This is from an October Flash competition I didn't finish in time. Always a fan of banished pilgrims.
Stonework
Each time it happened Joseph had to travel deeper into the
woods to find the right stone: soft enough to chisel yet durable enough to
withstand the harsh rain and wind of their new frontier claim. Wood didn’t work
for the grave markers as it quickly took to rot and fell apart after two
seasons. This afternoon he happened across a large block of limestone that
would make a fine marker.
After dragging it back home, he took to hammering the boy’s
name in to it. What did she decide again? Ezekiel? “That’s the one,” he
sniffed.
He wouldn’t want to check in on Maria just yet. She was
still in a tempest after delivering the child into the world on a Thursday and,
if past experience were to hold true, she’d be pouring over her astral charts
to determine where she made her mistake. And start plotting out their next
attempt at a Sabbath born child.
A small row of grave markers cataloged their other attempts
to fulfill his wife’s efforts to summon a proper demon into their plane. Maria
had a lifetime of revenge to extract. Starting with all of those folks in Cow
Ford who chased her out of town. They would soon learn what kind of heretic she
truly was.
At first, Joseph secretly welcomed the banishment. It
allowed him to live a quiet life and offer his wife a chance to study her arts,
no matter how dark they were. Over time though, his heart ached more with each
new gravestone he made. He’d already outlived his father, yet was denied
fatherhood himself. He’d given up on his wife long ago, and only stayed to
protect any more of their offspring from her ongoing vindictive acts of
procreation.
The hammering of his chisel on the stone drew the Lokota. They
were always watching. They were as
scared of Maria as anyone else, but they honored the agreement Joseph made with
them upon first arriving in the prairie. Take and raise the newborns and Joseph
would provide them with talismans needed for what seemed like an endless,
formless war they continuously were fighting. What were they doing with the locks
of Maria’s witched hair Joseph harvested from his wife with each Wolf Moon?
The scout’s shadow at the edge of the woods, knelt, lifted
the swaddled babe and walked away. Joseph continued hammering, hoping it would
hide any of the baby’s crying from Maria. As he worked the stone, the farmer
catalogued the rest of his day. He’d dig the hole, put in the dead rabbit, fill
it and plant the grave marker. Only then would he interrupt his wife and
declare the task complete.
Today he had another task requiring a larger stone. There
would be no more need for the babies, the rabbits and the truce with the
Lokota. He raised his hammer again and started to scribe his wife’s name into
the rock.
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