Four Summoners Tales Part 9

Below was Charlie's coffin. Still closed. Eleazar knelt beside it. Addie couldn't see the old man-Rene. He must have stayed inside, where it was warm.

Mayor Browning stood at the foot of the coffin. Dobbs and Doc Adams flanked him. All three stared at the coffin as if mesmerized. The other spectators milled about, peering over and then whispering to themselves, as if wondering what the fuss was about. They hadn't been told. Good. If people knew, they'd all come running and they'd crowd around and Addie wouldn't see the miracle. Wouldn't see Charlie rise.

If she listened closely, she could hear Eleazar talking. She couldn't understand what he was saying, though. It wasn't English.

Because Christ didn't speak English. That's what Sophia told her when she'd asked why the Bibles were translated. Jesus spoke another language and so did the people who wrote the Bible. Hearing Eleazar speaking in a foreign tongue only proved he was no fraud.

He finished the words, and then he reached for the coffin lid. Addie held her breath, her heart beating so hard it hurt.

What if Preacher and Sophia were right?

When were they ever wrong? When had they been cruel to her? Misled her?

"No," she breathed. "They are wrong.They must be."

As Eleazar opened the wooden lid, Addie squeezed her eyes shut, prayed as hard as she could.

Please, G.o.d, let him live. I know you didn't listen before. I know why-

Addie's heart clenched, and she couldn't hold her breath any longer, panting for air as pain filled her.

I know why you didn't listen. I was evil. I was wicked. I . . . I . . .

She couldn't even form the words in her head.What she had done.The sin for which G.o.d had punished her.

I deserve that punishment. But Charlie doesn't. Please let him come back.

She heard a gasp from below and her eyes flew open. He's alive. He's really . . .

Addie stared down. Charlie's coffin was almost exactly under her perch, and when she opened her eyes, she saw his face. His pale, dead face. His sunken, closed eyelids.

No, he is alive.That's why they gasped.

Only it wasn't. She looked at the faces of the villagers, the women shrinking back, and she knew the sound came from them, a simple reaction to seeing the poor dead boy. She had but to see Mayor Browning's expressionless face to know Charlie did not live.

Yet the mayor's face was expressionless. It did not crumple with grief and disappointment. He stood there, resolute.Waiting.

Eleazar bent over the coffin. He lifted his fingers to Charlie's face and traced them over his pale forehead. When he pulled them back, there were three red lines left there.

"Is that blood?" someone whispered.

"Of course not," another hissed back.

Eleazar spoke again, in that foreign tongue, touching his fingertips to Charlie's eyelids, his nostrils, and then his lips. When he reached the lips, he held his fingers there, his head bent, words flowing faster until . . .

Eleazar stopped abruptly, as if in midsentence. His head jerked up. His fingers pulled back and . . .

Charlie's lips parted. Or they seemed to, opening so little that Addie was certain she'd blinked, certain she was seeing wrong, that his lips had been like that already or were moved by the man's fingers.

Yes, moved by the man's fingers. A trick. Isn't that what Sophia warned of? Charlie's lips moved by chicanery and-

His eyes opened. Addie stopped breathing.

Trick. It's a trick.

Charlie sat up and looked about. His gaze lit on Mayor Browning and he smiled, and Addie knew there was no trick.

Charlie lived. After Charlie sat up in his coffin, the village erupted like a volcano in one of Sophia's books. Some people ran shrieking that the dead had risen. Others fell and gave thanks to G.o.d for his infinite mercy. And still others barely drew breath before demanding to know why Charlie had been resurrected-why him, why not their child.

"Charlie was returned to us as proof of this man's holy power!" Browning's voice boomed over half the town. "I offered my own child to be tested, as is only right.As your mayor, I must take that risk for my family, before asking you to take it for yours!"

"Is he truly alive?" Millie Prior pushed through and peered at Charlie as Doc Adams examined him. When she reached to poke him, Eleazar grabbed the old woman's hand hard enough to make her shriek.

"Please," Charlie said, his voice low and rough with disuse. "She meant no harm."

"He speaks," Millie breathed.

He speaks, Addie thought. But he doesn't sound like-