The Last Sin Eater by Francine Rivers Read Free Book Online Page A

looked at me with dismay and I blushed.
    “I reckon I’d want everyone invited who’d like to come,” Miz Elda said, leaning forward and patting my hand. “I’d like a wake just like yer granny had. Plenty of good food for the women and whiskey for the men.”
    “And the sin eater? Will ye want him to come, Miz Kendric?”
    “Oh, indeed. I’ll have sore need of him.”
    “And how’ll we find him for ye?”
    “Ye won’t need to find him. The passing bell echoes in these mountains,” Gervase Odara said. “He’ll most likely hear it.”
    “Is that where he is? High on the mountaintop?”
    Gervase Odara frowned as Miz Elda answered. “Reckon so.” She rubbed her aching legs. “No one really knows where he lives, except maybe—” The healer cleared her throat. “Hmmm,” Miz Elda said, meeting her glance. She looked at me again. “Could be he’s living in a house he built or a cave he found, but he ain’t so far removed from us that he won’t know when he’s needed. Don’t ye worry yourself about it.”
    I knew to leave off asking where to find him and tried another track. “How did he come to be the sin eater?”
    “Why, he was chosen, of course.”
    “Chosen? How?”
    The healer turned while mixing another mug of medicine for Miz Elda. “It isna good for a chile to be so fixed in her mind about the sin eater.” She came to us and handed the mug to the old woman.
    “I was just wondering what to do if Miz Elda died and—”
    Elda Kendric snorted. “Just because yer granny has gone on her way don’t mean every soul past seventy is going to chase right on after her.” She drank the remedy, shuddered, and held out the empty mug to Gervase Odara. “Thank ye kindly, Ger-vase.” She moved easier, shifting in her chair. “I’m feeling a wee bit sleepy.”
    “Soon as we get some vittles into ye, we’ll put ye to bed. I’ll come round tomorrow and see how ye be.” The healer had brought bread, berry preserves, and a jar of thick soup, which she was warming over the fire she’d stoked.
    “Let’s just visit awhile. I’ll eat after ye go.”
    “Ye’ll eat now, Elda.”
    The old woman looked at me, eyes twinkling. “She doesna trust me.”
    Gervase Odara cracked an egg and stirred it into the soup she was heating over the fire. Pouring it into a bowl, she brought it back and put it on the table.
    Elda Kendric took the proffered spoon in her gnarled, misshapen fingers. “Nothing tastes good anymore.” But the bread and berry preserves were to her liking, especially when washed down by tea brewed from the green bark of a wild cherry tree.
    The healer sat by her, making sure she ate every bite and drank every drop. They talked about others in the cove. Mercy Tattersall was in a family way again, seven babies in eight years, and the woman is done in from the last. Tate MacNamara shot the painter that had been killing his sheep. Pen Densham’s son Pete fell from the hayloft and broke his leg in two places.
    Not once did they mention the sin eater.
    “Thar now, dearie, ye sleep well,” Gervase Odara said, having seen the old woman to her bed and covered over with a quilt. “I’ll come by tomorrow.”
    “Cadi,” the old lady said sleepily. “Ye come by anytime, dear-ie. We’ll talk about yer granny. I miss the old soul.”
    “Thank ye, ma’am. I hope ye’ll be feeling better.”
    She took my hand and held it strong as Gervase Odara turned away to tidy up the cooking things. “We can talk about other things, too.”
    It fixed in my mind that she was talking about the sin eater, and it was all I could do not to press her right then and there with questions. But she was already dozing off, the healer’s remedies sitting well with her and easing her poor body of its pain.
    Lightning split the gray sky with white as we were on the way home. “We’ll keep to the trees,” Gervase Odara said as the deep rumble rolled. She was afeared, and rightfully so, with the sky brightened again. I