"It's a miracle," Pastor Gene said, crouching beside us.
"Ja," I said, too exhausted to argue.
And the four of us watched the church burn down, blackening and curling in on itself in silence.
I fell asleep and dreamed of a snake.
It wasn't just any snake.
In the dream, I was back at home in my village. Night shrouded me in a soft blanket of darkness, and I was walking through the field toward my house. I'd recognize that sharp roofline against a starry sky anywhere. A light burned brightly inside. I ran toward the house, but it seemed that the light kept moving farther away.
Ravens cawed in the sky, darker specks of black against the purple night. They moved as one, south, away from the land I knew and loved. I knew that something terrible must have disturbed them.
But I was determined to make it to the house. At last, I reached the back step. I tugged open the screen door.
In the light of a lantern, I saw a familiar silhouette.
"Elijah," I breathed.
He turned toward me. He was taller than I was, with dark hair and hazel eyes. But his gaze was hooded. I'm not sure of the exact point at which I began to think of him as my enemy. Maybe it was when he had gotten baptized before I did, crossed that invisible divide from ordinary to blessed. Maybe when he had insisted that I do it, as well, and that we should be married without tasting the Outside world. But it was certainly when he found Alex and me together and brought the Elders to my doorstep.
I flinched away from him. "What are you doing here?"
He looked at me from under the brim of his hat. "What are you doing here? You don't belong here anymore."
A lump rose in my throat. I had no answer. I wanted to say: "This is my home. Of course I belong here." But the words would not come.
I heard something beyond him, in the living room. I knew that sound, from the church.
I pushed past Elijah to see what it was. I stopped cold in my tracks.
Something lay in the shadows, bloated and dark. It curled around the room, thick and black as a rotting tree trunk. It was a massive snake, at least thirty feet long. It scraped around the bottom of table legs, behind the couch and wooden chairs and treadle sewing machine, its scales moving against the hardwood floors.
Impossible.
I knew it for what it was. It was no snake. It was pure evil. It was in my house.
I wheeled to Elijah. "You let it in."
He stared past me. The snake's head, as large as a pumpkin, came into view. Its eyes reflected the lantern light like those of the vampires. I could tell that Elijah was hypnotized by it. Glamoured.
I grasped his arm and shook it. "Where are my parents? Where is Sarah?"
Dazed, he pointed to the snake. It gathered its coils to itself, and then I noticed that it had a lumpy, engorged shape.
I stopped breathing. As it slid past me, I counted one lump . . . two lumps . . . three lumps.
The snake turned its head toward me and opened its mouth. Its fangs were as white as a vampire's, and its hiss was the one I heard from the undead creatures in the night.
The sound of a predator.
***
I woke with a start, against Alex's shoulder.
"Shhh." He stroked my hair. "It's all right."
I felt warmth on my face. But it wasn't the heat of the fire. The church had burned down to black timbers and red embers. What I felt was the warmth of the late morning sun, melting through the last of the gray clouds.
I pulled my bandaged arm into my lap, wincing. It was sore, but the swelling seemed to have gone down. I saw Ginger and Pastor Gene sitting a few yards away, talking in low tones. Horace grazed in the grass beyond.
Beside me, I saw my Himmelsbrief, weighted down with a small stone. Alex must have taken it out of my pocket and carefully plucked open the folds to dry it. The ink looked a bit blurry, but it was still legible. I hoped that would be enough.
"I'm going to be all right," I said. I couldn't stand the worried look on his face. I reached up with my uninjured hand and pressed my palm to his cheek.
"I was worried." He turned his head and kissed my fingertips.
I cast my eyes down and blushed. I felt the hand of God in this, but I didn't know how to say this to Alex. I didn't think that he would really believe it, not the way that I did. There was a vast chasm of something between us. Faith. He was still a good man, upright and much kinder than many people of my own sect. But I didn't understand how he could do the right thing without thinking that God was watching. I knew that he had his own moral compass that led him, and sometimes it seemed stronger than my own.
Pastor Gene had stood up and was approaching us.
"How are you feeling, Katie?"
"Weak," I said, honestly. "But much better than before."
He crouched beside me. "It'll take some time before you're feeling normal again. Bites can take a long while to heal entirely. But I think you had some help." He winked.
I felt Alex glowering above me, but I smiled back at the pastor. "Thank you, Pastor Gene."
My smile faded as my gaze tracked back to the burned-out husk of his church. Two walls were standing, with the wet roof caved in over it. The structure was no longer habitable, and the vampires could reach in and pluck us out like sweetbreads if we tried to stay.
His eyes followed mine. "It's just a building," he said. "All the people who were in it are gone."
"Come with us," I said. "We are going north. To Canada."
He shook his head. "It's time for me to come out of hiding, to see what remains of my family and the rest of the world."
My brow knit. "Where will you go?"
His gaze drifted off to the horizon. "I have nieces and nephews out west. And following the sun doesn't seem to be bad advice these days."
He patted my cheek, pressed his hand to Alex's shoulder. I saw the green tail of a garter snake in his beard. He rose up, took one last look at the church, and walked across the field with his hands in his pockets.
I gripped Alex's sleeve. "Will he be all right . . . alone?"
"Yeah. I think so. And I don't think he'll be alone."
In his wake, the grass rippled, and I saw the shadows of snakes following him.
***
We turned away from the smoldering fire. I carefully climbed up on Horace's back. I cradled my wounded arm in my lap, but the jostle of the horse's stride made it ache enough to set my teeth on edge. But walking was just as bad, and Ginger had ordered me to conserve my strength.