Engines of the Broken World (17 page)

With the hatchet propped by the door where Gospel had left it, shining and bloody.

I heard the creak of the floor behind me and knew she was moving, but I didn’t guess how fast. Long steps, too long for the way she looked, too long even for Mama’s height, and I reached down for the hatchet and took it in my mittened hand and realized that was no way to hold it, because it would just slip loose—but I didn’t have time. Both hands around it, I turned, and there she was. She stood up above me like a mountain, so tall. I was always a little afraid of Mama when she was alive, she was so big a lady, and not afraid to hit a body either, but this was different. Auntie seemed even taller, and I could tell there was a fierce strength in her. She wasn’t putting on a show anymore, she was being true, and I didn’t know if there was anything a girl could do against her, but I had to try. And by this time I was pretty certain there was just selfishness and wickedness in there, but I still wasn’t sure that maybe she didn’t know something we could use all the same. I just couldn’t tell no more.

She looked terrible, but she didn’t actually do anything. She stared and glared, and I held the hatchet in my mittens and panted, and then she stepped back.

“You don’t trust me any longer,” she said.

“No, ma’am, that I do not.”

“I’ve only tried to help. I’m sorry about Esmie. I know her so well from all the care and attention she showed your mother that I feel like I’m her friend, and it’s a shame what had to be done. She has a strong will, and she wouldn’t listen. I do hope she’s not hurt too badly. I understand how you wouldn’t trust me. But if you don’t listen to me, this world will be gone. Her injury, her death, won’t mean a thing. That will be your fault if you haven’t tried to help. Our time is running short.”

I didn’t want to listen. I just wanted to go and help Miz Cally, and wait for Gospel, and then maybe if the world ended, it wouldn’t be so bad, because at least I’d be able to apologize to him for being a stupid little girl. But on the other hand, I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want the fog to get me. And probably Auntie knew how to stop that from happening. So I guessed I would listen, but I’d listen to her like she was Mama toward the end, when she was plumb crazy and you had to be careful with doing anything she wanted you to. Because this angel, this devil, this thing in my mama’s body, was just as mad as Mama.

I didn’t put down the hatchet, but I didn’t hit her either. “What do you got to say?”

“I haven’t been as honest with you as I could have been. I know more than I’ve said.”

“Well I hope so, or whatever plan you got ain’t got a chance.”

“It only has a chance with you, Merciful. Only if you do as I say.”

“The first thing we got to do is help Miz Cally.”

The thing looked like it was ready to spit for just a second before it put that face away, and I stepped back but then she got all calm again. “All right, but I can’t help you. My hands don’t work very well for anything delicate.” She balled them up into rough fists, and I could tell she didn’t mean that just for show. “You can see to her, if you like. I’ll have a seat in the rocker and wait for you.” She slipped around the chairs, her dead eyes not leaving me, and I kept a watch on her all the way to the bedroom door. Not that I thought I could stop her if she tried to do something, but I at least wanted to know where she was. I ran into the kitchen, tossing the hatchet onto the table, and dropped to my knees to pull up the cellar door. There was no light at all at the bottom, so I couldn’t see anything.

“Miz Cally?” I called down. “Miz Cally?”

Something stirred in the darkness.

“Miz Cally?” I whispered.

“Hello, little girl,” a voice said, a voice that was as if the Widow had tried to sound like a man. I moaned with a sudden dire fear, fear so strong it made everything that had come before seem like a bedtime story. “Looks like someone left open the door for me.”

I reached out and slammed the hatch down hard. The big chair was only a few feet away, and I moved it right on top, and then the smaller chairs too, and the bucket. I didn’t expect it’d do much, but whatever was down there wasn’t the Widow Cally anymore, and it made the thing on the rocker seem just about comforting. Even with the door shut, even with things piled on it, I still felt the evil coming from the cellar.

Somewhere inside the wailing wind and my panting breath I thought I heard something. Faint and weak, like a scratch on the door.

Gospel.

Crawling to the back door, I pulled myself to my feet holding on to the handle. I could tell now that the scratching was definitely there, that it wasn’t just my mind, too tired and worn, making things up. It had to be Gospel, weak from the cold.

Only it wasn’t. When I opened the door, a squirrel rested on the mounded snow without leaving the faintest impression. It was the Minister, bushy little tail held over its tiny head like an umbrella, all the fur on its underside draggled and wet.

It sprang in past me and was gone just as quick. I couldn’t see it anywhere in the kitchen, but then, it wasn’t too bright in the room anymore, just one lamp lit and the glow from the stove and a single candle on the table. I looked outside but didn’t see any sign of my brother.

“Where’s Gospel, Minister?”

“He is outside.” The Minister’s voice came echoing from everywhere and nowhere.

“You left him out there?” I sent my eyes around in the dim, looking for any sign of the little made thing.

“He was angry, Merciful. He would have hurt me if he had found me. I made certain he didn’t find me and came back as soon as I could.”

“He’s going to die out there!”

“It is likely, yes.”

“You have to go and find him, lead him back. He won’t be able to hurt you if he’s freezing.” I didn’t mean to sound as desperate as I did, but I couldn’t help it. Even if he wasn’t any good at it, Gospel was my only brother.

“Perhaps not, but the fog you two spoke of has come closer. I don’t dare get too close to that fog, Merciful. The consequences would be terrible.”

“I don’t care, Minister. You get on out there and you bring him back, right now! I know what you are now, you dang blasted machine, so you just make yourself into something that can rescue him and you go find my brother!”

“Ah,” it said, that and nothing more for a long moment. “Merciful,” the calm voice continued, still without any source I could place. It seemed sad to me, sad and weary. “You don’t understand enough.”

A creaking and then a smash came from the cellar. I thought I could see something start in the shadows on top of one of the cabinets. I can’t claim I didn’t jump a little too.

“What was that?” the Minister asked. “I feel I should know, but I have been … distracted.”

“I don’t rightly know.”

“Is your mother’s body still down there?”

“Not anymore. What’s down there is worse,” I said. I had crept over to the cabinet, and now I gave it a shake. The Minister sprang light as the wind from there to the table, and then away with me in pursuit, trying to get my hands around its tail.

We both pulled up short at the end of the table. Standing in the doorway was Auntie, and she didn’t look the least unhappy to see the Minister. Just the opposite, really. That smile was back on her face, and I didn’t like it one bit.

E
IGHTEEN

“
Minister,
”
Auntie said gently. The Minister
’
s body twitched from head to tail, and I reached for that tail with my right hand, again thinking about how bad a mitten was for holding things. If she could keep him distracted for another moment, I thought I might get the dang thing off, and started to do it, taking the knit tip into my mouth and grabbing it with my teeth. “I’ve been wondering where you got off to. Did you bring back Gospel as well?”

The Minister didn’t say a thing, and my hand was moving back toward its tail, which stood up like scotch broom, the fur flared out wild-like. I could tell it was more terrified even than me.

“I gather you didn’t. Well, I’d rather have both of them just in case, but Merciful will still do by herself. Now come here!” she said, and lunged forward. Her hands, like she’d said, weren’t working good. The fingers were all swelled up and puffy, and it didn’t look like she could get a grip on anything, even less than me in the mittens. But that didn’t matter, because
her
moving set the Minister to moving, and I closed my frosty hand on nothing at all as it sprang away onto the counter on the back wall and then bounded back toward the door. “Get it, girl, get it!”

“Do not trust this thing, Merciful,” the Minister said, bounding across the chairs that were on the cellar door. “It lies and lies and lies yet more.”

“I ain’t doin’ it for her, Minister. You got to tell me what you know about how to stop all this nonsense!”

“A liar, am I?” Auntie said, stepping into the kitchen. “We’ll see where the lies are and whether there isn’t truth worse than a lie, won’t we, Minister?” She was headed toward the stove, and I was following the Minister’s path, so that we accidentally had both sides of the table covered. I was pretty glad to have the table between us, because I surely didn’t feel like Auntie had any good feelings for me by now, and it was mutual. The Minister was perched waiting on the back of the big chair with one tiny paw held up, the body about to spring. Toward what I didn’t know. But the little made thing was caught.

“Come to me, Minister,” I said.

“Yes, go to her,” Auntie said, the ends of her mouth still twisting up like it was supposed to be a smile, like it didn’t matter whether she or I ended up with the Minister.

The squirrel looked from her to me. “I will not.”

Then the chair jerked. There was a thump from below, and I stopped moving at once, because I knew what it was. Miz Cally, or whatever was in her, was trying to get loose, and the chairs and such wouldn’t keep it still for long, I knew that much.

“Let me out of here,” the strange man voice of the Widow’s body bellowed from below.

Auntie’s reaction startled me, for Mama’s body drew back and seemed to fall into itself a little, looking smaller than she had in life, even in the last days when she lay still and barely moved at all. “He can’t be here,” she said real soft.

I was about to ask her who she meant, but right then the Minister made its move, and neither of us could do a thing to stop it. It right about flew to the kitchen table, a great huge leap for such a small thing and with so little buildup, but, squirrels did all sorts of things that I couldn’t never account for. Of course, I knew by then it wasn’t just a squirrel, even if my fool mind was still attempting to suggest that idea to me over and over. I tried to grab the Minister but just ended up sprawled on the table, knocking the hatchet aside as the made thing bounded away and into the sitting room. I wanted to follow it there for sure and certain, and let the things in the two tall women deal with each other. That kitchen wasn’t a place for a girl like me, and so my hand found the hatchet just in case, and I scooted away. Not too quick, so as not to attract Auntie’s attention.

She didn’t even glance at me as I crept away into the sitting room, where the cold was like a barefoot walk out to get eggs, and I wished for my mitten back on my hand, though the hatchet felt kind of good there too. I could hear the thumps of something hitting the hatch over and over, not so hard or heavy as to get out, but solid and steady. I wondered if whatever was down there didn’t want to get out just yet, or if it was too weak still, the way Auntie had been for a little bit, when she’d been stretching and flexing while I talked to her. And if it was yet too weak, could Auntie defeat it?

“Minister?” I called out as I moved farther into the sitting room. I guess I weren’t too surprised when it didn’t answer. I mean, there’s me with a hatchet in my hand creeping into a dark room, calling for something I’ve been trying to catch for a time, and it’d have to be stupid to answer me. The Minister wasn’t stupid.

“Minister, I just want to know where Gospel could be. Do you know where he’s at? If you won’t go out there, I got to go and get him, and you’re the only one who knows anything.”

The chairs were only shadows, and the floor was slick with blood that felt like it had frozen over. I had to move careful to get across and come to the bedroom, where the air was a little warmer, a little better, and where there was a little light. I could see the Minister, reared up with its tail high, perched on the edge of the bed, with the faint glow of coals casting a ruddy light. The fire had died long ago.

“He’s near the barn,” the Minister said. “Build up the fire before you go to look for him.”

“If I bring him back, those things in the kitchen will probably just kill us both.”

If it could shrug, it did. “I can’t say for certain. They are alien to me. Outside my experience, outside the Good Lord’s intentions. I do not know what they might do. But I fear the worst, yes.”

I swallowed hard, but I did what it said and went to build up the fire. The thumps were still audible, but I tried not to pay any attention to them, though each one made me jump a little. My hands were shaking, and not just from the cold of the house.

“What are those things? The one says it’s Mama from another place, and the other … well, it felt like a devil, just hearing it talk.”

“They aren’t meant to be here, not in this world. Both of them are like dreams, like God’s nightmares. They shouldn’t exist, and yet they do. The closing of the world is upon us, and the Lord is at work on His tasks. The rules are bending, breaking. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be here.”

“What rules?”

“God’s rules, child. The ones that I am here to enforce, as best I can, though I’ve precious little strength for my tasks now. Still, I am a Minister of Grace, shaping the world to make it better, holier, more suited for the Lord.” It sounded like normal Minister talk, but I had never heard this line before, never in all the days of my life. I wondered if this was what Auntie had been talking about, because those words made it sound like the Minister was certainly changing things, making the world different. Destroying it, but maybe to save it? Like Miz Cally did to herself when she tried to fight against Auntie.