Total pages in book: 128
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 122097 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 610(@200wpm)___ 488(@250wpm)___ 407(@300wpm)
“Oh, my God.” Collin sighs. “This is crazy.”
I pull his arm. “Don’t say anything. Let’s just keep walking.”
We don’t really have a choice, so Collin leads me up the hill and the crowd of people—who are mostly not townspeople, and therefore almost as confused as we are—simply part for us. Like we’re Moses stepping through the Red Sea.
The bells stop ringing when we’re about a hundred yards from the tent. And then the children’s choir starts up with ‘Amazing Grace.’ I sigh a little as I listen.
Collin nudges me. “Taking ya back?”
I chuckle. “We sang this song when I was in the choir.”
“I know. I used to watch you sing this song. You were right across the stage from me.”
“I used to look at you with awe.”
“And now look at us. I’ve murdered your husband and corrupted your honor.”
“Who says you corrupted my honor?”
“No one. But that’s where this is going. I can see it coming. But it’s interesting.”
“What is?”
“You didn’t object to the part where I killed your husband.”
He’s right I didn’t. Because, in a way, he did kill my husband. My future husband, which was supposed to be him. I lost him that night. But now he’s back, so I’m never gonna think about that night again.
I can’t tell him this, though. We talked it out last night. It’s over. And I’m just about to turn and say this when the choir stops and Simon starts preaching.
“There is nothing more wicked than the wayward son!” Simon is really putting on the theatrics this morning because his voice is booming, and his arms are stretched out wide, and his face is already beet red and the sermon just started. “The son who disrespects! The son who courts evil! The son who lies, and cheats, and steals for nothing more than instantaneous pleasure. Gratification is a sin!”
Less than a minute into his sermon and I’m starting to panic. Because this is the sermon that got Mr. Creed fired from the Revival.
And it’s all about Collin.
“Oh, God.” Collin looks down at me. “What the actual fuck is this shit?”
“Your… daddy’s final sermon?”
“Are you fuckin’ kidding me?” He just stares at me for a moment. Like he always knew his daddy was an asshole, especially after Collin joined the Marines, but this has taken things to a whole new level.
But actually, Collin has no idea just how much of a son of a bitch his daddy really was. There was a lot of anger in that man. This sermon was just the tip of the iceberg.
“Sons who disobey the will of their fathers will live a life of hell on earth!” Simon is practically screaming now. It’s not like him. Not like him at all. He’s a very soft-spoken man. I didn’t even know he had it in him to sound like Billy Sunday threatening us all with an eternal sentence in Hell.
We stop just short of the tent, standing at the beginning of the sawdust aisle that leads right up to the stage where our normally low-key preacher stands behind the pulpit, roaring about Satan.
Collin and I both sigh. Him because it’s a completely unfair accusation, and me because I thought we had put these dark sermons to rest nearly a decade back. If this whole season is nothing but a replay of Preacher Creed’s unhinged sermons about his son, I might have to step away until after Fourth of July.
I already lived through it once, I don’t want to do it again.
Suddenly Jameson Grimm steps into the aisle in front of us and there is a moment here. A moment when time kinda stops and scenarios start running through my head.
What is he gonna say?
What fresh hell is about to start now?
I tilt my head at Grimm and I see his eyes narrow a little. But I can’t tell if he’s narrowing them because of malice or because he’s cringing at what comes next.
And just as I have that thought, Grimm points at Collin. “There he is!” He yells this. Roars this. “That’s him! Collin Creed! The murderer!”
The audience gasps, the actors—my fellow townspeople—gasping the loudest, of course. I wonder, vaguely, if this was a cue for me to faint. Because several women in the audience actually do that now.
Then my fellow townspeople take it one step further. One step too far, actually. And they all point to Collin. And they all start chanting.
“Murderer! Murderer! Murderer!”
Then there is bedlam.
Collin has my hand, and he is tugging me away. But the chant follows us. Rosie appears screaming, “He’s hypnotized her! He’s hypnotized her!” Pointing at me.
Hypnotism was a kind of a big scare back in the Twenties. It pops up a lot in the Revival story as a red herring for the Devil. And now I’m the poor woman who had her soul captured by a murderer using hypnotism.