Emily Appleyard is a speculative fiction author living in the New York metropolitan area who loves to write character-driven stories and hopes to one day complete a full length-novel. Creative writing is the vessel through which she has learned to unpack and explore the various facets of our world, but most importantly, writing and engaging with other creatives is what makes her life so much brighter.

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The lighting cast by the hanging fixtures bathed the church in a warm glow, a welcome respite from the harsh brightness of the outside world. It washed the two flags, one for America, one for Arkansas, out; their lurid blues and reds softened and restrained as if they had been bleached by the furious summer sun. In this place, God took precedence over all else. State loyalty, proud patriotism, and familial love—it all played second fiddle to Him. Those emotions existed ancillary to God, a means through which a faithful Christian could brush up against Him, could get as close as He would allow.

Adina ran her hands over her skirt, absentmindedly pushing the pleats between the gaps of her fingers. The cotton brushed against her skin, and a peculiar sense of satisfaction washed over her. She bit her tongue to prevent a smile from slipping onto her face. She was in no mood to call upon Pastor Dawson’s attention, her eyes bleary and voice wobbly after two nights of tossing and turning under her floral covers.

The pastor’s sermon barreled on, his harsh voice ricocheting off the wooden walls. His words were staccato, and he paused at the end of every sentence, daring a dissenter to shout him down. He searched for persecution in the eyes of his congregation, the one place he would never, could never find it. The outside world, of course, was a different story.

“Why doesn’t Eliza come to church?” Adina, still small enough to need a cushion on her chair, asked her sister. All the kids in her homeschool Co-Op went to church at least once a week, if not more. All the kids except Eliza.

Sarah, her older sister, was standing behind her, gingerly weaving lily white ribbons into her golden hair. Her sister’s touch was gentle and light, but the Dutch braids she had learned from the other girls at Bible camp were immaculate. “Her parents are Catholic, so they go to a Catholic church.”

“Oh.” Adina frowned. “They should come to our church.” Her stomach squeezed sharply, imagining Eliza, who always shared her glitter pens with her, being turned away at the pearly gates, her name absent from the saint’s list.

“Well, Mama got Eliza’s mom to come to her Bible study, so it shouldn’t be long before she joins us," her sister said, patting Adina’s head reassuringly.

“But what if she doesn’t?”

“She will,” Sarah said, tying a neat bow at the end of Adina’s braid.

“But what if she doesn’t?”

Her sister had no reply.

Adina jolted upright. She pinched the skin on the back of her hand, and prayed that Pastor Dawson had not noticed her slipping into her daydreams. Mama glanced at her, thin lips pursed in consideration. Adina hastily shook her head and fixed her gaze on the pulpit.

“If the devil can sink his claws into you once, and convince you to ignore the wound, then the infection of evil will slowly kill you and rot your soul beyond salvation,” Pastor Dawson lectured, spit flying from his maw. “Because of this, God requires us to be constantly on guard against the temptations of the world. It is the most righteous that Satan hounds, desperate to steal the shepherds from the sheep."

“Amen!” A greying woman shouted from the front row. Dread wafted off her, enduring and devoted; devoted to her husband, her high school sweetheart, her first and last love. He’s a smart man, smarter than any man in this town ought to be, but he’s dumb about God. Pushing back being born again—can’t he see they’re getting old?

The heaviness lifted from Adina’s eyelids, and her heart enthusiastically began to pump blood, waking her spindly limbs from their lethargy. Something slithered across her hindbrain and down her spine, something inborn and tortuously familiar. Something that missed dense grass and rolling hills, the scent of salt and iron in the air, a boyish laugh and a nudging shoulder…

Adina steeled her mind against the onslaught of foreign terror and the confused sensations it unleashed. I am not my thoughts, I am not my thoughts; she resisted her lifelong affliction, her sixth sense that smelt fear like a scent hound, and her voracious spirit that lapped it up like sweet tea on a hot summer’s day.

Her jaw quivered. I am not my thoughts.

This phrase, this litany, provided her scant comfort.

After all, what comfort could prayer bring a rotten soul?