The Outlander Read Online Free

held up over the heads of many children and deer and their fauns, the
     tiny pages marked with painted dots and squiggles not meant to be read. Behind this
     group, the purple swell of impending storm clouds.
Suffer the children.
In
     another, women knelt at Christ’sfeet while monstrously
     hunched humans staggered before the doors of the temple, where their wares lay broken
     about the square.
The moneylenders.
Then there was Lazarus —luckless and
     desolate, called to rise by a booming voice. The stone, like a conjuror’s hand,
     moved aside to reveal the horror: Life . . . again. Mary in blue, always in blue,
     inclined for mourning. Peter, confronted, denies his Christ, a rooster beside him in
     pedigreed plumage. Peter is always pictured with a rooster, but the widow had forgotten
     why. Finally, the martyred Christ in agony on a grey day with high wind.
Redemption
. Light suffuses the sky.
    The widow sighed, enraptured. The little church was a cool, dim museum
     infused with the comfort of stale incense. She sat back and ceased her ogling and
     elbowing, and the bird lady beside her huffed with relief. The organ drew a breath and
     barked once, and the faithful women jerked to attention. A fluttering of fans. A murmur
     came from somewhere up front . . . no, not a murmur but a man’s voice. An old
     minister droning. How long had he been talking? The widow strained to hear.
    â€œ. . . And the first of these is charity.” The
     minister’s voice was barely audible from the pulpit, he himself so small as to be
     almost invisible. The widow eventually spied the man, shrouded in his fine little wooden
     tower. A lectern carved from the same dark wood that raised before him. A cloth canopy
     stretched over his head —
In case it rains
, her father would joke. Even
     before his withdrawal from the church, her father called himself Jack in the Pulpit, a
     black-clad pistil hiding in God’s green underbrush.
    â€œ. . . Second is faith. Last is charity.” This was greeted
     with a peeved sigh or two from the assembly.
    â€œHe’s forgotten hope,” chuckled a female voice to her
     left.
    â€œIt’s the same sermon as
last week
, ” hissed
     another in disbelief.
    â€œShh!”
    â€œHe’s getting old, is all. Who isn’t?”
    â€œLadies,
shh!
”
    The service meandered along, eddying occasionally in a hymn, pausing for
     the united shifting of the congregation to kneel and pray. The widow was happy to be
     among these women, everyone wilting in their rarely washed Sunday clothes, seated among
     the murals and statuettes and concrete flourishes. Though she was filthy and unslept,
     she had the compensating poise of youth. Her skin was clear, her cheeks rosy. The dark
     shadows under her eyes only made them seem deeper, clearer. She stood up with the rest
     of the women to sing, holding her hymnal before her and gazing at the minister as he
     waited impatiently for them to finish.
    â€œChrist in you, the hope of glory. This is the gospel we
     proclaim.”
    Every word was like a comforting dream to the widow, and she sang her
     lungs out. She didn’t look at her page, she didn’t need to; she knew this
     and most of the hymns and psalms and lessons and prayers by heart. Nevertheless, a hand
     reached up and flipped pages for her.
    â€œYou’re on the wrong one.” A raspy whisper from the old
     lady. When the widow turned to thank her, there was a keen intelligence peering back, a
     question lingering there.
    At the end of the service, the organ remained silent until the minister
     had fled behind his barricades. Then a lengthy bawl of mismatched chords that resolved
     slowly, mingled,and formed a sluggish processional. The more
     sciatic participants struggled to their feet. The racket sufficient to drive guests from
     the house.
    People stood outside, chatting in loose federation on the church steps.
     The widow moved among them like