Scott Nicholson - Ashes

"Kill them all, and let God sort them out," was one of Father's favorite slogans. I avoided him after he began wearing the mask. Most of the time, I stayed in the kitchen with Gran, the farthest room from the bathroom, where our wastes had fouled the air. We slept in the room that I had shared with Bobby.

One night I heard a tapping, a squeaking of metal and the slight crack of dry wood. I was afraid, because the sound meant change, and all change was for the worse. I prayed the night away, and somehow God spared us. The next morning, as I pressed at the wood that covered the window, anxious for a glimpse of the new sun, one of the boards fell away. Others were loose, too, enough for a person to wriggle through. I could hardly keep myself from bursting through and falling onto the green grass outside, but I was afraid soldiers might be watching.

I waited until evening to tell Gran. Her eyes misted over. When I was through describing my plan, she lowered her head.

"It's our only chance," I whispered.

"It's the Lord's will that we be punished," she said.

"Maybe it's the Lord's will that the boards are loose."

"The wicked can't flee their own wretched hearts."

"Gran, Gran," I said. "Not you, too. Why would God want to punish you?"

"No one is clean. All have come short of the glory of God."

Father gave a shout from the living room, joining in a televised cheer for the Commander-in-Chief.

"We only have enough food left for a week or so," I said. "We'll die in here."

"I'll die anyway. Here, there, what's the difference?"

Her words hung in the air like smoke from a fatal gun. She would die, sweating and shivering, writhing in the sheets, chewing her tongue as the blood poured from her ears and eyes.

God is blind to suffering. We make our prayers anyway.

"In the autumn, the mountains look like a rumpled patchwork quilt," Gran said. "Your grandfather would sit on the porch with his easel and paints. He used oils because he believed that the long drying time made him more patient, more careful."

One of his paintings hung in the living room. It was of a neglected flower garden, bright marigolds and morning glories and tulips fighting the weeds for sunshine. Grandfather had been Jewish. The Commander-in-Chief said the Jews may have brought the pestilence among the faithful. God delivered it, but the Jews spread it. Either the Jews or the Catholics. Oh, yes, and the scientists, as well. Satan's forces were legion.

"I would make him tea," Gran said. "Hot tea. He would blow on top of the cup until it was cool enough to drink. I can still see the funny face he made when he blew, his eyebrows scrunched down and his lips curled."

"Did Father want to be a painter, too?"

"No, but he liked tea," she said. She coughed, and a fleck of blood appeared in the corner of her mouth. "You look a lot like him, you know. When he was your age, I mean."

I couldn't believe my father had ever been my age. "When did he join the Church?"

"When he was your age."

"Is that why you joined?"

She blinked. "I just…joined. Like we were supposed to."

A new sore was erupting, above her right eyebrow. I dabbed at it with the towel. She weakly pushed my hand away.

"In the mountains, you can touch the clouds," she said. "You're closer to God there. Even the rain is sweet. Your father used to catch it on his tongue."

"Thou hast given them blood to drink, for they are worthy," I said, repeating one of Father's slogans.

"Why hasn't the Penance moved into you?" Gran asked.

Who can know the workings of the Almighty? I shrugged. "By the grace of God," I said. "Though I am wicked and surely deserve the Penance as much as anyone."

She seemed satisfied with this, and let her chin droop against her chest.

I stood and went to the refrigerator. I wasn't hungry. I thought of the mountains, of exodus, of flights from persecution. I closed my eyes, shamed by my cowardice and doubt.

Father turned up the volume on the Web screen. The Commander-in-Chief was raving, his voice like thunder, saying "And I heard a great voice out of the temple, saying to the seven angels, 'Go, and pour out the seven vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.'"

I remembered the time I was twelve and Bobby, then six, got a goldfish for his birthday. One morning the fish had floated to the top of the glass bowl, belly-up, lips sucking for life, gills undulating weakly. I took it from the bowl and flushed it down the toilet. When Bobby came in the room, I told him the goldfish had crawled to the river during the night. Heading for bigger water.

I wondered which sin I would pay for, the lie or the killing of a fish.

I turned to face Gran. "I'm sorry for talking about it," I said.

She merely nodded, too weak to argue.

"It's a test of faith," I continued. "I suffered a moment of weakness. I promise to be strong."

"Don't make promises to me," she said. "Make them to the One that matters."

"Please don't tell Father," I said, clasping her hand.

She pursed her pale lips. Father came through the curtain. The sound from the Web screen filled the kitchen as he held the curtain open. The army was singing a hymn. Even though I couldn't see his mouth, I knew Father was moving his lips to the rhythm. His eyes were moist, fogging his goggles.

"Sing," he shouted, the mask vibrating from the force of his voice. "Sing that we may find salvation."

Gran joined in with her thin and sweet alto. "…I once was lost, but now I'm found, was blind…"

I added my voice to the multitudes. "…but now I see."

Father removed his mask, his face wet with tears. The candle's flame bobbed and swayed with our breathing. Beautiful music flooded the house, overpowering the silence of corpses and drowning out the rumble of the army truck rolling down the street. We soared into the second verse, a family united, a nation united, all under God. Father rubbed at his cheek. The first reddening had appeared there, the sores a day or two away.

We sang the hymn, and half a dozen more. Father went back to the Web screen and his Bible, the bottle of wine open on the table beside him. Gran hobbled down the hall to pray over the two bodies, then I heard the door close as she went to bed. I filled my pockets with canned meat, cheese, and crackers.

That night we went through the window. As I pushed the boards away, I wondered if a saint could come disguised as a soldier or if an angel might carry a claw hammer. The Lord worked in mysterious ways.

Gran may have heard the noise, may have been awake in the darkness mouthing her prayers. But she said nothing. Or perhaps she was already dead, growing stiff as her fluids leaked into the mattress.

Bobby was heavy, but no heavier than a wooden cross. He would slow me down, make me an easier target for the soldiers. But my blood is certainly no more precious than that of Him who had gone before.

I headed north, toward the mountains. Sinners have little to lose. We can't run from the Penance. But the sinless surely deserve to rest in peace. Bobby will sleep in a blue heaven, where the dust of his flesh shall mingle with the clouds.

And this I pray.

The sun raised a sleepy eye over the north Georgia hills. Short-leafed pines shivered here and there in the breeze, surrounded by the black bones of oak. Ground mist rose and waltzed away from the light. A stream cut a silver gash in the belly of the valley on its way to the Chattahoochee, the only thing in a hurry on the late-autumn morning. Inside a warped barn, the scarecrow boy rose from its dreams of brown fields and barbwire.

Jerp rubbed his eyes to wipe away the glare of dawn as he walked with his grandpa to the barn. The grass crunched under his boots and his breath painted the thick vapor in the air. A banty rooster bugled a reveille. Wrens fluttered from under the tin eaves of the barn, on their way to scratch earthworms from the hard ground. The sky was ribbed with clouds, a thin threat of snow.