Infinite Faith Infinite Series, Book 4) Read online

  INFINITE FAITH

  The Fourth Book of the Infinite Series

  L.E. Waters

  Published by Rock Castle Publishing

  Copyright © L.E. Waters, 2016

  Cover design by S. Frost Designs

  e-book formatting by Guido Henkel

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  “Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens.”

  ~J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

  Foreword

  I researched the time periods portrayed in my books and pulled many of my ideas from historic events. When I involve historical people in my books, I try to portray them accurately but take fictional liberty with conversations, timelines, and mysteries—filling in the details absent from written record. The reader must remember that this is, first and foremost, historical fantasy fiction. I maintained a sense of magical realism throughout and hope the reader will take such leaps of imagination with me, assured that there is fundamental support underneath this novel but keeping an open mind to enjoy the story envisioned.

  If there are any doubts as to the accuracy or plausibility of story lines, please visit my website www.infiniteseries.net, where I dedicated a whole section to a bibliography and more detailed research behind this fictional piece just for those who might enjoy reading further about these cultures, events, and people.

  In regards to the spiritual/religious aspect of this book, it is not meant to come across as non-fiction. This is how I perceived heaven to be in an artistic sense and hope there are readers out there who will consider it enough for the simple enjoyment of storytelling.

  If at any time you should find yourself confused with so many intricate character histories, I have provided a helpful chart that tracks each character’s traits and progression at the end of each life. It is there to use at any point during each life to enhance the reader’s experience.

  I would love to take this moment to thank you for reading this novel and if you could take a moment to review my book where you purchased it, I would be extremely appreciative. Reviews are essential to independent authors like me and even one or two comments can do wonders for my series’ exposure.

  Eleventh Life

  Civil Unrest

  Chapter 1

  “Elijah, wait up!” I yell, my lunch bucket slapping against my thigh through my skirts as I run my fastest to catch up with him.

  He leaps over our neighbor’s fence in order to cut across the field to save time. I hesitate at the wooden railing, searching the field for the bull that roams this pasture.

  Once more I call to Elijah, who’s already a quarter way across the field. “Ma’s told us not to take the short cut!”

  He doesn’t even glance back as he swishes through the long grass. I bite my lip as I calculate the much longer distance on the road to our front door. I swing one leg over the top railing and drop to the other side of the fence. With one more search across the field for horns, I dart through the path Elijah’s taken. I keep my eyes set on Elijah, who’s much farther away than I’d like, but something large emerges in my peripheral vision on the crest of the pasture’s hill.

  “Elijah!” I scream, just as he’s about to hop to freedom over the far fence.

  He immediately looks to the hill and throws his books and lunch pail down in order to fly to me. I run as fast as my legs will carry me and almost trip when I check to see where the beast is. The bull stomps at the top of the hill in dangerous warning.

  “He’s charging. Josie, run!” He grabs my free hand and pulls me even faster along with him. I can tell by his worried glances that the bull must be close. I know I can’t look back, since my feet are barely completing each uneven step. My lungs burn with the lack of oxygen. The bull’s nearing hoof beats fall in rhythm with the throbbing of my heart. My eyes stay fixed on the top railing of the fence I hope to reach before I feel his horns.

  “He’s right behind us! Jump through the fence!”

  I stare at the opening and wonder if I can clear the space. Elijah dashes in front and leaps through the opening, rolling after he lands. I try to copy him but catch one of my legs on the lower rail and land hard on my chest. My pail and books go flying. Elijah pulls my leg free as I struggle to get the wind back into my lungs. The bull hits the fence post with such force I’m sure the whole barricade will come crumbling down but it holds, to our relief. The bull snorts and stomps in circles as Elijah gathers up his pail and books and heaves me up off the ground.

  “Are you hurt?” Elijah’s green eyes darken with concern.

  I scan my body, looking for injuries. I sure wasn’t going to feel them, being numb from shock. “I think I’m fine.” I pick up my pail and books.

  A smile cracks across his face. “He almost got you this time.”

  I swing my empty pail at his head and he ducks. “I knew we shouldn’t have cut across the field.”

  He laughs. “I would have made it just fine. You’re the one that’s too slow.”

  I notice a tear in my stockings. “Ma’s going to be furious.”

  “You’re just lucky I rescued you or you’d have much worse things to worry about than a ruined stocking.”

  “Rescued me? I noticed how you dove through the fence before me, leaving me to the bull.”

  He giggles and starts back toward our barn-red saltbox house. “Next time I’ll just cheer you on from the fence.”

  “There isn’t going to be a next time!” I yell, but he doesn’t hear me since he’s already far ahead of me again.

  By the time I reach our house, Elijah’s cranking the rusty well pump and throwing water on his face, being careful not to touch his skin with his hands but splashing water everywhere else. Elijah hates having his face touched.

  I run up to push his hands against his face and try to make a quick getaway, but he slaps a stream of water at me that hits my backside and soaks my skirts. I make it to the door just as he dumps his partially full pail over my head.

  “Ahhh!” I cry, as the cold water trickles everywhere.

  I shake my head off as best I can before walking into the house after him to search for one of Ma’s dishcloths.

  Elijah and I sense something’s wrong when we walk through the door. Ma is not sewing in her usual place by the fireside. I was hoping to smell chicken and dumplings, since that’s always how Ma celebrated receiving another of Pa’s war checks, but the kettle is empty and the house lacks any savory promise. My stomach growls at the letdown and I pull up my skirt to dry my face.

  Pa had gone off to fight the rebels at the start of the war but our checks are few and far between lately. They don’t come in on a regular basis, as promised, so Ma has to do whatever she can to bring in extra money in order for us to eat. The stack of sewing she takes in grows in the basket in the corner. It’s always a happy day when the check does indeed arrive and Ma would talk all through dinner about how anxious she was to go into town the next day to pay down our debts. We’re desperately awaiting the next paycheck, but this is definitely not a happy day.

  “Ma?” Elijah calls, and we can tell she’s in her room by the sound of her weeping.

  We open the
door to see her lying across the bed, sobbing uncontrollably, with a crumpled letter in hand. My heart jumps in my throat as I guess at what would upset her so. Elijah pries the letter loose gently and, after reading a few lines, he looks up at me somberly and nods. I fall across Ma and hug her tightly, as if trying to keep her held together. She doesn’t even notice how damp I am and I know she will now care little about the tear in my stockings.

  That night I fix supper, although corn hash and stale bread can hardly be called supper. Ma never leaves her room. I bring a plate to her, to see if she would eat, and she doesn’t even raise her head. Elijah and I eat in silence in the glow of the firelight.

  Finally I venture, after cracking off a hunk of hard crust with my teeth, “What did the letter say?”

  He clears his throat. “Pa was killed on the battlefield during the Second Battle of Bull Run on August 28th.”

  “That was a month ago.” Pa’s been dead this whole time and we didn’t even know it.

  “He said Pa’s regiment should be given great honors, since the 76th fought valiantly with not a single coward among them.” Tears well in both our eyes and he clears his throat again to finish. “They had their colors stolen once but got them back immediately. His regiment, though beaten and blood stained, still had their colors after the smoke cleared.”

  We have little more to say to each other and scrape our bowls in silence. I head to bed early that night, since I can’t bear to think about what all will change now. I pray hard for Pa’s soul and for his check to arrive tomorrow.

  ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

  It takes Ma sixteen days until she functions like herself again. She loses so much weight from not eating that Elijah doesn’t even allow her to go fetch water from the well. He tries to lift everything for her. She lacks her usual high spirits and her easy smile is a rare sight now. We try our best not to bicker and keep our spirits high in hopes that we can lift her back up.

  That night at supper she says, “We are going to have to move to the city, children.”

  I drop my fork.

  “Why are we leaving?” Elijah asks.

  “I haven’t received your father’s pension yet and I spoke to Widow Baker today in town and she said it was months before hers reached her.” She takes a deep breath. “I’ve borrowed against the farm all year and I haven’t taken any sewing in to help lately. We have to sell everything just to be able to have enough to get us started.”

  Elijah and I stare down at our nearly empty plates.

  She raises her voice to a pretended happy pitch. “I heard, with all the men gone, there’s good work in the factories in the city. You will both have to leave school and work with me but, once we get the checks again, we can save up some and come back to Cortland. You will see, it won’t be too terrible.” She pats both our hands.

  Chapter 2

  The dark hall glows as a candle draws nearer and, from the shadows, someone enters our little room to wake us.

  “Josephine and Elijah, hurry now. Your mother’s fading.”

  I’ve been expecting those words all night. The anticipation has interfered with any sleep and by how my brother jumps up I guess he hasn’t been sleeping either. We both instinctively hang nearer to each other as we walk into the adjoining room where the doctor sits in a corner, nodding to us. We walk to our mother’s side and hear her shallow breaths. She opens her eyes slightly and gives our hands a weak squeeze. She swallows slowly, as if about to speak, but perhaps it’s too hard to and she closes her eyes again. We both lay our heads on her body, trying to get one last childhood hug, until our neighbor escorts us back out of the room.

  Elijah and I look at each other, realizing that was our last moment with her. We grab onto each other and cry until our eyes are swollen and throats dry. We fall asleep clinging to each other. In the morning a few neighbors have gathered around my mother’s sheet-covered body and are discussing far too loudly the things that have been circling in my head.

  “Who’s going to bury the poor dear?” a whiny-voiced woman asks.

  “Michael’s getting ready to see the priest about it. What worries me more is who is going to take in two nearly grown children?”

  Their tsks can be heard from our room.

  “Was her death sudden? Is that why family isn’t here to see to everything?”

  “All I know is that she started getting sick a few months ago, when she began working at the factory.”

  “That’s why I stay out of those factories, no matter how much better they pay than washing. It’s a death sentence in one way or another.”

  “Well, it got her alright. The girl came knocking on my door three days ago saying she’d collapsed and we sent Michael for the doctor.”

  “With no one else to turn to, how could you turn her away?”

  “Before that we didn’t even know their names. They always kept to themselves.”

  I couldn’t help but feel the burden we suddenly were on these people. Strangers.

  A door opens and shuts and a stern man’s voice cuts through the air. “We have to use what she left to pay the good doctor and anything after that’s got to go to burying her.”

  “But what will the children do? There won’t be a red cent to start ‘em off.”

  “Maggie, they’ll get their next month’s check in three weeks’ time, ‘til then they’ll have to stay with family is all,” he says.

  “They have no family to speak of. The girl informed me that they had no ties in the city.”

  “No ties? What was she thinkin’ comin’ to the city alone with no husband, no family?”

  How could he say this with Ma’s body lying right there?

  “I don’t even think we have the money to send them to family. As it is, I think we’ll be only affordin’ a pine box and civil burial,” Maggie says.

  The other woman chimes in. “They’ll end up on the streets for sure.”

  “None of us has the room for two grown children. At fourteen the girl is close to marrying age. Maybe we could find a nice man for her?” he says, his voice rising to a hopeful pitch.

  Maggie quickly snaps back, “Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Michael, you can’t just pick a man out of crowd for the poor girl! Besides, the only men left around here now are boys or old men.”

  “Well, ‘tis better than the streets, Maggie. I’ll go talk to Father Francis about this. Maybe he’ll know what to do.”

  The door opens and the other woman says, “I best be getting back to my washing.”

  He asks, “Ye staying here then?”

  “Somebody’s got to help the poor souls and wake the body, God bless her.”

  “You’re a good woman, Maggie.”

  After a shuffling of feet, the door closes. Elijah and I just sit there on the bed. We’re frozen, unable to move on past last night. Unwilling to totally absorb what happened, is happening.

  Elijah breaks the silence after a long quiet and we speak in whispers so Maggie won’t ask us to come out and sit with Ma. “Our wages won’t be enough to even pay rent.”

  The factory gives meager children’s wages to those under eighteen. I doubt we even still held positions there, now that we hadn’t shown up for a couple of days. Just as well, since it was full of every kind of misery.

  “What are our options?”

  It’s some time before he whispers again. “Well, I know they’re rounding up volunteers daily. I could join.”

  “You can’t pass for eighteen yet. You’re only just getting a mustache.” I point to the fuzz that looks more like a smudge of dirt.

  His hands fly up self-consciously to his upper lip. “I’ve heard they don’t much care about that anymore. A guy I know says all you have to do is tell them you’re eighteen and they’ll take you if you’re able.” After speaking, he lifts his chin high.

  “Eighteen! They’ll laugh you all the way back home.”

  But panic shoots through me as I re
alize he does look older than the boys he runs around with. He’s surely the tallest in his group.

  “If you went, then what will happen to me?”

  He looks into my eyes and then back to his hands. “Maybe you could stay at the church for a month, until you get Pa’s earnings, and I’ll send back money as soon as I can.”

  “First we lost Pa, then we left the farm, now Ma’s gone and then I’m supposed to say goodbye to you too?” I shake the whole idea away.

  “We have no other option, Josie. We don’t have a penny to our name. No one here will help us. No one back home will care. We don’t have any other choice. After we bury Ma, I’ll get you settled somewhere and then I’m going to sign up.”

  I chew on my lower lip and stare out the small window. The only view is a wall of bricks of a building too close to ours. The stale city air hangs in the room between us, bringing no hope of anything better.

  ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

  “Josie!” Elijah playfully calls. Elijah appears in the center of a field with a fast fog whispering around him. Between the wisps he smiles at me and says again, “Josie!” The fog rolls in, as grey clouds gather above him. I call out to him in warning, “Elijah!” but a bolt of lightning splits out of the sky and strikes him. I jump with a deafening shriek and run to him, but the field just keeps getting farther and farther away.

  I wake up screaming. Elijah grabs me and tries to shush me back to sleep in his arms.

  ∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞∞

  In the morning, we shake out our best clothes—the ones without patches—and follow the men Michael volunteered to carry Ma’s pine box down to St. Patrick’s Cathedral. There is something beautiful about the procession walking behind Ma that way. We never got the chance to bury Pa. I can’t even let my mind delve into any of the reality of what we’re doing. I just put one foot in front of the other. I can’t bear thinking about how utterly alone I will be at the end of the day. Right now, I’m with Ma and Elijah is still beside me. I don’t want to let this moment end. The inside of the Cathedral is more beautiful than I could have imagined and nothing like our small parish church back in Cortland. The rather plain exterior gave no indication of the glory hidden inside. We gather around her coffin before the enormous marble altar. We’re all bathed in the glow reflecting off the glistening religious statues overlooking her service from niches in the ornately gold-leafed wall behind the altar. The bells ring as we leave the church. The sound that no one wants to hear. A haunting, unwelcomed sound. A victory celebration of claiming another soul.