To his chagrin, Dunstan was right. The number of hostile looks he received when they attended Mass that Sunday was far greater than he’d become accustomed to. The Wainwrights usually sat in the back of the church anyway, and Aldrich made sure they were never late, but dozens of people turned around around when they walked in and fixed them with a variety of sneers, scowls, and stares. Dunstan felt his heart leap into his throat, but he tried to put on a friendly face all the same.

“Good morning,” Evelyn smiled, “God bless!” Most turned back toward the altar, but there was a chorus of muttering. Elspeth met a few persistent glares with one of her own.

“Maybe I should just go,” whispered Dunstan.

“Take your seat,” Aldrich told him, his voice firm.

Father Smythe chose that moment to appear at the door in his vestments, giving a nod to the choir, who launched into the opening hymn before things could escalate further. The priest was a portly man, with a droopy walrus mustache and a commanding presence. He kept a careful eye on his flock, and brooked no distractions once the Mass began.

The Homily leaned heavily into the Gospel of Matthew, with Father Smythe’s booming voice demanding to know how the parishioners could cast the mote from the eye of their brother when they had a beam in their own, and admonishing that they would know false prophets by their fruits, for an evil tree could not bear good fruit, and likewise that a good tree would not bear evil fruit.

A few heads bowed in contrition, and Dunstan exhaled slowly, the tension easing in his chest. His father patted him on the back, while his mother took his hand and gave it a squeeze. He let himself focus on the familiar prayers and hymns, there was nothing else he could do at the moment.

As the closing hymn rang out, Father Smythe strode confidently down the aisle and leaned toward the family.

“I’d like a word before you all go,” he said. Aldrich nodded to him, and they waited as the rest of the community filtered out. No one said anything, though Adelia Shrike sneered. Her son was nowhere to be seen.

Father Smythe joined them a short time later, his vestments exchanged for a cassock. Everyone else had gone.

“It’s been brought to my attention that there’s been a bit of drama,” he began.

“Dunstan didn’t do anything! Mrs. Shrike has been making up vicious lies!” Elspeth leaped to her brother’s defense, but the priest held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. Her mother put a hand on her shoulder and shushed her.

“I’m well aware of that,” Father Smythe said, “I went and spoke to Mrs. Abernathy yesterday when I started hearing rumors. She had only good things to say about Dunstan here, and I’ve never seen anything that would cause me to have a negative opinion of him.” Dunstan nodded gratefully, and he saw the tension ease a bit in his father’s shoulders.

“You don’t think that I do witchcraft?” Dunstan asked. The priest snorted.

“I remember your parents asking me to come by when you were just a young boy who was frightened of men no one else could see. I suppose you’re old enough for it now, but I don’t know how a child barely old enough to speak would carry out some sort of magical ritual, much less learn one in the first place. And to what end? To curse his enemies? You didn’t have any at the time, and the ones you have now seem to be doing fine.” He stroked his mustache. “If anything, I’m more worried for the souls of grown men and women who appoint themselves enemies of a boy of seventeen.” He sighed.

“I suppose sorting that out is my business though, not yours. I just wanted to let you know that if you’d prefer to keep to yourself, or limit the people you come into contact with for a while, I do visit a number of people throughout the valley during the week, both for spiritual and social purposes. It would be no trouble to another stop to my list.”

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“What are you saying? Are you asking us not to come to Mass?” Aldrich frowned at him.

“Nothing of the sort!” Father Smythe said quickly, “I just wanted you to know you had the option, if that’s what you’d prefer. This is a house of God, and you’re always welcome here!”

“I’m glad to hear that,” Aldrich replied, his arms crossed over his chest. “Was there anything else?”

“Now Aldrich—” the priest began, but Aldrich cut him off.

“Then we’ll be on our way. God Bless!” Aldrich stomped out, dragging his son with him.

“I’m sorry, Father, this had been difficult for him,” Evelyn said. “I’ll talk to him.”

“It’s alright,” Father Smythe waved her off, “I’ll talk to him myself. Take care of yourselves.” The mother and daughter hurried after father and son.

Dunstan mucked out the chicken coop and tried to pretend he couldn’t hear his parents arguing. They seldom fought, but when they did, it was usually over him. It wasn’t that they were angry with him, or that they resented him, but they didn’t always agree on how to handle the way other people treated him.

He’d offered to lie, when he was old enough to understand why other people treated him differently. He’d have told the people of the village that he’d made it all up, or that he’d been ill and hallucinated, whatever story his parents preferred. They wouldn’t have it. Despite their other disagreements, both Evelyn and Aldrich had insisted he tell the truth.

“I’m not ashamed that my son sees ghosts,” Aldrich had told him, “but I would be ashamed if he lied to folk about it.”

“The most important thing is to be a good person,” Evelyn had said when he talked to her about it. “We can figure out the rest.”

The memory made him smile, in spite of himself.

“Are you crying?” Elspeth asked, catching him by surprise as she stepped around the corner of the barn.

“No!” Dunstan insisted.

“Are you sure?”

Dunstan held out the shovel. “We’ll see what you look like after getting the chicken crap out of the corners.”

“Iwas crying, so you’ll just have to finish it yourself,” she told him. Her eyes were red. Dunstan took a step toward her, but she pointed a finger at him sternly.

“Absolutely not!”

“See if I try to hug you again!” he replied.

“You have chicken crap all over you!”

“Ma says it helps the plants grow,” he told her, “maybe it would do you some good.” She grinned, despite herself.

He scooped the straw and manure into the wheelbarrow, then pushed it over to a compost pile behind the barn, with Elspeth following him.

“You don’t hate us, do you?” she asked.

“What?! No!” He looked at her in confusion. “Why would you ask that?”

“Because we don’t see them! You have to live with this all the time, and we don’t, so I thought you might get angry at us.”

“I don’t like seeing them, but I don’t hate you because you can’t. Hell, I don’t even hatethem, not really. It doesn’t seem to be anybody’s fault, it’s just the way things are.”

He emptied the wheelbarrow and turned the compost with the shovel.

“Come on, let’s go make sure they don’t spend all evening arguing and forget to make us dinner,” Dunstan said.

“You can’t just tell them they’re done arguing for today,” Elspeth said. “They’re our parents!”

“I can so, there’s plenty of things that need done around here, and arguing isn’t one of them. Being parents doesn’t mean they don’t have chores, same as us.” He pushed the wheelbarrow back over next to the barn, where it belonged. “Besides, I’m what they’re arguing over, and I say they’ve argued enough.”

They went inside, and Elspeth giggled while Dunstan scolded the two.