Page 43 of Chapel at Ender’s Ridge (Ender’s Calling #1)

So it Begins

E nder’s Ridge prepared for war.

Decker called a meeting, questions rolled out in the Goose like the darkness gathering above town.

What will we do? How in the devil is he back? Can the plan work? Laurie is one of us now?

Lee was particularly enchanted to hear that, and they smiled for the first time since the sickness. “We’ve always liked you more than your uncle,” they said softly.

Ammunition and dynamite were splayed across the table in preparation for taking a stand against Ridgewater.

For hours a crowd gathered across the river; Elias’s curse strengthened, and with it, the memories of who their neighbors were.

Another witch hunt, this time coming for them all if they couldn’t restore the Blessing their town provided them.

“I’ll take it as a compliment, Lee, but I think it’s easy to be liked more than my uncle,” Laurie murmured, fastening the wick on the dynamite before handing it to the washerwoman’s daughter to take outside. Nora took careful, painstaking steps after he said, not unkindly, “Walk slowly, please. ”

McKinney’s Mercantile stood empty, stripped of food and weapons by Miss McKinney herself. She’d arrived before the meeting, rattling a mud-soaked, river-forged wagon into the west end of town, and brusquely threw herself into helping like she’d always been here.

Last he’d seen her, she’d been loading a wagon of supplies. The Lakota fought their own war, and guns and supplies for the upcoming winter were a small, unasked, price to pay if their knowledge could help save Ender’s Ridge.

Safine barricaded herself in the quiet upstairs with Sister Inez, poring over Laurie’s notes, and the scent of bitter herbs mixed with earth wafted down the steps every time a door opened.

She’d been optimistic but exhausted when she returned; tiredness didn’t stop her from throwing herself at Laurie, crushing him in a hug and saying he looked much less sickly.

Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

When Safine came to him, arms wrapped around squared shoulders and face pressed into his collar bone with soft apologies from both of them, Decker thought maybe they could win this.

The front door of the Goose banged open and a gust of frigid air accompanied Willa. She blew on her cupped fingers and swiped away tangled strands of mousey brown hair before she accepted a steaming cup of cider from Decker.

“The river’s freezing.” Solemn grey eyes met Decker’s across the rim of her cup. “Ridgewater can cross in a few hours.”

He slid the last bullet in place on the leather belt ringed with ammunition and laid it with the pile. “Safine will have it ready. Lee, have you heard anything? ”

They shook their head. Lee’s herd was on the move as soon as the plan charged into motion; they stationed themselves around Ender’s Ridge and ringed the town with Lee’s eyes and ears, ready to sound the alarm the moment anything went amiss.

The full extent of the reverend’s power could only be guessed from the journal entries Laurie decoded. They prepared for the worst.

“I got the girls on the roof of the dance hall with dynamite and the blacksmith has been teaching anyone who’s fast enough how to set off the bombs we planted on the riverbank and west of town.” Willa took a sip. “No telling when that bastard will show.”

“Be careful,” Decker said.

“Spite got me this far.” Willa buckled her bandoliers around her hips.

Lee suddenly straightened, a curious, faraway look on their face. “They’ve seen something west of town.”

And so it begins.

“Let’s go, boys.” Willa gave them a grim smile and knocked back the rest of her drink. Decker stood with Laurie, and Lee headed upstairs to join the rest of the town who couldn’t fight.

“We’ll do what we can,” they tossed over their shoulder.

“Do you think Safine’s close?” Laurie’s voice tightened with apprehension, and Decker lightly squeezed his hand where it rested on the back of the chair.

They decided the curse breaker had to be Laurie.

The plagues began with his uncle, and he had the best chance of success in the ritual. Responsibility weighed on him.

“She’ll have to be.”

Laurie’s face softened with a smile. “Neighbors until the end?”

Decker made a small sound. “Maybe more.”

“You tease me. ”

“Are you complaining, preacher?”

Laurie scoffed. “Someone has to.”

“Once this is over, see where your complaints get you. Now come on, if we want to do anything more than share a grave—”

“I’m coming, I’m coming.” Laurie flushed and wrapped his scarf around his neck—an old, endearing habit. He smiled, nervous and hopeful. “Let’s go get the son of a bitch.”

Laurie’s chapel blazed to life with oil lamps—two at each front pew, and one at the pulpit, the rest spilling into the parsonage corners. Decker fixed the doors, barring the broken side with wood and iron bands in preparation for a barricade.

Bottles and jars clanked across the parsonage floor—the only large part of the chapel not rotted away from Elias’s grave—and Sister Inez spread out metal and wood containers of incense and spices. The ritual demanded closeness to the curse’s source.

If Lee’s spies were correct, Elias drew close.

Alone. Decker didn’t know what was more concerning: a single man with unknown power that had already devastated the town from within the grave, or an army.

He and Willa had experience with the latter, but he never thought they’d be taking up arms together again. He couldn’t ask for better allies.

“Piece of shit—” Safine swore, powdered rattlers spilling into the cracks of the floor .

Decker knelt next to her and brushed the grains into a small pile, funneling it back into the basket. “Don’t worry about him. We’ll keep him distracted until you’re done.”

“We could die.” Sister Inez glanced up from the symbols on the floor to dip her brush in a pot of charcoal paint. “If this is not correct.”

Very optimistic, Sister.

“I have faith in Laurie,” Decker said, watching him. He lit the last lamp on the pulpit and blew out the match.

“Faith won’t keep us alive.” Sister Inez returned to the angular, sharp symbols beginning to form a circle around the room, passing under Laurie’s sagging bed and rounding the corners. “It will help, but we’re on our own.”

“And that’s why Willa’s on the roof with a gun.” Safine viciously jabbed the pestle into the mortar, fragrant herbs puffing up around her as she ground tiny, dusty flowers into powder-blue. “He won’t get in,” she said, sounding as if she were trying to convince herself.

There was enough to fall back on, but doubt still wormed into Decker’s mind. There was no way of knowing Elias’s capabilities until they were in the thick of it. “We won’t—”

“ Decker !” Laurie’s cry rang through the chapel. “He’s here.”

He ducked through the quilt separating the parsonage from the sanctuary and joined Laurie at the window. Through the darkness, a light bobbed in the hills. Then another. And more, like a dozen winking fireflies.

Decker squinted. The light from the lamps hazed his eyes, but he’d recognize the form anywhere. “Don’t shoot!” he called up to the roof as he leapt down the chapel steps .

His breath hung in front of him when he stopped at the edge of town, finally able to see into the red night. The lanterns hovered.

“You came back,” Decker said.

Mr. Gibson smiled, his teeth gleaming. “I don’t always know what’s goin’ on here, but your wife helped my cattle, and you’ve helped an awful lot. My family’s here to help.”

Decker never thought he’d come back to town after the rancher saw them for their true selves. He wouldn’t have blamed him for it. Other forces might be at work besides just goodwill. The two kids at the head of the pack looked utterly at ease with the town—maybe they held their own secrets.

Taking Mr. Gibson’s broad hand, Decker shook it and nodded at Callie. She’d come ready for anything, her coily hair tied up under a patterned scarf, and a rifle slung across her back.

“We’re all real good shots. If that’s what you’re needin’,” she said, waving at the ten children behind her; some looked exactly like the couple, and the rest were a mismatched group as if the Gibsons had opened their door to anyone who needed a home.

All of them shouldered their weapons like they knew how to use them.

“We’ll take any help you offer,” Decker said, clapping Gibson on the back and murmuring thanks under his breath.

Willa peered over the edge of the roof. “Head to the saloon, Lee will find a place for you.” Gibson brightened at the mention of his friend, and his family disappeared down the blustery street.

“See anything down there with your monster eyes?” Willa called down to him.

He cast a baleful look back to her. “Nothing for you to shoot at. ”

“Damn shame. Finger’s getting itchy.”

“Hold off until you can hear him start preachin’ at you.”

“If the old coot says holy one time, he’s getting blasted.”

Decker chuckled and rested against the chapel doors to dig in his pocket. He cupped his hand around the tiny match flame and brought it to the crumpled cigarette in his lips.

Rolled cigarettes were the one form of payment Cricket used, even though he knew he was always welcome at the Goose , no matter the amount of trouble following him.

You’d be in the way more than anything if you were here now. But I could use some of your luck right now, kid.

Decker breathed in the acrid smoke, and when it cleared, a ghostly form appeared in the hills. Inwardly, he stiffened. Outwardly, he took another drag of the cigarette and glanced at the roof.

“I see it,” Willa muttered from high above him.

Elias Lane appeared with the belief he was returning to his conquered town. Robes billowed and snapped behind him, stark white in the darkness like he was a purified vision of an angel. A staff hewn from twisted pine thumped in time with his steps.

He was alone.

Ground disappeared under his long strides and Decker took a deep drag of the cigarette. On the bank roof, he caught a glimpse of Callie Gibson as she crawled along on her belly and steadied her rifle.

The tobacco glowed. Elias approached.

Decker pinched the cigarette and whistled through his teeth. Children streamed from their hiding spots between the bank and Nathan’s barber shop, mittened hands scrabbling for the strings attached to the hastily-made bombs lining the edge of town.

Pins clicked.

Strings came back empty.

Gunpowder scattered when Elias kicked one of the contraptions to the side.

Shit.

The washerwoman’s little girl shoved the string in her pocket and squared her shoulders, her pale face determined.

Decker whistled again, harshly, and when she looked at him, jerked his head back towards the saloon.

Nora’s job was done—she didn’t need to see what came after Willa pulled the trigger.

It didn’t work, but it’s alright. One line of defense down, five to go. Six, with Callie on the bank.

“Decker.” From the ground, Willa’s voice sounded faint.

The end of the cigarette singed Decker’s fingers and he flicked it away. “He’s about to say holy.”

“I can’t do it.”

He craned his neck up at her. Her face was frozen.

Decker had never seen fear on her.

“I don’t know what’s wrong.” Willa’s knuckles turned white around the barrel, and it lowered, scraping against the roof. Her breath iced the air in front of her, chest heaving, and she swiped her palms on her coat. “Decker, I can’t, I can’t—”

“Alright, take a minute.”

Elias reached the edge of town. Close enough that Decker could see the dirt crusted in his hair .

On the roof, sweet, life-toughened Callie squinted along her shotgun, her aim honed with the protectiveness of a mother. Human.

Human and completely unaffected by whatever darkness Elias had conjured to render Willa slack-armed atop the roof.

Elias stopped at the slight tilt of Decker’s head.

Fire bolted from the rooftop. Elias staggered back a step, his hand flying to his chest.

Callie Gibson chambered the next bullet.

Elias did not fall.

The second slammed into the ground at his feet, spraying rock and dirt.

Callie Gibson disappeared. Ammunition was low, rationed out. Most of it was on the roof with Willa, who had finally denied her antiquity and took up a rifle that wasn’t a two-time war relic.

An explosion rocked the east side of town and gunfire popped down the street.

Ridgewater’s crossing.

Decker was the last stronghold between Elias and the chapel. He rested his arms on the railing. The scars wrapping his wrists tightened, but the tobacco buzz in his lungs dampened it. “Come back to die a second time?”

Elias’s lips twisted in a semblance of a smile. “You’re a fool if you think I’d let this town go so easily.”

“How’d you come back? Six feet under, a thousand pounds of dirt crushing you…should’ve treated you like you treated us and torched you. Maybe then you would’ve stayed dead,” Decker said .

Elias lived for the theatrics and grandeur of it all—the stained glass windows and his penchant for burning at the stake were testament to it.

Indulge me, Elias.

His ever-gloating frame of mind might be their saving grace.

Pale eyes narrowed. He said nothing.

“You don’t know.” Decker let out a disbelieving laugh. “All the things you learned, knowledge you stole , in your short time here, and now you don’t even know how you came back.”

“I am the prophet,” Elias said, steadying both hands on his staff. The wood crawled under his palms. “I awoke, swallowing sand and rock until I could speak the words to create.”

“This time I’ll put a brick in your mouth.” Decker smiled a nasty smile and straightened. “Your old doctor friend is dead; eaten by your eighth plague.”

“He taught me useful things, but he was too close—he wanted to help,” he said.

“You wanted to help, once,” Decker said softly. “I could have helped, if you would have told me.”

“We were never close enough for me to tell you about my wife, Mr. Belmont.”

“She killed herself, Elias. Drove her heart into the iron spikes of the fence in front of your home.”

Elias stiffened, his lips pressing into a thin line. “If you hadn’t killed me, perhaps I could have returned to her.”

“If I let you live, I would have no one to return to.”

“Your sham of a wife?”

“The same one that let me in the chapel to take care of you.”

I hope you’re close to finishing, Safine. Do the damn ritual .

Elias’s staff writhed around his hand and up his arm, coiling and stretching and flickering into scales.

I hate snakes . Anything but the snake again.

The edge of Elias’s lip curled. “Enough.” He flicked his hand and the serpent hissed, mouth gaping as it stretched, growing, towering.

Cut off the head and the body will follow. This time your head’s coming off, Elias.