But that was impossible. Tears blurred my vision, and I hiccupped back a sob. What I had told Pastor Gene was true: I had not been baptized. But I had not told him what that meant. I was caught out. My baptized friends and family back home would go to heaven. Since I had not accepted God, I would be separated from them forever. In Darkness, alone.
"We have to help her!" Alex gathered me in his arms and rushed toward the horse. The movement made me nauseated.
"No." I heard Pastor Gene's voice. "There's no one within riding distance who can help her. You'll be carrying a corpse."
"We have to do something," Alex said. I could feel him trembling, hear his heart roaring in his chest. "We can't just let her die."
"Bring her here." Ginger's voice. I was tangled in arms and felt the ground beneath me. I heard a tearing sound, saw her tie white fabric from her apron around my shoulder.
"She'll lose her arm if you put a tourniquet on . . ." Alex began.
"Better she lose her arm than die. Unless . . . that stuff that they show on television about sucking out poison works." Ginger turned on Pastor Gene. "Does it?"
"No. It's a myth. The only thing that can save her from poison is to be full of the Holy Spirit. We have to pray."
"You . . . you shut up." I could hear the fury in Alex's voice. "This is your fault. You and your damn snakes."
"The Spirit hadn't filled her up yet, so the snake-"
I heard the thud of flesh on flesh. A blow. Alex had struck the pastor. I winced, tried to speak, but my lips felt swollen and rubbery.
From some distance away Alex shouted,"This isn't her fault! She's the most pious person I've ever met."
I struggled to turn my head, to mouth the word "Stop."
Pastor Gene picked himself off the grass. He rolled up his sleeves. I saw the puckering of scars up and down his forearms. "I've been bit before. She can survive it. The Spirit is in her, just not filled her."
"How?" Alex demanded. "And don't tell me to pray."
"I'll pray, damn it. If that's what it takes." Ginger hovered over me, scraping wet hair from my forehead. "I'm not going to lose another child."
Sorrow and pride stung me. Ginger considered me to be one of her children. And was sad that I would be taken from her. Just like the others.
"Bring her to the creek," Pastor Gene said. "The water can cure her."
Alex lifted me, and I felt the bumping cadence of his walk over the uneven ground. His arms trembled, and I wondered if it was from the strain of carrying me or from fear. I felt grief to know that I would not learn to understand him better. To love him more deeply than I already did, to see where that spark of affection would have led us. With him, I might have had a life beyond the farm and marriage and children that was expected of me. And now I would never know.
I began to pray in my head. I didn't pray for salvation, or mercy-I just wanted to feel the comfort of the familiar words. I could feel my heart hammering so hard that I thought it would break.
"Bring her into the water."
I heard the slosh and splash of Alex wading into the creek. I dimly wondered if the snakes were still there. Cold water dampened my skirts, and I felt the shock of the chill against my back.
My right arm twitched, the muscles cramping up tight. My fingers curled into painful claws, and the hot sting of the venom coursed through my blood. I could feel it reaching, reaching toward my lungs and my heart. Water splashed around me, droplets rattling around. I could feel my jaw clench and hear my own breathing, very close.
"She's having a seizure," I heard Alex say.
Hands brushed my forehead. They were rough and callused. Pastor Gene's hands. Alex's and Ginger's palms pressed my back, supporting me in the water. I swallowed a bit of the creek. It tasted like iron, cold and pure.
"Heavenly Father, please grant us the gift of healing for Katie, your daughter in Christ. Fill her with the Holy Spirit and drive out the venom. In Jesus' name, we pray . . ."
His words grew unintelligible. Maybe he was speaking in tongues again. But it seemed that I couldn't hear what Alex and Ginger said either. Ringing filled my ears. My muscles slackened as I felt the heat of the venom reach my heart. I stared up. I was suspended, weightless, between the prayer and white sky.
I was nothing. I was less than a feather, dark and vanishing in that vast expanse.
CHAPTER FIVE
I don't know that I ever had any particular thoughts or expectations about what heaven would be like. To be honest, I'd always been too caught up in the day-to-day details of life to really ponder it in more than a vague "someday" sort of way. Deep down, I wanted it to be a certainty. I expected it. I believed that I was good. And I believed that I'd have time to make up for all my sins.
But the end of the world had undone all of that.
And now I was going to be undone. Caught out. And lost from those I loved forever.
I wondered if it would always be like this: the searing heat of the venom, the cold of the water, the pearly gray-white of the sky surrounding me. Gradually, it all faded, even the ringing and the sensation of water in my ears, leaving behind that sense of sky.
I closed my eyes, savoring that feeling of the in-between.
And sucked in my breath.
It hurt to do so. It hurt more than anything I'd ever done. The air in my lungs seemed to sear their interior, but I made myself breathe.
I was not yet done with life. I had too much left undone. I would fight for it.
I stared, blinking. I saw three faces above me: Ginger, Pastor Gene, and Alex. There was such an awful expression of fear on Alex's face that I wanted to reach up and wipe away.
But I started to shiver.
Alex broke into a smile, and his ice-blue eyes glistened. "You with us?"
"Ja," I said, through chattering teeth. "I am."
"She's freezing," Ginger said. "Bring her to the fire."
It took the three of them to haul my sodden body from the creek, up the bank. I was in Alex's arms, and I pressed my ear to his chest as he carried me toward the burning church. I could feel the heat on my back, but I shivered violently. Alex sat behind me, wrapping his arms around me, and rested his chin on my hair.
I stared down at my hand. It was swollen to three times its normal size, gone black and red as a rotten apple. It didn't look like my own body-it looked like something that belonged on a corpse. Pink water drained from the wound. It throbbed, but not with the sharp viciousness as before. Ginger huddled over it and began wrapping it up in fabric from her apron.