One by one the crowd turned and followed Bastion. None of them looked at Stefan again. Stefan waded out into the water, his hands skimming the surface. As if she might surface, as if it were not already too late for her. And for him.
Stefan stood in the green water, motionless. He watched it flow past, the current urging him to follow Nelsa in death. He closed his eyes, imaging the sweet, cold water flowing over his face, pushing him down, underneath the world, to a better place, a quiet place where God alone took responsibility for suffering. A place where God answered every question from a crystal throne. A place where His rule gave perfect clarity. Stefan would be just another soul in His care. His troubles would be over. There would be no more riddles, no more confusion as he stood helpless beneath the cross.
Stefan took another step deeper out in the water.
A hand grabbed him around the ankle, and he heard a cry again, but as if from another room.
He screamed, pushing back through the water for the trees, finding his footing and running until his side burned so badly he had to stop and breathe. He had imagined that. He was distraught. A branch had caught him by the hem. He glanced back in the direction of the river. Nelsa’s body was already far from here. She was dead.
“You must choose,” someone whispered.
Stefan covered his ears with his hands.
“What do you want from me?” Stefan screamed. “Am I in the place of God?”
“You must choose. Are you a shepherd or a hired man?”
Stefan saw no one near, no animals fleeing in fear. Alone he cowered under a tree.
“Choose,” came the voice, much further away, an echo from the mountains that surrounded the river.
“Choose.”
Stefan watched the full moon outside his window in the dormitory. He could not sleep, not with the outrageous light pouring in his room at this hour. Prayers would begin soon anyway. There is no point to sleeping, he thought. I cannot find rest. I do not know what I heard or what it meant.
Bastion slept at the other end of the room and did not stir. His sleep was always deep and calm.
Bastion finds rest. What is wrong with me, that I try to do what is right and cannot sleep? he thought. He brings terror, and God blesses him with sleep. Have I been so wrong about You, Jesus? Do I even know Your voice?
Stefan sneaked out still in his bare feet, the wood floor blessedly quiet. He stood blinking in the moonlight, listening to the sounds of the sleeping village. He heard rats rustling through the gutters and empty market stalls across the lane. Rats here grew to be the size of cats, and the cats had given up trying to catch and eat them. The air, so crisp and clean it almost sparkled, told him that no one had begun throwing wood and manure into their fire to cook breakfast.
She’s not sleeping, he thought. She can’t be, not in this moonlight.
Stefan approached the cage. The cover lay on the ground. The witch Ava looked up at the moon and turned when he came near.
“Would you cover me?” she asked. “I do not want to see the moon anymore.”
“It is beautiful tonight.”
“I like being covered,” she said.
Stefan lifted the cover and began throwing it over the edge of the cage, moving around to each corner, pulling and tugging it into place. He stopped when he reached the last end. He couldn’t see her very well now, just her silhouette. She sat, her legs crossed, facing him.
“You should speak it out loud,” she said. “It’s why you cannot sleep.”
Stefan looked up at the sky. He couldn’t see any stars. Just that brilliant white eye, staring blindly at the world below.
“You are not a true believer,” she whispered.
“In Bastion? No.”
“In God. Why else would you be here, talking to a condemned witch before dawn? You cannot sleep because you do not believe.”
“I do not believe in myself. Nothing I say seems true.”
“You believe in the power of your words. That is the poison you drink.”
Stefan yanked his head back as if she’d scratched him.
“Bastion teaches with words, yes,” she said, “but he is a man of action. He has worked since he arrived. That is why he sleeps so well.”
“Bastion is wrong,” Stefan said, glancing behind him.
“Are you jealous? He has many followers, even here in your own village. Your own people love him over you.”
“It’s not love. It’s fear. What he does makes them fear.”
“Then make them fear you. Or love you. It looks the same to me.”
Stefan groaned and flicked the cover over the last portion of cage. I should sleep, he thought. This will profit me nothing.
“Father, look upon me. Bastion offers me freedom. He has given me a way to atone for my sins, to satisfy this guilt that is eating me alive every minute. I gave him a witch, a woman to terrify the crowds. But you and I? I can offer you nothing. And what have you offered me?”