Dark Rite

Chapter 24

In Wallen's Gap the people moved through the streets like ghosts. A sense of something terrible hung in the air, something lost and broken. For any survivors of the cave that night, little was ever said about what had happened. It took several days to quietly bury the bodies of all the dead. The new sheriff, a swiftly promoted local deputy, spent many late nights organizing the paperwork to hide the events up in the hills beyond town.

In a house up beside the church, Mary Ann Stallard sat stony-eyed across the table from a young girl with red hair and freckles across her nose. “I lost a husband and three sons that night,” Mary Ann was saying, “so I ain't about to let you outta my sight.”

“You never have,” the young girl said, her face sullen.

“Don't give me none of your sass. Your daddy's the one who give you to us for safe-keeping when you was just a babe. We've fed and clothed you and cared for you like you was our own.”

“I don't remember any of your own being forced to live in the basement their whole lives.”

“That's enough.” Mary Ann's voice cracked like a whip. “You know how precious you are.” Her face and voice grew dark. “And if the good reverend had controlled his natural urges, we wouldn't have had to use your sister, and maybe my men would still be alive.”

“And my daddy,” the girl added, though there was no feeling in her words.

“You just look after yourself, and that one there.” Mary Ann nodded at the girl's stomach. “Now you make us a fresh pot, ya hear.”

The young redhead nodded and rose from the table, one hand resting on her rotund belly.

“Oh, and one other thing,” Mary Ann said.

“Yes, ma'am?”

“If that ain't a girl child the good reverend put in there, Sally Brunswick, we're gonna find you a baby daddy to keep on working at you until it is. I don't know if our lord is gone for good or not, but there will be another conjunction and I aim to live to see it.”