When she came back from that place, he was teary-eyed and nodding. “I see you.” He covered his mouth to stifle a sob. “My baby…”
“I’m not your baby.”
“You are, of course you are. You’re my lovely girl.”
He pressed his lips against her face, kissing her cheeks, her eyes. He was weeping joyfully even as Elizabeth choked and coughed and tasted her own bitter tears.
“No.”
“Don’t be silly. It’s Daddy. I’m here.”
“Get away from me.”
“Don’t say that.”
“You’re not my father. I don’t even know you.”
She closed her eyes and turned her head away.
It was all she had.
All she could do.
“No.” His voice rose, tears spilling onto her face as he choked her hard and fast and ugly. “Come back!” He leaned into it. “Elizabeth! Please!” He squeezed Elizabeth’s throat until her eyes filled with blood, and she went deep in the black. After that, even when she returned, she was barely there. She sensed his anguish, and the light that dimmed in the church. Everything else was vague. His hands. The pain. “Please let me see her.” Elizabeth’s head lolled; he caught and held it. “Why are you keeping her from me? Do you hate me so very much?”
Elizabeth forced a whisper. “You’re sick. Let me help you.”
“I’m not sick.”
She blinked.
“Don’t you know this place? Can’t you feel it? The place where we spoke of life and the future, of God’s plans and all that we meant to each other? I was your father, here. You loved me.”
“I did.” The barest whisper. “I did love you.”
“And now?”
“Now I think you’re sick.”
“Don’t say that.”
But in all her life she’d only lied to him once, so she held his eyes and let him see the truth. That he was a killer. That she could never love him as she once had.
“Elizabeth-”
“Let me go. Let Channing go.”
He tightened his grip; her eyes fluttered. “I want the daughter I knew before the abortion and the lies. You took her from me when all you had to do was listen and do as I said. Our family would have survived, our church.” He let her breathe.
Elizabeth choked out a rasping sound. “I didn’t take her. You killed her.”
“I would never.”
“Here. At this altar.” He didn’t understand, and maybe he couldn’t. It wasn’t the rape or the abortion that destroyed the girl she’d been. It was him, right here. His betrayal. That was the irony. He’d killed the child he loved, then murdered a dozen women trying to get her back.
“Are you laughing?”
She was. She was dying, and she was. Maybe her brain was starved of oxygen. Maybe, at the end, this is what she proved to be, helpless even before herself. It didn’t matter. His face was perfect: the disbelief and wounded pride, the impotence before a dying daughter’s last, imperfect act.
“Don’t laugh at me.”
She laughed harder.
“Don’t,” he said. “But it was beyond her, now. “Elizabeth, please-”
She sucked deep and pushed it out, a high wheeze that sounded nothing like joy. But it was what she had, and she rode it even as his hands came down, and he rose again to his toes. The laughter ended with her breath, but she felt it inside, bright for a spell, then dim and dying, as was she.
35
Gideon woke to the sound of wind and the warmth of a blood-soaked shirt. He felt weak, but the truth was all around him.
This was real.
It was happening.
He tried to sit, but something didn’t work right, so he lay back down. The next time he went slower, and when the church stopped spinning, he looked at the yellow tape the preacher had torn down. There’d been bodies here. He could remember some of the names from what he’d seen on TV.
Ramona Morgan.
Lauren something.
Then, there were the ones beneath. Nine more women, they said. Nine more ghosts. The thought made him afraid, but his mother died here, too, and if there were ghosts, maybe she would be among them. She’d been a good person, so maybe the others had been, as well. Maybe they would see into his heart and offer no reason to fear. But, Gideon was a spiritual boy. He believed in God and angels and the bad things, too.
Did that include the preacher?
It shouldn’t, but he thought it must. Why else was he here with Liz and the other girl? Why were they tied and taped and terrified? It was too much, too big. But the truth of what he had to do was simple. He had to go inside and see. So he pulled himself up the stairs and at the top looked down at how the valley rolled out, soft and narrow and long. It was pretty, he thought, then opened the door and went looking for the ugly. It wasn’t hard to find. The altar was lit, and Liz was on it. Her father was hurting her, and the sight made Gideon weak. Ten steps later the weakness was worse, and he thought of such things as blood loss and shock and the doctor’s talk of a stitched artery.
The shirt was heavy.
His eyelids, too.
Holding on to a pew, he waited for the faintness to pass, but it didn’t. If anything, he felt worse. Numb legs. Dry mouth. He stumbled and went down on a knee, smelling the carpet, the rotted wood. The girl was screaming, but all he could see was Liz on the altar, how she twitched and jerked, and how ropes cut her ankles. Veins bulged in her neck; her mouth was open. Gideon dragged himself up, thinking, This is how my mother died. Just here. Just like that. The gap in his logic didn’t close until he was close enough to see the blood that filled Liz’s eyes.
She was dying as he watched. Not being hurt. Being killed.
Gideon swayed again, seeing his mother’s death, as it must have been.
This place.
This man.
How could that be possible? He’d loved the preacher more than his own father. Trusted him. Adored him. A day ago he’d have died for the Reverend Black.
“Hmmm! Hmm!”
The girl was at his feet, shoved half beneath the pew. Her noises grew frantic as she tried to gesture with her entire body. The preacher’s coat was on the pew ten feet away. The girl dipped her head twice, and Gideon saw the stun gun beside the coat. He’d never seen one before today, but it looked simple. Metal points. Yellow trigger. He reached for it, then saw the real gun sticking out of a coat pocket. It was black and hard. He touched it once, but didn’t want to kill anyone.
It was still the reverend.
Right?
He wasn’t thinking straight, and his hands were tingling, too. The whole thing felt wrong, but life often felt that way. Mistakes happened. Things that seemed clear weren’t. He didn’t want to make a mistake now, but was so dizzy.
Was it really happening?
He bent for the stun gun and fell against the pew. New heat spread on his chest, and his fingers didn’t want to obey. They were far away, fumbling at the grip. His knees touched carpet, and blood from his shirt smeared the wooden seat. He turned his eyes to the girl beside him, saw the shiny eyes and yellow hair, the way she struggled and pleaded and screamed behind the tape as if to remind him that a woman was dying, and that it was Liz, who’d always loved him.
Gideon couldn’t allow that, so he pushed with all he had; he pushed and bled and found his feet beneath a vaulted ceiling and a wall of colored glass. The stun gun filled his hand, and shallow stairs led to the place Liz was dying. He asked his mother to help if she could. “I’m scared,” he whispered, and it was as if a dozen women kissed his face and lifted him. The pain in his chest went away. His head cleared, and he moved as light as any ghost across the carpet and up the steps to where pink light spilled down and motes hung in the air above the preacher’s head. Beyond the altar was Mary, in the glass, and in her arms an infant son. They wore halos and were smiling, but Gideon was angry and afraid and beyond such gentle things. He looked once at Liz’s bloody eyes, then put metal in the reverend’s back and lit the bastard up.