Goldeline by Jimmy Cajoleas (i read books txt) 📕

of him, free of the fire and the burning and the death, death, death trailing me like a hellhound that’s got my sniff, that howls low and cold in my heart.

But can I really leave Chester and Lance and Tommy behind? Can I trust the Preacher to be merciful to them, even though they helped me? Is mercy a word he even knows?

I got to make a decision now. I could keep running. I could follow this road forever, I could outrun the Preacher until one of us finally trips up and dies. I could leave a trail of dead people who loved me, who took care of me, bring fire and doom on anyone who was nice enough to give me so much as a cup of water when I was thirsty.

The rain has stopped, the trees glisten in the starlight. The smell of smoke in the darkness, the chipped-bone moon above. Out in the woods an owl makes its music and I can hear it, only I can understand it. Behind me scurries Chester and Lance’s kitten, Princess Mona. She purrs up next to my leg, a warm thing in the horrible burning night. I pick her up and she meows at me, and there’s no doubting what that means.

I understand now. I understand everything so clearly. I touch my hand out on the bark of a tree and I can read it same as it was language. The moonlight sings down on me. The whole world is a warm animal holler blooming out in the deep dark, a beautiful thing, filled with critters and angels and people, the earth a great music maker with a heart of fire. I know now, and I understand.

Ever since Momma died, I’ve been looking for a home, some place where I belonged, where I was safe and happy and everybody loved me. Well, maybe that kind of a home just isn’t in the cards for me yet. Maybe the only home I got right now is in myself. I’m Goldeline. No one can take that away from me. Not the Preacher, not anybody else.

I don’t want to run anymore. I don’t want anyone else dying on account of me. I hold Princess Mona close to me, a good weapon against the darkness. I walk back toward the fire, toward the burning house, toward him. Toward the Preacher.

Men in black cloaks have all gone down and circled Lance and Chester and Tommy. Two stand by the Preacher. I recognize them. It’s Regis, and the third man from the fire. They both got guns at the ready.

“It ain’t too late for you,” says the Preacher. “All you have to do is repent. That’s it.”

But Chester clutches Lance, holds on to him like he’s the only steady thing in the world, like he’s the tall tree in a windstorm, the one that won’t topple. But I can see it from here, the way his head droops, Lance is hurt. Blood dribbles from his mouth and he looks terrified.

I’m past the burning house now, creeping quiet as I can. No one’s noticed me yet. I can see Tommy down by everyone’s boots, laid out and crying.

Regis aims the rifle at Chester and Lance.

I can’t let them die. I can’t have their ghosts follow me too. I got too many ghosts, too many dead ones that haunt my dreams. The world seems small as the three people encircled by guns and fire, huddled together in fear.

“Stop!” I scream in my best Gruff voice, my hair let loose, wild and white, all the mean and tough I got brought up to my face. In my arms Princess Mona hisses and claws. The men lower their guns and make room for me in the circle. I stand right in the center, in front of Chester and Lance, in front of Tommy. I stand, fully scowled, a wicked cat in my arms, a bandit, a witch, just like my momma.

The Preacher cackles wild.

“Goldeline, the little girl lost, she has returned!”

“You can’t shoot them,” I say. “I won’t let you.”

The Preacher crouches down to look me in the eyes. I flinch at his breath, the rotten sulfur stink of it.

“Little one,” he says, “you will find I can do anything I please.”

“I know why you murdered my momma,” I say. The rain begins to fall again, and steam rises from the ground, the crackle and sizzle of rain on fire. “I was there in the window. You know. You saw me. That’s why you been hunting me. That’s why you been trying to kill me.”

“I don’t want to kill you, Goldeline,” the Preacher says, “I want to save you.”

“Save me?” I say.

I don’t understand.

“Don’t you know?” says the Preacher. “That’s why I’ve kept you alive so long. You must repent, Goldeline. Because your mother was a witch.” He says the word nasty, stabs it in me like a twisted dagger. “And you got the same witch’s blood in you. The same devil’s heart. A witch, you are. A sorceress. You deserve to burn, same as your mother.

“But that is not God’s plan for you, Goldeline. He wants you to be cleansed, and so do I. God wants to cleanse you of your mother. He wants to wash you clean of her sin, her witchcraft. God wants to save you from your mother.”

The kitten struggles in my arms. The Preacher’s words swirl around me like bats.

“Because all this pain is your mother’s fault. The people you robbed, that little boy’s hurt leg, your dead bandit friend. They all died because of your mother. She is the cause of all this misery. She was a wicked woman, a temptress, evil to her heart’s core. But it isn’t too late for you, Goldeline. I’ve come to forgive you. I’ll even take you in as my daughter. My own little girl. You’ll have a home, a family, everything you ever wanted.”

The Preacher leans in close to me, whispering, his breath hot on my ear.