Page 48 of Chapel at Ender’s Ridge (Ender’s Calling #1)

Sanctuary

“ D ecker, I need another barrel of Northern whiskey opened!” Laurie called to him, balancing five empty glasses as he joined him in the back room.

The Loose Goose hosted an endless stream of patrons once the bridge was finished. With Safine and Willa down South, and Gibson’s kid swearing at the bar with a line of thirsty patrons, Laurie stepped in to help.

Decker would never tell him, but he thought Safine looked better for their image than a liquor-juggling, white-collared preacher.

“Coming right up.” Decker took the glasses from him, stacking them next to the washtub.

Before he could open another, Laurie caught him in a kiss, backing him against the wall of casks. They had forever to be love-sick fools, yet Laurie still insisted on doing it during business hours—the Goose closed at midnight now that its owner was occupied with other things at night.

Decker kissed him back, cupping his face and leaning into him. Laurie’s moment of boldness wavered when Decker kissed him more deeply, fingers lacing through his curls and capturing the faint sound that slipped from him.

There’s my Laurie.

Long-lived or not, he still flushed when Decker locked the door behind them or distracted him when he was trying to work at the chapel until he cast his work aside and their pleasure was the only form of worship God witnessed.

Decker’s hand crept along his waist and he finally broke away, bright-eyed as he cast a glance towards the door of the storeroom.

“We have patrons,” Laurie said breathlessly, fixing his collar as if this wasn’t his idea.

“Don’t bother, your hair still looks like my hand was in it,” Decker said dryly.

He groaned and tried to desperately tame it.

Decker smiled and brushed away the frizzed curl that always brushed his nose when they kissed.

“I’m the only preacher in this town, I have to have a reputation,” Laurie protested.

“You have one.”

“Decker, don’t.”

“I happen to like your reputation.”

“I won’t come over for a week.” Laurie tried to punctuate his empty threat by straightening, chin cocking jauntily.

Decker scoffed at his attempt. “You live upstairs.”

“I would use the back door.” Laurie gave in, his collar hopelessly crinkling and the grin on his lips fading into Decker’s as they kissed, long and deep and slow. When he pulled away, Decker set about getting another cask ready .

The silence between them felt suspiciously like it was waiting for something. And so did Laurie, as he hovered behind Decker.

Suspicious, quiet. Coming up with another idea for our town?

He sighed. “What is it?”

“I got a letter today. We’ve been too busy.

I haven’t had a chance to talk.” He seemed nervous, and Decker stopped, propping a hand against the barrels and waiting for him to continue.

“From Bishop Fontaine, in Angers. He was at my university for a brief time and now he’s back in France.

I…took the liberty of sending him a letter. ”

Decker frowned, failing to see how this was big news.

“About your parents,” Laurie rushed to finish, apprehension stretching his words between them. “He’s one of us, and—and I thought he might be a place to start, if you wanted to find them.” A hesitant smile flickered to Laurie’s lips and he slipped a letter from his pocket and held it out to him.

The letter cradled Decker’s childhood. His memories, his mistakes, his mournful decisions. He’d left it all behind. He could take the letter, never read it, never know.

Continue his life here.

The pain he’d felt when he’d nearly lost Laurie clawed to the surface of his mind. Part of healing was understanding and accepting his memories of what happened after, were tainted by a young, human mind, and then twisted by survival.

Decker would never know who his parents were, for sure, unless he found them.

Taking the letter, he carefully opened it with the knife at his side, and began to read the Bishop’s tight, messy writing. He read it again and again until his eyes started to blur and he handed it to Laurie. “He found them.”

“He found them?” Laurie seemed to hover on the edge of celebration and quiet acceptance, waiting for him to choose as he read the letter for himself.

“He found them,” Decker said again, thoughtfully. Bishop Fontaine heard of a young Indian couple finding refuge in the Dolomites, last seen five years ago—he said there was no guarantee it was them, but connections in Europe flourished into a spiderweb of safe houses and information.

It was a place to start.

Apprehension wormed into Decker and he grasped at flimsy excuses. “What about your chapel?”

“It’s just a building, Decker. Sister Inez can manage. We won’t be gone forever.” Laurie put the letter to the side. “Let’s do something for us. We’ll head East, pack barrels of Whitton’s blood, buy ourselves two of the biggest rooms on the biggest ship, but only use one of them, and find them.”

Decker wanted to believe him.

Time had chipped away at his dull anger and replaced it with forgiveness. Maybe Amma and Abba would forgive him too.

He missed them.

Laurie’s fingers interlaced with his own and pulled him closer, tenderly brushing over each knuckle. “I promise—” he faltered, and Decker waited for him to say it.

Say my name, Laurie. Be the first since I’ve been reborn to say it.

“I promise we will find them together, Devdutt Basu,” Laurie whispered.

A warm glow settled in Decker’s chest.

Gift of God. If we find you, Laurie will say you named me right.

Decker’s lips still twitched despite himself.

Laurie’s shoulders fell. “I said it wrong, didn’t I?”

He cracked a grin. “You did fine.”

“Decker—”

“I like it when you say my name, preacher. Call me by my name again,” Decker said softly, pulling Laurie in and kissing him until they both forgot about letters and whiskey and anything else that should have mattered.

They’ll love you, my sweet Laurie.

The Loose Goose bid goodnight to her patrons, Lee wandering back to their livery arm-in-arm with Miss McKinney as she grumbled about being swindled, the Gibson kids swinging onto their horses and betting on who would make it home faster, and Nora waving goodbye to Lucy, who didn’t even nip at the little washergirl’s fingers.

The humans parted ways. Out-of-towners headed to the hotel, painted a deep green by the Castillo family.

Sister Inez had healed. Her habit covered the scarred, rounded end of her arm, but it couldn’t conceal the cloud of confusion when Laurie knocked on the parsonage door, asking her to give him permission to enter the chapel, or the concentrated pull of her stern face when she read Safine and Willa’s letters, as if she couldn’t decipher the words magic , or spell .

Once she’d written to her family to tell them of Ender’s Ridge, they moved into the hotel, bringing her bloodthirsty, bright-eyed sister with them—her dark eyes dimmed when her family couldn’t recognize all of her, and Decker hoped Safine and Willa would return soon.

Miss Castillo was the first of many new creatures to settle here.

Decker sent the pack of Gibson kids—all ten of them—across the territory with enchanted posters that they tacked to pine trees, wedged in forgotten caves, tucked into barn doors, all spreading the word of a safe house.

Ender’s Ridge grew, the Calling buried deep inside all wild hearts for the surrounding hundred miles.

A few weeks after the Blessing was restored, Three Hawks thundered in at the head of a scouting party, sweat-soaked and exhausted, and told Safine in quick motions of his hands that the soldiers were on their tail.

By the time the cavalry reached the town’s outskirts, they milled about until they turned back towards their outpost and left Safine and Three Hawks alone to mend the wounds from their skirmish in the safety of the Blessing.

After Decker fumbled through the hand talk signs to tell them all they weren’t in danger here, and Three Hawks patiently agreed, they set up camp in the river bend and kept to themselves like they always had.

Their winter count—a carefully recorded history passed down through generations—had warned them away from the town since its bloody conception.

But Ender’s Ridge demanded trust and community, and soon Three Hawks was a familiar face, striking his own bargains at the mercantile and preparing his makeshift camp for the next influx of exhausted Lakota to rest in the place that had once been their secret .

New faces rode into town every day, and Decker still searched them all, hoping to finally see familiarity.

“The girls are back!”

Laurie’s cry cut into Decker’s cleaning and he fumbled the glass onto the table to meet him on the veranda.

A woman in a lavender dress swung down from her horse and grinned at him. He crushed her in a hug, seven months melting away like she’d never been gone.

“I missed you, Safi,” he whispered.

“This is straight from the seamstress in New Orleans, don’t wreck it. I missed you too,” she muttered, a smile in her words and a lip-rouged kiss on his cheek.

“Nearly stranded us there with how much she spent.” Willa smiled, smoothing a hand over her tailored suit.

The tattered red coat was gone, replaced with the deep burgundy of clean, fitted, lines.

She was quiet—content—and in the moonlight Decker caught new strands of silver hair.

Revenge no longer held her captive, and by Safine’s knowing smile, he guessed Sister Inez’s forgetfulness wasn’t the only reason they had to spend extra time in New Orleans.

“We have trunks coming soon, had to send them on a different stage,” Safine gushed, finally twisting away from Decker and throwing her arms around Laurie. “Haven’t changed a day,” she teased.

“Look what has.” Locking arms with her, Laurie steered her towards the chapel, the two chattering about the advancements being made in the artificial blood-making industry, and how he’d have to show her the improved blood-still in the saloon basement .