Goldeline by Jimmy Cajoleas (i read books txt) 📕

I could leave Tommy hidden. I could ransom myself for him, get the Preacher off his trail. I could save Tommy easy, just by giving in, by standing up right now, by letting the Preacher have me. It would be so easy.

But then come other footsteps, loud, hollering voices.

“You find her, boss?” says a voice. It’s Regis.

“I wouldn’t have lost her had you been awake.”

“I’m sorry, Preacher.”

“You reek of intemperance,” he says. “You stink of dissipation.”

“I’m awful sorry, Preacher. I just got scared.”

“Shut your mouth.”

The other men come running up, tired, panting and out of breath.

“Look everywhere,” says the Preacher. “They can’t have gotten far.”

But the spell is broken. The hold he had on me is gone. His voice is magic, like a river current, drawing me always to him. No wonder he hoodwinked all the Townies. The Preacher almost had me too. He almost got me to give in.

The Preacher and his men head along down the path, searching for us. When they’re gone I drag Tommy out of the fog and into the tiniest sliver of moonlight. I just want to see his leg, what’s happened to it. His foot is twisted, the ankle snapped. His pants cuff is covered in blood. I lift it just a little and see bone jutting through his skin like teeth.

I tear the hem off his momma’s dress and tie it tight around his foot. I have to get him to a doctor. I have to get him to someone who can help.

In the long distance I see torches. It’s too dangerous to move now. I only pray Tommy can make it through the night.

I pull him back down into the ditch, careful not to hurt his ankle any more. I’m thankful he stays passed out. I cover him with leaves until I can’t hardly even see his face. Then I burrow myself down in there with him, as hidden as we possibly can be.

I’m afraid. Because I know why the Preacher hates me, why he hated my momma so bad he had to kill her. I know why he came back for us. I know what Bobba drugged me for, what she wanted so bad for me to remember. What Momma tried so hard to make me always forget.

See, I remembered. I remember everything.

SIXTEEN

That night at the window, the strange man in all black, the wild white hair, his back to me. I see it all now. The memory loops itself in my head like a bad path that doubles back and leaves you in a circle. I see it brighter and clearer every time.

I’m at the window of Momma’s house and I’m five or four years old and I’m peeking in like I’m not supposed to, it isn’t time yet. There he is, the stranger, the man in black clothes with the white hair. But this time I can hear him. This time I know him, just from the music of his voice. It’s the Preacher.

He isn’t saying awful stuff to Momma though. He isn’t spitting at her or screaming at her either like he did when he took her away.

“I love you,” he says. “I love you with all my heart and guts, with my mind and bones. The blood in me loves you.”

The Preacher falls to his knees. His body slumps, his coat drags in the dust, his eyes are soft and blue. He takes her hand and rubs it on his cheek. He kisses her fingers.

“Please love me,” he says. “If it be my undoing, please love me. If it be my ruin, please love me. If I lose my seat at the Banquet at the World’s End when the sky has turned to fire and the earth closed in on itself, if I’m condemned forever in the Great Reckoning, cast into the darkness always, please love me.”

On his knees in Momma’s tiny little cabin, the Preacher weeps. Big animal tears, sobs like hacking coughs.

He kisses the hem of her dress, wipes his tears on it. He clutches at her feet and buries his face in them. He kisses them. He calls her his beautiful, his precious, his only.

“No one has to know who you are, what you’ve been,” says the Preacher. “We can start all over.”

Momma’s eyes flash, and a sad smile crawls over her face.

Momma steps back away from the Preacher. He’s on the ground now, flat on his face. Momma’s got her fake-angry voice on, like when she used to play games, like when she used to tease me. She crouches down and her white dress covers her like angels’ wings. She lifts his face with her finger and looks him in the eyes.

“What kind of man of God are you, Cyrus? To be out here in the middle of the night, proposing to someone like me?”

“We could leave here together,” he says. “Take Goldeline with us. We could have us a good life, where no one knew us. We could start over. It could be the three of us. A family.”

A family, he said.

I remembered the Preacher coming now. Mr. Cyrus was what I was supposed to call him, Mr. Cyrus Cantor. How he sat me on his lap and read me storybooks. That’s how I know the Book so well. He used to bring it home from the reliquary and read it to me himself. All the best stories, about the strong man and the sad wife, the flooding and the endless night, the idol and the dragon, the she-bears and the bald man. He played with me. He was like my daddy. Before Gruff, before anybody. He would come at night when no one knew. Mr. Cyrus was good to me.

“I can’t, Cyrus. I’m a witch, and you know it,” she said. “We aren’t bound to anyone except our own kind. More than that, I don’t want to get married. I don’t want to be anybody’s wife.”

“But how could you