Chapter 7
4753words
She blinked, and blinked again, realizing her cheek was pressed against bare skin.
Grace lay curled around her, still fast asleep, one arm tucked underneath the pillow underneath Mary's head, the other draped across her stomach. Her slip was half on, half off, barely a sliver of white bunched around her waist. Her chest rose and fell in a slow, perfect rhythm. Her hair, still damp from humidity and the creek, dried in waves and curls, fanned out across her pillow. In the early morning light, she seemed to glow in the quiet stillness.
Mary felt like she couldn't breathe, as though Grace had taken the air out of her lungs.
She turned her face slightly, tilting her chin to close the space between them. She laid a small kiss on Grace's jaw. Then she shifted, carefully not to wake her, she placed another kiss on the corner of her mouth. It was soft, weightless. An offering, not a request.
"I love you," she whispered, not sure if her breath made a sound.
Then, dizzy with tenderness, she dropped her head back into the space between the mattress and Grace, shutting her eyes.
Mary stood waist deep in a river of gold. It wasn't sunlight on water, it was the light, made liquid and humming softly like the first note in a hymn. Her white dress pressed against her like second skin. Though drenched in wetness, it was not heavy or cold, but she could feel the hem of her dress drift forward, pulling from the river's current.
She turned, time moving slowly like molasses. On the far shore shaded by a grove of golden leafed trees stood twelve figures, faceless and shadowed, unnaturally still. She felt a familiarity towards them. They were not strangers, but even as she squinted their eyes, she could not make them out. The stood like sentinels. Witnesses. Amongst them was a figure standing on a moss covered rock.
Or someone that took her figure. She was too bright to look at directly, her skin gleaming like wet marble, her eyes glowing amber. When her mouth moved it was like a chord; not a singular voice but a cacophony of many, layering and echoing like notes sang in centuries past.
"It begins with love," Grace said, lifting her palms gently. "As the Father hath loved me, so I have loved you."
Mary waded through the waters, toward Grace. As she moved forward, water rose up to her chest, over her shoulders until it cradled her jaw. But no fear passed through her, feeling only love as if the waters embraced her. It felt like she was being held in a warm hug. She could feel it all pouring through her - not around her, but inside her. Through every hollow space she thought to be empty.
On the bank, the twelve figures began to hum, low and sweet, like a lullaby from childhood. A hymn. It echoed and reverberated around her. It was the sort of music to make one ache for the lost. The kind of song that breathed faith.
Grace stepped down from the rock, into the water. The waters remained still, as if nothing disturbed its current. She soundlessly waded toward Mary, her eyes now soft and human.
"I chose you Mary," she whispered, leaning her forehead onto Mary's, her hand cupping her cheeks. "You didn't choose me."
Mary reached forward, trying to caress Grace's cheek, but her hand passed through golden light.
She gasped and as the glimmering waters surged forward. The river swallowed Mary, but she felt no fear.
Only rapture.
Mary slowly woke, feeling as though she was resurfacing through water.
The room was still dim, the mid morning light glowing through the red curtains. The room smelled of moss, incense, and something intimate. Her skin felt sticky with sleep, her thighs crusted from the night before, the ache between them a quiet echo of pleasure.
She blinked, disorientated for a moment. The dream still hung in the back of her eyes, the river light, Grace's glowing eyes, the faceless crowd humming like a funeral choir. Her heart beat slow and thick in her chest. She turned her head toward the other side of the bed.
The bed was empty. Grace had left.
Mary sat up, the sheet slipping off her bare chest. Her limbs felt sore in a way that was sacred. Her skin felt the ghost of where Grace's hands roamed. Where she entered her. Where she whispered like she was teaching Mary a sacred language.
She stood slowly, grabbing her dress that lay crumpled on the floor. She shrugged it on, still damp from the creek, and padded toward the window. She pulled the corner of the curtain back, peering out.
Grace sat outside, facing the woods beyond. Her legs were pulled under the weathered bench, a cigarette loose between her fingers. She was wrapped in a red thin robe that offered feeble attempts at concealing her figure, her hair still damp and curling around her jawline. Smoke curled in lazed ribbons, glowing a shade of pale gold in the morning sun.
Mary stood by the window, taking her in carefully.
Grace looked like something from an old story. Not a saint. Not a prophet. Something older, like fire had finally grown a tongue.
She stepped outside barefoot, the warm concrete prickling the soles of her feet. Grace glanced over her shoulder and smiled, as if she had been waiting.
"Sleep okay?" she asked, her voice raspy from the morning.
Mary nodded, her eyes fixed on Grace's mouth. "Had a dream."
Grace took a slow drag of her cigarette. "Good one or bad one?"
"Neither," Mary said softly, finally looking up at her eyes. "It felt like scripture."
Grace exhaled the smoke through her nose, mockingbirds chirping in between the brief silence. "Sometimes dreams are ways the truth can speak without bein' struck down."
Mary walked closer, settling beside her on the bench. Their arms grazed. The silence between them felt warm, welcoming, like moments followed after a prayer.
Grace reached over, brushing a stray hair behind Mary's ear. "You're glowing."
"You did that," Mary murmured, turning and leaning forward to kiss her cheek, just below the eye. She lingered there for a heartbeat before pulling back, inhaling Grace's scent. Sweet like honeysuckle, decorated in the tang of smoke.
Grace didn't say anything, just simply looked at Mary with something unreadable, something ancient. She then reached down to her feet, crushing the cigarette into the porcelain ashtray.
Mary stood, straightening her wrinkled dress. The sun was higher now, the road leading back to town looking gentler than it had the night before. "I should go. If I don't show up soon, some'll come knockin'."
Grace nodded, still quiet. But just as Mary turned to leave, she reached out and grabbed her hand.
"Don't let anyone else tell you that last night wasn't real," she said slowly. "Even when it starts to hurt."
Mary didn't answer. She just squeezed her hand, then let go.
She walked barefoot down the gravel path, her shoes forgotten somewhere in Grace's room. The sun grazed her skin like a blessing. There was lightness in her step, a humming in her chest as if the song from her dream still in her soul.
For the first time in a long time, Mary felt seen. Chosen.
The sun was high into the sky by the time she reached home. Her skin felt flushed and warm, sweat beaded across the back of her neck, her thighs sore in a way that made her smile. She felt hollowed out and filled all at once, like something had been cracked open and gently rearranged. The world still shimmered faintly at the edges. Not as sharp as it was last night, but glimmered softly. Holiness.
She walked barefoot across the porch. Her dress clung to her from sweat, the smell of creek water faintly emanating. She liked the way the breeze slipped through it, through her thighs, the way she still smelled softly of Grace.
She paused at the door, her hand hovering above the warm handle. The cicadas sang high. A strange peace floated in her chest, thick and golden. She felt loved, chosen. Anointed.
The front door creaked open. Inside was cool and dim and she stepped in lightly. She wasn't sure why she tried to be quiet, perhaps to hang onto the stillness, to remain untouched in her cloud of happiness a little while longer.
But a voice reverberated.
"Morning, Mary."
Her body tensed. She turned to find her father sat in the reading chair near the window in the sitting room. A mug of coffee sat untouched on the end table, a cigarette burning in the ashtray beside it. His Bible was opened in his lap, his reading glasses perched at the end of his nose, his steaming glare unmistakable.
Mary swallowed hard.
"Figured you wouldn't be coming home this morning," his voice full of casual ease, but his stare was hardened. "Thought I heard the screen door around five, but must've been the raccoons."
She stepped inside, her footsteps groaning on the wooden floor. Her cloud was beginning to dissipate.
"I just went for a walk," she mumbled, quiet but firm.
He looked her up and down. "In your Sunday best? For the whole day and night? Must've been some walk."
She didn't answer. She didn't want to lie, but she couldn't tell Reverend Harlow where she had been, who she was with. What she had done. She refused to give him those pieces of her, just for him to crumble them like shame in his hands, allowing to cheapen her experience.
His gaze lingered on her for what seemed like ages. He felt her assess her damp, crumpled dress, her wild hair. She wanted to shrink under his judgmental stare, but instead held her chin up. He wasn't God, he could not pass judgement.
"Look like the walk walked you," he said finally, gazing back to the Bible.
Mary inhaled slowly. The afterglow started to dim. "I'm gonna get cleaned up," she muttered, shifting toward the staircase.
"You don't look like someone rushin' to confess," he said mildly. "Not even to the Lord."
She froze mid step.
He closed the Bible in his lap, taking off his glasses. He didn't stand, just clasped his hands over the cover. "I worry Mary. That you don't know what you're playin' with. That you think somethin' sacred is shinin' in that boy when all he's doin' is reflecting what you want."
Mary's breath hitched, her hand white knuckling the stair railing. The golden flush in her chest started to feel tight, suffocating. A flush crept up her neck. "I'm not playin'," she said, barely more than a whisper.
Ezekiel nodded, slow and deliberate. "That's the trouble, ain't it?"
Mary's cheeks ran hot, but not from shame. Anger curled like smoke in her stomach. "You think you know everything," she said, now looking down the stairs at him. But you don't. You don't know anything about Grace. Or me."
"I know that the Lord don't dwell on confusion, and that thing brings it in like cheap perfume."
Mary flinched.
Ezekiel's voice softened, but not in kindness. "You've always had a tender heart, Mary, and that ain't a sin. But the Devil's clever. He'll speak love in a familiar voice if it gets him through the door."
Mary's jaw clenched. "Is that all?" she asked, her voice low.
"I reckon that's between you and God."
She didn't respond. She turned her heel and ran up the stairs, wooden steps sharp beneath her feet. The golden peace she carried with her this morning was gone, buried in the tightness of her throat and the burning sting behind her eyes.
She closed her bedroom door harder than she meant, but didn't apologize.
And she didn't cry.
Mary stood underneath the hot water until her fingers pruned and her skin turned red. She didn't wash at first, aiming to take a moment of recentering, to grab any semblance of peace the morning had kissed onto her skin. Water trailed slowly down her skin like thick ribbons, steam curled around her head like smoke. She kept her eyes closed, inhaling deeply.
Her thighs tingled faintly still, a ghost of Grace's touch a phantom between them. She let her mind roam. Her neck, her breasts, her belly, all anointed with her touch like oil. She pressed an open palm to her sternum.
She felt whole, raw maybe. She felt tender in a way that made her stomach flutter. But whole. Her body was her own. For the first time in a while, it was a feeling she didn't want to recoil away from, or make her want to jump out of her skin.
The night still shimmered in the corners of her mind. The way the stars bent like candlelight, Grace's mouth on her skin, her speaking her name like liturgy. She imagined herself in a stained glass window, reaching for something barely outside of the frame.
She smiled. Not wide, but honest.
When she stepped out of the shower, the cool air hissed against her scalding skin. She wrapped herself in a towel, slowly and deliberately. She sat at the edge of the bathtub, taking careful time to comb through her hair, letting the strands fall natural and soft. Her reflection in the mirror startled her. She looked different, brighter. She leaned forward, touching her cheek as confirmation.
She was halfway into her jeans when the phone rang from the wall, its shrill cry cutting through the quiet. She blinked, seeming to have forgotten about the outside world in its entirety. She crossed the room and lifted the receiver, her voice soft but steady.
There was a pause, then, "Mary?"
It was Todd. His voice was hoarse, tight, differing from the free thoughtfulness from a few days prior.
"Yeah, I'm here. Are you-" She was cut off by the sound of a crash on the other line and a sharp yell. Not Todd's voice, a woman's voice. Sharp, muffled, furious. Mary stiffened slightly.
"Christ, Josephine! I said I'd handle it," Todd snapped, away from the receiver. A baby cried in the distance, shrill and loud.
"Todd, what's going on?"
He spoke back into the receiver, his breath short and his voice like gravel. "I need to see you."
"What- now?"
"Yes, just come meet me, alright?" There was another shout, another crash. Metal on tile. "Fifteen minutes, the bar. Just... come, please."
He cut her off. "Fifteen." The line went dead.
Mary stared at the receiver in her hand, the silence more deafening than the chaos. She looked back toward the mirror. The peace she managed to bring back was slipping again, falling like water down the drain.
But she didn't hesitate. She pulled on a tank top and toweled off the rest of her hair. She slid on her sandals and raced down the stairs. She didn't know what Todd needed, but she felt the world shift underneath her feet.
Mary had never been to the bar. It had been there for decades, its history stretching past the time she was even born. She had passed by it multiple times, it sitting on the opposite corner from the diner, but there was never a need to enter. While the people of Ashford wasn't exactly known for being a town of trouble or drunkards, the loose canons still found their way, that number tripling since the draft. Troubled men flocked, whether it be to try to drown out the memories of foxholes and gunfire, escape their begging pleading wives, or simply boredom. If there was any place for a breeding ground of sin, it would be here.
Mary walked across the wooden floors, through the puffs of smoke. There were only four people inside this early in the day. An elderly man she recognized as a married man from church leaned close into a younger woman's ear, someone she also recognized as a taken woman and one of the waitresses of the diner. She giggled softly at whatever the older man whispered, taking a drink from her half filled glass. Another patron sat by himself at the bar, laughing loudly with the bartender who absently cleaned a glass, smiling with him. The last patron was Todd, hunched like a sullen turkey vulture over the bar, slowly swirling a glass of amber liquid.
Mary pulled out the metal stool, hopping up next to him.
"You came," he said, not looking up from his glass. He took a swig, downing the remnants before signaling to the bartender.
Mary nodded, shifting slightly on the leather. "I said I would."
The bartender returned with a full glass. Mary shook her head when he looked at her expectantly. He slid back over to the still laughing patron.
Todd wrapped his hand around the glass. "You smell like the night still. You been somewhere else."
Mary smiled faintly, rubbing at a carving of initials into the wood of the bar. "Maybe I have."
He exhaled, voice rough and hard. "I don't know what to make of all this shit. Grace being back. You two... I see it, feel it. But there's somethin' underneath it all that I can't get a hold on to. Somethin' that feels dangerous."
Mary's heart fluttered, but she tilted her head, her voice cool but edged. "You're jealous."
Todd turned to her, eyes flashing. "No," he said exasperated. "I'm scared."
She blinked.
He looked back at his drink, then shook his head like he was trying to free himself of a thought. "You don't get it. I'm scared because I don't understand what's happenin'. Not just with her, but with you. This whole damn town's been waitin' to burn someone at the stake and Grace is lightin' the fuckin' match!"
Mary stiffened. "She's done nothin' wrong," she said, her voice low.
"Not yet," Todd snapped. "But that don't mean nothin'. People don't need truth to tear someone to shreds, they just need a story. And Grace?" He took a swig from his glass, slamming it back down. "Hell, she's given them one."
Mary crossed her arms. "You're talkin' as if something's already happened."
Todd leaned in, low and urgent. "Because I can feel it, Mary. Something's comin'. I don't know what, but it's circling. And you're just... followin' her straight into it, eyes shut tight and heart open."
Her lip curled slightly. "So you'd rather I shut my heart off, like you?" she hissed.
"I'd rather keep yours safe," he said, his voice pleading. "But it's too late for that now, ain't it?"
Mary looked at him, pity now curling beneath her ribs. He looked small now, not the child who used to tell off the boys that harassed Grace nor the man that quietly asked her if Grace would remember them if she came back. He was just someone unraveling. Someone trying to hold back a tide.
"You don't trust her," she said quietly. "That's what this is."
Todd met her gaze, pained. "No. I do. I trust her too much. I love her, Mary. And I'm scared that whatever this is ends, it's going to end with fire."
Mary swallowed hard, but said nothing.
They sat in silence for several long minutes. Todd then downed the rest of his drink, slamming it back onto the table. He fished out his wallet from his back pocket and threw cash onto the bar. "Just watch your back," he muttered, before he stood up.
He walked out, leaving Mary at the bar, her heart thudding loud against the silence he left behind. Todd's words clung to her skin. Not the anger- she could shrug that off. She's seen it on him before. But the fear, the uncertainty in his voice was what burrowed into her flesh.
And I'm scared that whatever this is ends, it's going to end with fire.
Mary frowned. She felt the edge of something cold trying to creep into her chest, but she resisted. She'd seen fire, seen what it could do. But what burned also glowed.
Todd didn't understand that.
Grace wasn't dangerous. At least, not in any way he meant. Grace was change. She was shaking the dust off something dead. That kind of power scared people. Scared people like Todd. People that only knew how to live in a world that stayed stagnant and unmoving.
She thought of Grace from that morning, smoke curling from her mouth, looking at her like she was a prayer answered.
You're divine.
Mary smiled, just barely. She stood and began walking out the door.
She wasn't blindly walking into anything. She knew Grace. She'd seen her. And she would follow her. Fire or no fire.
The sun was well into the afternoon when Mary opened the bar doors. The town was bustling. Produce tents flapped in the breeze, the usual Saturday farmer's market buzzed with familiar sounds and scents: fried okra, jammed honeysuckle, boiled peanuts. Children darted between tables and stands. Housewives bartered over fresh peaches. Someone played a battered fiddle near the courthouse steps. It was almost easy to forget everything. Almost, until her eyes settled on her.
Sitting alone on a weathered bench beneath a wide oak in the center of it all. Legs crossed, head tilted, cigarette held aloft like something divine. Her yellow sundress clung to her flesh in the heat, her cat eye sunglasses reflected everything back: the townsfolk, the tents, the sky itself.
People stole glances. Some whispered behind cupped hands. One man nudged his wife and muttered something too low for Mary to catch. Grace didn't flinch. She looked across the whole market like it belonged to her. Like she was watching a pageant she had already seen a thousand times.
Slowly, Mary approached. Her heartbeat quickened, not from nerves, but from awe. Grace looked untouched by the heat, by the noise, by the weight of being seen. There was something regal about the way she smoked, something ancient and bored. Mary opened her mouth to call out, but she heard it.
Laughter. Not joyful, but mean. Teenaged boys, maybe twelve or thirteen, standing by the honey stall. They had all clustered around the mute boy, the one from the watermelon farm on the edge of town. Tall for his age, always in jean overalls and boots too big for his feet. Silent since birth, she had heard folks say. Wouldn't even grunt. Some had said he was touched by God. Others said he was just touched.
"Hey!" one of the boys jeered. "Say something, dumbass! Or did you forget how?"
The others cackled, one snapping his fingers in the mute boy's face. The boy looked down, shoulders stiff. His cheeks were red, his hands twitching at his sides.
Grace stood. She dropped the cigarette in her hand, grinding it underneath her wedge heel. She walked past Mary without a glance. The air shifted, something felt still.
The crowd didn't stop, those the people nearest to Grace began to hush, nudging each other. Watching.
She stepped in front of the boys. The stilled, one of them sneered. "We didn't do nothin-"
"Wasn't talking to you," Grace said, her voice calm and flat.
She crouched down in front of the mute boy, her sunglasses sliding down just enough so he could see her eyes. "You ever wanted to talk, baby?" she asked softly.
The boy blinked. His mouth parted softly but no voice came.
Grace reached up and gently tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. "I bet you do," she whispered. "You got a voice in there. It's just been waitin' for someone to ask."
Mary held her breath.
A pause. Then the boy nodded.
"Then speak."
The crowd stilled. A peach from the stand over rolled off and landed in the dirt. Somewhere, the fiddle stopped playing.
The boy opened his mouth.
Then, clear as day, "Thank you."
The hush broke. People shouted. Questions rose. A man hollered, “What the hell just happened?” Someone said “Witch,” another said “Saint.” The boys had scattered like leaves in a storm.
Mary stepped forward. She could feel something tremble inside her. Not fear, not doubt, but knowing. The kind that sets souls on fire.
Then her eyes snagged on something across the crowd. Todd. He stood just beyond the peach stall, half-shadowed beneath the overhang. He wasn’t moving. Just staring. His face was pale. Tight. Not shocked like the others. Not amazed. Just grim. Like he’d seen the future in that boy’s mouth and didn’t want it.
Their eyes met. For a moment, Mary felt her breath snag in her chest. But she didn’t look away.
She turned back toward Grace. Grace met her halfway. Didn’t speak. Just reached out and gently took Mary’s hand.
