I Belong to the Earth (Unveiled Book 1) by J. A. Ironside
I slipped into St Martin's through the vestry and took a seat in pew partially hidden behind a pillar. My mind churned over schemes and plans, each crazier than the last. It took a while for me to notice that the church was full of crackling energy. People were restless, on edge. That was odd. Dad could always capture an audience. I tuned into what Dad was saying from the pulpit and gaped in surprise. For all his faults, Dad had never been a fire and brimstone preacher. Now he talked about hell and damnation with such certainty, you'd think he'd seen them first hand. And he was off his mark. He wasn't comforting the congregation; he was stirring them up. If he wasn't careful he'd have a lynch mob foaming at the mouth to do his bidding. I glanced around. There was fanatical zeal on every face. It was eerie. Like the residents of Arncliffe had been hollowed out. What was going on?
Grace got up to do the reading. She was neat and pretty in her dark-blue dress, chestnut curls and all. Then I looked closer. It was that strange doubling effect, like last night. Underneath the exterior that Kate projected, Grace did not look well. Her skin was yellowing. Purplish shadows made her bruised her eyes. Her lips were white and pinched, bluish at the corners. Her hands had become skeletal. Her neck was a reed. She stood at the lectern and her hands shook with fine tremors. Her voice was clear but thin and weak.
Haze was killing her. He was sucking her dry. They both were. Between them, Kate and Haze were killing my sister. In a moment of absolute clarity, I saw myself for what I was. I was diminished; not the person I’d always thought I was. Was I going to let my sister die for my own wounded vanity? What had I been thinking? If she kissed a dozen boys I liked, it wouldn’t matter as long as she was alive. If Grace died, that would be it. One crack too many. My family would disintegrate. Guilt razored into my stomach. I couldn't save Mum and that wasn't my fault. If Grace died, it would be. I clenched my hands until my knuckles stood out white and my broken arm screamed. Was Grace still in there? Was I too late?
As if she’d heard my thoughts, Grace looked up. Her eyes locked with mine. It wasn't Kate, it was my sister. For a moment she was really there. Her eyes were deep blue and frantic. It took me a moment to realize what she was saying as her tone never changed.
"…And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched….Help. I need somebody. Help. Not just anybody…The righteous shall go into life eternal. Thy remembrance shall pass on unto all generations…" Grace was fighting to breathe now. I saw the film of darker colour radiate out from her pupils. Sherry-brown and sparkling with irritation. "So sayeth the lord." I heard Kate's musical voice coming from my sister's mouth.
I was close to despair but Grace has just told me, in the only way she could, that she was still in there. Kate had not won yet. I would have laughed if it wasn't so horrible. Grace hated the Beatles. No faulting her choice of lyrics though. She did need help and not from just anyone. From me. And that last bit wasn't part of the chosen reading. I'd seen those words before. Engraved in stone.
The electrical energy in the church cracked like a whip. A smell like ozone and raw sewage. Oozing shadows poured over everything and everyone. Hardiman was here. The Pattern was here. Kate walked demurely from the lectern, swaying Grace's body like a master puppeteer. None of the worked-up congregation noticed her changes to the reading. Dad was scowled at her though. A dark expression he had never directed at Grace before. I shivered and memory roared through me.
I was nine years old. Dad had come back from Iraq for the last time. He was supposed to be sleeping that afternoon, he didn't get much sleep at night. I'd heard him wake, strangling screams, two or three times in a night. Mum had had bruises on her arms where he'd grabbed her in his sleep. Mum was out that day. Grace and I were squabbling. I couldn't remember what we were fighting over but I shoved her in anger. Being two years older than me, and stronger at the time, when she shoved me back, I fell over.
My pin wheeling arms caught a vase and sent it crashing to the wooden floor in a mosaic of porcelain splinters. I fell onto the broken vase and cut my knee on a shard of porcelain. I wasn't badly hurt but when I saw the blood from the cut, my mouth went square in a fire-engine wail of outrage. Dad burst in. His expression was terrifying to see. Whatever he was looking at, was far away and months ago. It wasn’t us…In his hand his belt dangled, a sinister leather snake. He lashed it about in hard painful slaps. Now there was really something to cry about, all I could do was whimper as the belt came down on my out-stretched arms and shoulders over and over again.
With a snarl Grace threw herself at the belt wielding arm and tried to wrest it away. She was thrown off like an insect. As the belt descended towards me again Grace threw herself between me and the belt, shielding me with her body until the beating stopped. We'd fought and bickered and scratched all through childhood but Grace would have thrown herself in front of a car for me. How she must have hated it when I was hurt in the accident and she wasn't even there.
What was it like for Grace when Mum died and it looked like Amy and I might follow her? To find most of her family in hospital? Maybe Grace's bitchiness had been a cover all this time, the way my silence and refusal to take help had been a cover. Both of us trying to avoid getting hurt again. Grace never encouraged Dad to show her favouritism. It must really suck having to live up to his ideal actually. I was a complete idiot. Mrs Cranford was right. There were things worth saving. Screw my petty feelings. None of that mattered.
I had to break the Pattern.
With a snap I was back in the present. I was already getting to my feet when Grace stumbled and fell to her knees. She vomited copiously before the altar. And I had really thought I was going to be the one to do that. With a cry of horror Mrs Holden came running up the aisle toward Grace, trailing Miss Greer like a worn silk scarf. I looked at Dad and it hit me; it wasn't just Dad standing there. Reverend Weston overshadowed him, a smudged fingerprint on glass. I remembered him from Helen's memories. Dad had been dragged into the Pattern and had gone without a struggle. It was like a Tibetan prayer wheel; the more lives that were poured into the Pattern, the stronger it got and the further it reached. My family was being stolen.
I remembered where I saw the words from Grace’s reading.
I ran, away from Grace into the grave yard. To Kate's grave.
The righteous shall go into life eternal
Matthew 25:46
Thy likeness shall endure unto all generations.
Psalms 102.
It was here all the time. Grace had given me the truth. The last line shouldn't have said 'likeness' it should have said 'remembrance'. It was a subtle change. People would assume it was a mistake, if they noticed at all. It wasn't. It was a curse; the words that sealed the Pattern. That ensured that it repeated itself over and over without end.
Grace. So clever, even trapped inside her own skin. Grace had given me a clue.
The question was who set those words into the stone?
I wondered if I could I tug on this thread and unravel the Pattern? This was the key. I was sure of it. But who started the Pattern? I no longer believed it was Haze. While I knelt on the grave, the congregation poured out and the full horror and scope of the Pattern struck me. It wasn't a small web encompassing a few chosen people. It used all of Arncliffe. The people who lived in the village were the weft of the Pattern - —each one carried a tiny spark of darkness. Haze, Kate, Grace, Ciarán, Clayton, Helen, even Dad…even me… we were the warp. Tangled on to the shuttle we were being woven back and forth to create the same tapestry of despair and heartbreak and loss. It was so much bigger than I had seen before, and all I had done was stand at the centre of the web and feed it my anger and frustration and jealousy.
I watched the people pack and mass, moving past me unseeing. I felt the web drawing closed. The Pattern was almost complete - I didn't have much time. I needed to make Helen talk. Mrs Cranford couldn't help me now. As t
Walking home, my mind was as full as my pockets. Haze or Hardiman, would never have set the Pattern in place, I reasoned. He would never set a curse that prevented him from seeing Kate. This felt like revenge and while I didn't for a moment believe Haze incapable of revenge, even against someone he loved, this didn't feel like his work. It was careless. Messy. Haze would never have gotten himself caught in his own trap. He would never have had the words of a curse carved on Kate's headstone.
I ticked off suspects in my mind; Kate died of consumption. She willed never to leave Hardiman but that didn't account for the curse stretching over the whole village. Clayton fell, either by accident or on purpose, or maybe Haze murdered him? Possible. I felt the weight of my pockets and wondered if anyone knew where Haze was buried. I had the beginnings of a plan. A wisp of an idea. It seemed to me that everyone ever involved had tugged and struggled against the Pattern, and gotten themselves wrapped in the strands further. What if instead of fighting it we went with it? There was one strand that no one had tried to follow…
"Emlynn?"
I was startled out of my musings.
Ciarán ran up behind me. "Em did ya not hear me calling you?" One winged eyebrow climbed into his shaggy hair. My heart leapt and then sank lower than ever as I remembered what happened yesterday. I was trying very hard to separate out which actions were Ciarán's. And which were Clayton's. It was hard not to blame him, when I remembered his mouth crushing down on Grace's. I shook my head. I needed to focus.
"Huh Hi." I said, cool as glass.
"Are you feeling better?" Ciarán looked uncertain. A small mean part of me liked that. Another part was sorry and wanted to take his hand. Better not. No distractions.
"Wuh what do y-you mean?" I frowned. I'd thrown a tantrum. He must remember that.
"Yesterday? Dinner? You never showed up? I thought maybe your arm was hurting. I thought maybe you'd tell me yourself instead of sending little Amy though." His hazel eyes reflected a hint of hurt. The gold flecks were less pronounced. He was unhappy
"W-what about Grace?" My tone was flat.
"What's your sister got to do with anything?" Both brows swooped down over his nose to make a shape like a bird in flight. He sounded irritated.
He didn't remember anything. I was torn between wanting to carry on as we were and needing to end this for good. I couldn't bring Ciarán in on my plans and not just because he might channel Clayton or because I didn't think I could deal with the jealousy the next time he touched Grace. I couldn't bring him with me because Clayton ended up dead.
This time, the Pattern had more key players in place than ever before. Since the original tragedy, probably. It had more power than ever before and it wasn’t just Grace who was in danger. I wouldn't admit how I felt about Ciarán until I'd broken the Pattern for good. Maybe then I would know whether it was really me he liked. I gave him a one-shouldered shrug.
"Nuh nothing."
"So what are we doing today?" He grabbed my left hand, smiling. I crumbled under the weight of that smile. Shivers of happiness rippled over my skin as he stoked my wrist with his thumb. Soothing circles that didn't calm me at all.
"I h-have things I to d-do today." I pulled my hand gently away. An ache began behind my breast bone.
"Are you giving me the brush off?" The hurt in his face is unmistakable this time.
"No. N-not…J-just busy today." My stammer was worse. My eyes began to burn and tingle. No tears, as always.
"It certainly seems like the brush off. First you never showed up last night, now you can't wait to get away from me today." Ciarán's eyes were dark and wounded. No gold at all now. “When...when we...at the brook. Did I do something yer didn’t like? I mean...” He stopped but the vulnerability of the question cut me to the bone. This was torture. I could reassure him, stand here and hold his hand and be happy but it wouldn't be real. It could never be real with the Pattern intact.
"No!” I cried, despite myself. “I ...wuh what we... I mean when you kuh...kuh... It’s n-not that. P-promise. I w-wish I kuh could explain. P-please trust m-me." Surprising myself I leaned forward and kissed his cheek. It was slightly rough with stubble. He smelled warm and musky sweet. "I'll suh see you later in the w-week." Hopefully. If none of us died when everything went nuclear.
He stared at me, bewildered and then I was walking away as fast as I could. Almost fleeing him and the temptation he offered.
It was close now. One way or another, the end was almost here.