Page 54 of The Year of the Witching

“As best I’m able.”

“And do you read your Scriptures?”

She nodded. Another honest answer. She read her Scriptures, certainly—just not the ones he was referring to.

The Prophet leaned into the table. “Do you love the Father with all your heart and soul?”

“Yes.”

“Then, say it.” This was a demand, not a question. “Say you love Him.”

“I love Him,” she said, a split second too late.

The Prophet pushed back from his seat at the head of the table and stood. He walked down the table’s length, stopped beside her chair, and put a hand to her head. His thumb traced the bare spot between her brows where wives wore their seals.

It was all she could do not to bolt from her chair and flee.

“Immanuelle.” He turned her name over on his tongue like it was a sugar cube, something to be savored. His holy dagger slipped from the collar of his shirt as he leaned closer, the sheathed blade skimming her cheek as it swung back and forth. “You’d do well to remember what you believe in. I’ve often found that the soul is apt to wander toward the dark.”

Her heart beat so violently she feared he would hear it. “I’m afraid I don’t understand your meaning.”

The Prophet leaned even closer. She could feel his breath against her ear as he whispered, “And I’m afraid that you do.”

“Enough.” The Prophet looked up, his hand slipping from Immanuelle’s head, as Ezra entered the dining room and edged around the table to her side. “She’s answered your questions, and the sun’s setting quickly. We should be on our way.”

The Prophet’s gaze darkened as it fell on Ezra, and Immanuelle wondered if he was even capable of looking at his son with anything other than scorn.

“Let’s go,” said Ezra, and this time there was a threat between the words.

The Prophet’s lips peeled back in a sneer. He started to speak but stopped at the sound of his name.

“Grant... the boy is right.” Immanuelle turned to see Abram standing on the threshold between the dining room and kitchen. He leaned on his favorite cane—a birch branch with a pommel he’d whittled into the shape of a hawk’s head—and his mouth was carved into a thin line. He spoke again, louder this time, thoughImmanuelle knew every word was a struggle. “The roads are dangerous... at night... with the sick lurking.”

Immanuelle was so relieved to see Abram in that moment, she could have wept. Gone was the feeble, quiet man who’d reared her. The man before her now stood resolute, his shoulders squared, his jaw firmly set.

She remembered something Anna had once said, how, in the wake of Miriam’s death, after Abram had lost his Gifts and the title of the apostleship was stripped from him, he became a ghost of the man he had been before. But now, in this moment, as he stepped firmly over the threshold to stand alongside Immanuelle, it seemed like that man had been resurrected.

Ezra placed a firm hand on his father’s shoulder. “He’s right, Father. The sick are out of their senses, mad with fever. It’s not safe to travel the roads after sunset. We should be on our way.Now.”

Immanuelle waited for the Prophet to rebuke them, but he didn’t. Instead, he turned his gaze on her again. This time his eyes didn’t warm. “These are dark days, that’s certain, but the Father hasn’t turned his back on us yet. He’s watching. He isalwayswatching, Immanuelle. That’s why we must remember what we believe in and keep to it, if nothing else.”

As soon as the Prophet departed, Immanuelle stood, the motion so abrupt her chair clattered to the floor. But she didn’t stoop to pick it up. Shaking and without a word, she fled the dining room to the front of the house. Abram called after her as she opened the door and stepped out onto the porch. There, she dropped to a crouch, pressed a hand to the planks to steady herself. She drew several ragged gasps, but the air was thick with pyre smoke and it did little to ease her burning lungs. She could still feel the Prophet’s hand at her head, his thumb pressing between her eyebrows, and the memory of his touch alone was enough to make her quake with fear.

“Immanuelle.” Ezra stepped outside and closed the door behind him. “Are you all right?”

She pushed to her feet, smoothed the creases from her skirts in a vain attempt to collect herself. “You should be on your way.”

“Humor me for a moment.”

“Why should I?”

“Because this is meant to be an apology.”

She frowned. “An apology for what?”

“For being drunk and harsh and careless. For my actions at the pond in the midst of my vision. For hurting you. For behaving more like an enemy than a friend. I don’t ever want my actions to make you doubt my loyalty that way. Can you forgive me?”

It was, perhaps, the best apology Immanuelle had ever received. It was certainly the most earnest. “Like it never happened,” she said.

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