It doesn’t look much like a church, I don’t think. Just before I turned 18 they knocked down the old wooden building with the cross on top and replaced it with a more modern concrete one, forgoing any kind of religious symbols. Not that it looked much like a church, before. It was so old that the wood had greened and gone soft. When I was a kid we would dare each other to press our fingers into the rotten wood, small palms trembling with adrenaline, and when they dumped all the slabs in the forest behind the church we went out there and ran our hands over the marks, comparing the sizes of our palms then and now.
So yeah, it doesn’t look like a church anymore. My parents complain about it over lukewarm mugs of tea.
“You’d think,” dad says, “they’d think of something better than a slab of brick for our Lord to live in.”
“Sure, Michael,” my mum replies, “but they had Him living out at the McCormicks’ during the relocation. That doesn’t give them much time to build a new church, does it?”
And they go quiet and look out at the window at it, because it’s visible from our house - from all the houses, almost, lime-gray concrete shining down from the hill.
I ride out to the McCormicks’ the next day. Their son, Sam, was in the year above me at school. He swore up and down that he’d get out of this town after he graduated, that he’d go to uni somewhere far, somewhere nobody knew God even existed. But he stayed, like we all do. God has laid out our paths for us, and they all wind small circles around our town.
Sam’s mum opens the door for me. She’s small, twitchy, brown-haired and brown-eyed like a finch, and she beckons me in with a jerky nod of her head. Sam clambers down the stairs when she calls for him and leads me into their living room. They have their sofa facing the church, I notice, not their dining table like us.
Sam’s big like his father. He drinks three beers while I sit with a couch cushion of space between us and keep small talk about my job at an online call centre, his job at the market selling the furniture he’s learning to make. I wait for his cheeks to go red and for him to start slurring his words before I bring it up.
“I heard you had God living with you,” I say. His mum is clanking about in the kitchen next to us and I keep my voice low.
“Who told you that?” He asks, rubbing a calloused hand over his face.
“Some of the boys from school.”
He takes another swig of his beer and I pick at a hole in the knee of my jeans. He looks out the window at the church and purses his lips.
“Is it true?”
He looks me in my eyes, his own pupils unfocused and dilated, and nods.
“Did you see Him?”
He nods again. A minute passes before he replies.
“It’s different,” he says, then stops. “It’s different for everyone. My mum, she says she saw an animal. Like a deer, she says, but not a deer. My dad says he saw a figure. Like a… like a regular person, but wearing a robe. Like a ghost costume, I s’pose.”
“Oh,” I say, “and you?”
He goes quiet again. I’m impatient now, hungry.
“And you?”
His eyes are watering now, or maybe he’s crying, and he looks at my chin when he speaks.
“I saw darkness. Just darkness.”
I try and forget it. When you’ve had God living with you all your life, you do forget. Or, you can’t forget, exactly, but you can settle into the hum of His power, let His eternal gaze wash over you. It’s the kind of deliverance we’ve all known since birth. But I’ve been hyper aware of His presence since I spoke to Sam. When I turn my back from the church I can feel Him in my space, pressing up against my skin like someone blowing cold air onto my nape.
We’ve all spoken about it, of course, more so when we were children and the wood of the church was so flimsy, almost inviting us in. What does God look like? What does He want from us? Why isn’t He in the sky, or walking among us? We aren’t a particularly religious town. There is something reverent about the way we behave, always, turning our faces up to the church like you would the sun, quiet when we walk in the streets, but we have no priests, no liturgies. I didn’t know Christmas was a thing until I was 13. It seems implausible that God would be here with us when there are far more pious people in pious places who would happily host Him.
I ask mum about it. It’s Saturday, and she’s drinking a bottle of wine, her mouth and tongue stained red. She gestures me come closer and when I do she pulls me into her lap like I’m not bigger than her, like she’s not straining to lean her chin onto my shoulder.
“My grandad’s dad was here before He arrived,” she says. “He was somewhere else, first, and then He was here.”
I lean onto my feet so I’m not resting all of my weight onto her, even though it hurts my muscles to do so.
“Why do you think He chose to come here?”
She clucks her tongue and picks up her wine glass, bumping it on my arm as she puts it up to her mouth.
“I wouldn’t be so sure it was a choice. It’s not good to talk about these things either way, love.” She shifts her knees apart and pulls her arm out from around my waist, making me stand up. When I turn to face her, she smiles weakly up at me and asks me to fetch her some biscuits.
The door to the church has multiple locks, and the keys are distributed around town to the families that have been here the longest. I know the Singletons have one, and the Wilsons, but I’m not sure who else, or how I would even go about getting the keys from them. It’s got proper locks now, but back when it was still a hut, there was just padlocks on the outside of the door, easy to pick or just break open.
Chris Whitmore came into school one morning talking about how he and his brother had managed to pick them open and they’d looked in, but when we asked what they’d seen he went all mumbly and weird. His brother - a slight, pale boy - stopped coming into school not that long after, and the Whitmores as a whole turned hermetic for a while until a group of the dads, led by mine, knocked their door down. Both of the boys had died, apparently, their bodies dried out grey husks in their beds. I overheard my parents talking about it that night, my dad sat crying with his palms pressed into his eyes and my mother rubbing a hand up and down the exposed part of his forearm.
I don’t fancy stealing the keys, or learning how to pick a lock, so I just ride out to the church and decide to take it from there. I figure I can make up a plan as I go along, or just see if I can be soothed by the proximity to Him and forget all about this. The new church is odd to look at, almost white when framed by the dark trees. I scuff the side with my bike handle when I lean it against the wall, the flaking rubber leaving a small black mark. There’s nobody there, which is odd, really, because in a town as small as ours there’s only so many hangout spots for kids, and the woods behind the church tends to be a popular one.
I figure, maybe, our house key could fit in one of the locks. It’s not impossible. It does fit in 2 of the 7, but it doesn’t turn in either of them, and I jiggle it uselessly, feeling a bit dumb for riding all the way up here. My shirt is stuck to my back and armpits with sweat, and my hair feels greasy on my forehead. Half-heartedly, I try the handle, and it turns. The room is dark. I take a step back, my hand reaching out to the side, for my bike, but He starts pulling at me, an invisible hand on my gut, clawing on my intestines as i stagger into the church.
He’s a girl. A princess, I’d say. Long, blonde curls fall around His face, and a floor-length gown is stained black at the bottom. His eyes are downcast, and as my eyes adjust to the light I see they are a pale blue. I’m struck by fear, suddenly. Something about His perfect countenance, so bright in the darkness, makes my eyes ache, water. He’s picking at His dress absentmindedly when I come in, and He raises His gaze up at me demurely when I place one hand on the wall and the other on my stomach, gasping in pain.
“You’re back,” He says, except He doesn’t say it. His mouth opens, yes, but in an odd, jerky way, like a cartoon character, or a puppet.
“Back,” I manage, and blink more tears out of my eyes. I look down at the pale slippers peeking out from under His soiled gown so I don’t have to look Him in the eyes.
“You were here before. Or was it after?” His voice lilts, low, then high, layered, then flat. He cocks His head at me and places his hands at His sides, leaning forward.
There are pews, I notice, when the pain in my stomach subsides. The church is much smaller on the inside that on the outside, the thick wall rendering it barely bigger than my bedroom. Still, there are three pews; two facing the front of the church, and one facing the door - the one He’s sat on.
“I suppose you have questions,” He says, then spreads one of his white arms open, gesturing to the church as a whole, “Sit.”
I sit.
“How do you want to play this?”
I look at the blank wall behind His head. He laughs, softly.
“I forget,” He says, then shakes His head. His curls bounce as He does so. “I forget you all need so much… explaining.”
I open my mouth as if to speak, and squeak softly. “Would you like to ask me your questions? Or shall I just answer them.”
When I manage to drag my eyes down to His face, His mouth is hanging open loosely, jaw distended. I squeak again and He shuts it with a loud click and smiles, kind of.
“I’m chained.” He says. “I was chained, before, and they brought me here - brought me down here - where I am so quiet and small. Do you see how small I am?”
He gestures at Himself, now, palms open. This movement is odd, too, like his speaking, too smooth to look natural. His hands sweep through the air with an uncanny grace. Every movement seems more befitting of a bird than of a God. He quirks His lips up into another queasy smile.
“Would you like to know how they chained me?”
I managed to speak, finally, a stilted question:
“The Whitmores?”
“Oh!” His mouth drops open into an exaggerated gasp, jaw loose again. I have to look away. “No! Of course not. They weren’t meant to see me. That’s why they burned! I opened my door to you.”
I nod, then: “How did they chain you?”
“With… what’s the word?” He clucks His tongue and lifts His round eyes heavenwards. “Yes. Disbelief.”
“Disbelief?”
“Before. I was so powerful. I could just - blink and make a world, destroy a world. I fed on the saints, on their effigies, the faith with which people razed and built cities. I could not be chained. Do you see?”
I nod again. He looks at me and I start crying once more, my eyes sore and dry, shrivelling into themselves.
“They - from this town - they waited. Waited for the world to be full of sin, full of great steel towers and men with their false science and their false books. They waited for me to slip, my foot to drop down between the clouds I so kindly kept full and fluffed for them - have you seen my clouds?”
I open my mouth to answer, but He keeps going, His voice raised now, grating in its reediness and its gravel.
“I slipped, and they pulled me down, and chained me with their science and their scepticism; left me in a prison made of the same trees I planted for them. Do you see? Do you see my chains?”
He pounds His slight fists onto the pew, His curls falling into His face as His mouth opens and shuts and opens and shuts. Under His dress, His chest heaves. I focus my eyes on the skirts and open my mouth again, the pain in my stomach dulled to a distant ache.
“The door is open.” I can feel His eyes on my face even as I avoid His gaze. “You can leave whenever you want.”
“You aren’t listening. You never listen. Not before, not ever. Whether I am outside these walls or inside them, I am just as much a prisoner. I need - look at me - I need faith. Worship. True worship, not… not these false men with their gilded cloths and heavy purses. I need you, my son, my disciple, to share it with everyone.”
He reaches for me as He speaks, clutching my hands in His own dainty ones. He looks into my eyes, and if it weren’t for the odd way He holds his mouth, slightly open as if holding something on His tongue, He would look like a normal girl. A beautiful girl. His hands are too cold around mine, sharp, and unbearably strong when I try to pull my arms back. He ignores my struggling and looks down at them, pulls them apart, holds one in one hand and drags the fingers of the other across my palm, then does the same with my other hand. After, He slumps back into the wall, His head thumping loudly onto the wall and recoiling, hair falling back into place.
“That’s it,” He says, “I know you do not understand, I remember, and that’s all I have. You can leave again.”
I put my hands up close to my face so I can inspect them in the darkness, lit up only by His light, trying to discern what He’s done to me, why my skin is crawling from such a gentle touch, a brush of skin on skin.
“Leave.” I jump at His voice. It’s sharp, brittle, plaintive, and His head is curled into His chest so I can’t see His mouth moving. “Please.”
I reach blindly for the wall behind me, the pain starting again, tight in my gut. The door seems to spill open, whacking me in the chest as I turn away from Him, and the night sky is excruciatingly bright on my dry eyes. The door slams shut behind me, and I slump down with my back to it, breathing heavily.
My parents talk in hushed tones over breakfast the next morning. My mother’s words are drowned out by the creak of the stairs as she hisses something at my father, and they both fall silent as I walk into the dining room. There’s a plate ready for me, and as I sit down to eat, my mum places a hand on my forearm, squeezing.
“Eli, love,” she says, then looks at my dad, “the McCormicks called.”
I’m not surprised, somehow. Her dark eyes are brimming with tears as I look into them.
“Sam’s died,” I say.
“Oh.” My mum starts crying. “Oh. It’s so awful. Awful.”
My dad clears his throat and reaches over to start rubbing her on the back, his best attempt at soothing her.
“I have to go over there,” I say. My dad starts replying but the scrape of my chair is louder than his words. My mother sobs into her hands, and he watches me go but leans into her.
The bike ride to the McCormicks’ is short. His mother opens the door for me again. Her stare is flat, mouth downturned.
“I want to see him,” I say, and she pulls the door open for me wordlessly, pointing me into the living room.
His body is laid out on the couch. He isn’t shrivelled up, like the Whitmore boys, like I thought he’d be. They’ve wrangled him into a dress shirt, but I can see bruises peeking out from under his collar.
“Sam. Sam.” I brush my fingers across his cheek, over his blue lips. His face is cold. I press my head to his solid, flat chest. I hear his mother shift in the doorway. My eyes are too dry to cry, but I squeeze them shut hard and press my head into him, reaching my hand across his body to hold his.
I whisper his name into his chest over and over as I feel his mother’s eyes on my back, as I feel God’s hand on my neck, and Sam curls his cold, white fingers around mine.