I lost my guitar a second time. One morning, the sound of The Reverend’s truck departing woke me and by the time I reached the window, the taillights were disappearing in the early darkness. The first thing I did was check under the bed. The guitar was gone. I decided my father took it to sell somewhere, or perhaps just smashed it against some railroad ties to keep me away from the danger of girls like Angela Carver. Either way, I tried to make my peace with the loss.
I didn’t cry over the guitar. Part of me wanted to, but my mind was too pleased by dreams of Angela. She’d been filling my sleep, playing inside a dream so real I expected to wake and find her singing at the foot of the bed. I’d never felt that way about a girl before. Even the infatuation for Annabel Freemont was abandoned in a new sort of devotion. I only wept when I realized we’d never play together again.
The saddest part about tragedy is how the world continues despite it. Outside, the woods were still waking. Nocturnal animals moved home through the brush. Birds sang out from the high branches. Frogs croaked from the distant creek. Everything in nature reminded me of the insignificance of my pain. Up at the church, a glow emitted through the spaces in the logs. It seemed impossible that The Reverend would leave a burning candle unsupervised. While I was trying to figure out who might be inside, the light vanished as something eclipsed the source. I knew my father would punish me for violating the sanctuary, but he’d kill me if I let it burn.
The church door’s rusted hinges creaked as I let myself inside. A single candle melted down into a pool on the altar. Lady Crawford lay curled in the corner. She’d constructed a small pallet out of straw and piled a few quilts atop her body to stave off any chill. A tin bucket of wash water rested near her, another one empty and awaiting the needs of a full bladder. I considered turning for the door, but she let out a moan. I tried to silence my breathing. I’d never been alone in the presence of the witch and worried that if I startled her, an unspeakable retaliation would occur. Some backwoods magic employed to twist me further, or perhaps she would simply drop me down the well, fabricate some story about my disappearance.
The candle gutted out. In the new darkness, Lady Crawford turned and opened her eyes. She sat forward, pushed the layers of blankets away until I saw her legs dirty and white as bones wild dogs might scavenge. The puckered flesh of her knees resembled the faces of mournful infants, but her calves and thighs were firm. Her long hair was still silken, skin still unmarked by splotches or freckles.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
“I saw the light. From the candle.”
Lady Crawford stood to her full height. Her body was straight despite cheekbones hollowed out by a harsh life, but I noticed for the first time that her hips were full and her breasts plump in the loose garment of her dress. I blamed Angela for that new awareness. Never before would I have considered Lady Crawford anything but terrifying, but that morning I could see a bit of the beauty my father must have unearthed when he looked at her.
“Do you sleep here every night?” I asked.
Lady Crawford dipped her hands into the wash water, rubbed a damp finger across her cracked lips.
“Some nights,” she said. “I come to pray and if sleep takes me, then I sleep.”
The bed was too worn, the buckets too premeditated. I knew she’d been in the church every night but needed to keep it private.
“Your father tells me the Lord has given you some gifts.”
It surprised me to be a topic of conversation. I wondered what my father said about me when he was with this woman. Had she tried to talk him into letting me keep the guitar? Did I have an advocate, or was she just someone my father could unburden himself to?
“I suppose,” I said.
Lady Crawford shook her head. “Don’t suppose. The Lord has his mercies. Did you think he would bestow you such a poor hand in life? You may not have your body, but he has given you something else. Something to enrich the souls of others. This is a precious thing.”
I remember thinking if God wanted to bestow something on me, he could give me the right words to impress Angela. No music would accomplish that.
Lady Crawford laid a palm atop my head. She cupped the circumference of my skull until her fingers felt like a massive spider nested in my hair.
“The Lord has great plans for you,” she said. “You will lift up our congregation.”
She released me, took up both buckets and stepped to the back of the church.
I crossed the field feeling as if the fingers still gripped me. The sensation lingered so long, I traveled to the creek and dunked my head in the water.
My father arrived hours later with Mr. Freemont’s guitar. It was restrung and outfitted with a strap that wouldn’t fit my body when I tried it on later. The Reverend waved me over, bent low in the tall grass so that he’d be eye level with me. The guitar strings glinted in the sun, throwing shafts of light out from the sound hole instead of music.
“You’ve finally been rewarded. We will not squander this.”
The Reverend placed the instrument in my hands. An almost subliminal connection existed between us in that moment. Even though he didn’t say it, I knew what he meant. Any easy break, unchecked avenue or con had to be exploited by men like me. The guitar was my only chance.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Thank the Lord,” The Reverend said.
He gave me a brown paper bag with two books inside. Guitar Method for Beginners and The Gospel Guitar Book. I cracked them open, looked at the lines that tracked across the page. It was covered with numbers, the top of the page full of elaborate grids that were labeled by letters.
“The man called it ‘tablature,’” The Reverend said. “The book explains it all.”
Living out in the woods, I was lucky to be able to read and perform simple arithmetic. The Reverend’s schooling never went further than Bible lessons. I knew I’d never figure it out.
“Angela told me she gives lessons after school,” I said. The mention of her was dangerous, but I couldn’t resist the chance to see her again.
“You will understand it if God wills it to be so. You will practice every day.”
My father plucked a string. A simple, plain sound that concluded the conversation.
I wish the memory ended there, but it doesn’t. Later that night, I sneaked to the church. I kept my feet bare to better suit prowling, and every sharp rock in the field impaled their soles until I regretted the decision. At the time, I wasn’t sure why I needed to spy. Now I know I needed a chance to hear what my father said about the guitar.
I heard them before I reached the church. Soft grunts and moans, the hot exhalation of ragged breaths. I bent lower as I approached, rounded the side of the church to the usual spot and placed my ear to the wall. Their fucking was amplified through the wood until I thought I could hear Lady Crawford’s nails raking my father’s back. Her teeth taking small mounds of the man’s flesh in tender bites that made his breath catch. I found a small gap between the logs and peered inside.
The darkness hid most of their bodies in shadows, a tangle of arms and legs like a single monstrous insect. My father kissed Lady Crawford’s mouth and traveled down her body with his tongue before mounting her from behind. I watched their bodies crash into each other. Flabby flesh rippling in spastic motions. I remember thinking I’d never possess a woman like that. Whether lust or love, I knew my body would be too mangled to merge with another.
“He came in here this morning,” Lady Crawford said afterward as my father held her. “He caught me sleeping.”
“It’ll be fine.” My father rubbed her arm to reassure her. “I brought the guitar back. That will keep him occupied.”
I blinked dirt from my eye. I needed to see every moment. This was the true man under the parson’s shroud. A man who handed out distractions to continue feeding his own vices. In a way, it was a relief. I preferred to think of him as a hypocrite instead of a zealot.
“Maybe,” Lady Crawford said. Her long hair entangled my father’s wrist as he stroked her cheek. The Reverend looked shackled by soft manacles. “I’m just afraid the congregation will find out.”
The Reverend shook his head. “We’ll be fine. Let’s just enjoy the night.”
“Is he any good?” Lady Crawford asked.
My father scoffed. “He can play a few tunes. It’s a miracle the boy can do anything. Or maybe it’s a tragedy. The Lord does in fact work in mysterious ways.”
I traveled across the field, bare feet no longer harmed by cold ground or brittle rocks. By the time I reached the camper, a sort of scab had formed inside me. Over the years, I’ve picked it into a scar, created an internal armor against all insurgents.