I wasn’t a witch. I was something else. Something worse.
“Are you in danger?” I asked her softly.
“Because a you? Prob’ly,” Priscilla grumbled, but her expression softened as she took in my bruised face. “What happened? You okay?”
“I’m good enough,” I said. “So Brother Ephraim’s missing? What are they saying?”
“Him and Jackie and Joshua Purdy went hunting over close to your place, and Brother Ephraim walked away and never came back. And Joshua’s saying as how you called up a demon to attack him.”
“Mmmm,” I said, trying to be encouraging, trying to decide if I should tell her more. I decided not. “That’s it?”
“That’s enough, ain’t it?”
“I heard . . . I heard there were some outsiders around. Any new people in the compound?” Priss looked confused, and I tried to find another way to ask this, knowing how my matchmaker sister would take it, my sister who thought every woman needed a man and a dozen children in order to be happy. But I couldn’t think of anything except to blurt out, “Any new men?”
Priss’ face went from sour to happy and hopeful in an instant. “You thinking about taking a husband again? Coming home?”
“No, Priss. I’m not coming back to the church. It isn’t my home. Hasn’t been in a decade.”
Her face fell and she crushed her skirts again, a gesture that looked nervous as her hands smoothed out the wrinkles, gripped the cloth, smoothed out the wrinkles, over and over. “You’re helping outsiders again, ain’t you?” When I didn’t reply, she made an expression I had seen on Mama’s face, a pinched, fearful look, but it slid into resolute and stayed there. “Fine. Ain’t no new people. No new men. I heard that some a the younger boys was hunting and come upon a nonchurch boy and they’re playing in the woods together. Jackie seemed to know his people, and approved it, so long as they don’t act up or get into hooliganism and put graffiti on the houses.”
That was a surprise. While it wasn’t uncommon for boys or men to see or encounter nonchurchmen in the woods at hunting season, they weren’t allowed to interact with them, only speak and move on. Church people didn’t associate with outsiders. Even outsiders like me, who had once been insiders, hence Priss’ nervousness. “Anything else new?” Gossip. I was asking for gossip, which I had never listened to when I lived there. But Rick wanted news, and I hadn’t talked to Priss in a long time. I didn’t know what might be important.
“Some stuff you wouldn’t know ’cause a you not coming round no more,” she said. “After the social services raid, Preacher Jackson took everything outta the punishment house. This month he installed a guest quarters there, with a tiny kitchen and bath and two little bedrooms. It looks nice. But then he put the winter supply cave off-limits for a bit, and we’re worried about having enough foodstuffs to last the winter.”
The punishment house had been a narrow structure with a bath facility and four beds, each bed equipped with straps to hold a woman down. The cave was one of three, the winter supply one used only for storage. “So where do the women go when they get punished now?”
“You’re always looking for the bad stuff. The dark side.” Her face went pinched again. “But this time you got a point. Jackie done built him a room on the back a his house. He’s in charge of the punishing now, both the women and the men. And he’s got him what Caleb’s calling a cadre of cronies who hang out with him and take part in the punishing. It’s got Caleb and Daddy and his friends all riled up. Caleb’s afraid him and his own bunch might have to fight for the church leadership.”
“Oh.” That meant the Nicholson cadre—my family—and their hunting buddies disagreed with church policy. I had no idea how to respond to that. It was beyond any expectation or understanding of the church and how it worked. In my recollection, no one got riled up about anything. They followed along like sheep to a shearing. Except that John and Leah had backed away from the church, and then John and I had left it. So maybe I hadn’t understood the politics of the church as well as I’d thought. I had only been twelve when I left it, all filled with righteous anger and—
Priss interrupted my thoughts with, “Who hit you?”
I touched my face. It wasn’t hurting much, but it was a lovely shade of purple and green today. I had a black eye, which did hurt, and more bruises on my throat and shoulders. “Joshua Purdy. And then a black cat jumped him and I got away. Not a demon.”
Priss’ eyes tightened more, but she didn’t say anything, so I had no idea what the reaction meant. I asked, “Why does Caleb think Jackson Jr. took over administering punishments? Something new going on?”
“Since the Social Services raid, Jackie’s been a mite unpredictable. He blames you for the police interference. He’s increased his wives to four and his concubines to ten or so. He even come sniffing around Esther and Judith, till Daddy told him none of the Nicholson girls was ever going to him, not as wife nor concubine. Caleb was there in the wood shop, and the way he tells it, Jackie was a mite riled, but he backed down. The number the preacher keeps is always changing, but he holds the power right now and not enough of the menfolk can find the guts to stop him and take back the church leadership. Yet.”
Yet meant the alliances weren’t strong enough to make changes. Esther and Judith were of age according to church law, and Esther was a beauty, having taken her cornflower blue eyes and blond hair from Mama’s side of the family. “How do the elders feel about Jackie’s wives and women?”
“Don’tchu tell I told this,” she warned, her tone stern. “They been rumbling about deposing him, but my Caleb and some a his bunch got an audit in secret. All the church property and buildings belong to Jr. in the absence of the colonel. Kinda made ’em all mad and they hadda back off from kicking him out, ’cause if they do that, then they’re the ones who havta leave the compound. The law would be on Jackie’s side.” Priss had a peculiar smile on her face, and I wondered if she had urged Caleb to call for CPA services, not that I’d ask such a loaded question.
“So who’s in charge of the compound?”
“Until last night, Brother Ephraim. Now he’s disappeared, and no one knows what’s gonna happen.”
Most of Rick’s questions had been answered: no new men, lots of leadership problems and power struggles, and new tensions had occurred, all answered by inference and all partly my fault, not the fault of some new group joining the church. I bent around the portable toilet pod to make sure that Esther and the Cohen sisters were occupied. They were helping what looked like a happy couple examine dough bowls and rolling pins and hand-stitched quilts. The romantic couple were Rick and Paka, and they looked blissful together. My little custom-tailored catnip aromatherapy must be helping them, but either way, we were safe for the moment. “Any new weapons on church land? Different things from the usual?”
“More ’n the menfolk know what to do with. How many hunting rifles can one man need, I ask you, when some a the young’uns need new shoes, and the men are off buying useless stuff?” She sounded exasperated. “They brung in fifteen automatic rifles. Them things shoot thirty rounds per magazine. There wouldn’t be nothing left of the deer to eat.” She glared at me. “Why you asking that?”
“I’m asking because Jackie’s men shot up my house,” I said hotly. Priscilla’s face went through a series of emotions that were too fast to follow, but she ended up looking thoughtful. “Priss, if you want to get free, I can keep you safe, you and all the sisters, as many as want to come. I promise I can.”
“You always say that, but I gotta ask how, in light of the fact that you’rn sportin’ some mighty spectacular bruises. ’Sides, Nell”—her expression softened with something akin to joy—“I got young’uns and another on the way.” She put a hand to her belly, and something inside me clenched. I hadn’t known she was pregnant. “And I got a husband I love. I don’t want to leave. I’m happy, Nell.” Her expression proved that, all full of tenderness and joy, the way a woman must look when she’s fulfilled and satisfied. Things I didn’t understand and probably never would.
“If you get in trouble,” I said, hearing my own stubborn tone, “go to the Vaughns’ and pay them to bring you to me. I can get you somewhere safe, to someone who can protect you.”
She made a sound of disbelief in the back of her throat. “They come back last night from huntin’ all cocky and talking about how you’rn a lot more subservient to your betters now.” Her brow crinkled as she stared my jaw, her hazel eyes darkening. “Damn Joshua Purdy to the depths of perdition.”
My eyebrows went up when Priss cussed. She leaned around the toilets, staring at the booth, and said, “I been gone too long. I gotta go.”
“If you learn something more about the factions or troubles sometime in the next week to ten days, and you can find an excuse to get away, come through the woods to tell me.”
“I can’t do that,” Priss said, her voice wavering. “I can’t. I can’t be taken to punishment. Jackie, he’d . . .” Her words stopped, her voice holding real fear now.
“Find a way to get word to me if you need me. If Jackie tries to punish you.”
“Fine. Iffen that happens, I’ll try. I’ll do most anything to keep outta Jackie’s hands.” Priscilla paused and added, “Our brother picked hisself out a girl and is getting married in a week. Just so’s you know.” She took off back to the booths and I went the other way, but my stomach was sour and a knot had formed just below my breastbone. My bruises ached, and they hadn’t really bothered me until now. I shoulda shot Jackie and Joshua when I had the chance. I shoulda fed their souls to the woods and good riddance. How could I protect my family against Jackie and his “cadre of cronies”? I couldn’t kill them all.
“You the one they said was differ’nt.”
I whirled, startled, my heart leaping into my throat. The ground hadn’t told me anyone was near; I hadn’t realized how quickly I had adapted to depending on the earth to warn me of things.
She was dressed in churchwoman attire—olive green skirt, brown shoes, tall socks to hide her legs, olive shirt, and brown sweater. Her hair was still down, not up in a bun, making the girl less than twelve years old, her height marking her as probably eight or ten. Her hair was the exact shade of reddish brown that Priscilla’s had been when she was this age, before the red had dulled down to brown. And her eyes were the hazel gray of my own eyes. Her jaw was like mine, a bit pugnacious, her brows arched . . . like mine.
She was a Nicholson. I was sure I had seen her the last time I went to services with John, but that had been a long time ago. She was too young to be Judith.