One Day in a Small-Town Desert, chapter 8, page 1

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Chapter 8: Denial of the Resurrection



Fírí Parızada staggered back a step as a light breeze began flowing through the chapel.

The old woman chanted to her god, Névazhíno, holding up the big knife and a goblet.

Fírí knew she should stop Vata before she killed the dog or the foreign kid with the knife, but she just couldn’t force her feet to carry her forwards. At least the horse seemed safe from the knife, drugged unconscious on the dirt floor.

Maybe the white-haired woman wasn’t drugged after all. Maybe she conspired with the old man to sacrifice the animals and Bhanar in her twisted form of worship to Névazhíno. Which meant Fírí had to be next on their list. Had she already been drugged? Fírí racked her brain. No, she couldn’t have been. Not unless there was something in the air in this room.

Fírí stopped breathing, biting her lips closed and pinching her nose. She should run, but not with Zhíno potentially right outside that door. He’d be hunting her down for sure. He’d have traced her footprints right to that iguana cage and the mysterious blank wall of a door.

The old couple must be pumping in the drugged air from another room. There was definitely a strong draft, coming from Fírí’s left. There must be a vent over there, but the chapel was so dark that Fírí couldn’t see it. Certainly no openings existed within three meters of the dirt floor, not even hidden among the painted symbols.

Still holding her breath, Fírí peered at the upper reaches of the wall, way up where it was all painted black and the flickering torchlight barely reached. Nothing was up there--just blank wall.

But she could hear the machinery humming!

A drowning sensation swept over Fírí. She had to breathe. But she couldn’t; she’d be drugged.

But that didn’t make any sense. Bhanar was already unconscious when he was brought in and Vata was much smaller than Fírí and she hadn’t passed out yet.

Fírí gasped in a lungful of air. It reeked of horse and dog, but it had to be safe.

Vata kept chanting away, calling on Névazhíno to heal Bhanar’s legs.

Wait a minute. She’s trying to heal Bhanar?

The wind intensified, sucking dirt off the floor in a tight spiral around the altar.

Now how did they do that?

Fírí looked up to the ceiling directly above the altar. Nothing but blackness.

The machine hum cranked up to a scream of a thousand voices. Fírí clapped her hands over her ears. What in Vuzhí’s name could be making that racket? Fírí looked everywhere around the room, but she couldn’t see the equipment anywhere. It had to exist, though.

Lightning sprang from the torches, arcing to Vata and the altar, illuminating them from within, blue-burning coals in the center of a whirling cloud of dust.

Fírí stumbled backwards, her hands still over her ears, till she rammed into a wall. She leaned heavily against the rough surface, taking comfort in its simplicity.

The crackling light didn’t seem to harm the old woman. Instead, she seemed to revel in it. The lightning obviously wasn’t real.

Whatever performance the old people were playing, they were insane if they were doing all this for an audience of only Fírí. She had no intention of believing a Kínıtíní’s lick of it.

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