Preacher was taking confession behind the village outhouse. As the wind sliced through the weathered boards, bringing a blast of the stench from within, he reflected that this might not be the place to conduct such a holy endeavor.
He also reflected that it was rather a fitting choice, given the astounding inappropriateness of the entire situation. He was as suited to the position as the location was to the task.
He’d come to Chestnut Hill to teach, along with his wife, Sophia. They’d been doing so in Toronto together, and when this offer came, Sophia begged him to consider it. They’d been wed six years, and she’d had yet to conceive, a situation that bothered her far more than it did him. She’d begun to wonder if it was the noisy and noisome city affecting her health. The job in Chestnut Hill seemed the best way to test such a theory. Preacher didn’t care much where they lived, as long as she was happy, and off they went.
They’d arrived in Chestnut Hill to find the local priest had been taken by the same influenza as the schoolteacher. So the council had made a decision. Two teachers was a luxury, one they were willing to bestow on their beloved children, but it seemed equally important that they be reared as proper Christians. Sophia would teach and her husband would take the priest’s place.
Preacher had argued most strenuously against this arrangement. He was not a man of the cloth. That was all right, the council had replied—they’d never really wanted a papist anyhow and the good father had simply been the only man who’d take the position. Preacher could obviously read the Bible. That was enough.
It was not enough. He knew that, felt the deception in his gut every day. He was not a God-fearing man. He wasn’t even a God-loving man. Sophia was the churchgoer, though he’d attended when he could, to please her. She’d offered to take the position instead, but the council had been aghast at the suggestion. Men taught the word of God. Even, it seemed, wholly unsuitable men.
So, from that moment on, he was Preacher. Despite his best efforts to retain his name, only Sophia called him Benjamin. To everyone else, he was Preacher. The false prophet of God.
Now he sat straddling a wooden bench, his back to old Millie Prior, listening to a litany of offenses too trivial to be called sins, as he tried not to inhale the stench of the outhouse. As for why he held confession here, it was the village’s decision—not a commentary on his ability but based, like all their choices, on simple convenience and expediency. Even if it was a papist custom, the people still expected confession, and the outhouse was discreetly removed from the village, used only when folk were out and about and couldn’t get home to utilize their own facilities. It had a bench, in case people had to wait their turn during a festival or such. It made sense, then, to have the priest—and now the preacher—hold confession there.
As he listened to Millie admit to envying her sister-in-law’s new dress, a commotion sounded in the woods behind him. When he saw who it was, he had to blink, certain his vision was impaired. His foster daughter never made a noise, and here she was, barreling toward him like a charging bull, dead leaves and branches cracking underfoot.
“Preacher!” Addie said, stumbling forward. “There’s men—”
As Millie glared over, Preacher said, “I’m sorry, child. I’m hearing confession. You’ll need to leave.” Then, behind Millie’s back, he motioned for Addie to simply step to the side and pantomime the news, which she did, mouthing that she’d seen missionaries heading to town as he gave Millie two Hail Marys and absolved her of her sins.
“But I’m not done, Preacher,” Millie said. “I still—”
“We ought not to take up too much of the Lord’s time, Miz Prior. If you need to unburden yourself of more, we can do it at your next confession.”
She grumbled, but there was no rancor in it. Everyone knew God was a busy man—she simply thought she deserved more of his time than others. Once she was gone, Preacher strode over to Addie. She was obviously agitated, but he knew better than to offer any of the usual parental comforts, like a hug or even a squeeze on the hand.
When he was a boy, he’d found a dog half-dead in an alley and though he’d nursed it back to health, it was never quite right, always wary, always expecting the worst. His mother said someone had beaten it when it was a pup, and he ought to do his best to be kind to it, but he ought never to expect too much. It would always cower at a raised hand, anticipating a beating, no matter how often it got a pat on the head. Addie never cowered, but she had that same look in her eyes, always wary, always expecting the worst.
“Missionaries, you said?” he whispered as he walked over to her, hiding in the forest until Millie was gone.
“Two men. I don’t like the looks of them.”
“Indigent?” he said. When she seemed confused, he said, “Vagrants?”
“No, they were dressed as fine men. I just . . . I didn’t like their looks. They said they were coming to help us. After . . . what happened.”
Preacher sucked in breath. “Snake-oil salesmen.”
“Yes!” Addie said. “That’s what they put me in mind of. Peddlers. We had some a few years back, when they were thinking of putting the railroad through here. They sold my ma a cream that was supposed to make her look young again and it didn’t work and my pa got so mad at her for wasting the money . . .” She trailed off, her gaze sliding to the side. “It wasn’t good.”
No, Preacher was certain it wasn’t. Not much had been “good” in Addie’s young life. Sometimes, the wilderness did things to people, especially those like her folks who stayed out there, away from the villages. People weren’t supposed to live like that. It was as if the forest got into their blood, leached out the humanity. He’d been there, when they’d found Addie’s parents. You’d have thought a wild creature broke in. That’s what they told Addie anyway. Whether she believed it . . .
Preacher looked down at his foster daughter, holding herself tight as she peered into the forest, watching for trouble. No, he hoped she’d believed them, but he doubted it.
“I’ll go warn the mayor,” he said. “No one needs the kind of comfort they’re selling. Perhaps we can stop them before they reach the village. Can you run home and tell Sophia? She might hear a commotion, and she ought to stay inside and rest.”
“Is she still feeling poorly?”
He nodded. “But if anyone asks, she’s busy writing lessons for when school starts again.”
Addie gave him a look well beyond her years. “I know not to tell anyone she’s unwell, Preacher.”
He apologized and sent her off, watching her go, bow bobbing on her thin back. Their house was across town; it was quicker cutting through the village, but she always took the forest. Once she disappeared, he headed into town.
Sophia was indeed unwell, yet it was no grave cause for concern. Celebration, actually. After three years in Chestnut Hill, her dream had been realized. She was with child. And it could not have come at a worse time.
Preacher strode toward the community hall. That’s where the mayor and his wife would be. Where he ought to have been, even though it wasn’t Sunday. For the past month, he’d spent more time in the hall—which doubled as the church—than he had at home. Tending to the living. Tending to the dead.
So many dead.
These days, the only villager as busy as Preacher was the carpenter, building coffins. Tiny coffins, lined up in the community hall like props for some macabre play—a tragedy unlike anything the Bard himself would have dared put to paper.
Thirty-six dead in a month. One-third of the entire village. Eight elderly men and women had passed, but the rest were children. In September, twenty-four children had trooped back to Sophia’s class for the year. When they reopened the school, she’d have six. And there would be no little ones starting for years after that. No child below the age of five had survived.
Diphtheria. Not that anyone other than Preacher and Sophia used the word. Here, it was simply “the sickness,” as if there were no other that mattered.
What had Chestnut Hill done to deserve this? How had they offended God?
They had not. Preacher knew that. He’d gone to university. He knew about Louis Pasteur and the role bacteria played in disease. That was why Sophia had disbanded school as soon as they realized it wasn’t merely children’s coughs and colds. That was why they had urged the town to quarantine the sick. They had not listened, of course. Everyone knew the way to treat ailments of the chest was with hot tea, a little whiskey, and plenty of prayer.
Except that God was not listening, and the more their preacher insisted that this tragedy was not a punishment from on high, the more they became convinced that Preacher himself had done something wrong. Displeased the Lord. Failed to make some proper . . . Well, they weren’t sure what—only heathens offered sacrifices, but they were convinced he’d failed to do something.
Or perhaps he had done something . . . for his foster daughter. Addie had lived, hadn’t she? Preacher could point out that Addie had been on one of her hunting trips when the diphtheria broke out, and as soon as she returned, they’d sent her back into the woods with supplies, to stay another week. Also, she was twelve, past the age of most victims. It didn’t matter. The preacher’s daughter had lived where their children had perished. And now his wife was pregnant? That would only seal the matter, which was why Preacher and Sophia had agreed to not breathe a word of it until they had to, hopefully months from now.
“Preacher?” a voice called as he stepped into the village lane. “Where are you off to in such a hurry?”
He turned. It was Mayor Browning, helping his wife into the community hall, where their son lay in one of those small coffins, the last victim of the outbreak.
“May I speak with you?” Preacher said. “I know it couldn’t be a worse possible time but—”
A commotion sounded at the end of the road. Someone calling a welcome. Someone else ringing a bell, telling the town that visitors had arrived, an occurrence rare enough to bring everyone out, no matter how dark the mood.
He was too late. The strangers had arrived.