Goldeline by Jimmy Cajoleas (i read books txt) 📕

It doesn’t make sense that some of the prettiest parts of the Book are all about evil.

Little eyes of fire shine in the dark. What are those? Glints of metal.

“Why don’t you wake up young Thomas, Goldeline,” says the Preacher. “All he done is on you, you know that, right? You know his sins against the Lord are your very own. His act of theft and violence. That’s yours, Goldeline.”

The Preacher is right. He’s always right. That’s the thing about the Preacher. He knows and he accuses. He’s got his claws deep in me, like he’s trying to yank some wounded bit of me out.

“It’s not your fault, Goldy,” says Tommy. I didn’t know he was awake. He shakes his head at me. “I don’t feel very good.”

I walk over to the table and help him up. He leans on my shoulder, and together we can kind of walk like that. We hobble back to Lance and Chester, all four of us by the window huddled together like a sad battered family. I’m scared, and I don’t want to die, I don’t want any of us to die. But it feels so good to stand with other people, to not be alone. For so long it’s just been one little girl against the dark and now it’s the four of us.

“You can escape your damnation, young Thomas,” says the Preacher. “You can come out here and I will forgive you, wipe your sins clean. God will do that for you, if you just come out here and be with me.”

“You can go if you want, Tommy,” I say. “I won’t be mad.”

“Heck no,” says Tommy. “Besides, it isn’t God I’m scared of.” He points at the window. “It’s him.”

“Come on out, little one. Come on out to me.”

“Forget it,” says Tommy. “I ain’t coming.”

“Hellfire it is!” roars the Preacher. He seems taller now, fiercer, his shadow against the moonlight stretches all the way to the front door, large as a dragon.

Torches. Hellfire. My dream.

“Lance!” I scream. “He’s gonna burn the house down!”

But I can already smell it, the roof lit up, the smoke.

“How?” says Lance.

“There’s men in the woods,” I say. “Lots of them. They’re everywhere.”

Lance flings open the door. A rush of cool wind and rain swarms in like an angry ghost.

“I built this house,” he says. “I built it with my own hands.”

He steps outside the door and part of the frame is shot off. Lance grabs his hand. He falls back inside the house and I shut the door after him.

The Preacher cackles.

“You’re surrounded! You got a whole heavenly host around you and they are armed with rifles! You step one foot out of that door and we shoot you. You stay in there and you burn. Those are your two options, but the Evil One gets you either way.”

I hear it before I can feel it, the crackling of the fire, the way the wood and straw are swallowed, taken in, and become fire itself. Soon it licks the inside of the roof, shows itself orange and starving, sparks scattering wild as ants across the ceiling, to the curtains, the fire hungry to grasp everything, to take it all into itself. Chester wraps Lance’s hand in a rag. There’s nothing I can do to help. I just watch the fire spread, knowing I brought this smoke and doom on us all.

Cinders fall like snow. The books catch, all the words I’ll never read gone up in smoke like prayers, the whole house like a torch to signal God with. The smoke is so thick, so horrible, like the black storm clouds swooped down from the sky and came in through the window, spitting fire, pouring themselves down our throats. We have to crouch low to get under it. Chester and Lance carry Tommy between them, they try to keep him safe from the flames, from the heat and the burning. A piece of the roof crumbles and falls, embers scattering bright as jewels across the floor. The fire surrounds us, the beams of the house seem to bend down, to dip the flames closer to us. Smoke burns my eyes, it burns my throat. And everywhere is heat, is bright, is fire.

“Goldeline,” says Lance. “You get your cloak, the one I found you in. Bundle up good in it.”

The cloak isn’t far from me, the fire hasn’t touched it yet. I crawl on all fours to under the table where I stashed it. I put it on, wrap up tight in it even though it’s so hot in here.

“Me and Chester are going to carry Tommy out,” he says. “When we get to the door you take off around back and head for the woods. They’ll be distracted by us. No way the Preacher will shoot Tommy, wounded as he is.”

“But what about you two?” I say.

“We haven’t got any other choice,” says Chester. He kisses me on the forehead. “We’re ready. At least you’ll make it.”

“Don’t leave me,” says Tommy. He grabs at my hand but I pull it away.

Lance and Chester hoist Tommy’s arms and legs up between them.

“Open the door and let us out,” says Lance. “Then you run for the woods.”

“Don’t leave me!” screams Tommy.

I can’t even look at him. I stay low and pull the door open. When no gunshots fire, Chester and Lance and Tommy run for it. I run too, but the other way, around the house, crouched low, in my smoke-colored cloak. The Preacher’s men are gathered in front of the house, some on horses, some with rifles, some with torches, their faces lit red by the fire. But they aren’t looking at me. They’re all focused on Chester and Lance and Tommy. One man raises his rifle, a sick smile on his face. I run for the darkness of the forest, the freedom of the trees, the dirt-worn bandit roads. If I run and keep running I can stay ahead of the Preacher, I can be free