The Last Sin Eater

  I left the house before daybreak, careful not to awaken anyone. The moon was full and cast a glow over the meadowlands. I wondered about the man of God down there by the river as I hurried along the pathway to Miz Elda’s cabin. Her lantern was burning. When I tapped at the door, she called for me to come on in and said, “I been up all night thinking about ye. Everything’s ready, dearie.”

  On the table was a half-filled jar of blackberry wine, a small loaf of bread, and a white shroud.

  I hugged her. She returned the embrace. As I drew back, she cupped my face. “Ye tell the sin eater that Miz Elda Kendric sends him a fond hello. Will ye do that for me, Cadi?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “And tell him summat else for me, too, Cadi. Tell him I ain’t never forgotten his name.”

  “Will ye tell it to me, Miz Elda?”

  “It’s for him to say, honey chile.” She smiled sadly and released me. “Fagan gonna meet ye there?”

  “Fagan doesna know I’m going. This is between me and the sin eater.”

  “And God. Don’t ever forget God’s the one who’ll say yea or nay to us in the end.”

  “I’ve never been able to get him outta my mind.” It was fear of him that drove me. I wanted desperately to be cleansed of my sins so I wouldn’t be judged too harshly and spend eternity burning in hell.

  “I’ll be thinking of ye, Cadi. I’ll keep ye in mind until ye come back and tell me all about it. So don’t leave me wondering. Ye hear?”

  I promised, took the shroud, the wine, and the bread, and hurried on. My goal was just within reach. My soul would at last be at rest within me.

  The path behind Bletsung Macleod’s dark cabin wound upward to the heights. I was tired by the time I got there, hurrying so far. It was a goodly distance from our end of the valley. Pausing to rest, I lifted my eyes to the mountain. From whence shall my help come? Wondering if I’d have to climb clear to the top before I found the sin eater again, I set off, determined to find my salvation.

  The sin eater came to meet me. “I’m here, Cadi.” His gentle deep voice came softly from the forest. “Ye need climb no further.”

  “I brought the wine and bread, sir. Miz Elda gave it to me.” My heart was thumping wildly. I was sore afraid of him. “She said to tell ye she thinks fondly of ye and she hasn’t forgotten your name.” I turned full circle and still could not see him.

  “Thank her for me,” he said softly from the trees on the steep slope above me.

  “Will ye tell me your name?”

  “I have no name anymore. I’m lost to all I was and ever hoped to be.”

  I bit my lip, wavering. “I’m sorry I’m asking more of ye.”

  “Lie upon the earth, Cadi, and put the white cloth over ye. And then set the bottle of wine and bread upon your chest.”

  I did so, shaking violently. Setting the jar and bread at my side where I could feel them, I lay back on the cool earth and drew the shroud up, covering myself from my feet to the top of my head. Feeling for the jar and bread, I placed them on my chest and held them there so they wouldn’t fall.

  Trembling, I heard the sin eater come from his hiding place in the forest green. His footsteps were soft. As he came very near, I heard him sigh.

  “Do ye want to tell me what ye did that grieves ye so, Cadi Forbes?”

  The heat of shame filled me. “Do I have to? Did Granny tell ye all her sins? Or any of the others afore they died?”

  “No.”

  “Did ye know what they were after ye took them upon yer-self?”

  “Some of their sins I knew, Cadi. Like everyone else knew. Some sins are plain as day. Others are hidden deep into the very heart. Those are the worst. The secret sins are like a cancer to the soul. I never know what they are. I just . . . take what’s given.”

  “I don’t want to speak aloud of what I done.” I was trembling and kept my eyes tight shut. “I don’t want ye to know.”

  He took the jar of wine and small loaf of bread from me. He was careful not to touch my hands. I reckoned he didn’t want to stain me further with the sins he already carried. And then he spoke. “Lord God Almighty, I am willing to take Cadi Forbes’s sins upon myself . . . if ye are willing.”

  My throat ached with tears. He sounded so sad, so deeply burdened. I listened to him eat the bread and drink the wine and felt ashamed. I waited, scarcely breathing, praying my sins would be taken away. I waited for my burdens to be lifted so that my heart would not feel so heavy within me, like a stone pulling me down into darkness.

  Nothing happened.

  “I give easement and rest now to thee, Cadi Forbes, dear child, that ye walk not over fields or mountains or along pathways. And for thy peace I pawn my own soul.”

  I lay still as death, waiting and waiting. Relief did not come. I felt heavier than I ever had before, so heavy I thought I might sink into the earth itself and be swallowed up. I had listened to the gentle voice of the sin eater and heard him partake of the meal of my sins. I had not felt ease at all, but a terrible consuming anguish and pity for the man beside me. He had tried—and failed—to save my soul.

  I knew I was doomed.

  “Why do ye weep so, Cadi Forbes?”

  I had come to the end of my struggling, and my fate was before me. God knew me for the sinner I was. God would decide what he would do to me. I knew what I deserved: death and a fiery pit of eternal torture and damnation.

  Curling on my side, I bunched the shroud about my face and wept. “What must I do to be saved?”

  The sin eater sighed. “I wish I knew, Cadi. Oh, how I wish I knew.” He rose, moving away from me a ways and standing in the shadows of the forest. He waited there, letting me cry myself out. “Ye said ye would do whatever I asked no matter what happened, Cadi. Do ye remember?”

  “I remember.” I raised my head against the dullness that swept over me. He moved behind a tree, hiding himself from me.

  “Will ye keep your word to a sin eater?”

  “I’ll keep my word to ye.” I needed no more sins upon my conscience.

  “Then this is what I ask of you.”

  I knew after he told me that my life would soon be over.

  E L E V E N

  "How long has she been like this?" Papa asked from where he stood looking down at me on my cot.

  “Since she came home.” Mama stood behind him.

  He knelt down, touching my forehead. “Did ye eat summat in the woods?” When I shook my head, he frowned. “She ain’t feverish.”

  “She’s gone all day long, every day. Disappears right after doing her chores.”

  “Where does she go?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Papa’s jaw clenched as he stroked my hair back from my face. “Where do ye go, Cadi? Why do ye stay away so much?”

  Lip quivering, I turned my face to the wall. I could’ve told him what ailed me. Plain old fear—gut deep and spreading through every part of me. The sin eater had told me what he wanted and reminded me I’d given my word. Oh, that I hadn’t been so desperate and reckless to promise before knowing what he’d expect. And now, it was too late to back out. But telling everything to Papa would only bring trouble on others, and I had enough trouble of my own.

  Papa glanced up at Mama. “Did she tell ye where she’s been going?”

  “I dinna ask.”

  Papa rose, angry. “Why not? Don’t ye care?”

  “Ye canna change her nature, Angor.”

  “So ye let her run wild? Ye let her make friends with taints?”

  I glanced around as Mama turned her back to him. “I saw she was feeling poorly and told her to go to bed,” she said in a thin voice.

  “Seems to me, ye could’ve asked her how she came to feel so poorly.”

  “I doubt she’d tell me.”

  “A ready excuse.”

  “What’s the use in trying to make ye understand!” She walked across the room and sat down before her loom. She clenched her hands in her lap and stared s
traight ahead. “Do ye really think so little of me, Angor? Do ye think your harsh words canna hurt me?”

  He followed, back rigid. “No more than ye hurt others with your silence. Elen’s gone! She’s dead! Are ye not afeared of losing Cadi, too?”

  “I lost her a long time ago.” She raised trembling hands to her work. “Both at once.”

  “Ahhhh—!” Papa cut the air with a disgusted wave of his hand. “I’m getting Gervase Odara.”

  The healer made me drink a tonic. It was not honey, vinegar, and blackberry wine. It was vile-tasting stuff meant to purge whatever poisons were sickening me. And purge they did, adding to my travail. She stayed with me through the day, holding my head and later bathing me. I was wrung out.

  When evening came, Gervase Odara dozed in the chair beside my cot while Papa sat outside on the porch and Mama sat before her loom. Her hands lay idle in her lap, and she stared silently out the window.

  I felt like a lonely bird on the housetop. My heart was wither ing like burning grass within me. I lay upon my cot, knowing the first breath of God upon me was going to blow me straight to hell.

  I ate the bread Gervase Odara gave me though it tasted like ashes, and I swallowed tears, mingled with the fresh warm milk Iwan brung me. He sat with me awhile, not talking about anything in particular—leastwise nothing I remember.

  By evening, I was resolved. I’d keep my promise to the sin eater, come what may.

  “She seems better,” Gervase Odara said, for if one could eat, she reckoned they were on the mend. I could not tell her that it was my last meal before I was done to death. She put on her shawl and headed for home. Papa, relieved of worry, went to bed, snoring as soon as his head touched the straw mattress. Iwan did likewise on the cot on the porch.

  Only Mama sat in the moonlight awhile longer, her lovely face like a pale white mask. She rose after a while, took her hair down, brushed it out, and braided it for the night. Then she came to me and sat for a long while beside my cot, her shawl held tightly around her. Leaning forward, she placed her hand on my brow. I held very still, pretending to be asleep, my throat closed tight, aching.

  “I don’t know how to make things right between us, Cadi. I reckon God himself will have to do it.”

  I reckoned God would make things right by morning. By then I’d be dead.

  Oh, how I craved Lilybet’s company. Where had she gone? Why did she not come to me when I needed her? And Granny. How I missed her and ached to talk with her again. I remembered the night she was buried and the first time I’d laid eyes on the sin eater. He had come to take her sins away. But had he? And even if he had, what good was having your sins taken away if you were already dead and in the grave?

  “Eagles fly higher in a storm. . . . Trees grow strong in sjpg winds. . . . Our mountains and valley drink water from the rains of heaven.” Lessons from Granny. And I couldn’t help but wonder. Would I remember those I held so dear when I was no more?

  When all were in bed asleep, I rose from my cot and went down the mountain path to keep my promise to the sin eater.

  Moonlight shone on the ripples as I stood on the bank of the river, looking across at the camp on the other side. The man of God was there, sitting in the open, forearms resting on his raised knees, his head bowed. I could not tell if he was awake or sleeping. Truth was, it didn’t matter. Fear gripped me so tight I wanted to turn and run away as fast as I had before. I wanted to be far away from this place, from this man.

  “I want ye to go hear the word of the Lord, Cadi Forbes, and then come back to me.”

  I had given my word and could not go back upon it. “I have to keep my promise,” I whispered under my breath, trying to give myself courage. “I have to keep my word.”

  “Cross the river to the Promised Land,” the man from God had called out once. “Cross the river . . .”

  As I stepped into the biting cold water and started across, the current pulled at my legs. It was a wide stretch across slippery, round pebbles. Whenever I’d crossed the river before, it had always been further up where I could jump from rock to rock and never touch the water. The river here was as high as my knees. I wondered what it would be like to slip and fall and be swept along to the Narrows and down over the falls. A few moments of terror and then darkness.

  Justice.

  When I saw the man of God raise his head, I stopped mid-river, my heart lodging like a flapping bird in my throat. I was in the open where he could see me plain in the moonlight. Closing my eyes, I waited for the lightning to strike me dead. A moment passed, then another, then another. I opened one eye cautiously. He was still sitting, still looking at me. Silent. Waiting.

  I came ahead slowly, feeling my way with my cold-numbed toes. Shivering, I walked slowly up the bank and stood before him, waiting for the end to come.

  “You’re but a child.” He sounded disappointed.

  Hanging my head, I remained silent, ashamed of my sins and sorry others hadn’t come instead of me. It should have been Papa or Mama or Gervase Odara or any number of others to come hear the word of the Lord. It should’ve been Brogan Kai himself leading the people of our highland valley down to hear what God had to say to us. What shame this, that I, least worthy, should be the one? A child. Oh, no. I was more than that. I was a frightened coward, a vessel of sins, a girl cast so low there was only judgment left.

  “Sit,” the man of God said and I did, Indian fashion, hands clasped tightly in my lap. I could feel him studying me. “You’re shaking.” He reached out and picked up a dark wool coat.

  “I ain’t cold, sir.” It was pure terror had me trembling so.

  He cocked his head slightly, as though seeing me better. He put the coat aside. “‘Fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.’”

  My throat was closed tight, pulse throbbing. I remembered those words. He had said them before.

  “Why do you come?”

  I swallowed hard. “To hear the word of the Lord, sir.” Plunging ahead, I pleaded before he had time to say no. “I ken the word of the Lord ain’t meant for the likes of me, sir, but there’s another who craves the words ye’ve brung and canna come near.” Like a whisper in my ear, I remembered Miz Elda. “Nay, not one, sir. There are two.”

  “The boy who hides in the bushes?”

  I had forgotten all about Fagan. “Two others,” I amended yet again.

  “And what keeps them from coming of their own free will?”

  He sounded so stern, I had to work my mouth to get enough spit to speak. “Miz Elda is too old and frail to make the trek down. She says ye con come up and see her if ye like.”

  “And the other?”

  “He ain’t supposed to venture into the valley unless someone’s died. Reckon there’d be big trouble if he did.”

  The man of God said nothing for a long moment. He bowed his head and remained that way, as though deep in thought. I wondered if he was asking God’s permission to speak to me. The palms of my hands grew damp. I closed my eyes, hoping hard he would be permitted—and I wouldn’t be laid out dead where I sat.

  He raised his head slightly. “ ‘The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart, and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.’”

  His deep voice was so gentle, my heart slowed its mad pace. I found I could breathe again.

  “It is the Lord who giveth wisdom. Out of his mouth cometh knowledge and understanding. And he who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. The Lord redeemeth the soul of his servant and none who trust in Him shall be desolate.”

  He spread his hands and lifted his face to the heavens.The faint sheen of moonlight showed me his features. His expression held a strange rapture. “O Lord, thou art a shield for me; my glory and the lifter up of mine head. I cried unto thee. I laid down and slept and awaked again, for the Lord sustained me against those who have set themselves against me round about. And ye have brought one to hear thy word everlasting. O Father, the Spirit of the Lord G
od is upon me because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. Ye have come to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn; to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified!”

  Aggrieved, I tried to soak it all in, every word. But how could I remember what made little sense to me? I waited until he stopped talking. Trembling, cold with fear, I craved understanding more than life. “If ye’ll pardon me beforehand, sir, might I ask ye summat?”

  “Ask and ye shall receive.”

  “What’s a prison, sir? And what captives do ye mean? Only ones I’ve ever heard tell of was taken by Indians years ago and never heard of again.”

  “These are not the things of which I speak.”

  “I want to understand. I do.”

  “Lord, give me thy words. Open this child’s heart and mind so that she might hear the word of the Lord and carry it with her. You know I’ve never been around children . . .” His voice grew quieter until it was but a mumble—perhaps even a grumble.

  I closedmy eyes in despair.Miz Elda and the sin eater would’ve done better coming themselves. This man was not eager to impart the word of the Lord to such as me. And if he did, it seemed fair clear to me that it was not likely I’d understand it anyway.

  He sighed heavily and raised his head again, looking at me.

  I waited, determined not to move until I had something to take back to the sin eater.

  “Listen and learn, child. When the world was fresh and new, having just been spoken into existence by God, he created a man and a woman and placed them in the Garden of Eden. He loved them and gave them everything they needed, and gave them freedom in all things except one. They were not to eat the fruit of one tree. But one day, in the midst of Paradise, a serpent, Satan, came to the woman and deceived her so that she did eat of it and then gave the fruit to her husband to eat as well. Because of what they did, God cast them out of the Garden of Eden.