The pain he’d felt when he’d nearly lost Laurie clawed to the surface of his mind. Part of healing was understanding and accepting his memories of what happened after, were tainted by a young, human mind, and then twisted by survival.
Decker would never know who his parents were, for sure, unless he found them.
Taking the letter, he carefully opened it with the knife at his side, and began to read the Bishop’s tight, messy writing. He read itagain and again until his eyes started to blur and he handed it to Laurie. “He found them.”
“He found them?” Laurie seemed to hover on the edge of celebration and quiet acceptance, waiting for him to choose as he read the letter for himself.
“He found them,” Decker said again, thoughtfully. Bishop Fontaine heard of a young Indian couple finding refuge in the Dolomites, last seen five years ago—he said there was no guarantee it was them, but connections in Europe flourished into a spiderweb of safe houses and information.
It was a place to start.
Apprehension wormed into Decker and he grasped at flimsy excuses. “What about your chapel?”
“It’s just a building, Decker. Sister Inez can manage. We won’t be gone forever.” Laurie put the letter to the side. “Let’s do something for us. We’ll head East, pack barrels of Whitton’s blood, buy ourselves two of the biggest rooms on the biggest ship, but only use one of them, and find them.”
Decker wanted to believe him.
Time had chipped away at his dull anger and replaced it with forgiveness. Maybe Amma and Abba would forgive him too.
He missed them.
Laurie’s fingers interlaced with his own and pulled him closer, tenderly brushing over each knuckle. “I promise—” he faltered, and Decker waited for him to say it.
Say my name, Laurie. Be the first since I’ve been reborn to say it.
“I promise we will find them together, Devdutt Basu,” Laurie whispered.
A warm glow settled inDecker’s chest.
Gift of God. If we find you, Laurie will say you named me right.
Decker’s lips still twitched despite himself.
Laurie’s shoulders fell. “I said it wrong, didn’t I?”
He cracked a grin. “You did fine.”
“Decker—”
“I like it when you say my name, preacher. Call me by my name again,” Decker said softly, pulling Laurie in and kissing him until they both forgot about letters and whiskey and anything else that should have mattered.
They’ll love you, my sweet Laurie.
TheLoose Goosebid goodnight to her patrons, Lee wandering back to their livery arm-in-arm with Miss McKinney as she grumbled about being swindled, the Gibson kids swinging onto their horses and betting on who would make it home faster, and Nora waving goodbye to Lucy, who didn’t even nip at the little washergirl’s fingers. The humans parted ways. Out-of-towners headed to the hotel, painted a deep green by the Castillo family.
Sister Inez had healed. Her habit covered the scarred, rounded end of her arm, but it couldn’t conceal the cloud of confusion when Laurie knocked on the parsonage door, asking her to give him permission to enter the chapel, or the concentrated pull of her stern face when she read Safine and Willa’s letters, as if she couldn’t decipher the wordsmagic, orspell.
Once she’d written to her family to tell them of Ender’s Ridge, they moved into the hotel, bringing her bloodthirsty, bright-eyed sister with them—her dark eyes dimmed when her family couldn’t recognize all of her, and Decker hoped Safine and Willa would return soon.
Miss Castillo was the first of many new creatures to settle here.
Decker sent the pack of Gibson kids—all ten of them—across the territory with enchanted posters that they tacked to pine trees, wedged in forgotten caves, tucked into barn doors, all spreading the word of a safe house. Ender’s Ridge grew, the Calling buried deep inside all wild hearts for the surrounding hundred miles.
A few weeks after the Blessing was restored, Three Hawks thundered in at the head of a scouting party, sweat-soaked and exhausted, and told Safine in quick motions of his hands that the soldiers were on their tail. By the time the cavalry reached the town’s outskirts, they milled about until they turned back towards their outpost and left Safine and Three Hawks alone to mend the wounds from their skirmish in the safety of the Blessing.
After Decker fumbled through the hand talk signs to tell them all they weren’t in danger here, and Three Hawks patiently agreed, they set up camp in the river bend and kept to themselves like they always had. Their winter count—a carefully recorded history passed down through generations—had warned them away from the town since its bloody conception.
But Ender’s Ridge demanded trust and community, and soon Three Hawks was a familiar face, striking his own bargains at the mercantile and preparing his makeshift camp for the next influx of exhausted Lakota to rest in the place that had once been their secret.