Part 9 (2/2)

Yet the mayor's face was expressionless. It did not crumple with grief and disappointment. He stood there, resolute.Waiting.

Eleazar bent over the coffin. He lifted his fingers to Charlie's face and traced them over his pale forehead. When he pulled them back, there were three red lines left there.

”Is that blood?” someone whispered.

”Of course not,” another hissed back.

Eleazar spoke again, in that foreign tongue, touching his fingertips to Charlie's eyelids, his nostrils, and then his lips. When he reached the lips, he held his fingers there, his head bent, words flowing faster until . . .

Eleazar stopped abruptly, as if in midsentence. His head jerked up. His fingers pulled back and . . .

Charlie's lips parted. Or they seemed to, opening so little that Addie was certain she'd blinked, certain she was seeing wrong, that his lips had been like that already or were moved by the man's fingers.

Yes, moved by the man's fingers. A trick. Isn't that what Sophia warned of? Charlie's lips moved by chicanery and-

His eyes opened. Addie stopped breathing.

Trick. It's a trick.

Charlie sat up and looked about. His gaze lit on Mayor Browning and he smiled, and Addie knew there was no trick.

Charlie lived. After Charlie sat up in his coffin, the village erupted like a volcano in one of Sophia's books. Some people ran shrieking that the dead had risen. Others fell and gave thanks to G.o.d for his infinite mercy. And still others barely drew breath before demanding to know why Charlie had been resurrected-why him, why not their child.

”Charlie was returned to us as proof of this man's holy power!” Browning's voice boomed over half the town. ”I offered my own child to be tested, as is only right.As your mayor, I must take that risk for my family, before asking you to take it for yours!”

”Is he truly alive?” Millie Prior pushed through and peered at Charlie as Doc Adams examined him. When she reached to poke him, Eleazar grabbed the old woman's hand hard enough to make her shriek.

”Please,” Charlie said, his voice low and rough with disuse. ”She meant no harm.”

”He speaks,” Millie breathed.

He speaks, Addie thought. But he doesn't sound like-

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