Shade

Chapter 5 - Mission

I forced myself to swim.

I paddled and kicked in the icy water. I reached past one bloody frozen corpse and bumped it with my shoulder. I was too scared to care. All that mattered was escaping the man on the opposite shore. Everything in my being told me to get away from him.

Before I reached the shore, my hands ran into the thin, brittle ice that had formed on the lake's edge. I met the ice with such force that it broke and gave away. My feet found footing, and as I stumbled forwards, thicker, less relenting ice sliced lines of blood into my palms. I bashed my knee, but powered through. I gripped the snow-covered dirt and finally pulled myself from the water.

I looked briefly over my shoulder, but I no longer saw the man or the glow of his lantern. I could only assume that he was after me, hidden in the trees as he ran around the lake. I prayed the trees would provide equal cover, but where would I run? I needed to reach the house, Jonas, my phone. But then, there was the question of the snow and the corpses. Where did they come from? What happened to Anke, Daniel, and Caroline?

I realized I was running without a sense or idea of direction. I was deep in the woods, stumbling over frozen pinecones. I felt out-of-body, distant, like I was watching myself. Only, I wasn't sure I was even me anymore. I was no longer in my bathing suit, but a button-up shirt and a long skirt. I was still terrified, but there were layers to my fear that went beyond my understanding.

I felt a hand on my wrist jerking me to a halt. Fingernails sank into the tender skin on the bottom of my forearm. I gasped, expecting to find the hollow black eyes of the pale-faced man. But I found instead a stern older woman. She wore a skirt and blouse similar to my own draped with a long wool cloak. Her skin was sun-damaged and leathery. She was annoyed and impatient.

"You can't be runnin' off, Molly," she scolded. "The good lord don't suffer savage idleness. And you know Father Wilkes don't either."

She pulled me hard and bade me to follow. She had done this before. It was part of our routine. I submitted, allowing her to take me. There was no use struggling against Sister Cornelia. To struggle meant a lashing from a willow branch. I had scars on my back to remind me.

She walked me to back to the mission, a humble structure of logs. I remembered my father and brother had helped build it. My sister and I collected river stones for the chimney. A log rolled over on my brother's arm. He died of infection in the spring. They wouldn't bury him because he hadn't been baptized yet, but I didn't know where they took his body.

Sister Cornelia led me to the door. It was flanked by tall torches stuck in the ground. They illuminated the shimmer of light snow falling to the earth and the large wooden cross nailed to the roof. She pulled the door open and pushed me inside.

It was hot. The stench of filth and body odor filled my nose. The whole of the mission was in attendance. Fat and blotchy Brother Silas sat by the window holding open the pelt flap to let in cool air. The ever quiet and wispy Sister Hester sat by the fire tending a cauldron. The young,  sickly Brother Felix stood at attention with a short club in his hand. Father Wilkes stood in the center of the room, a miserable old man with the glint of fire in his eyes.

My people knelt at his feet: my father, my sister, Josiah, William, and Peter. They had other names once, but I was so young when we were taken. I never learned the language of my people.

"Where'd you find this one, Sister?" said Father Wilkes.

"By the lake."

"Really?" he asked. He walked towards me, his boots squeaked against the floorboards. He reached for my chin and squeezed my jaw. He turned my face side to side harshly. "And what was she doing there? Whoring herself to the Dunham boys?"