Hallowed Ground

and felt it shift beneath her weight.  The echo of his touch brought a surge of heat, pumped through every vein and artery, and she remembered.  It still wasn’t sexual.

She watched him toy with the pendant that hung around his neck.  It was a curious thing.  He saw her watching and smiled.  She licked the dry edges of her lips.  She had bitten them raw without realising it.

'It is my gift,' he said, 'nothing more.  I was put here on this earth to heal; it is what I do.  That is an aspect of my story.  But it is neither the beginning nor the end.  Indeed, no story truly begins, nor for that matter, ends.  You might have been reborn in the revival tent, but you were there before, you walked into the hall, you rutted for money, ate, drank, slept and lived.  You did all of that before I touched you, so can your story begin there?  I think not.  What about the moment when you came kicking and screaming out of the womb?  Or does it begin on the day your father planted his seed between your mothers willing – or unwilling - thighs?  Who is to say it doesn’t begin before, when they first met?  For that matter, does it end when you die, or will your legacy live on?  Will your life touch others?  All of these things are for you to decide, and depend very much on how you chose to live your life.  That, dear girl, is down to you and only you.  In all of these possibilities there are no beginnings and no ends, not truly.  We are linked now, you and I, our stories intertwined in this moment.  You can feel it, can’t you?'

Colleen nodded.  She could.

She had been aware of it from the moment she opened her eyes to the darkness.  They shared a bond now that went beyond those few minutes up on his stage.  'You healed me,' she said.

'You answered the call, my dear.  That is different.  Do you remember what I told the congregation?'

'I walked in shadows.'

'Yes, precisely that.  Do you know the significance of shadows?  The art of shadowmancy?  No, of course you do not, and neither should you.  No god-fearing girl ought to open herself up to life on the fringes of the dark.  That is where evil lurks, in the shadows.  You are not evil, are you, child?'

Colleen shook her head.

'I would know if you were.' he said.

She watched him as he toyed subconsciously with the trinket that hung around his neck.  The Deacon followed the direction of her eyes and stopped, suddenly self conscious.  It was the first time she had seen him as anything other than sure, arrogant even.  'How do you feel?' he asked.

She started to tell him but as she opened her mouth she realised that she didn’t know, not when it came to putting words to it.

'I see,' he said, a slow almost lazy smile creeping across his face all the way up to his eyes.  'So, Colleen Daisy Tranter, tell me, would you like to join us?'

Part of her translated the question to: wouldn’t you like to belong somewhere?  Wouldn’t you like to fit in?  Wouldn’t you like to be a part of something?  And, almost as though he had put the thought there for her, wouldn’t you like to be loved instead of used?

'I think so,' she said.  What did she have waiting for her back in Rookwood?  A life on her back?  She couldn’t imagine anything as simple and pure as love.

Almost as though it sensed her sadness, the child in the Deacon’s arms stirred and let out a mewling cry.  He hushed it tenderly.  And that made it all the more painful for her to watch because she didn’t see love when she looked down at them; she saw what she couldn’t have.  It was as simple and sad as that.

Boone had had her sterilized when she first bled – there was no sentiment in it, he had told her.  She still remembered all too vividly the hateful look on his face as he explained: 'It is business, child.  No one will pay to lie with a pregnant sow.' She hadn’t thought about that conversation in years, not consciously at least.  She had dreamed it over and again while the consequences of it haunted the darkness when she could not sleep; there would be no children for Colleen.  But she hadn’t thought about it.

'Then stay here, child.  Stay as long as you like – as long as you need.  Think about it.  There is a home here - a purpose.'

'I don’t know . . .'

'If you could have any one thing out of this life, what would it be?'

'I don’t know,' she said again.

'Imagine, for a moment, that you could have anything.  What would you choose?'

'I can’t have that one thing,' Colleen said, 'and to pretend otherwise is just a cruel game.

'Then imagine I have it in my power to give it to you, child.  I have the gift of the Lord flowing through my veins, nothing is beyond me, so what would you have me give you?'

'Nothing.  I don’t want anything,' she lied.

‡‡‡

She awoke to the darkness for the second time that night.

This time she was not alone.

It took her a moment to realise what it was that had woken her – the wet phlegmy sound of a baby crying.

Colleen rolled over on the uncomfortable mattress.  Beside her, wrapped in a bundle of rags lay the baby the Deacon had been comforting.

The old man stood silhouetted in the doorway.  'What you were too frightened to ask for,' he said, and left her, only this time she was not alone.  He had offered her anything, and she had asked for nothing, yet in her heart of hearts Colleen Daisy Tranter yearned for that one thing she could never have – and with this boon the Deacon had bought her soul.

She had a child of her own to care for.

Chapter Fifteen

The three sisters stood together in the dust, waiting.  When The Deacon climbed down from the wagon, he saw them, and nodded.  They regarded him without expression, as was their way.

'Let's get on with it, shall we?' he said.

They turned then, and started away from him.  Their movements were eerily synchronized, as if joined by some thread or binding that could not be seen, but that they were unable to resist.  The Deacon waited until they were a few yards ahead of him, and then followed more slowly.  Few of his flock commanded his respect.  Most of them were sad, pathetic things, unable to exist outside the tiny world he'd created for them.  The sisters had come to him as they were, and they were a strange lot.

The sisters’ tent stood just off to the right at the rear of the great tent.  It was old – the fabric stretched taut over its poles and frame like the wings of a great bat.  The Deacon had touched that fabric once.  The memory was so vivid he felt his gorge rise at the thought of it.  It had felt alive, and when the wind lifted and teased at it, flapping it against the posts, it seemed to breathe.

The sisters stopped short of the tent, and The Deacon, though he feared nothing, expelled a breath he hadn't consciously meant to hold in.  Their fire smouldered in a ring of stones.  There were larger stones circling the fire… three on one side, and only one on the other.

The sisters parted, rounded the fire, and crossed between and behind one another in an oddly intricate pattern before seating themselves.  The Deacon hesitated only a moment, and then took the solitary stone for his own.

'What would you know?'  The tallest sister asked.  Her name was Lottie, and she was always first to speak.  If she spoke, her sister Attie, the shorter sister would respond.  He had never heard it otherwise, not in a greeting, or an exclamation.  The third sister, Chessie, never spoke.  She never smiled.  Hers was the most expressionless face The Deacon had ever encountered, perfectly framed by her more animated companions.

'There is something in the wind,' he said.  'Something has raked its claws through the crows and set them to