Edgewise Read Free

smelled strongly of cigarettes and onions and something aromatic, like creosote. “The children is the reason we’re here.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYou won custody, didn’t you? You got to take sole care of them. But taking care of children—that’s a very burdensome responsibility. You need to be moral, don’t you, and set a good example. You need to be a shining light. No drinking, no cursing, no bad-mouthing your former partner, and no indiscriminate fornication with guys who ain’t fit to wipe your former partner’s rear end.”
    Lily stared back at him, horrified. “Did
Jeff
send you? Is that it?”
    â€œYou don’t need to know nothing more, Mrs. Blake, except that you’re getting what you justly deserve.”
    Lily screamed at him and threw herself wildly from side to side, trying to break free. She was so frightened and so furious that she felt as if she were going insane.
    â€œLet me go! Let me go, you bastards! Let me go!
Let me go!
”
    But the figure with the demon’s horns swung his arm back and slapped her across the face, so hard that it made her ears sing. She stopped struggling at once and dropped her head down. She could feel the side of her mouth swelling up and her left eye closing.
    â€œDon’t struggle,” the figure admonished her. “There ain’t no future in struggling.”
    â€œThere ain’t no future at all,” said the other figure, speaking for the first time, and then giggling.
    Between them, the two figures half-dragged and half-carried Lily into the kitchen. Behind the frosted-glass door that led to the utility room, Sergeant appeared, and stood there blackly and silently, watching their distorted images as they made their way around the island. He whined in the back of his throat but still he didn’t bark.
    The figure with the demon’s horns stood over Lily and said, “I want you to know that this is a sacred duty and there ain’t nothing personal in it. Like, I don’t want you coming back to haunt me.”
    Lily said nothing. Her mouth was too swollen and she felt too numb.
    The figure hesitated a moment longer, and then said, “Look at you. You look like a witch, in that nightgown, all ready to make her peace with God.” Lily was trembling with shock. The other figure, who was gripping her arms, let out another giggle, and then a snort.
    The figure with the demon’s horns dragged over one of the wheelback kitchen chairs, and pushed Lily back until she was forced to sit down in it. Out of his pocket he produced a coil of washing-line cord, and lashed up her arms and her waist and her ankles, knotting the cord so tightly that it cut into her skin.
    â€œYou won’t hurt my children, will you?” Lily managed to ask him, in a bruise-muffled voice.
    â€œDo I look like somebody who would hurt a child?” the figure asked her. “There’s a whole lot of difference between divine retribution and unnatural cruelty, believe me.”
    â€œJust don’t hurt my children—or, by God, I
will
come back and haunt you, I swear. I will haunt you day and night for the rest of your miserable, worthless life.”
    The figure said nothing but walked across the kitchen to the refrigerator and lifted out a gallon-sized container of spring water. He came back, unscrewing the cap.
    â€œDo you know why witchfinders used to dunk witches in water?” he asked. “There was three reasons. One, to make them confess to their liaisons with Satan. The second, to see if they floated, or sank. If they floated, then God’s own water refused to take them to its bosom, and their guilt was manifestly proven. But the third reason was to soak their clothes, so that when they were burned, they burned more slowly, and suffered the pain of their punishment for a whole lot longer than they would have done if they had been burned dry.”
    â€œWhat?”
said Lily.