Crafting for Sinners, page 5
Her greatest anxieties had come true. For the second time in her life, she would lose everything: her home, her freedom, and worst of all, Abigail. Maybe she’d stick around for a little while, but Ruth could more accurately predict the path forward: Ruth would be sentenced to decades in prison, if not life. Abigail would pack up her things, move out of Kill Devil, and find someone new.
Ruth stood frozen, several skeins of yarn suffocating her beneath her sweatshirt, a man’s hot blood turning cold against her cheeks, standing over his bleeding and probably dead body. He still hadn’t budged, and she still hadn’t checked. She knew what she would find if she did, and she didn’t want to make it real. Tears bubbled at the edges of her eyes, and she reached up to wipe them away, scraping a trail of blood and chunky viscera across her cheeks. A few more skeins of yarn fell out of her sweatshirt as she moved, quickly lapping up the pool of blood still expanding around the man’s head.
What the fuck was she supposed to do now?
Chapter 5
Call for help, stupid.
The thought filled her brain, the other worries finally emptying down the drain, and she dug in her tote bag for her cell, her fingers painting the man’s blood across the canvas. She tossed out the skeins she’d stuffed there, the gray coils landing in the growing blood puddle. Each yarn missile splattered more red onto her shoes. She needed to call an ambulance. Where the fuck was her phone? Why couldn’t she find it in her bag?
Shit.
Shit.
It was in her car. She’d left it in her car. She’d pulled it out of her bag to call Abigail about those fucking weirdos at their doorstep and then she’d just tossed it into the passenger seat. She’d never put it back into her bag. Her arms dropped to her sides.
“Hello?” she called into the eerie quiet of the store. On tiptoes, she dodged the growing puddle and hurried down the aisle. Where the fuck was everyone? If they’d been surveilling close enough to catch her in the act, surely they had seen what had happened next, right? Shouldn’t they be rushing to help? She tried again, louder, peering around into other aisles. “I need some help! There’s been an accident! Is anyone else here?”
She had to find another person. She was trapped inside by the metal gate, and she knew the phones at the registers were useless. Each one had an old-fashioned telephone, coiled cord and all, but no buttons. They were merely conduits for the Mustard Seeds to spread their knowledge, but only if a customer dialed in asking for it. The only other phone she ever remembered seeing hung on the wall next to the mysterious locked door in the back, where it collected dust. She couldn’t recall whether there had been one in the manager’s office or whether they’d simply used the company-issued cell phones strapped to their waistbands, fellow soldiers in line beside the headsets.
Her feet twisted beneath her, spinning her in the direction of the employee-only door. Finally, another yellow apron appeared before her, striding toward her as if magnetized to Ruth’s location. Like the first one, he also bore a golden shepherd’s crook where his name tag should be. She didn’t want to think about how she must look—wet with someone else’s blood.
“What happened?” the man said.
“There was an accident,” she panted, pointing back down the aisle. “Just over here.”
“Come with me, and we’ll sort it out,” the Mustard Seed said, grabbing her arm. Was it her imagination, or was this guy also squeezing like a vise? Maybe she was just in a state of shock. Or maybe it was the simplest explanation—they were not merely apprehending her for shoplifting. Now they were dealing with a murderer.
“But he’s back there,” Ruth said, a lump forming in her throat. “Shouldn’t you make sure he’s okay?”
“Someone else is assisting,” the man said. “Just come with me, and we can get this all figured out.”
She walked willingly behind him, a stoic death march through an aisle lined with mirrors, each square inch covered with gilded frames or reflective glass. Two dozen Ruths stared back at her, each one with the same gore-freckled face, the red contrasted by her pallid hue, her own blood fleeing from her cheeks. Thirteen globs of gelatinous goo hovered on thirteen foreheads, an equal number of ragged, stained sweatshirts moving past the wall of glass.
The ghostly visions of herself churned her stomach. Beads of sweat eroded the blood on her face. Her legs transformed into gelatin, tremors wobbling through her knees and up to her torso. Against his grip Ruth’s skin grew cold. Was it her ghostly reflection and her ghastly deed weighing on her, or had the adrenaline spike lowered her blood sugar? When the Mustard Seed pulled her out of the hall of mirrors and into the wide center aisle, the heaped displays there blurred together, the items becoming a slurry of biblical soup.
“I think my blood sugar is dropping,” she said, her feet stumbling underneath her, threatening to trip her again. “I need some food—some sugar.”
“When the police get here—”
“No,” Ruth blurted. “I can’t wait that long. If I don’t eat something—I could pass out or—die.”
The man stopped, turned his face back to her. Was it her imagination, her hypoglycemic fog, or did the grimace inked through his wrinkles waver, his expression shifting into fear—eyes widening, his lips parting, his eyebrows twitching closer together like fuzzy caterpillars?
“She says she needs something to eat or she’ll pass out,” the man reported into the microphone of his headset. A buzzy reply returned. The man nodded. “There’s some brownies in the classroom,” he said to Ruth. Then, as if reading the confusion on her face, he added, “From a birthday party.”
Something felt off. Alarm bells rang inside Ruth’s head, but she couldn’t quite pinpoint why. Sweat dribbled down her scalp. Since when were parties hosted in the classroom? When she worked there, it had only been used for occasional knitting tutorials or group painting classes. But the gravity of the past ten minutes slithered back into her consciousness—you killed a man—and she gulped. There were greater worries now.
The Mustard Seed kept her arm in a firm vise until he sat her in a chair. On the paint-speckled table sat a neat plate of individually wrapped brownies, six stacked in a pyramid, all polka-dotted with colorful chips. Ruth unwrapped one and started chewing, the carbohydrates slowly solidifying her jelly legs back into bone and flesh.
“Please remove any merchandise you’ve taken and place it on the table,” the man said once she’d slipped the final bite into her mouth. Ruth complied, spilling the remaining skeins from beneath her sweatshirt like coiled intestines and stacking them before her.
“Is that everything?”
“Yes.”
The Mustard Seed sighed. “Lying lips are an abomination; those who deal in truth shall be rewarded. This is your last chance to be truthful—is that all you have stolen?”
“Yes,” Ruth repeated. Hadn’t they seen what she’d taken on the cameras? Isn’t that what the other guy said? “There’s some others that fell out already.”
“I’m going to check for any other stolen merchandise,” he said. Kneeling, he started by her feet, patting along her socks. It reminded her of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples. The man’s touch was surprisingly gentle, almost reverent, as if she were made of porcelain and he might break her. Ruth remained still, hoping that her compliance would indicate innocence.
The classroom hadn’t changed since she’d worked there, beyond the layer of rainbow patina that seemed to cover every surface. Six fold-out tables, each with six fold-out chairs. Cubbies and off-kilter drawers and cabinets lined the walls, full of overflowing cardstock and cups of paintbrushes. Across the wall, right beneath the ceiling, a painted declaration read: Let the Greatest Among You Become a Servant.
Ruth had almost forgotten about the store’s stupid slogan, the phrase that had been plastered all over the break room, recited to her countless times by management to quell any staff complaints. The eight words had even been printed on their paystubs.
Her thoughts continued to stray from the bloodied mess she’d made. As the Mustard Seed reached her knees, she scanned the room, trying to memorize it, trying to focus on anything besides the fateful moment she’d have the rest of her life to ponder from behind bars. She noticed an assortment of chunky clay creations on a nearby shelf—oblong pieces with odd, patterned scratches in rows. Crumbling at the edges. What class had that been? What were they trying to make?
A faded flyer tacked to the wall advertised some sort of camp project. Use the talents your Creator gave you to help us build New Creations Camp! A little cartoon campfire sat in front of a log cabin. Beneath that was another flyer, its words concealed except for Tell a Good Shepherd.
The Mustard Seed crested her knees, hesitated at her thighs. Crackling erupted from the man’s earpiece, feedback snaking up the little cord that connected it to the standard-issue radio that every employee was required to wear at all times, even on breaks. A working headset was almost as important as the customer-is-always-right regulation, the always-be-a-servant mindset.
If he hadn’t had the volume turned up to the max, if he hadn’t been patting up her legs, putting his earpiece right next to her face, Ruth might not have heard the voice on the other end. The voice that she was definitely not meant to hear.
“Make sure she’s contained,” it snapped, distorted with static. “She’s special and precious. We need her.”
What the fuck?
What did that mean?
Ruth’s head spun with thoughts, each one worse than the last, all screaming and yelling and overlapping until she couldn’t distinguish one from the other. They needed her? For what? The inevitable trial?
“We’ve made sure there’s no interference,” the voice said. “We are ready to receive her and her gift.”
“I’ve got her secured in the classroom,” the man replied.
“Good,” the crackly voice said. “And make sure she eats. It won’t work if she’s dead.”
If she’s dead? What the fuck? Why would she be dead? Was it related to her diabetes? Were they just making sure she’d gotten her blood sugar up? Ruth’s muscles tightened. Her instincts told her it was more than that. Whatever was happening here was not related to her shoplifting. And it didn’t even appear to be related to the man she’d stabbed—the man she’d murdered. She didn’t know what the fuck they wanted with her, but she knew she needed to get away from this person immediately.
When the man reached her jean pockets, bending over her, she jerked her knee upward, connecting right between his legs. He folded like a square of cardstock, kneeling in front of her, groaning in pain. Before she could do more than push her chair back, before she could even register the reality that she was trapped with nowhere to run, the man clasped his hand around her ankle.
Ruth thrashed, squirming, kicking, anything she possibly could to extricate her leg from his meaty vise. As she fell off the chair and onto the floor, he squeezed tighter and tried to snatch her other ankle. She kicked and clawed and yanked. With a final burst of force, she finally freed her ankle.
But though she left him on the floor, ego and body bruised, somehow he still managed to squeeze his hand around her arm as she reached the door, as if he’d teleported to her. The Mustard Seed shoved Ruth against the wall, trying to pin her down, to cease her flailing. He tried to capture her free hand, which fluttered like a bird trapped on the wrong side of glass. Then he moved toward her throat. And started to squeeze.
Feeling her breath shrink, constrict, Ruth threw her free hand back against the wall, scrabbling until it found the row of clay chunks on the shelf. Her fingers clasped around one, nearly dropping it from the unexpected weight. She swung the thing at the man’s head, the divots and scratches of the tablet creating imprints on her fingertips as she squeezed it tight. She missed a couple of times, the blows pinging off his shoulder, until, finally, the thing connected with his face, a cracking blow. Blood spouted from the man’s nose and lips, staining the unglazed clay, and the sudden pain forced him to release Ruth, just long enough. She didn’t hesitate. She ran.
Ruth could not let him take her. Something in her gut assured her she might be alive when they received her, but she wasn’t going to leave that way.
Ruth pumped her knees, her shoes slapping against the concrete floor, autopiloting to the front of the store. Her eyes remained alert for anyone else who might be there to try to capture her.
Capture her? Even as she ran, the thought seemed odd. Was she really being hunted? Why did they want—need—her?
If she could get to a register, she could press one of the panic buttons that was installed beneath each—and pray that they were actually connected to something. Too late, she realized the direct path there would take her to the scene of her crime, right to the holey body, and surely there would be someone there, someone tending to the man, someone who could easily hear her coming and jump out to grab her. Cutting away from the main pathway, she ducked back into the mirror aisle, cursing at her many selves staring back at her, wrinkled with blood-streaked stress lines, until she realized her luck—she could use one of the mirrors to peer around the corners.
The glass revealed … nothing. Not even the body lay there. Only the pool of blood was left. Like the man had vanished. Maybe someone really had come to help him. Maybe he was on his way to the hospital. But nothing in this town happened that quickly, especially not at this location, backed into a dead end at the bottom of a narrow, curved road.
She hadn’t heard any sirens. And if they didn’t want the police to show up, they wouldn’t have called an ambulance there, either.
The store sat in the perfect isolated location. Even if the panic button sent the police, it could take them over an hour to show up, and then they’d still be obstructed by the locked metal gate, each two-inch gap mocking her, revealing the freedom just beyond her reach. Realization sank into Ruth like a leaded stone. There was no other reason why they’d lower that in the middle of the day.
They wouldn’t have lowered the gate unless Ruth was the only one in the store, unless they really needed to make sure she couldn’t leave.
Not unless they really were hunting her.
Chapter 6
It didn’t make sense. Why the fuck would the employees of New Creations, a craft store, be hunting her?
What could they possibly want with her?
Ruth could fabricate precisely zero logical explanations. They’d lowered the gate before she sank her knitting needle into the man’s eye—and it seemed too extreme a reaction for shoplifting. She’d seen her fair share of shoplifters during her employment, but the managers seemed to shrug it away when she tried to be a Good Girl and report it. Their official policy had seemed to be report, document, but do not engage.
How stupid she’d been to think they’d never take action, that’d she’d be safe to continue her prolonged fuck you, taking whatever she wanted after losing the one steady form of income she’d been able to find after breaking up with Charlie. How stupid to have thought New Creations could be a fresh start, a place with managers and colleagues she didn’t recognize, people who hadn’t lived in Kill Devil their whole lives, whose opinions of her hadn’t been marred by rumors of promiscuity or gold digging. She should have known it would only be a matter of time before the church-owned store would figure it out and choose discrimination, choose to take one more thing away from her.
They’d waited until she came in for her shift to do it. Her eyes had glazed over when they told her she was fired.
“Why?” she’d asked. “Was my work not satisfactory?”
“Well,” the manager said. A fully-sprouted Mustard Seed, he wore a clean button-up instead of the gaudy apron. On his collar was a gold pin—a small shepherd’s hook. “We discovered something.”
Goose bumps prickled her arms. A tight knot formed in her chest. The air suddenly felt thick and soupy, and her breath hitched. She prided herself on being a Good Worker. This was the only place that had given her a chance since her scandalous breakup. She needed this job.
“What did you find?” she pressed, her palms sweating oval stains onto her jeans.
“We discovered something that proves your values do not align with ours,” the manager replied. “Our company has chosen to terminate your employment. Effective immediately.”
“What does that mean? That my values don’t align with yours? Did I do something wrong?”
Silhouetted by the eerie white wall of screens behind him, the security feeds, the manager shifted in his seat, hesitating, like he was searching for a way to cover up the real reason. “We can’t have someone like you working for us,” he said finally. “Our ownership believes in good, traditional values, and we cannot sacrifice that.”
Emphasis on traditional.
“What, exactly, are the traditional values I’m going against?”
The manager sighed, as though she were a stupid, petulant child who couldn’t see the neon elephant in the room. “We discovered that you are dating a woman.”
He said nothing more. Period. Full stop. As if that made any fucking sense. As if that had anything to do with her ability to type in prices at the ancient registers or put paintbrushes on a shelf.
Ruth’s heart dropped into her stomach. She and Abigail had been so careful. How could they have known?
“You can’t be serious,” she said, almost laughing. “That can’t really be the reason. You’re joking, right?”
“No, I’m afraid it is not a joke.”
“That’s illegal,” she said. “That’s discrimination. You can’t do that.”
“There’s just the two of us here,” the manager said, a smirk settling on his face. “Kentucky is an at-will state. We can fire you for any reason we like.”
