“There’s singen in the church. Let all you-all sing now. Let all you sing. All together. Stand and sing the song of the invitation. I see the new Jerusalem and the glory of the Lord. Come sinner, Halleluiah!”
“One time, I said, one time. If she goes a night with him once. I’ll get my hand aholt on her....”
“One time?” Stig said, and he broke into a burst of laughter. “One time. Oh, God’s sake! Skeeter Shoots says to me, he says, ‘Ross, now,’ he says. ‘Ain’t Ross he Lethe’s man? God’s sake! Thought Ross,’ Skeeter Shoots says, ‘thought Ross were Lethe’s man. Thought Ross took up along with Lethe a long while ago,’ Skeet Shoots says.”
Americy looked at Stig amorously and began to kiss his face, her own face wet with tears. Or she would stop in her caressing and, with hands on his shoulders, she would sing again, always the same tune. Theodosia had been sitting near the middle of the floor in the chair she had always used when she had been there before. It was drawn near to Lethe’s chair now, and thus she sat, but presently she arose and walked to the door or she returned to stand a moment over Lethe. In Lethe hate was apotheosized, a hungry god, ravenous, beside an altar waiting for food. Lethe’s breath was fluted and broken, timed to the beating of her heart, marked by regular sobs that were softly voiced now and then. Her eyes were beyond seeing, turned glassy with their own inner sight. She was unaware of the presence of Stig and Americy, and after her first questioning of Theodosia she had seemed shut from any recognition of her. Theodosia pushed her chair near the table and bent one knee into it, standing uncertainly, looking about at the dim walls, at Americy’s weeping. She stood over Lethe, leaning slightly forward, and her breath became hard, fluted with the beating of her own heart where anger began to arise and was timed to Lethe’s panting breath.
“I’ll kill. I’ll stab her afore daylight,” Lethe said with her shaking breath.
“Lou? What for? Lou?” Theodosia asked.
“Oh, I’ll kill. I said kill.”
“Ross,” Theodosia said. “Didn’t he look at Lou? Didn’t he want Lou? What call have you got to let Ross go? Where’s Ross?”
“Lou. My hand on her heart. I’ll tear her guts outen her side.”
Theodosia walked to the door and looked out into the dark, but she returned again and stood as she had stood before. Her breast and her throat were shaking in a sobbing rush of ineffectual hate, her teeth chattering when she ceased to speak. She could hear Stig’s taunting laughter that came in strange, high-pitched bursts of feminine tone as he recounted the surmises of his friends and the opinions of the hands at the stable.