.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。.

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PROLOGUE:
❝ living on borrowed time ❞

𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁𐄙𐄁

A BABY, round and red-faced, screamed in its mother's arms. Christine Day, the lucky woman, stood beside the stove, watching as blue and orange flames danced beneath a kettle. Her gaze was vacant and unmoving, even as the newborn girl she was holding continued to cry, quite loudly in fact. It wasn't until the kettle began spouting steam in a high-pitched whistle, that she finally seemed to jump back to life. She pulled the pot off the stove and distinguished the flame, hurrying to fill two mugs on the counter.

"I do appreciate you coming, Father Pritchett," She said, turning around to face a balding man in a black suit. A white collar encircled his throat, accompanied by a cross that dangled down to his chest. A bible laid on the table beside him.

"I believe you're my last chance. I don't know where else to go."

She handed the mug to the priest, who accepted it silently. He fixed her with a strange look, one that Christine wasn't unfamiliar with. She was disheveled—certainly not the picture-perfect housewife she ought to be. Her hair, which was typically pinned to perfection, had become a messy cluster of curls and flyaways. Her dress was stained, and since she hadn't done the laundry recently, she had nothing nicer to put on. Christine's hands shook for a cigarette, but she wouldn't dare smoke around Clara.

Clara was her daughter. She was three months old now, nearly four, certainly growing faster than Christine could comprehend. It made her heart ache knowing she wouldn't live to see her grow any bigger.

"It's no trouble, Mrs. Ward—"

"Day," Christine interjected, her young face turned stern. "Miss Day will do just fine, Father."

Father Pritchett raised a brow, and Christine felt uneasy. Separations weren't unheard of in this part of the state, but it certainly wasn't something openly accepted by the Church. Father Pritchett exhaled slowly.

"Yes, of course. I am glad you decided to reach out to me, Miss Day."

"My mother spoke so highly of you when I was a little girl. She said if I was ever in trouble, to come to you," Christine said, relieved to see the bashful smile it brought to the preacher's face.
He sipped his coffee to hide his flustered face. He made a soft noise of surprise, jerking the cup away from mouth. Christine looked down at her own to discover that there was only hot water in her cup. Father Pritchett set his mug back on the table impassively while Christine scrambled to find the coffee grounds.

"So, I take it Mr. Ward is no longer in the picture," he mused, and Christine clenched her teeth.

She silently poured a few scoops of coffee grounds into Father Pritchett's cup, all but slamming a spoon down on the table. Clara had grown quiet in her arm, so Christine put her down in the little bassinet that was just inside of the kitchen. Father Pritchett was still staring at her when she turned around.

"Rick wasn't a family man by any means," She said, wiping her hands on her already dirty apron. "He didn't want a baby, so he left. And I try not to dwell on the past."

"I see, I see..."

Father Pritchett stirred his coffee pensively. Christine stared at him, wondering what on Earth possessed her to seek help from this man, or the Church in that case. In terms of religion, she, nor the rest of her family, had been consistent practitioners of the faith. For that reason, she had never seen eye to eye with the clergy. Christine hoped that didn't change the outcome of what she had to ask.

"Father Pritchett?"

"Yes, my dear?"

The young woman set down her cup and reached across the table for his hand. This caught the preacher off guard and he looked up at her abruptly. There were traces of coffee in his mustache. Christine held back a grimace.

"I need your help, Father. There's something dark in this house, I can feel it," Christine said, suppressing a shudder. "I think it wants me dead."

The preacher appeared taken aback, like he couldn't quite believe what she was saying. But she didn't miss the way he also cast an uneasy glance around himself, lest the dark forces she spoke of come for him as well. His free hand tightened around the leather-bound Bible on the table.

"Now, Miss Day, that is an awfully big statement," Father Pritchett responded, regarding her with a look of concern.

Christine resisted the urge to slam her hand down on the table. He wasn't listening. But why should he? She sounded crazy. However, she persisted, urgent. "It's watching me, Father, I'm telling you. It's watching me, and it's going to kill me. Then it's going to take my daughter."

Father Pritchett fixed her with another strange look. One of pity and disbelief, one that Christine recognized. It was the same one that Rick had fixed her with when she had told him the same story. Before he left.

"You think I'm lying," she said bitterly. She tried to pull her hand back into her lap, but the man across from her held his grip.

"I never accused you of such, my dear. I'm only trying to understand."

"What is there to understand?" Christine snapped. Father Pritchett was unfazed. He patted the young mother's hand reassuringly, though, it did little to calm her. In fact, it did the opposite.

"Miss Day, if I believed every person who cried devil, I wouldn't be a priest," he said. "Not without finding the evidence first."

Christine abruptly pulled her hands from his grasp. She had half a mind to splash him in the face with her coffee, then his own, but she didn't. Instead, she got to her feet and walked back to Clara's bassinet. She stuck her hand into the cradle to caress her daughter's hair, brushing back the thin, blonde locks from her forehead. She cast a cold stare over her shoulder at Father Pritchett.

"This is all the evidence you need, Father," Christine said. "My word—my daughter should be enough."

Father Pritchett wrung his collar, looking as if he were perspiring under his cheap suit. He took out a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at his forehead feverishly.

"My dear, I must apologize, but there isn't much I can do," he said.

"And why not?"

"There are certain...things that much be taken into consideration. Neither you, nor your daughter have been baptized, and the Church would need evidence of your claims, which will take time, you see..."

He paused, long enough to watch Christine rise on the other side of the room. There was a fire in her eyes, the kind of rage only a mother could have.

"You're going to condemn us, because I'm not devout?" She was seething now. "Even I know God isn't this cruel."

Father Pritchett balked at her words. He stumbled to find his voice, mopping his face furiously with his handkerchief. Nothing coherent came of his babbling. He got up from the table in a hurry, collecting his bible and coat in haste for the door. Christine intercepted him before he could make his escape.

"Well, I never! How dare you—"

"Father, please! I'm begging you," Christine pleaded, her hands clasped. The wild look in her eyes had been replaced by terror. "I've been shunned by the Church for the last time. If you can't do it for me, do it for Clara. She's only a baby. What has she done?"

Father Pritchett avoided her gaze. He seemed to falter, as if her words had given him second thoughts. A sinful mother meant much less in the eyes of the Church, in comparison to the life of an innocent child. Perhaps that was all that was needed to convince him.
A silver cross on a chain was pressed into Christine's hand. It had been the same one that had been hanging around Father Pritchett's neck only moments ago. He closed her fingers tightly around the necklace, which Christine clasped to her chest in obvious confusion. The metal was cold and seemed to singe the skin of her palm like a hot iron.

"I'm sorry. This is all I can offer you," he said. His tone was remorseful, but Christine didn't believe he was sorry. She was a burden to him and he was trying to relieve himself of such. This necklace was compensation for his own guilt, not a salvation.

Perhaps she was condemned after all.

Before Father Pritchett left the house that day, he turned one last time to look at Christine Day. A gentle breeze blew her blonde hair away from her face; a face that would have been expressionless, if it hadn't been for the tears in her eyes.

"Stop by the church sometime. Please," he said to her, in a voice so genuine, Christine nearly believed his sincerity. "I'm sure the clergy would be glad to help, once they've squared away the details."

If Christine heard him, she didn't make it apparent. She had barely bid him farewell, before she disappeared back into the farmhouse and locked the door behind her. Perplexed, Father Pritchett finally turned to make the trek back down to his car, which sat at the end of the drive. As he walked, he glanced back to the great white farmhouse that receded over his shoulder; a building which stood half-obscured and ominous in the woods that surrounded it. Father Pritchett felt a shiver pass through his body. He made a cross over his body and whispered a prayer too quiet to be heard, before retreating into the safety of his car.

Inside, Christine listened to the sound of Father's Pritchett's Packard fading down the road. She knelt beside Clara's crib, reaching inside to brush the back of her hand against her daughter's cheek. A tear fell, and then another.

"I'm sorry, my darling," she whispered. "This life wasn't kind to us. Perhaps we'll meet again in the next..."

Her last words nearly died in her throat. With a quivering hand, she laid Pritchett's cross over the the crest of the bassinet. It rocked against her touch, and in the late afternoon light, the cross glinted and swayed with it.