The Last Sin Eater (21 page)

“My father,” he said grimly.

She shook her head and rose from her chair. She went to the stool by the window and sat, staring out at the mountain as she often did.

“So how did it happen?” Fagan said. “How was the sin eater chosen?”

“Pieces of bone were used, a mark for each man placed on each one. They were put in a mazer bowl and stirred and one drawn out by Cadi’s grandmother, Gorawen Forbes. She cried when she saw whose marker she held, but she turned her back to him just like all the rest.”

“And you?”

She turned the stool, looking back at us. “I would’ve stood against the old Kai myself if Sim’d let me, but he said God himself had drawn his name from that bowl of sorrow and there weren’t nothing we could do to change it. So I ran away and came back here. I ain’t never had much to do with the people of this valley since, and only a few ever came by.”

“The Kai,” I said.

“Aye, and Gervase Odara comes a couple times a year for my honey, and when the sin eater’s needed,” she said bleakly.

“They just left ye alone all these years?” I said, saddened.

“Not all of ’em.” She smiled at me. “Your granny came years back before she began ailing. She and Elda Kendric both. I always knew I’d see them ladies in the fall when the leaves turned red and gold, and again around Christmas, and in the spring.” She laughed at the pleasurable memories. “Your granny always came when the summer flowers were in bloom, and she’d have a basket of bluets for me. They never came empty-handed. They’d bring chestnuts or a jar of melon-rind pickles or apple butter, and I’d send ’em home with honey. Elda came once by herself and gave me that flowered quilt you’re sitting on, Fagan.” She frowned, perplexed. “I never did understand why she give it to me, especially since Iona had just given birth to Cleet, but she insisted I have it.”

“Miz Elda ain’t never given my mother nothing that I know about,” Fagan said, frowning slightly. “They’ve never had nothing to do with each other that I know about. Why would she?”

“Summat must’ve happened to put up a wall between ’em,” Bletsung said. “It’s a sorrowful thing to be cut off from loving kin.”

“Must be so,” I said. “Miz Elda sent all her kin over the mountain years ago.”

“Not all of ’em.”

“What do ye mean?” Fagan said, studying her.

Bletsung Macleod looked between us. “Don’t ye know?”

We looked at one another and then back at her. “Know what?” Fagan said.

“What’ve ye been told about Elda Kendric?”

“Pa said to stay clear of her. Said once she’s worse than the plague. Only time I ever heard him mention her was when he was cursing her, and he won’t have her mentioned in the house.”

“And your mama?”

“She’s never said a word about her.”

Bletsung’s eyes filled with tears.

Fagan searched her face. “What about Miz Elda?”

She shook her head, tears slipping down her cheeks. She looked away again.

“Tell me!”

She looked back at him, her blue eyes tear washed and fierce. “Don’t use that tone on me, boy. It ain’t for me to say more than I have. Miz Elda must have her own reasons for keeping silent. Maybe I’ll go and ask her about ’em. Lord knows, I’ve missed talking with her.” She looked away. “Time passes and we look to the things that won’t hurt us, like the work that needs doing in the garden and the bees and putting up food for the winter. And all the while, people grow old and pass on, breaking off a piece of our hearts and taking it with ’em until there ain’t nothing left but a hollowness inside.”

“Ye could go visit Miz Elda,” I said, feeling her misery as though it was partly my own. “She’d welcome ye sure. Ye could sit on her porch and visit with her all day long if ye liked.”

Bletsung laughed sadly and shook her head. “No, I couldn’t, Cadi.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’d have to cross Kai Creek to get to there,” Fagan said grimly.

“That ain’t why,” Bletsung said. “Ye mustn’t think your father’s the only reason I’ve stayed to myself all these years.”

“Why then?” I asked.

“I know my place.”

But Fagan was set in his mind. “I’ve got to leave here. I’ll bring more trouble on ye if I don’t.”

“Your father won’t bother me.”

“He will if he thinks I’m here.”

She smiled. “We’ll make sure he doesn’t find out.”

Fagan scraped the chair back. “How ye plan on doing that? I can’t stay cooped up in your house for the rest of my life, ma’am. It ain’t right for me to stay here and soon as I can, I’m leaving!”

She stood, facing him across the room. “And go where? Back home to your bloody-minded kinfolk? I fear for you, Fagan. Ye think anything will’ve changed now your pa’s killed that preacher? I con tell ye it won’t. It’ll be worse than ever. Ye go against the man and who’ll stand with ye? Your ma? No. Your brothers? Never! Ye’ll stand alone, and he’ll lay into ye worse than before and maybe kill ye this time. Is that what ye want to happen?”

He just looked at her, his eyes bleak.

Her face softened. “Ye’re safe here and welcome to stay as long as ye like,” she said more gently. She rose from the stool. “I’ve chores to do.”

Grimacing in pain, Fagan rose as soon as she was gone. He jerked his arm away when I tried to help him. “I can manage to make it to the bed by myself.”

I stood in the middle of the room, hands at my sides, watching him. He eased down onto the bed, wincing as he stretched out. Where could he go and not be found?

“There’s a place where he’ll be safe, Katrina Anice,” Lilybet said, standing at the end of the bed where Fagan lay. “You know where.”

It came like a flash of insight. “I know.”

Fagan turned his head and looked at me. “You know what?”

I cocked my head, looking at Lilybet, wondering at her. “Should we go now?”

“No, but rest assured. You will know the proper time.”

“I thought I’d have to go alone.”

She smiled. “The Lord sent his disciples out two by two.”

“Are ye talking to yourself again?” Fagan said, annoyed. “Why do ye have to act so crazy?”

I grinned at him. “I ain’t crazy. I know where we can go and no one will follow.”

“Where?”

I strode across the room and tugged the quilt up over him. “Go back to sleep, Fagan. When the time comes, I’ll show ye the way.”

There was plenty of work for me to do around Bletsung Mac-leod’s place, and I didn’t mind pitching in. Sometimes she’d stand and watch me, smiling as she went back about her own chores. We didn’t say much to one another, but it was an easy silence, the land itself filled with sounds aplenty. A stirring of air rustled the leaves in the oak, hemlock, white pine, and red spruces while birds swooped, soared, and sang. Bees hummed with busy contentment while insects cricked in the tall grasses of the nearby meadow. And there was the creek with its melody of water on rock.

I didn’t think much about Mama until I saw her standing near the curtain of mountain laurel. My heart jumped at the sight of her so silent and mournful, watching me work beside Bletsung Macleod. When I stopped and straightened, looking back at her, she turned quietly away and disappeared among the green tangle of vines. My throat closed so tight, I thought I’d choke. Part of me wanted to run after her. Part was glad she’d gone away.

“What is it?” Bletsung said, looking toward the forest near the creek.

“Nothing,” I said and started hoeing again, my eyes hot and gritty. I’d never known Mama to walk so far. She must’ve gone to Miz Elda’s and heard I’d come here, then come all the way to the end of the valley to see for herself. I wondered if Miz Elda had told her the Kai had killed the man of God. Did she care that he was gone?

Feeling a trickle of moisture, I wiped my cheek with the back of my hand and kept at the hoeing. What had Mama been thinking when she was standing there watching me? That she was well rid of me? Why had she wasted so much of the day just to look at me and turn away again?

“You all right, Cadi?”

“Just sad is all.” I’d made up my mind not to lie anymore.

Bletsung watched me a moment and then looked toward the woods. “I don’t know a soul in this valley that ain’t sorrow filled.”

We worked in her garden until the heat of the day was heavy upon us and then went back into the house. “Oh,” Bletsung said, smiling, and headed straight for the window where two dead rabbits lay on the sill. She peered out and then drew back in dismay. “He’s been and gone already. I wonder why he went away. He’s been so eager to hear what ye heard from the man down by the river.”

“He must’ve had a reason.” He’d probably seen Mama.

Fagan dressed the rabbits, and Bletsung stewed them. Then we three waited all evening for the sin eater to come back, but he didn’t.

“Sometimes he goes up to the mountaintop,” Bletsung said, tucking me in for the night. “He’ll come down again when he’s ready.”

Fagan insisted he sleep on the floor. He argued so long and hard, she gave in and let him sleep on the pallet she’d made before the fire.

The winds came up that night, keening the advance of fall. I awakened once to rain pounding on the cabin roof. The night was so black it even doused the stars. Only the embers in the dying fire glowed. Shivering, I tucked myself closer to Bletsung Macleod’s warmth. Even then, I could not sleep. I kept thinking of the sin eater sleeping in that cold cave in the side of the mountain. The grieving lay like a heavy burden on my heart. What must it be like living up there all alone when the savage winds of winter were blowing over the rocks and through the trees, and there wasn’t another living soul around to keep him company.

“There’s God,” Lilybet said.

I sat up, but it was too dark to see anything. “Aye, but does the sin eater talk to him?”

“His heart has cried out to God for a long, long time, Katrina Anice. God hears those who seek him. He embraces the rejected. He is father to the fatherless, light to the blind, a path to the lost . . .”

My heart burned within me. I knew it was the word of the Lord I was hearing, and I was filled to overflowing with hope. Sim’s salvation was at hand; God would come to him. “I thought it was all over when the Kai killed the man,” I said in a hushed voice. “I was so scared.”

“You’ve only just begun, Katrina Anice. Never fear. God is with you.”

Excited now, not feeling the cold at all, I crawled out from beneath the covers, careful not to brush against BletsungMac-leod and awaken her. I crept carefully to the end of the bed and sat cross-legged at the end of the bed, eager to hear more. “Begun what?”

“You’ve begun your walk with the Lord. You opened your heart to Jesus Christ, and you were baptized at the river. Your eyes and ears are open now. Your mouth will be opened, too.”

“I’ll go up on the mountain again and tell the sin eater everything the man told me.”

“Yes.”

“Will it grieve him?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” I said slowly, thinking. “Can I only tell him a wee bit at a time so he takes it in easier and it won’t hurt so much?”

“No.”

“What if I don’t remember everything I’m to tell him? What if I say it wrong and he won’t believe?”

“God will give you the words to speak. Trust in him, Katrina Anice. He loves you. You are very precious to him. The Lord has counted every hair on your head. He has all your tears in a bottle. He has written you in the palm of his hand. He has called you by name.”

My whole body was covered with goosebumps at her words.

“The Lord loves
me?”

“Oh, yes.” She came closer, so close I could feel the warmth radiating from her. “And the Lord loves Sim, too. You mustn’t worry about what you’re to say to him. You mustn’t hold back when the time comes.”

“Should I go now?”

“You’ll know the time.”

“Will it be soon?”

“Soon, Katrina Anice. Soon you will go forth in the name of the Lord.”

“Cadi?” Bletsung put her hand on my shoulder, and my eyes popped open. I was lying on my back in bed, not sitting at the foot of the bed as I’d thought. “You’re talking in your sleep, darlin’.” I was trembling violently and she drew me close, pulling the quilts up more snugly around us. “Was it a bad dream, Cadi?”

“No.”

“You’re shaking like a leaf in the wind. Are ye cold?”

“No.”

“Can ye tell me about it?”

The Spirit within me stirred. “Yes, I can.” Turning to her, I sat up. Drawing the corner of Elda Kendric’s basket-of-flowers quilt around me, I talked. Oh, how I talked. All the rest of the night, I kept on, telling Bletsung Macleod everything I’d been told down by the river.

And then the sun came up over the mountains, a spear of brilliance coming straight through the window where she always sat looking up at Dead Man’s Mountain, up where the sin eater lived. Oh, how Bletsung Macleod wept. She wept and wept and grasped me close, and then I knew.

The Lord had saved her, too.

S E V E N T E E N

We’d only just arisen from bed when someone helloed the house. Fagan came fully awake of a sudden and held his arm around his ribs as he struggled up in haste. “It’s my mother!” He panted against the pain that was so clearly etched on his disfigured face.

I clambered from the bed and ran to peer out the window while Bletsung yanked her dark skirt over her head and buttoned it over her nightgown. “She’s coming up,” I said, heart racing. “She’s coming!”

“Stay back from there, Cadi! She’ll see ye.”

“She’s alone. Leastwise, I canna see anyone with her.”

Fagan raked his fingers through his hair. “Pa never gets up this early. She must’ve come of her own. It ain’t like her. Sum-mat’s terrible wrong.”

“Stay put,” Bletsung told him. “Ye’d better sit, Fagan. Ye look ready to keel o’er.”

“Helllloooo . . .”

Bletsung took her shawl from the back of a chair and threw it around her shoulders, her face tight and withdrawn. “I never thought to see Iona in my part of the valley again,” she said grimly. Opening the door, she went out. Iona Kai didn’t stop when she appeared, but kept on until she was close enough to throw a stone through the window.

“What do you want, Iona?” Bletsung called out. She stood at the top of the steps, back straight, chin up in challenge. “What’re ye doing here?”

“I’m lookin’ for my son!”

“Brogan’s already been here looking for him!”

There was a heavy moment, and then Iona Kai said derisively, “It ain’t the only time he’s been here, is it, Bletsung Macleod?”

“Ye always did have a nasty mind, Iona. And an even nastier tongue.”

“Ye know where my boy is, don’t ye?”

“And if I did, why would I be telling the likes of you?”

“He’s
my
son, not yours. Ye’d understand if ye’d ever had children of your own.”

“You and all the rest saw to it that’d never happen, didn’t ye?”

They was stinging one another with words, dredging up hurts from years past. I kept listening, trying to make sense of it all.

“Come away from there,” Fagan said.

“I will not.”

“It was God’s doing, not mine,” Iona Kai said with less belligerence.

“Don’t be looking at your feet when ye say it, Iona. Look me in the face. It was God’s doing? Ye sure about that?”

“I had nothing to do with it!” the woman shouted angrily.

“Did I say ye did? The part ye had was turning folks away from me afterwards.”

“Never did I do such a thing as that.”

“Ye did and well ye know it! You and your vicious lies. I ain’t never cast a spell in my life!”

“I dinna come to talk about the past, Bletsung.”

“Maybe not, but it’s there between us, ain’t it, Iona? High as a stone wall, and ye built it yourself. Brogan married ye, didn’t he? Ye got what ye wanted. Why did ye add to my misery?”

“I hate you, Bletsung Macleod! The devil take ye! I hate you so!”

“Aye, I know ye do.”

Iona Kai began to cry, her face fierce in humiliation. “Where is my son, you witch! Where is he?”

I’d always thought Iona Kai a quiet, down-pressed woman, yet here she stood, spewing words so filled with hate it fair scorched the house. When I looked back at Fagan, I saw his face was pale as ashes and grievous shamed.

Bletsung stood on the porch, the shawl pulled tight around her, her chin held high in grave dignity. “Ye dunna deserve a boy like Fagan, Iona.”

“You’ve no right to speak to me so!”

“Right or not, I’m speaking my mind. A mother ought to protect her own son.”

“It ain’t a woman’s place to stand against her own husband, but ye wudna understand these things, not having one.”

“Even when the mon’s doing wrong? What sort of a wife and mother are ye to stand aside and watch your man sin and your son pay the price for it? I’ll tell ye this, Iona. I’d stand against hell itself to protect Fagan, and he ain’t even mine.”

“Fagan! If you’re in there, lad,
come out!”

Weary and hurting, Fagan walked toward the door.

“He’s safe, Iona. Or don’t that matter to ye? He’s mending from the beating Brogan give him because he stood up for the man by the river. A man of God! Did ye not know?”

“He shouldn’t’ve stood against his da. He shouldn’t’ve done it! If he’d listened to his father, none of this would’ve happened. He should’ve stayed away like he was told.”

“Fagan done what was right!”

“He belongs with his own kin!”

“And what’ll happen to him if he goes home now, do ye think? Has Fagan’s da changed his mind? Your son took every word that man said into his heart, Iona. He ain’t going to follow in the Kai’s footsteps anymore. He belongs to the Lord now.”

“I want him back!”

“Why?”

“You can’t have him! He’s my son! I’ll not leave him here.”

“There’s the truth of it, aye? Ye’re still blind with jealousy after all these years, so jealous ye’d rather put your own flesh and blood in danger than let him be with me?”

“Fagan!
Come out here, boy. Come out to your mama.”

Fagan looked at me sadly and then, resigned, opened the door. Steeling himself against the pain, he walked out and stood in the shadow of the porch. I knew it weren’t only the pain of the cuts and bruises from the blows and kicks he’d taken. He was heartsick. And so too was I. My heart ached so, I went out and stood beside him. He didn’t know I was there until I took his hand firm in mine.

“You there, girl! Get away from him!” Iona Kai’s face was mottled red. “This is
your
doing!” I’d never seen a woman look more twisted and ugly. She scarce looked at Fagan, so intent was her hatred against Bletsung and me. She was casting blame left and right and not keeping a particle for herself. “I knew ye had him! I knew it! Soon as I get home, I’m telling Brogan how ye hid his son away from him. Then he’ll see ye for what ye are!”

I went cold at her threat, remembering what he done to the poor man by the river. Would he do the same to us? It had been clear enough then that he had no great love for his own flesh and blood.

Bletsung stepped forward, her face pink. “You tell him, Iona. Ye do that because if ye don’t, the
next
time he comes here, I’ll tell him
myself.”

The words struck hard and Iona’s mouth worked. “Come on, boy. Ye’re going home where ye belong.”

I held tighter to his hand. “Ye don’t have to go, Fagan. Stay here with us.”

“Let go of me, Cadi. I have to go.”

“They don’t love you! They don’t love you the way we do! Tell him, Bletsung.”

“He knows, Cadi.”

“Let go, I say.”

Biting my lip, I did as he said and fled to Bletsung in my grief, grasping her around the waist. She put her arm around me, holding me close. “Ye can stay, Fagan,” she said in a wobbly voice. “Ye can stay with me as long as ye like.”

“She’s my mother, ma’am. The Lord says to obey, don’t he? I got to hold to that. I gotta hold to God or I ain’t got nothing.” He took another step and looked back at her. “Whatever hurt she’s caused ye, I’m truly sorry for it.”

Bletsung reached out and cupped his cheek briefly.

“Get away from her!” Iona screamed at her son.

Fagan winced at the awful sound of her rage. Turning away from us, he went down the steps clumsily, holding to the railing for support. Iona Kai walked toward the house, shoulders back in defiance and challenge. When Fagan reached the bottom, he straightened and let go of the rail. Raising his head, he looked at his mother. She stopped and her face went terrible white. Her hands went to her mouth. He walked toward her, hurting with every step, and she just stood there, staring and staring at him, her hands pressed over her mouth. When he stood before her, she didn’t move.

“It’s all right, Mama.”

“Oh.” Reaching up, she touched his bruised and battered face in disbelief. “Ohhhh.” Turning away, she bent at the waist. “Ohhhhhh,” she wailed, dropping to her knees and rocking.

Fagan put his arms around her. “Mama . . .” He drew her up. Turning, she clung to him, sobbing against his bloodstained shirt.

Bletsung put both her arms around me and looked away. I could feel her body trembling violently.

I listened to Iona Kai’s keening, and the Spirit within me stirred. “It’s coming to right. It’s coming to right.”

“I’d drag him back if I thought I could make him stay,” Blet-sung said in a broken voice. “They don’t deserve a son like him. They don’t deserve a son at all.”

“Hush now. If ye can forgive her in your heart, it’ll come to rights for ye, too. Ye’ll see.” I didn’t know how I knew, I just knew. God had lit a lamp in me, and it was burning brightly.

Bletsung Macleod gave a soft, broken laugh and looked down at me. Cupping my face, she smiled. “Ye’ve ever been a strange one, Cadi Forbes. Stranger than I ever was. I could forgive her a month of Sundays, and it wouldn’t matter a whit to how she feels about me. I learned a long time ago not to put much hope in people, especially Iona Kendric.”

My lips parted in surprise. “Kendric? She’s a Kendric?”

“Aye. Elda’s daughter. Didn’t ye know?”

“No, ma’am. Never heard tell of it.” That meant the old woman was Fagan’s granny. Did he know it? No, I knew he didn’t. Yet, in the very heart of him, he’d known her for a kindred spirit and been drawn to her. Why had the old woman never told him so herself?

Iona drew back from Fagan, looking up at him again. The shame was clear on her face and the sorrow, too. She touched him again and spoke to him too soft for us to hear, standing where we were on the porch. Fagan stood still beneath her touch, saying nothing. Lowering her hand to her side, Iona stepped around him and walked slowly up to Bletsung’s house. She stood at the foot of the steps, eyes downcast, mouth working. Letting out a shaky sigh, she raised her head.

“I reckon there’s truth in what ye say. He canna come home.” The cost of her admission was there to behold. She looked old and worn and hopeless.

Bletsung looked down at me in faint surprise and then back at Iona. “He can stay here as long as he likes, Iona.” She hesitated and then added with deliberation, “And ye’re welcome here, too.”

Iona Kai’s eyes flickered in surprise. She lowered her head briefly, staring at the ground. Then she raised her eyes once more and shook her head. “He canna stay here either, Bletsung.”

“Will ye hold your bitterness forever?”

“It ain’t that. I heard Brogan saying last night he was coming here.” Color flooded her cheeks. “I dinna know he’d come already. It bodes no good. I thought the most he’d do is whip him, but I can see now he’s past reason. No, the boy’s got to leave. He’s got to hide somewhere Brogan canna find him. I dunna know where that could be, but I’m terrible afeared what Bro-gan’ll do if he finds him.”

“So he’s coming sure?” Bletsung said, clearly wishing it was only a thought in Iona’s head.

“He’s coming. I don’t reckon he’d harm ye,” she said, the poison still in her veins. “His feelings toward ye ain’t much changed, even after all these years.”

“Ye never had reason to worry.”

“He’s a mon strong of mind and set on a path. He called Fagan a Judas and Cadi the goat who led him. I thought it was the whiskey speaking, but it ain’t. He said last night if Fagan’d been there, he’d have pinned him to the wall with his hunting knife. He’s been talking and acting crazy since he went down and killed that man by the river. He says he’s gonna put an end to the mon’s lies.”

“They weren’t lies, Mama,” Fagan said, coming to stand beside her. “He spoke the gospel truth.”

“It don’t matter if it was truth or no.” She looked up at Blet-sung, beseeching her. “Ye know him as well as I, Bletsung. When he gets summat in his head, it’s fixed forever. He doesn’t know when he’s gone too far. I canna bear to see more harm done to the boy, and I don’t want Brogan having more blood on his hands.” She turned to Fagan and grasped his arms. “Ye’ve got to go, Son. Ye’ve got to go now.” She wept bitterly. “And ye’d best take the girl with ye.”

Bletsung released me and came down the steps. “Ye canna go back to him, Iona. He’ll know ye’ve warned the boy, and he’ll kill ye sure as shooting.”

“Where else can I go? Back to Mama? We ain’t spoke a word in eighteen years.”

I saw the question flicker across Fagan’s face. “What’re ye talking about, Mama? Your mama died years ago. Ye said—”“Stay here with me, Iona,” Bletsung said.

Iona drew back from her. “I canna stay with
you!
I’ve loved Brogan Kai all my born days, and it’s ’cause of you I ain’t even had a corner of his heart.”

“He married ye, didn’t he?”

“He needed sons.” Her face was ravaged by warring emotions—love, bitterness, despair. “Truth have it, if I died today, it wouldn’t make one whit of difference to him.” She looked at her son, her mouth trembling. “The reason you and your pa’ve never gotten on is ye take after my father. Donal Kendric was the only man who ever stood against Laochailand Kai.”

“Miz Elda?”

Iona Kai’s eyes were awash with tears. “I’m sorry, boy. Your pa made me promise never to tell ye.”

“If that be the way of things, dunna sacrifice yourself to the devil!” Bletsung said.

Iona turned and glared up at her. “He ain’t a devil! He ain’t! He’s just a man who’d do anything to get what he wants, and it’s all coming back on his head to roost!” She covered her face and wept bitterly.