"Don't mind if I do, Christopher."
"Excellent. Lucas?"
"Of course," he said.
People drifted into the sanctuary in twos and threes, casually, as if they hadn't really meant to attend, they just sort of found themselves there. Nobody in town would have missed it. Things like this, especially if something amazing happens, are talk of the town for months and years to come. I'd have laid money that they'd still be talking about me collapsing at Halloween when Noah and Abe Harrison were starting high school.
I lost Lucas for a moment in the crowd gathered at the side-entrance to the chapel, then gave up as one of the older townspeople asked for help pushing through to get to a pew. When I went to find Lucas again he had retreated to the back of the high-ceilinged sanctuary and was staring out the wide windows on the front door.
"What do you see?" I asked, looking over his shoulder.
"Guests," he answered, pointing through the glass.
There was the glimmer of headlights in the dark, moving up the main street. At first I could only see two or three cars, but eventually more appeared behind them, until I wondered how many people could possibly have missed the Low Ferry Thanksgiving extravaganza but still be attending the prayer meeting.
Then I realized whose cars they were, as they began to pull into the little turnaround in front of the church and park haphazardly wherever there was room.
"Richard," I called over my shoulder. He was struggling into his vestments at the front of the room, but he lifted his head and gave me a questioning look. "You might want to come say hello to a few people."
The rest of the village drew close and Richard had to push through the crowd somewhat. I stood aside so he could see. The Friendly were just climbing out of their cars. Gwen, I saw, was helping Christopher out of a back seat.
"Are they Christians?" Richard asked. "They've never come to church before."
"I honestly don't know," I replied. "They call me Saint but I don't think that means much."
"Well, it hardly matters, I guess. You aren't Christian either, after all," Richard winked at me. "Go on, Lucas, open the door."
Lucas silently swung the door open, and Richard walked out into the cold. I followed, and Lucas darted through – probably to escape the onlookers inside.
"Good evening," Richard said, meeting them on the steps. Tommy and Pete were in front, most of the Friendly families behind, and Gwen was with a knot of young men and women further back. Even the children were there.
"Evening, Reverend," Christopher said, making his way arthritically up the steps.
"Call me Richard, please," Richard said, holding out a hand. Christopher took it gratefully and hauled himself up the last few steps. "What can Low Ferry do for you this evening?"
"Won't mince words," Tommy said, joining Christopher on the landing outside the front door. "We've come about the boys."
"Abe and Noah?" Richard asked.
"S'right, Reverend," Tommy said. "Come to help see to them, with you folks, if you don't mind."
Richard smiled. "Nobody's turned away from this door. Come along. You there, inside, move back! We have some friends who've come to pray with us for the boys. Move along, make room – that's the spirit."
"I don't know about pray, exactly," Christopher said to me, as I helped him down the central passage of the chapel.
"I'd guess more than half the village isn't really interested in praying either," I answered. "Seat down front?"
"Please," he said. Behind us, the townspeople were settling into pews and making room for the Friendly. Gwen pushed past the crowd and wrapped her arm around my waist.
"You'll sit with us," she said firmly. Paula made room for Christopher and me; Gwen squeezed in next to me, with Lucas next to her on the aisle.
"Do you think they're cursed?" Paula asked. "Everyone's saying they are."
"Well," Christopher said, leaning back. "I don't know. This midwife of yours wasn't a young woman, eh? Could be, as some of our skeptics would have it," he elbowed me, "that the stress of helping at a birthing was just too much."
"I don't think they're cursed," I said. "I think Nona's just a tired new mother who caught a bad break."
Steve Harrison and his wife hadn't been at the dinner, but they were walking in from a side-entrance even as we all settled down. Nona did look tired, and her husband and his brother were the ones carrying the boys. They stopped near the altar, uneasy in their Sunday-best clothing. Richard said a few words to them, over the wailing of the babies.
"Are they sick?" Carmen asked, leaning back from the pew in front of us and turning her head so I'd hear her.
"Sometimes children cry," Gwen replied for me. "They sound healthy enough."
"Shhh," Christopher said to them, as Richard turned to the assembled...well, congregation, I suppose, though it felt more like an audience.
"There's been talk in Low Ferry, of late," Richard said, "that the death of Bertha O'Brien has some significance for these two children. Now we all know that losing Bertha was a tragedy, both for those who were her friends and for those who depended on her services. But we've eulogized Bertha and committed her into the hands of God, so tonight we gather here to consider these children. Some would even tell you they think the children are cursed from that death."
"Or they're the cause," someone called from the back. Richard stared in their direction with all the vigor of a man who's given sermons to unruly congregations for a decade. Nona, onstage, wrung her hands.
"No-one," Richard said, his voice ringing sharp and clear, "wants to blame two infants for the death of a grown woman. No-one here should think for one minute that these children somehow chose for Bertha to die. So I would like to suggest that we are here tonight to reaffirm our commitment, as a village, to cherishing Low Ferry's newest citizens as welcome sons of ours and of the Heavenly Father."
"He goes a little heavy on God," Gwen whispered.
"He's a preacher, that's what he does," I whispered back. All over the church, people were shifting fretfully, uncomfortable with the pair of wailing babies before them.
"Christopher," Richard said, and both myself and the Friendly's patriarch looked up. "Christopher Dusk," he amended, smiling. "Would you come up here, please?"