It Wasn't Always Like This - Joy Preble Page 0,20

very heavy.

“We won’t be attending, Emma,” her mother declared f irmly. But Emma’s father had his own ideas about Glen Walters and the Church of Light.

“What we believe or don’t believe is no one’s business but our own,” he said at supper. “So if it’s good for business to be seen there like everyone else, why not?”

Emma craned her neck as Glen Walters strode up the wooden steps to the stage, his hair as silver and perfect as the ladies had said it would be, his skin weathered and tan, his eyes bright blue. But when he stalked to the middle of the platform, those eyes turned hard as slate.

Emma shifted on the bench, wedged tight between her father on one side and Charlie on the other. Their families stretched down the length of the row in either direction. Her skin was beading with sweat that dripped down her back. She already wanted to get up. Too many people. Too little room. Florida was so vast and empty, but she never remembered Brooklyn feeling so crowded, even though it was.

“Heaven is real!” Glen Walters cried, startling her enough to take a good look at him. Now those blue eyes had gone wild, lit with some internal f ire. His voice boomed through the overheated night. “But you can’t get there through good works alone. The Lord doesn’t care about that. The Lord doesn’t want sinners. But He forgives them.”

The audience leaned forward. Her father muttered something ungentlemanly under his breath.

“Hush, Art,” Mother whispered. “I told you we shouldn’t have come.”

“Man is a sinful creature,” Glen Walters continued.

Someone to Emma’s far right hollered, “Amen!”

Charlie linked his f ingers through hers, and she gripped his hand like a lifeline.

Take me out of here, she silently begged him. Take me out of here.

The “tent” meeting wasn’t in a tent, of course. Emma had stupidly expected happy things like the circus and cotton candy; she’d expected to feel seven years old again. Instead it felt like that last mass, but without the hanging Jesus. There was no ceiling because they were in the park. Every available bench had been crammed in front of the Church of Light’s makeshift stage; almost every person in town was huddled here. The air felt more humid and thick than ever, an unwanted blanket she couldn’t toss aside.

“Look around you, my brothers and sisters.” Glen Walters’s voice made Emma want to cup her hands over her ears. Instead she held on to Charlie. “Look at the state of the world. We are moving fast toward hellf ire. The faster we move, the more we forget ourselves. Trains. Automobiles. Airships. The telegraph. Are these things making us happier? Are they making us less sinful? No. They are making us covetous and evil.

“You’ve heard talk that the Church of Light traces its origins to the Druids. To Pagans. I tell you now, that this is true. But the Druids were the Lord’s chosen until they turned from the right path and began building their mighty circles of stone, and the Lord destroyed them.

“You’ve heard talk that the Church of Light preaches of Atlantis. Of a shining civilization swept under the sea because they, too, believed that they were mightier than the Lord. And the Lord smote their glittering continent as he smote Sodom.”

“Hogwash,” scoffed Frank Ryan, loud enough that a couple in front of them turned around to stare.

Emma squirmed. She felt almost . . . naked, as though somehow everything she felt inside—even this new, private love for Charlie—was on display for all to see.

“He’s an ass,” Charlie whispered.

“Who?” Emma asked without thinking, and instantly regretted it. Charlie had never uttered a profanity in front of her. He’d probably been talking about Glen Walters, but there was always the possibility he was talking about his father. Charlie bit his lip, the way he always did when she made him laugh. His face turned red, and he squeezed her hand hard, shaking his head and smiling.

“Both,” he gasped.

Now Emma was worried she might laugh.

Her mother shot them both a glare. Emma held her breath, gripping Charlie’s hand as tightly as she could, trying to focus on the sermon.

“Once again, in our time, Man wants to be God,” Glen Walters told the crowd. “And once again, the Lord will strike us down for it. He already has.”

He stepped to the very edge of the stage, spreading his arms wide as though he were about to take f light. Emma’s stomach tightened. Why