Cold Ennaline by RJ Astruc

1
     
    “W E ’ RE HERE to perform a miracle.”
    The woman at the door is thin and has a sharp face like a rodent. I guess she’s about twenty, but looks closer to thirty. Wrinkles crease her forehead and pucker the skin above her upper lip. There’s a small child tucked under her arm, the way another woman might clutch her purse.
    “You what?” she asks.
    “We’re here to perform a miracle,” Father Nerve repeats himself.
    Another child starts howling somewhere inside the house. “Moooommm.” The woman doesn’t react.
    “You’re from the faith,” she says. “My husband said you would come. I thought it… I thought it would take longer.”
    “We go where we feel the greatest need is,” says Father Nerve. “And you do need us now, don’t you, Mrs. Evans.”
    The woman—Mrs. Evans—avoids his gaze and looks at the top of her child’s head. She touches the swirl of fair hair at its crown. “Yes,” she says, in a smaller, quieter voice. “Yes, we need you.”
    Father Nerve nods in a way that’s partly agreement and partly a bow, a faithful gesture of reverence. “I am Father Nerve, and these are my companions, Ro and Ray Piedmont, and Ennaline Whitehall. May we come in, Mrs. Evans?”
    Mrs. Evans raises her head and frowns. I can tell she’s looking past me to the twins, who are standing very still and straight, like perfectly matched bookends. The twins are beautiful, with fair skin, near-black eyes, and thick, dark hair. Even wearing the dull, brown and beige-colored clothes of the faith (we try to avoid wearing anything that might make us feel vain), they look like they don’t fit in.
    “Who are—” Mrs. Evans begins, but the twins are one step ahead of her.
    “We’re Ro and Ray,” says Ro, bowing. “We’re the sons of Father Piedmont, from Gazing.”
    “We’re in training,” Ray says, also bowing. “One day we hope to preach, like our father.”
    Their drawling Texan accents, so at odds with their exotic looks, seem to reassure Mrs. Evans. She smiles for the first time. For a second her gaze flickers over me, but not for long. In my simple beige smock, I’m completely unremarkable.
    “You should come in,” she says.
     
     
    T HE HOUSE is smaller on the inside than it looks, and the ceiling is low and bare. There’s a strong smell of urine and dogs. The hall and the living room are sparsely furnished, and all the furniture is wooden. In the kitchen is a small wood-fueled stove, which seems to be the only source of heating. I imagine it gets very cold in the house during the winter months.
    There are no books in the house, not even a magazine or a newspaper. And of course there’s no TV or radio. This is a good indicator that we’ve made the right decision to come to the Evans’s home, rather than any of the other people who’ve asked for a miracle. The Evanses seem to be faith full people.
    Father Nerve walks into the kitchen and immediately settles himself at the table. The twins swish around to flank him. I’m always impressed by the way Father Nerve can seem to own a place seconds after entering it. Father Nerve is a tall, narrow man in his sixties, and with his chalk white hair and patrician nose, he’s an intimidating figure.
    “Tell me what has happened here,” says Father Nerve.
    “I….” The woman holds her child tighter. The second child has appeared and is hiding behind her skirts. “I’m not sure how to start, Father.”
    “What was the first thing that made you think there had been evil at work here?”
    She thinks, her head to one side, still twirling the child’s lock. “It was the calf,” she says. “It was born wrong .”
    “Wrong?”
    “It was black, and it smelled like something burning. When my husband cut it open, all its insides were cracked and peeling and covered in ash.”
    I’ve taught myself to show no sign of revulsion at the stories we hear, but I do feel a twinge of fear.
    “And after the calf?”
    “After the calf, our crops