Golgotha

Mercy

William's phone chimed, startling him. He reached for it, his hand hitting the fork in his bowl, hurdling it over the gear shift past his outstretched hand, the bowl slipping. He barely caught it before it fell, but not before an irritating amount of rice and corn spilled onto the passenger seat. Sitting up, laying his head back on the headrest, closing his eyes for a moment. The rice and corn weren't too big of a deal, but his fork, his one and only fork, was laying there on the floor mat. All he could think about was Hunter's work boots. Hunter, who worked as a janitor at Bells Ferry Elementary, needed a ride home from work last Friday. William could not get Hunter and his dirty clothes and work boots out of his head. 

William picked up his phone and read the text message from Noah: How's it goin? William responded: Not there yet. On my way. He wasn't actually on his way. He was sitting in his car, eating his burrito bowl and watching a soccer game at the park just down the road from Grace's house. She told him to come over whenever he wanted as long as it was after two. His plan was to go right at two and get the visit over with, but then, passing the soccer park, he saw the game being played and thought an early dinner and watching the game just might be the thing he needed to get his mind off what was going on. 

It was already three-thirty. He texted Grace, I'll be there in about ten minutes. Is that ok? He included the question because she hadn't been responding to any of the texts. The last time he talked to her was on Sunday. It was weird and awkward, just like it had been for a few weeks. He couldn't remember what they were even talking about when she said out of the blue, Amelia was asking about you. She thinks you're not gonna come visit us anymore. Grace didn't need to say it like that, wanting him to feel guilty. The rest of the conversation was cordial, and they made plans for him to visit the following Saturday.

He couldn't help but think that Grace didn't actually want him to come over. She was doing this to piss him off. There was a good chance she wasn't even going to be there, which he knew might be overly skeptical, but it could be the reason why she didn't give him a specific time. Any time was going to be a bad time. He was going to drive all the way over there, and even if she was there, she wasn't going to invite him in, because it was a bad time. 

If Noah had just talked to him and was more open about Grace and her family, maybe none of this would've happened. Twice, William asked about the books in Amelia's room, but all he ever got was Noah dismissing what he said, changing the subject or contradicting him. Even Landry's murder, for some reason—William still couldn't make sense of it—Noah's attitude completely changed. He now believed her death was an accident, no one was to blame, so why should they dwell on the past? They needed to move on.

William was on his own. It was up to him to convince the parents that what they were doing was wrong. He read everything he could about Paganism, witchcraft, the occult, and whatever this Transcendence might be (he found the word mentioned only a few times in a book about Pagan rituals with no explanation about what it was). There were a few things that might get the parents to doubt what they were doing, but it was far more likely that they would dismiss him altogether. Anything he discovered could easily be seen as having nothing to do with the girls. Not that he couldn't come up with a solid, well-researched argument, he definitely could, but it shouldn't be about arguing with them. He needed to find a way to convince them to stop what they were doing.

His phone chimed, Grace texting him ok. He stretched and slumped in his seat, wishing for nothing more than to sit there for however long until he felt like leaving. Better yet, with the soccer game over and just about everyone gone, he would love to walk those empty fields, lie in the grass, let Grace know something came up; they would have to reschedule. Of course, he wasn't going to do that. He was always reliable and always punctual.