The Winter Sisters by Tim Westover

Author:Tim Westover [Westover, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780984974894
Publisher: QW Publishers, LLC
Published: 2019-08-05T23:00:00+00:00

The pastor summoned me that afternoon, sending word by way of a messenger boy. The parsonage was a tiny white house in the shadow of the shoddy chapel. The windows were caked with mud, and green trails of grime leaked down the facade. The Lord cares for the sparrows, but he doesn’t always give them three-story nests. The child opened the door without knocking, and I stepped into the gloom. From the shadows came the pastor’s voice.

“Waycross, you have been a great disappointment to me.”

“What’s the trouble, Pastor?” I said this in my most hospitable voice. “Loose pigeon?”

“No.”

“Cough? Dry heaves? The hell-roarin’ trots?”

“Waycross, do not bring your bowel-related blasphemy in here.”

“I beg your pardon, Pastor. I should have said ‘the squirts.’”

“You should have said and done much differently, Waycross. You should have been in church this morning. Everyone should have been in church this morning instead of queuing up to see our hometown witches.”

Is it Sunday again?

I crossed my arms. The pastor rose from his chair, walked to the fireplace, where a few cinders were smoldering, and took out a red-ended brand. He used it to light a candle and settled back into his chair. Then he appeared as a disembodied head floating in a circle of yellow candlelight. The parsonage was eerily dark for the daytime.

“I thought you were going to bring us bleeding and blistering and other cures more painful than prayer. But, instead, you’ve brought three witches and their demon familiar and their magic right onto the town square.”

“Have you seen the panther around here?” I said. “I haven’t heard the first growl. How can you think that the Winters have anything to do with that panther?”

Boatwright ignored me. “You’ve sold your soul to magic and superstition, to potions and herbs and the perversion of religion. In your fallen state, polluted by ether, you’ve opened your soul to their enchantment. Pray for your redemption, and help me drive them away, back to the hollows where they belong.” His talk was far worse than any I’d heard from patent-medicine salesmen.

“Drive them away? Certainly not. And it will take more than tomatoes. Were you the one who threw them?”

“No, but I bless the soul that dared to. And with courage, there will be more to follow.”

My mouth felt dry. The corners of my lips clicked as I spoke. “The sisters are under my auspices and protection. I am a scientist and healer, and I would not permit them to do anything that was harmful. I’m looking for the truth underneath the superstition, to use it for the benefit of all who are afflicted. How can that be evil?”

“You’re raking through stinking manure, looking for a pearl. But why would there be a pearl in that filth? The Winter sisters are quacks and herb women, the type that permitted your sister Eva to die. And you are apprenticing yourself to them.”

The Winters were not that sort of quacks and herb women. The Winters did not trade in false hopes but in the essence of true ones.

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