All The Dark Places

41. Matchstick Man

Days passed in the strangest quiet and stillness. A surreal kind of calm settled over the village and everyone struggled to keep some air of dignity while picking up the pieces and moving on with their lives. The fires stopped burning and in their wake were the craters of burned out houses and the ash and bone of the dead. There were more than expected and the reality of that weighed heavily on their hearts. John Melcott organized a group of men and women to compassionately remove the bones and remains of those killed in the fires to give them as proper a burial as could be managed. To their dismay, they realized that a mass grave would have to suffice. A deep and wide grave was dug, and families offered up foliage and rushes to lay down at the bottom of the grave as a soft bedding, a silent gesture of peace. Both Vicars said prayers for the dead as they were lowered into the grave, bundled in sheets for modesty and to spare the families the view of the damage done.

Father Gareth set up a makeshift clinic with the help of the Elkins family, the Morrisons and the Hans. They moved camping cots with blankets and pillows into the post office which once doubled as a tourist center and now hosted the sick and the wounded. Dr. Elkins and his wife tended to the minor wounds that could be mended with a few stitches and splints. Father Gareth tended to broken limbs and serious wounds, laying his glowing hands on patients in bursts of energy that drained him. In between, he drank copious amounts of coffee, and when the coffee wore off, he slept just long enough to regain his strength and his power. By the end of the day, his eyes were milk white and clouded with cataracts.

The ugly tasks had to be done, and Rosalind took command, gathering her patrolmen to go out and round up any of Winston's militia to be brought in to answer for their crimes. The patrol silently nodded, steady in their cause and went to do their jobs. They gathered rope from the stables and anything else they could find to secure a criminal.

"Where can we keep them?" Rosalind asked a large group gathered at the Stag's Head. "We need to have a trial, a fair trial, or at least the fairest we can manage. We need a place to keep them until we organize a trial."

"The old mill just up the creek," Toby said, pointing to the East. "Won't take us more than a day or two. We'll get something rigged up. I'll stay and guard them on shifts, me and Ivy."

"No!" she protested. "Jory is out there! He's in the militia, but I swear he couldn't have known what that crazy bastard was going to do! He's not part of all this, I know he's not!"

"Ivy, that boy has been trouble since he was this high." Toby indicated waist high and put one arm around his daughter. "There are better fish in the sea than that one, daughter."

"Ivy, we have to find Jory. If he was part of this, he needs to stand trial, just like the others. We can't play favorites," Rosalind insisted.

Ivy seemed to know this was true but shook her head and buried her face in her hands to deny it to herself. Rosalind stood up on the bench of the table at the crowded bar and announced,

"We need to have a fair trial for these people! They will be brought to justice and have the right to plead their case before a jury!"

Half of the people clapped and approved.

"They killed our people," someone shouted. "This is no time for mercy."

"I understand how you feel, but we can't descend into that kind of behavior. We have to keep our humanity. Enough violence has been done without thought to morality or fairness. We have to try. Please say you will all try."

People nodded, reservedly lifting their drinks to toast the idea. They liked her. Rosalind had never felt liked before, not really, and the warm glow of it conflicted with the knot in her stomach from all that had happened.