The Unmaking of June Farrow(91)

For a moment, I’m not sure if I can read the tone in his voice. But that look on his face doesn’t change. He knows. We’ve danced around it many times before, but he knows who I am.

“You are a seed planted by my own sin. An abomination. The both of you.”

I look to the trees up the slope. We’re closer to the flower farm than we are to home, and we’ve walked that shortcut through the fields countless times. Annie could find her way back to the house, I tell myself. She knows not to go down to the water without me. She’d stay on the path until she saw the lights of Esther’s porch.

“Annie, go back to the farm,” I say, trying to push her toward the trees.

But she doesn’t move.

“He sent Susanna to torment me,” Nathaniel continues. “The devil knew that I was weak.”

Again, I nudge her. “Go, baby.”

But she’s watching him, transfixed, a single blade of grass clutched in her little fist.

“I knew there was something evil about your mother the first time I saw her. In my pride, I thought I could overcome it.”

His feet come down the bank, half sliding toward me, and before I know what he’s doing, his hands are gripping my shoulders tight.

I gasp, my eyes going wide.

Fingers twist into the fabric of my white dress, and I stumble backward, trying to keep my balance. “Annie! Run!”

She finally does, her dress like a flame in the twilight. I see it disappear in the brush a second later.

“I loved her.” Nathaniel is crying now, his face contorted. He shakes me, hard. “I loved her more than I loved God. And that is the worst kind of sin.”

He shoves me back with so much force that I crash into the shallows behind me. Rocks scrape down my back, and the current pulls my weight, but I grasp for a hold on the bank. He’s on me a second later, yanking me back up.

“There’s no way to clean that stain.” The words twist. “I tried. I tried to clean it.”

A sharp pain lances the nape of my neck, and I realize he has my hair in his fist. “Please!” I sob. “Stop!”

Nathaniel’s eyes clear for only a moment before he goes still. His grip on me is like a vice as he looks down into my face.

“I took her down to the river and I held her under the water until she stopped screaming,” he whispers.

Another cry breaks inside of me. “Please.”

“And then I buried her under the oak tree.” He sniffs. “But God’s punishment isn’t over for me yet. It can’t be until I put it right.”

I claw at his hands, tear at his shirt.

“It’s all right,” he says, gently, looking into my eyes. “I baptize you, June Rutherford.” He plunges me down beneath the surface and the sunset disappears, replaced by rushing water. My feet slip out from under me, and then he pulls me up again. I scream, choking.

“In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy—”

He shoves me back down, and I scratch at his arms, the outline of him a wavering black blot above me. I kick, but I can’t get my footing. I thrash, but his grip is too tight. His weight presses down on top of me harder. He pins me there, and over the roar of the water, I think I can hear him sobbing.

I understand now what is happening. I’m going to die.

Another scream is trapped in my chest and bubbles race from my mouth as I let go of him, hands desperately searching for something, anything to grab hold of. I find it when the pain in my lungs feels like it’s going to explode. The black pushes in around my vision, my legs going numb.

I wrap my fingers around the shape, and with every last bit of strength inside of me, I wrench my arm through the water, swinging it in an arc until it breaks the surface and collides with his temple.

Nathaniel’s hands suddenly loosen. He stumbles back, and I feel myself floating, the current pulling me from him.

I come up with a painful gasp and I’m gagging, hunched over with the rock still clutched to my chest.

Nathaniel makes a sound, and I blink furiously, the river water blurring my vision, to see him still standing. He has one hand pressed to his bleeding head. Something escapes his lips, and then he’s lunging toward me.

I watch as he stumbles, falling to his knees, and my body feels so heavy that I’m sure I’m going to faint. I’m sure that at any minute, everything will go black.

I heave, raising the rock over my head with both hands. And when I bring it down, it’s with a horrifying sound that tears from my throat. I hit him again. And again. I hit him even after I realize he’s not moving. It’s not until the rock slips from my blood-soaked fingers that I fall to the bank.

I’m flat on my back, and when my head rolls to the side, I see him looking at me. But there’s no life left in those empty eyes. I don’t have to check to know that he’s dead.

A snap in the trees makes me scramble back to my hands and knees, and when I look up, I see that little white flame.

Annie is standing on the path, watching. She blinks once. Then again.

Only then does it come to me, what I’ve just done. At my feet, Nathaniel Rutherford lies motionless, the water parting around his body in the shallows. His blood is everywhere. My hands, my arms, my dress. It’s spattered like paint on the rocks.

I scoot away from it, suddenly sick, and I vomit on the shore, my hair tangled and plastered to my face. I’ve barely finished when I get back to my feet and climb the slope. Then I’m picking Annie up, and I run.