Page 29

Cathy

Dad gets home around four o’clock, just two hours before the usual Sunday evening prayer service. I’m sitting at the kitchen table, munching pistachios and scrolling through cottagecore Instagram posts, getting ideas for new displays at Aunt Nellie’s.

He heads straight for the coffee maker. Brewing coffee and snacking on pork rinds is his way of coping when he can’t be drunk.

“Do I have to go tonight?” I ask. “I got this weird email from Edgar, and it freaked me out. What exactly happened at church today?”

Dad’s huge, sloped shoulders stiffen under his suit coat, and instinctively I shrink a little in my chair.

He turns around slowly. He’s chewing his lip, his eyes churning with anger and…something else—something frighteningly close to panic. “You gotta be there tonight. They need to see that you’re one of us.”

“But I’m not.”

He slams a palm on the counter so violently that I jump.

“Idiot girl. Can’t you see I’m trying to protect you?

They know , Cathy. Edgar knows. Mark Linton knows.

By now the whole church probably knows what you are.

Only reason they haven’t kicked us out yet is because they need me. There are so few of us left…”

The hollowness in his gaze terrifies me. “So few of the deacons? Did someone else die?”

He wipes a hand across his forehead. “Five more.”

My stomach drops. “Did you say five ?”

“We went out to Old Sheldon Church last night, Cat, and we prayed, sang, dumped gallons of blessed water—even invited a couple priests from Saint Martha’s over in Yemassee. I guess the death toll is seven if you count them.”

The air around me feels very, very still, incredibly brittle. The hairs on my arms are standing straight up.

I didn’t sense any of those deaths. Which means there’s no doubt of it now—the god is awake enough to deliberately conceal them from me.

“What happened?” I whisper.

He grabs the bag of coffee from the basket, then sets it down as if it’s too heavy to manage. “Don’t know if I told you this, but the demon stirred once before, right about the time you were born.”

“You told me,” I whisper. “You said thick vines like tentacles pushed right out of the ground. Some of them came up right through the trees and made big holes in the trunks, and you and the other church leaders filled the holes with bricks of blessed clay. I’ve seen those bricked-up places, set right into the tree trunks. ”

He nods. “We got it under control pretty quick. But I should have known then that something was wrong with you. That you were messed up, diseased. You came out blue and we thought you were gone, but then you screamed—I’ll never forget that scream.

Just that once, though, and then you were fine.

You didn’t cry much as a baby. Real quiet.

We thought you were just a contented kid.

Didn’t know you were saving it up for later. ”

Dad chokes on a laugh, opens the coffee bag, starts scooping.

“So last night, the ground was shaking. We could feel it all the way out here, and we knew it was coming from the church. So Pastor Linton, he calls up the two priests and us deacons, and we head over there. Normally it would be enough to sprinkle a little water and pray over the ground, but when we got there, I knew—I knew that wasn’t going to cut it this time. ”

I stay perfectly still. It’s so strange to hear about the death of people I know without also having the raw, unbearable need to scream my grief for them, for their families.

“So we get to the church, and there’s vines, like the day you were born.

” My father pours in the water, starts the coffee maker.

“Thrashing around like big tentacles. And they’re huge, three times as tall as me.

We started walking, singing, praying. Heffernan went back and got the Wicklow fire truck, and one of the priests blessed the water inside it.

But it still wasn’t enough.” He faces me, lips trembling beneath his thick, wiry beard, his eyes cruel now, merciless. Blaming me with every word.

“Donaghy got it first. A tentacle picked him up and threw him, and these sticks jabbed right up out of the ground as he was falling. Pierced him through in a dozen places. Then it takes Heffernan, then Gainey. Same thing. And we just keep walking, you know, and singing and praying, but the praying’s more like screams now, and I’m thinking maybe that’s what it wants from us—our screams.”

His eyes are bright with hate, but there are tears in them now.

“We kept going. Finally the vines started to calm down, but there was so much blood. Blood everywhere, soaking into the grass. Then it got really quiet, and we all just stood there, staring at the bodies. Gainey, Donaghy, Heffernan, Coffey, and Ward, plus the two priests. I don’t remember their names.

Pastor knows. He said we should take the bodies, but they were wrapped up tight in vines, and we didn’t want to disturb the quiet.

So we got into our cars and left them there… in the blood…in the grass.”

The coffee maker trickles in the silence, and it sounds thick and dark, like the trickling of blood from the seven dead men.

“Pastor is…” Dad shakes his head. “I guess he’s broken.

Couldn’t preach today, just sat there while Edgar talked to the congregation.

Even during Sunday dinner, he was frozen.

Didn’t say a word. I don’t think he showered or anything since Old Sheldon Church—I saw a drop of dried blood on his neck, right above his shirt collar.

It’s like he’s given up. I tried to talk to him, but there was no getting through.

” He renews his glare at me. “Everything’s going to pieces.

Headed that way from the day your mama squeezed you out, although I didn’t know it then. ”

I want to say I’m sorry, but it would feel like admitting guilt. So instead I say, “This isn’t my fault, any of it. You can’t hate me for what’s happening.”

There’s a dull heaviness in his expression now, weariness lining his body.

“I do hate you, kid,” he says quietly. “But I’m your dad, so I’ll protect you, too. And that means taking you to church tonight. If you stay away, it’ll make you look twice as guilty.”

I’m still reeling from I do hate you, kid. Suspecting how he felt was bad; knowing is so much worse. But I manage to ask, “Will they even let me into the church? Now that they know what I am?”

“They will. Like I said, they need me. So they’ll let us in, and we’ll show them our loyalty. You’re gonna be right up front, and you’re gonna pray your lungs out, Cat, or so help me, I’ll tan your hide so bad, you’ll wish they’d strung you up as the pagan offspring you are.”

I’m shaking so hard, I can barely stand. Can barely force my fingers to close around my phone. “Like I said, it’s not my fault. I got this from Mom—or from you . You’ve both got Irish in your blood so there’s no way to know which of you—”

He lunges, lightning fast for his bulk, and slaps me. One of his lighter blows, but I still taste blood from where my teeth cut my cheek.

“It wasn’t me,” he growls. “No one in my family ever did what you can do. No one. It was your filthy mother. Had to be. That’s why I sent her off, soon as you graduated—couldn’t bear to touch her or look at her—”

“Wait,” I gasp. “You…you sent her off ? I thought she left. You told me she left!”

He hesitates, nostrils flaring, cheeks crimson.

“I didn’t give her a choice. I made sure she had no choice but to leave.

See, I knew it was her dirty blood that ruined you, so I figured with her gone, maybe I could train you up right.

Keep you in church, keep you headed straight.

But you had to defy me at every turn, like a true daughter of Babylon. ”

I swallow hard, retreating slowly out of his reach. “You say you want to protect me, but you’re only protecting yourself.”

For a second, I think he’ll barrel toward me, all fury and fists…but he turns his back, takes the coffeepot out, and grabs a mug from the shelf. “Think what you want. Be ready to leave by five thirty. Wear something decent or I’ll rip it off and make you change.”

Somehow I manage to navigate the stairs to my room.

Somehow my trembling fingers unlock the phone.

For a second my fingertips hover over the new name in my contacts—Daisy.

But I change my mind and text Heathcliff instead.

He gave me his number during the trip back, and I’ve never needed seven digits more than I do right now.

I can’t do this anymore.

A simple message. Too needy, probably. But it’s true—I can’t anymore. Can’t endure my dad’s temper, his hatred. Can’t keep going to that stifling church and enduring those fake smiles and judgmental gazes.

I cry in the bathroom for a while, then force myself to get ready for church. A knee-length, long-sleeved dress. Plain, close-toed shoes.

At five thirty, Dad bellows up the stairs, and I hurry down to avoid making him angrier.

And still Heathcliff hasn’t texted me back.