Page 85 of Strange Grace
It is a body Baeddan was dragging behind him. There’s a roaring in Arthur’s ears as he closes in. Baeddan grabs the saint’s hair, jerking his head up.
John Upjohn.
The energy of Baeddan’s gesture pulls the man’s eyes half open, and his jaw is slack. His arms dangle so that his single hand has scraped bloody and raw against the earth. Dirt and leaves cover his chest, and the front of his jerkin is torn.
“He’s dead already,” Arthur says softly.
Baeddan snorts and drags Upjohn by the hair. Chunks of blond rip free, and Arthur leaps forward, shoving his shoulder into Baeddan. “Let go. Get off him!” Arthur yells. But Baeddan growls, swings his arm, and backhands Arthur.
Pain blackens his vision and blood bursts in Arthur’s mouth as his teeth cut into his cheek. He blinks away dark stars, scrambling for Baeddan again. “Stop, Baeddan.” He grabs at Baeddan’s bare, scarred chest, hitting hard.
Baeddan grunts.
Arthur crouches over John Upjohn, wincing so the surge of sorrow he feels doesn’t appear on his face, but only flows through him, spilling out in ragged, heaving breaths. He spits blood onto the leaves. The old saint is limp. Dead. A great scratch claws across his left eye and down his nose.
“Dead?” whispers Baeddan.
“Dead,” says Arthur as if it’s a curse.
“Well, then,” Vaughn drawls behind them, having watched their drama from the heart of the grove. “I suppose, Arthur Couch, you’ll be useful after all.”
•••
“THE BARGAIN IS BROKEN,” RHUNsays to Judith and Ben, both of whom stare at the smoldering remains of his bracelet. He won’t hide it. He wonders if Arthur has realized it, if Mairwen feels it, and if they’ll all three find each other again.
“What are we going to do?” Ben asks again.
And suddenly, seeing the couple there in the powerful sunlight, silver with clouds, Rhun understands:Weis right.
Everyone was complicit in the secret, even if they didn’t know. So everyone has to be just as complicit in the solution. Not a handful of people making choices for all, not the Grace witches or even just him and Arthur. Everybody who benefits or suffers must decide together. Heat flushes his face, like triumph, and he says, “We’re going to fix it together. All of Three Graces.”
“How?” asks Judith.
Rhun Sayer smiles. “We’re all going to become saints, Judith! Come with me into town.”
With that, he moves on, revelation unfurling like wings on his back.
When he reaches the first houses, he slows. He calls out, “People of Three Graces, this is Rhun Sayer! You named me your saint, and by that honor I ask you to listen! Come to the center now, the bonfire. Bring coats and boots. Bring a weapon if you must! But come. This is Rhun Sayer, your twenty-eighth saint, and I’m asking this of you!”
Rhun walks on, curving through three of the side streets, crying out his message again and again. He says the names of the people he sees, calling them with the power of their families and histories.
“This is Rhun Sayer!” he yells from the spiral town square. He plants his feet and cups hands around his mouth. “Listen to me!”
More and more gather, slowly some, but others arriving as if they’ve waited all their lives to be called. It does not escape his notice that the first to come are children and young people, the runners and their cousins and friends. Rhun nods at them. His chest heaves with effort and sparks of excitement. He’s neither afraid nor happy, not delighted nor spinning into panic. He is truly, finally ready, like he’s never been, because there is nothing to hide now.
Rhun Sayer wants to live, but more than that, he wants everyone to see him. Not his destiny, not what he’s promised, not some fabled quality of goodness that makes him the best. No, he wants them to see the answers to all the secrets in his heart: He loves them so much, and he loves this valley so much, he has to make them all saints. Every last one of them. He’s changed, and they all need to change with him. To choose it. Nobody will be lied to, nobody will be innocent. Everyone will choose together.
He sees his mother arrive, and his father. He sees Arthur’s father, and Cat Dee, Beth Pugh and her brother Ifan. Sayers pour in. All the young men who wanted to be the saint instead of him.
And then, only then, Rhun smiles.
A few townsfolk smile back, because they always smile at Rhun Sayer. It’s instinctive.
“Thank you,” he says. “Thank you for putting down your work, or your fear, to listen. You know what the bargain we’ve lived under for two hundred years truly is. Every saint died, none survived until John Upjohn, and me. We tried to bind the bargain, Mairwen, Arthur, and I. We managed it, but it didn’t last.” He holds up his bare arm. “The charm is broken. The bargain is gone. Because we didn’t bind it with death. There’s no balance to the life we’re given. How can we expect to live as we do without sacrifice?” Rhun laughs softly and with despair at his former ignorance. Shaking his head, he scans the shifting group of friends and neighbors, his family. They’re eyeing each other and eyeing him. Silent. As if they’re unwilling to argue but cannot quite step into sync with him.
“We’ll die!” someone from the back calls.
“We always die,” snaps Beth Pugh.
