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If the thing from my nightmares were human, it would look similar to the man before me, serving salad onto a plate, smiling at Valerie as if he could see her.
“Nicholas,” I heard Valerie say. It wasn’t the first time she’d said my name.
“What? Sorry,” I said, glancing at the Deacon.
“I asked if you minded if the Deacon said grace. I told him … I told him that where we came from, our relationship with God was … soured.”
“Soured?” I raised an eyebrow, glancing at Deacon Rex again. He was smiling. Some corner of the mouth thing. I would recognize it later. More teeth, then.
Valerie said, “Yeah.” Then looked down at her hands.
“Are you asking me if it’s okay that he says grace?”
“Yes.” She looked me in the eye, a pleading look. She was checking in with me and the kindness was foreign and considerate. We had danced around each other for years, roaming the country. And now she was playing at the goodaunt. I hadn’t had a mother figure, and I didn’t want her playing at one now.
But later, I would miss this moment when the consideration turned to resentment, demands, and commands.
“It’s fine,” I said, looking at Deacon Rex. “It’s fine.”
He placed his hands on the table, bracing himself. He drifted like water. I could see he was firm beneath his white shirt, wired muscles straining. Did the church have a gym? It was weird. But the body is holy or whatever.
Deacon Rex brought his hands together, interlaced them, lining up his index fingers, pressing them to his mouth as if he had a secret. “Bless us, O God. Bless our food and our drink. Since you redeemed us so dearly and delivered us from evil, as you gave us a share in this food, so may you give us a share in eternal life.”
When he was done, he turned to Valerie, and I did too, but not before shivering at his last words.Eternal life.
She had tears in her eyes, and I hated it. They were the words used to hurt us, to justify monstrosities placed upon our skin, all in the pursuit of the unattainable. Eternalfuckinglife.
Maybe she didn’t understand because she had been left alone, like the Virgin Mary or some shit.
I grabbed my fork, ready to stomach through the meal. Everything Valerie made tasted amazing and left me with a stale aftertaste. Sorina said to stop eating what Valerie made me.
How much of this was from her hands? How much from the Deacon’s? It didn’t matter. I’d eat a snack after the dance if I was hungry.
“How are you liking the town, Nicholas?” Deacon Rex asked, watching me with his eyeglass-covered eyes. I wanted to rip them from his face.
“It’s not bad. Small. But … that’s fine.”
“It’s a small town full of fine people. Made many friends?”
“A couple.”
Liar.
I’d made one. Or two, if you counted Sorina.
“A couple of good ones is all you need. What are their names? I know everyone in Hart Hollow. It’s part of the job.”
“Uh, the other new student, she lives next door. And Kyrie Davis.”
I watched his face as I answered, saw the twitch when I mentioned Sorina, even though I’d kept her name out of my mouth. His look of otherness turned to a smile when I said, Kyrie. “Ah, Pastor Davis’s daughter.”
“Yes.”
“How’s she doing?”
I stared at him when I spoke, somehow antagonized. “Worried. I guess before we moved here, another preacher’s daughter went missing. Amber Hughes. She’s worried that whatever happened to Amber will happen to her.” I closed my eyes, wondering why the fuck I had let that out. An image of a man patting his dog on the head came to mind, and it made me sniff the air, searching for an unknown predator, a master.
I hated being in that house.
