The Precipice
The Reverend Thompson left his warm bed to walk the perimeter of the town in the brisk moments just before first light. He began this ritual several months ago as the first siege of darkness took its grip upon the town. He carried his tattered and torn Good Book with him, as if he was within himself Joshua and the seven priests carrying the ark of the covenant around Jericho. He waited eagerly for this tragedy’s seventh day, when he could shout down the evil surrounding his own town and claim it for himself… and for the Lord, of course.
The Reverend Thompson had overheard his niece and her friend in the barn several months prior, speaking in hushed whispers of their tribulations. He knew that they were pious girls, having been attentive durning Sunday sermons in the church house and being the first ones each week to enthusiastically thank him for his wisdom and insight that he so diligently imparted on the good people of the town. He knew at once that he must intervene on their behalf. These sweet girls would be tormented by the evils of their peers no longer. The Reverend Thompson set straight to work to replace that week’s sermon, in which he had originally planned to start a series on the meekness of the female spirit as designed by the Lord, but instead, he would speak boldly the truth he had read in “Memorable Providences” the year before. He had believed his town to be full of righteous people with strongly held beliefs, and he was sure that bringing an awareness of this evil’s presence in his town would eradicate it quickly, so it could not grow roots. He had no idea how deeply those roots already grew beneath the surface. Still, he was determined to pull them out, one by one.
While lost almost completely in his thoughts of wickedness and his town’s salvation, he heard the crunching of leaves and the cracking of sticks to his right. He squinted unblinkingly toward the rustling in the woods, desperate to rid himself of the worry of something he could not scare off with his booming voice. Before he could make a sound, he saw the silhouette of a woman making its way through the fog. She was moving as if she were lighter than the air around her, as if she were made partly of the fog itself. She stared straight ahead, as if the Reverend Thompson were indistinguishable from the trees she had already passed. Her head was held high, chin jutting forward with determination, and the look on her face was a terrifying mix of euphoria and madness. Her eyes were as big and bright as the moon had been just hours before, and her lips drew back to showcase her perfect teeth in a frightful smirk. Her dress was tattered and torn, completely caked in dirt and mud and ash. She was so beautiful and terrifying that the Reverend Thompson didn’t recognize her face until she was almost completely past him.
Lisbeth did not startle at her own name when it came bursting forth from the Reverend Thompson’s lips. Even he could not remove the elation from her countenance this day. She turned slowly, almost ethereally, and locked eyes with him. Her eyes did not narrow, and her smirk did not wane. She alone knew the accord that she had entered into in the deep dark that night. She was sure of the reckoning that awaited The Reverend and the overzealous disciples of his deceptions in the coming days.
Their conversation at the edge of the town was hushed but harsh. Neither Lisbeth nor Reverend Thompson was willing to listen to the other, both being completely convinced of their own motives, both on the brink of their own destruction.
