“Have you hurt yourself?” I ask. “What is it?”
Gabriel kneels to force Isaac to show him, then scuttles back like a crab. Isaac raises a severed human hand, still dripping blood.
“This is a sign,” Isaac says. “Someone must have slipped in here in the night and left it upon my chest as I slept.”
“It isn’t a sign of anything but the devil’s work,” I say. “A grotesque and simple attempt to intimidate us, that’s all.”
With all the calm nerve I have, I walk to poor Isaac and hold my hand out. He just stares at me. I gesture for him to give it to me. He looks down at the bones and flesh and then back up to me before placing it in my palm.
I take the hand to near where we keep our vestments and chalice and altar. I put it on the ground, then pick up a wooden spade and begin digging a hole. I can feel Gabriel and Isaac watching me. When the hole is deep enough, I sort through my scant possessions and find a length of old cloth, wrap the hand in it, lay it in the hole, then fill the dirt back in.
Standing up, I call Isaac and Gabriel over to me. “Let us pray,” I say, “for this young man who was accused of spying and then disappeared. We can assume this limb belongs to him. And so we shall bury him here in our residence because he died a martyr to the madness closing in all around us. If only we’d had the chance to offer him salvation, to have saved his soul before his grisly death. But we have this small part of him that we can claim for God.” I bow my head, as do the others. “He’s one more victim of Lucifer in this unforgiving land,” I say. “He’s not the first, and he’ll certainly not be the last. But let his death strengthen us and our mission. Allow this attempt to frighten us to only stiffen our spines. Allow his death to help bring eternal life to the sauvages around us.”
—
I URGE GABRIEL to pick up the quill as well and write for not only himself but also poor Isaac. Regardless of our situation, our promise to our superiors is that we’d keep journals, our recollections which might be shared with those who wish to fund our mission, and for the public in France, whom I’ve heard are fascinated with our exploits in this dark land. Most important, these accounts will remind our superiors of the importance of what they’ve sent us here to do. They are our living journals, our prayers and reflections, our examination and scientific mapping of these tribes and their customs, a growing dictionary of their language, and, ultimately, my living will and testament. I realize this is all I have to show the outside world of my work, my life. Is it vanity, then, dear Lord, that consumes me like a fever as I stay up writing late into the night, the words pouring from me in an endless stream?
This morning, when I look up from my work and ask if Gabriel will not do the same, he snaps, no doubt driven by his insomnia and the unceasing tension of the village.
“You’re a fool,” he spits, his eyes glaring. “Do you truly believe this drivel you write all night will ever find its way back to France?”
I drop my eyes in the hope that he’ll continue to rant, to empty himself of the poison that fills him.
“When’s the last time we received correspondence from our superiors? What, now, two years? Two years! For all we know, the Church thinks we’re dead. Or worse, we’re still alive but they don’t care. They’ve forgotten us, Père Christophe. We’re dead to them, and soon we’ll truly be dead at the hands of these heathens.” He points at our thin walls. “It won’t be long before the warriors come in here and begin their slow torture.”
Isaac, huddled in a corner, moans. “If they come for us, dear Brothers, promise me that you will kill me quickly,” he says from the shadows. “I have been through their torture once, and I can’t suffer it again. Please, I beg you. Kill me quickly.”
“And do you remember what they promised in their last correspondence,” Gabriel continues, “the one that arrived with those Algonquin traders? More priests, more donnés, our own mission here in Ihonitiria, our own fortress complete with soldiers to protect us, a place where the sauvages come to us prostrated rather than this, this …,” his voice trailing off as he holds his arms up in defeat. “Who is it you think you’re writing to?” he asks me, his voice quieter now. “Who do you think will ever read the words you scribble all night long? Is this not a daily act of madness? Are you not like Nero fiddling as your savage empire around you burns?”
I say nothing for a long while. Isaac weeps quietly on his thin blanket.
“I write for you, dear Brother,” I finally tell him. “I write for Isaac. I write for myself in the belief these words aren’t wasted. I write in the hope we’ve not been forgotten by our Church or by our nation. I write to please God, for I treat these relations as my prayers.”
Gabriel’s hot eyes seem they might cool.
“All we have is hope,” I whisper. “All we have is our ability to communicate in a way the sauvages cannot. It is the simple act of writing that lifts us above these poor devils. That alone is reason enough to do it, is it not?” And as I say this, an idea begins to form in my head. “It is time for us to stop cowering. It’s time for us to truly put our physical lives and, more important, our souls on the line. We must stand up and be soldiers of Christ. It’s time to stop hiding in this stinking house. Let the three of us go out into the light bravely,” I say. “We will perform a Mass, a Mass that will bring rain. Or else it will be a Mass that brings our martyrdom. Either way, it’s better to act than to sit back and be acted upon.”
With these last words, Gabriel kneels before me, rests his head on my lap, and begs my forgiveness.
“Hush,” I say, stroking his head. “We’re but mere mortals and have been sent to a place that would break even our most hallowed saints and warriors. Our time has come, sweet Gabriel, to take up the cross and move forward bravely.”
—
WITH THE FEAR removed from our hearts, the three of us walk the village again, no longer afraid of the violence that’s hung over our heads this summer. We speak to everyone who will listen, explaining that we’ll offer Mass each day in the hopes rain will follow. Delilah, one of my earliest converts, isn’t afraid to stand in front of her longhouse with us, listening and asking questions.
“Why don’t you just ask your great oki for rain to fall? This won’t only save yourselves but surely will bring many of us over to your way of seeing.” The old woman smiles then, as children poke their heads from the doorway behind her, watching. “There’s no quicker way to make a believer than to offer a person something at the exact time she desperately needs it.”
“The Great Voice works mysteriously,” I tell her. “He listens when we bow our heads and touch our head, our chest, our shoulders with our right hand.” I make the sign of the cross for her. “If you will admit your sins and ask Him to accept you into His heart, if you resolve once and for all to serve Him, we will pray to Him for nine days. And if you truly believe, on the tenth day the rain will come.”
“You realize,” Delilah says, “that if you make us this promise and fail to deliver, you’ll seal your own fate.”
“It’s not up to me, or to you, for that matter,” I say, “to seal our own fates. The Great Voice has already decided how the rest of my life will go, and when I will join Him in the place called Heaven. But you and the ones in your longhouse …” I point to the children behind her, who, like gophers, quickly draw their heads back into the darkness. “It’s up to you and the ones who you are responsible for to accept His word, to follow it, and to give up your evil ways. Only then will you all be saved. Maybe, if the Great Voice sees fit, your physical bodies will be saved by rain. And even if they aren’t, you should rejoice, for the part of you that’s most important, your oki, that part of you we call the soul, will go directly to Him and you will live in paradise forever.”
I watch Delilah contemplate this, and for a long time neither of us speaks.
“I will take it upon myself,” she finally says, “to try and do what you do, to try and live the way you tell me to live.” She glances back at her lo
nghouse where the children’s faces have emerged into the light again. “I’ll do it because we’re suffering and face starvation. I’ll do it for my family.” She seems on the verge of tears. “I’m sad to do it, though, because I will be alone in death, separated forever from everyone I love. But that’s a small price to pay, I think, if I can help save those I love.”
I want to correct her, to explain that if she persuades the others to be baptized, they will join her in Heaven. But Delilah’s already disappeared into her longhouse.
—
GABRIEL, ISAAC, AND I begin our nine days of novena, saying a Mass each morning, petitioning the Virgin Mary for rain, our prayers fervent as we look through the smoke hole of our cabin at the high blue sky. Each day, Delilah joins us, watching closely, kneeling when we kneel, standing when we stand, blessing herself when we do. Each day, I offer her a piece of the body of Christ, and she accepts it on her tongue. For five days, Delilah is our sole apostle.
Gabriel grumbles about this but I tell him to be patient, that Delilah is a well-respected elder and it doesn’t go unnoticed that she joins us in prayer. “Can’t you feel the power of what we are doing?” I ask. “It’s as if the air itself is changing all around us. Have you even felt a sliver of fear since those dark days have lifted?”
Gabriel nods. “Yes, Brother,” he says. “I do feel the difference.”
We bow our heads together, Isaac joining us, with Delilah watching, trying to repeat our Latin words of praise, a child exploring the garden for the first time.
On the seventh day, I can feel a presence enter our cabin as the four of us whisper our novenas. I do everything I can to stay focused, to complete the prayer before looking up. I fear, though, that when I do, the petulant face of Gosling will be looking back at me, mocking. The sky remains as blue and as high as it has all summer.
When we finish, we stand as one and turn to the new arrival. My heart swells when I see that instead it is young Aaron, whom I thought we’d lost to the darkness once again. He stands in front of us for a long time. No one speaks.
Finally, I break the silence. “What do you wish from us?” I ask.
“There’s talk throughout the village that you’re working your magic in the hopes of rain.” He pauses, realizing that I bristle at the word magic. “They say you neither sleep nor eat nor drink for nine days. That on the tenth day you promise rain.” He stops. I gesture for him to get on with it. “The young warriors say that if the rain doesn’t come, your power is so weak they can kill you without fear of reprisal.”
“These brazen young ones say all sorts of things against me when Bird isn’t nearby.”
“They mean what they say,” Aaron continues. “Some among us who know the spirit world speak loudly that the magic you work is meant only to bring death to us.”
“What we work isn’t magic,” Gabriel spits. “And the diseases that have plagued you aren’t our doing, either. Just look at the filthy ways in which you all live.”
I raise my hand to him. “Now is not the time for anger,” I counsel him. “Let’s not undo now what we’ve worked so hard to achieve.” I turn back to Aaron. “The great wampum we call the Bible speaks of plagues descending on faraway lands when the people refuse to accept the Great Voice. Go back and tell your warriors this is no different.”
Aaron thinks about this for a moment. “They didn’t send me to talk to you,” he says. “They’d be very angry to know I’ve come to warn you of their intentions. There are only two days left after this one. There’s no sign in the sky at all of what you hope for. Some of the old ones are already preparing their own death feasts. Most of the village believes it’s not simple coincidence that since your arrival we’ve suffered both sickness and drought. It’s too much for them to accept.”
“So if we don’t bring rain,” Gabriel says, “we’ll be killed for having lost our powers. And if we do bring rain, we’ll be viewed as witches?”
Aaron’s lack of a response speaks for him.
“And what do you believe, Aaron?” I ask.
“My name is He Finds Villages,” he answers.
“You no longer accept your Christian name?” I ask, and I see he hesitates.
“I’m here,” Delilah interrupts us, “because I hope to save my children and grandchildren from starvation this winter. I don’t like being here, and I’ll miss my people in the afterworld, but I’ve decided it’s in everyone’s best interests that I take this chance.” I think she’s done, but then she continues. “If you were to join me, He Finds Villages, it might not be so lonely in the world beyond this one.”
Before I can correct her, Aaron says, “I’m not happy to be forced to make such a decision without proper reflection. You know if I’m to bow my head with you now, I’ll very likely be killed along with you in a few days when the rains don’t come.”
“This is the decision you alone have to make,” Gabriel says.
Isaac looks at him, at us, as if he needs to say something.
“I will join you if …” Aaron pauses. “If Bird’s daughter, Snow Falls, joins us as well.”
“Your decision,” I say, taken aback by his request, “must be based upon your own heart.”
“That is my heart,” he says. Delilah smiles.
“You must do this for yourself,” I say.
“I wish to do this for her as well,” Aaron says. “Isn’t this what you teach? That we must live for others?”
“He’s right,” Isaac says.
I hush him. “I can’t make the girl join us in prayer. Like yours, her decision must come from her own heart.”
“Will you promise to try, to ask her to join us?” Aaron asks.
Isaac nods. “Of course!”
Gabriel shakes his head at this madness.
“You must make the decision for yourself, for your own soul,” I tell him again, my voice firm.
I can see, though, that Isaac nods his head vigorously. “We all must do it for love! You must do this for love. What other reason is there?” The poor brother has gone mad.
Aaron looks at Delilah, then at Isaac, both of them smiling, nodding at him. “I will do it, then,” Aaron says. “Tell me, what do I need to do?”
I bow my head, partly in frustration. A soul saved, I tell myself, is not always a flawless undertaking. There’s no time to consider the means, just the end.
“Let us pray,” I say out loud.
—
TODAY, I WRITE in my relations, is the tenth day, the Feast of Corpus Christi. I didn’t sleep last night, not out of fear but out of wonderment at Your ways, dear Lord. You have already decided this day’s outcome, and Your will shall be done. I accept it with open arms.
An hour before first light and the others around me rest fitfully, no doubt anxious even in sleep to witness this day, this day that may be their last on this physical earth. I bend to the weak flame of the dying fire and continue recording my thoughts.
Near first light, the footfalls of an approaching crowd make me dart up on my feet. “Awake!” I call to the others, and my brothers and Aaron and Delilah climb from their sleeping mats to stand beside me. The mob, a large one by the voices, makes no attempt to approach quietly. I can hear the seething, the thirst in it. They’ve come for their payment.
“Let us join hands and bow our heads in prayer,” I say. “Dear Lord, let those who wish us harm find us serene and in prayer. Let us face this day and its travails with grace and humility.”
Gabriel’s hand is sweaty, but his grip firm. I hold Isaac’s mangled stub as he shakes in fear and whines like a dog. “Please, please, please,” he whispers, “please kill me now.”
“Shhh,” I whisper to him, to all of us. “Have faith in the Lord. Trust in His goodness.”
The crowd now surrounds our cabin, the voices urgent, some shouting angrily. I can feel their heat through the thin walls. Then they enter in a wave, their bodies upon us. A high-pitched wail fills my ears. I lift my head and see Delilah, her mouth open and
her head back, singing her death chant. The bodies surround us, press into us, pull us roughly apart from one another. The hands grab me, pull at my cassock. Gabriel and Isaac and Aaron and Delilah disappear in the roar. And then I am pulled outside as well, dragged through the mob.
HOUSE OF CROWS
Opening my eyes, I hear the rush of feet outside and people shouting for their friends to follow them. My raven swings lazily on his string, watching me with his shining eyes. For weeks I’ve been trying to make him fly of his own accord, fixing him with my gaze, willing him silently to move, or begging him in whispers. Gosling has promised that if she finds me worthy she’ll teach me how, and much, much more. But first, she says, she needs to see if I’m worthy. How will she decide this? I have no idea.
More shouting. More running feet. My raccoon nestles in my hair, pulling it with his little hands. “Not so hard,” I tell him. “Let’s get up and see what goes on.”
I pick him up and rise from my sleeping mat. He’s grown quickly in the last few weeks and has begun to get into mischief, stealing food and being a nuisance to the old women. I look around me. Once again, everyone has already left the longhouse. The others tease me about sleeping so deeply but I’ve never cared about that. When more feet rush by, I too rush.
As soon as I’m outside I can feel something in the air, something that feels like happiness, as if a weight’s been shed. Many people have gathered near the palisades by the crows’ home. Immediately, I fear the talk has come to this, to doing. This last while, the anger directed at the three strange men has grown so intense I can’t go near them. I quicken my pace, the raccoon on my shoulder, holding on to my hair for balance. Swarms of people move in circles around the house of the crows, and then I see them in the crowd, their charcoal robes standing out.
The mood isn’t violent at all, though. Everyone’s pointing and shouting and clapping hands at the horizon where a bank of cloud rises on a cool, stiff wind. Coming from that direction, the wind promises only one thing. The people surrounding the crows are celebrating their magic, not preparing to kill them for it. I can see that this isn’t apparent to the crows. As I push deeper into the people I see that the one called Isaac shakes and cries like a little child. Christophe and Gabriel have their heads bowed and pray to their great voice. The old woman, Dawning of Day, who’s been with them the last days, seems to understand the mood and begins to laugh and clap. She pushes through the people to Christophe and shakes him, points at the horizon. He looks at her, then looks up, and then his face is like the sun rising. He lifts both arms in the air and clutches his hands together, shaking them at the coming rain.