Free Cursed Be the Child by Mort Castle Page B

a paleness to their faces that was not caused by the sickness or fear known by living children, but the chavo had always been glowing with health and he’d seldom known fear, so he could not understand. Indeed, there was much about them that was mulano, ghostly, but the chavo recognized none of it.
    “He did not know these were not living children, not juvindo , but detlene ; they were the spirits of dead children.
    “Then all together the detlene held out their hands. And then all together, they spoke. ‘Help us! Share with us! Be generous! Be kind! Help us!’
    “The chavo laughed. These children had come to beg, mong, from him, as he himself had often begged from others!
    “Though he was not old enough to be wise, the chavo had a good heart. He said, ‘I have money I will share with you.’
    “All together, the detlene replied, ‘We have no need for money.’
    “The chavo said, ‘I have water I will share with you.’
    “All together, the detlene replied, ‘We have no need for water.’
    “The chavo said, ‘I have food I will share with you.’
    “All together, the detlene replied, ‘We have no need for food.’
    “The chavo said, ‘I have toys I will share with you.’
    “All together, the detlene replied, ‘We have no need for toys.’
    “‘I am sorry, then,’ said the chavo . ‘There is nothing I can give you. There is nothing I can do for you. When I came into the woods, I took with me money, food, water, and toys, that is all. I have nothing else.’
    “All together, the detlene replied, ‘Yes, you do. There is something else.’
    “‘What is it that I have?” asked the chavo, ‘that I can share with you? What is it that you want? What do I have that you need?’
    “All together, the detlene replied, ‘You have life. That is what you can give to us. That is what we need.’”
     
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Eleven
     
    With only a touch of make-up, in a yellow dress and hat that had been chain department store fashionable a few seasons earlier, there was nothing to distinguish Emerald Farmer from other worshippers in True Witness Church. She’d not spoken to anyone, but her slight New York accent would not have attracted undue attention. True Witness Church had known visitors from all across the United States, indeed, from the entire world. They’d come with afflictions of mind, body, and soul to Mt. Franklin, Alabama, to Reverend Evan Kyle Dean’s home church, so that Reverend Dean might cast out foul spirits of sickness and torment, make them healed and whole, and grant them a miracle.
    There hadn’t been many outsiders recently, because it had been nearly a year since Evan Kyle Dean had conducted a healing service. He had not been on a crusade for two years and, for the past three months, even his television program, Witness to Wonder, was in reruns. Yet every Sunday, he preached at True Witness.
    Though Emerald Farmer had an incurable, fatal disease, she had not come to True Witness this Sunday to ask for healing. She already thought of herself as dead, dead like Randy, the man she had loved. She had no interest in hearing Dean preach what he called the “Word of God.” If there were a God, and He allowed phony bastards like Evan Kyle Dean to speak for Him, then He was either a cruel monster or a damned fool.
    Just as she had the previous two Sundays, Emerald Farmer had come to church today simply to look at Dean, to let the actuality of his existence feed her hatred so that when the time came she would not falter. She would kill him.
    And when her brain issued the command, “Yes! Now!” she was ready. There was the gun in her purse. But that wasn’t how she’d planned it, nor the way she wanted it. She needed to talk to him and tell him why he was going to die. What would the sanctimonious bullshit artist look like when he knew God wasn’t going to miraculously turn a Colt .38 into a plowshare, when he realized it was the dust to dust route, that dead was dead and that was