Page 54 of Adam, Mine

Through the window, he could see a woman or girl, close in age to Victor, with blond ringlets. She was laughing behind the glass. An older man, likely Alphonse himself, passed the window with a mug in his hand. An even older man came out of the sheepcote and went inside the house. A small brown head of hair bopped along the bottom of the windowpane. A child.

Elias wanted to howl. Wanted to punch something. He had not intended to become a killer of children. Not for this. But if he left the child alive, it would be trapped in a hall of bodies, rotting and alone. He could not carry the child to another house and risk rousing alarm and the authorities. He could not let the child out to run to safety. It was too cold, had just gotten dark, and the mountainside was steep.

Elias pushed his forehead against the tree until it hurt. He lost faith. Despair flooded him like a wave until he rocked in place and keened, his noises whipping into the early night, torn apart by the wind.

Tears freezing his face, he climbed higher until he could see the edge of the mountain. He took the doll from inside his coat and kissed its fabric face.

“Unser himmlischer Vater, ich weiß, dass ich ein Sünder bin und dass ich so viele Dinge gegen Deinen Willen getan habe. Es tut mir sehr leid und ich bitte Dich um Vergebung.

“Herr Gott, bitte sieh meine Sünden und Fehler mit einem barmherzigen Auge an und vergib mir. Du bist ein vollkommener Gott und ich wollte Dich mit meinen Übertretungen nicht verletzen. Vater, hilf mir, mein Verhalten zu ändern und in Deinen Schoß zurückzukehren. Ich werde mich bemühen, nicht mehr in Versuchung zu geraten.”*

Then he closed his eyes and let go of the branches.

Glory

Elias was pulled awake with the same unnatural jerk as before. He gasped like a fish, face cold and wet against the ground.

He lifted his cheek from the stickiness with confusion. He could taste his own blood, but it was saltier than before. His blood tended toward sweetness at the best of times, but this was like the sea.

Elias struggled to sit, then vertigo hit him in a wave and he leaned back over to throw up. He reached to his head and felt where it ached. The skin was very tender but it wasn’t bleeding.

He stared at the blood as his hand roved his body, searching for the origin point. His shoulder hurt quite a bit but with an ache like the injury had happened weeks ago.

After ages of running his hands over his body, his veins chilled to ice, Elias reached, shaking, into the mess beneath him and picked up a bit of bone. A chip, curved like his skull.

He lifted the piece and, with a wave of horror, fit the fragment into the crescent that hurt. The raw skin was already closed and healing.

His eyes found the treetop, twenty hands above the ground.

Ah, then.

He could not die.

He could not escape this as any of God’s creatures could.

Victor had taken even that from him.

Elias let himself fall back into the mess of his blood, brains, and vomit. His throat was fully healed, but still he screamed silent.

Yarn

Elias removed his shoes in the winter air and pried the windows open with his blade.

The floors were stone and did not creak.

Elias stood for a moment and breathed, hearing the sound of sleep. It was not close to morning but deep into the night. Too early for feeding animals and too late for reading.

He killed the boy first. Placed the tip of the blade against the side of his neck. Elias covered his face from the eyes of God with one hand as he worked.

He could not save this for last. Knew if he saved this child for last he might lose heart and run from this place. Leaving him to wake in a grave. He could do many things, but he could not . . . he could not . . . He would not bear that.

The blond girl slept curled up in a ball. Her throat guarded by her position. Elias bit his lip and changed blades. This one slender. Fit well at the base of her skull. His father slaughtered cows this way because he loved them so much he did not want them to feel pain.

He stood before Alphonse’s marriage bed and looked upon him, weighing his loss to the region. He cost more than was reasonable, the nurses had said. Be prepared to pay.

He looked like Victor; his wife did, too. They lay tangled, spooned, like newlyweds. Elias plunged his wet knife through their ears one at a time. A quick brain death so they wouldn’t risk waking the other with screams through a ruined throat. He did not know if he could slice them both at once. He hadn’t trained for that.

Elias walked like a ghost through the empty house and out back to where their manservant lived. The light was on in his single room house. Oh, how Elias’s heart howled at the misfortune of finding someone awake. That he could not do this with grace. He wished he were dead; he wished he were dead.