clattered up the stairs and Laurie’s gaze turned pleading, even as Decker backed away.

At the door, his steps faltered and Laurie’s blood slowed in his ears to a stuttering trickle, no longer a beckoning, raging force. The preacher still wrote his own death sentence, but Decker couldn’t decide if his confession dripped ink across his pardon or his punishment.

“Tread carefully, Mr. Lane. Past lives have a habit of catching up to people who settle in Ender’s Ridge.”