Chapter 5
2805words
When Grace started clinking the pipe against the rails to empty its contents, Mary stood up to leave. She kept walking until her legs ached and she found herself at the playground, half a mile from the boarding house. She sat down with a hefty sigh onto the swing set, the old chains groaning slightly underneath the weight. She pushed her heels back and swung gently. She let her mind wander back to the Crawfords and Grace, to her father Ezekiel. She thought of Grace's girlhood small frail body with and large anxious eyes. Mary couldn't rationalize how they could turn their backs on a child, to blame a prey for a predator's actions. And her father, a man she considered strong and just, could let the Crawfords run her out of town like that. Yes, Grace had always been strange- no, different, but that didn't take away from that was God had made her. Regardless, Grace's design wasn't what led Thomas Crawford to her. No, it was because of the way he was designed. A malice on the world, made to only devour and destroy. He was the disease, not good and kind Grace.
Besides, it seemed that God was beginning to show who truly was His favored. The unspoken prayers, the bird. She was touched by something holier than anything that walked through the town.
Footsteps across the dirt disrupted her thoughts. Mary looked up and saw Todd. He stood against the sun, his long tired figure outlined by sun. He was slouched, his sleeves rolled up and drenched with sweat, his cheeks reddened. A still full bottle hung limply from his hands, a cigarette perched behind his ear. He cracked a thin smile and wordlessly walked to the swing next to her. Mary kept his eyes trained on him as he dropped down, the rusted chains squeaking in slight protest.
They sat for a few heart beats like that. The chains creaking, dust swirling aimlessly in the setting sun.
"You ever just keep thinkin' until it gets dangerous?" he asked, half into the open air.
Mary said nothing, just stared quizzically at him.
Todd exhaled. "Just didn't think I'd see you out here." He glanced over at her. "You look like you've been stewin' on somethin'."
Mary dropped her gaze, kicking at a clump of dirt lightly. She shrugged. "I was just with Grace. She told me about why she left."
That quieted him. He scratched at the back of his neck before reaching for the cigarette behind his ear. He pulled out a small Bic lighter and lit it, exhaling a puff of grey smoke. "She shouldn't had said anything," he mumbled finally through the cigarette. "Or just not by herself."
Mary perked up. "You knew?"
"I knew enough," he said, rubbing his face. "Pieced most of it together from what I know about Grace. But still. I was sixteen. Dumb. Useless." He chuckled bitterly as he ashed. "Thought if I just stayed close, I could keep her from breaking. Or at least be there to help put her back together when it'd happen. But turns out, loving someone don't make you strong. Just gives you somethin' to lose."
Mary finally looked at him, her brows furrowed. "Ain't your mama one of the people that drove Grace out?" Mary knew Bethany Greengrich was one of the women that spread rumors. She was part of the group of church women that would gossip to each other over afternoon sweet tea and cry wolf to the deacons and her father.
"Yeah," Todd muttered. "Ma cried for a week. Told Ezekiel that Grace was a disease and was worried that I might have caught it." He barked a hollow laugh. He took another drag. "Y'know what nobody wants to admit? They're all infected. Just easier to name it 'Grace' than look in a mirror."
The chains creaked as they swung in silence. Mary gripped the chains on each side of her, her knuckles pale as bone. Despite the setting sun, Mary felt fresh heat prickling her skin.
When he spoke again, his voice had seemed to thin in the warm breeze that swept, caught somewhere between memory and awe. "She looked at me yesterday when I was passing by the boarding house." He took a slow drag. "And it was like... I didn't know what to say anymore. Not like how it used to be. There was a time when she couldn't help but touch my hand or my cheek when I was near her. She would even make fun of how I walked, sayin' I looked like a scarecrow without the pole."
He smiled faintly, then shook his head as if trying to shake off the kiss of memory. "Now there's somethin' inside her that I can't name. Not cold, not at all. Just... brighter. Like someone struck a match inside her and now she's burnin' with it. Or burnin' out. I can't figure it."
Mary stilled the swing, her feet brushing lightly across the dirt. She gripped the chains harder, the links biting at her palms.
He continued as if not noticing Mary. "I used to think that if she came back, I'd finally get to say what I should've a long time ago. Thought maybe she still carried a piece of what we used to have."
Todd paused, then swallowed hard. "But it feels like she's got her eyes set on somethin' bigger. Like there's a storm comin' but she's already waltzed straight in."
Todd looked at her now. The sunset washed amber and shadow across his face, his dark eyes seemed to glow in the light.
"You feel it too, don't you?"
Mary didn't answer. She did feel it. Grace had a pull to her now, almost gravitational. But there was something dark and foreboding by how she carried herself since coming back. A dark well that no one could see the bottom of.
Todd flicked his cigarette out into the dirt. He finally reached down to grab at the full bottle and untwisted the cap. He took a deep swig. He glanced over at Mary, holding out the bottle. She simply stared until he sighed and began to rise. He started to turn away but looked back at Mary, whos hands finally relinquished hold of the swing's chains.
"Just... be careful," he said softly. "With her."
Mary jerked her head as if she had been slapped. Her eyes locked on Todd's, dark with something wild, something unspoken. "Why?"
He reached into his pocket for his packet of cigarettes. He shook one out and lit it. He kept his eyes down, not meeting Mary's. "'Cause you won't know what she's taking from you until it's already gone."
Mary had left after she watched Todd vanish into the distance. The air was cooler now, the sun seeping further into the earth. The world was louder now. The cicadas screamed, junebugs crunched underneath her heels, toads shrieked. Even her steps on the concrete seemed to echo loudly in the quiet town. But nothing could drown out Todd's words that reeled endlessly in her mind.
You won't know what she's taking from you until it's already gone.
The words writhed and twisted in her stomach. She felt sour bile rise in her throat, and she swallowed. It wasn't just a warning. It was a confession. There was a kind of mourning in his pitch, a slight quiver that she hadn't anticipated.
She picked up her pace. Past the school, past the old boarded up gas station with its yellowed bulletin of fliers and mold eaten Bible verses. Crickets began to pick up their noise, but she barely heard them.
She thought of Todd's face in the half light, the way he couldn't hold her gaze at the end. How his voice softened when he spoke of Grace. Not like a lover speaking of a pillow mate, not exactly. More like a man that had witnessed a miracle and spent the rest of his life wondering why the blessing didn't choose him.
Mary bit the inside of her cheek. How did he know? What Grace had become, what she is now. The soft knowing- she hated it. As if Grace had shown something to him something she refused to show her. As if he understood the deepness in Grace's eyes, something that Mary would never know.
But there was that flicker. That one sharp moment that Todd spoke about Grace shifting or burning from the inside out, that made Mary's stomach twist with a cold dread. Like a whisper tickling her ear in an otherwise empty room.
...A storm's comin' and she's already waltzed straight in.
She knew it too. She had felt it since the bird fluttered to life, since Grace spoke back prayers Mary hadn't even uttered. She felt it every time Grace's skin would brush against hers.
Mary shook her head hard, as if she could fling the thought out of her head. Yet she knew, whatever storm Grace stepped into, Mary would match her strides. She was already there. Grace had chosen her.
Mary turned the corner past the chapel. The steeple loomed, its left lean casting a long shadow like a crooked finger pointing home. The air was thicker, her breath became heavier. Her heart pounded against her throat.
There was only one place she needed to be at this moment. She walked faster towards home.
Mary shut her bedroom door harder than she anticipated, the latch locking her door with a silent thud. She glanced around her room, as if doublechecking security. Yet her room was exactly how she left it. Prayer cards pinned to the walls collected a thin layer of dust. Her Sunday dress from last week peeked from the side of the hamper. The ceiling fan spun rapidly, creaking against the ceiling like it might cave at any point. Moonlight spilled through the sheer window curtains, casting odd shapes across the worn quilt on her bed. The small wooden crucifix above her dresser caught the light enough just to glint slightly - dull, watchful.
She crossed to her night stand and turned on the lamp. A soft gold bulb buzzed to life, illuminating the worn dark covered Bible her mother had given her when she was first baptized.
Her room remained untouched, unchanged, but something felt off. Wrong.
Mary sat at the edge of her bed, the frame creaking slightly. She buried her face in her hands, her palms stinging faintly. You won't know what she's taking from you until its already gone.
She decided she hated Todd. Or at least hated him for what he had said.
She hated more that something within her believed it.
But he didn't know her. Not anymore. Not like Mary did. When Grace returned, it was her that she sought out. Not Todd. Mary was who she laughed with, who she reminisced and told secrets to. Who she let touch without flinching away. Grace had chosen Mary.
Mary laid back into the mattress, staring up to the rapid church of the ceiling fan. Her chest rose and fell with something heavy in her chest. She closed her eyes.
She saw the curve of Grace's mouth. The way the cigarette glowed between her fingers. the glimpse of her thigh beneath the white slip dress. The soft rasp of her voice.
Mary's thighs tensed. She bit her lip. Her hand moved down, grazing the tops of her thigh. She stopped, hesitating.
He thinks he knows her. Thinks she's something dangerous.
He doesn't see the way she looks at me.
Mary's hand continued, sliding beneath the waistband of her underwear. Her breath hitched, her other hand gripping the edge of the quilt.
She imagined Grace's voice again - crushed velvet and sacrilegious - whispering right into her ear. She imagined how she'd lean close, how she'd touch her cheek the way she used to. Mary's fingers traced the outline of her trembling bud, slowly, delicately.
The crucifix on the wall loomed.
She looked over and saw it - wood against plaster, casting a long shadow across where her dress was hitched. Christ's face was carved in agony, eyes downturned, mouth open in mid suffer.
Mary didn't stop. She held it in her sight, and her body sang with heat, with want, with something darker beneath it all. A hunger that bled into worship, that bled into need. Her fingers moved, and she pressed firmly, moving her fingers more rapidly.
Grace is touched by God, she thought, her breath turning more ragged. Grace is holy. Grace is Chosen.
She then plunged her fingers into her sanctum, pumping fervently. Mary saw Grace now - not just as a prophet, not as a miracle worker, but the woman with the pipe held to her lips with the low, sultry laugh. The girl who played strange music and wore dresses that hugged every curve and inch of her body.
She's divine. But she's mine. She's mine. She-
Pleasure broke through like thunder.
Mary bit her lip to keep from crying out. Her body arched, trembled, then fell still.
Silence swelled. The crucifix glared from the wall. Her chest rose and fell in shallow waves.
She brought her hand up to her face. She opened her fingers, a thin clear string glistening in the light. She focused on it, before looking back at the crucifix. She put her hand down.
She turned to her side, her breath slowly returning, her underwear drenched and twisted below her hips.
Outside, the Greengrichs' dog barked in the distance.
Inside, Mary's eyes fixated on the cross. She parted her lips slightly. In a barely audible whisper, she said,
"Forgive me."
