David gently drags his old broom across the floor, watching miniature billows of dust rise into the air, eventually settling elsewhere on the floor. Whatever's left remains being pushed across the floor, moving ultimately to the pile he's made in one corner of the room.
"How is Petra handling the training you've been giving her?" Rosalind asks in the smooth voice she always does, clunky words not getting in the way of the meaning. "You know, physically and behaviourally. It took us a fair amount of time to make it look like we're norms."
"She's actually doing a lot better than I thought. Certainly better than I did."
"She does have you." He can tell Rosalind is now being occupied with something else, her voice losing its clarity and smoothed edges. He waits for her to come back, looking up to see "THE DEVIL IS THE FATHER OF DEVIATION" staring him back in the face.
Were he not discussing Petra and himself, he probably wouldn't have noticed and kept moving about the floor. He trained himself to pass them over in his vision, forget the embroidered words with good intentions are worth the effort to let sink into his brain and repeat themselves. Today is simply one of the days they do pop out, meaning made afresh with dusty old words people have already said rattling around in his head.
"Most would argue I'm a bad influence." He replies, not hearing a direct response other than the tones of being mentally occupied, cannot be distracted, producing the jealous question of what could possibly be more enthralling then talking to David himself.
"THE DEVIL IS THE FATHER OF DEVIATION" still burns in front of him, muscles in his face falling automatically with nobody to distract him.
"Father?" David asked tentatively, the room full of people trickling down to two from its usual Sunday congregation. He sat on the worn couch in uncomfortable dark church clothes his mother dictated were important to wear every Sunday, all Sunday.
"Yes, David?"
David points to the frame hanging on the wall, colourful embroidered thread offsetting the message it bears. "I learned in Sunday school that the Devil doesn't really rule hell, he's a fallen angel being punished like everyone who goes there. So how can he be the father of something if God didn't give him any power?"
David's father regarded him for a second, causing David to wonder briefly if he'd said something wrong, frantically evaluating his words to determine if he'd given something away, made his father guess at his deviation.
Instead, his Father chuckled and leaned in closer, assuming the relaxed position equated with an impromptu sermon. "Well, Davie. In the book of Job, God gives the Devil power to make Job's life terrible, so long as he doesn't kill him or hurt him. So the Devil killed all his sons and daughters and took away almost everything he had. The people around him told Job to curse God for doing all the bad things, when really Job knew it was the Devil. God gives him a little bit of power over us, but tries to make himself look like God."
David nodded, absentmindedly tapping his knee. His father stood up and walked over to where the framed words still hang. He talked with his hands a lot whenever he really got going, like a sermon. "We need to have the strength to remove the world of Deviations, especially when the Devil tries to tell us mutated beings are okay, or really human. We have to be like Job and not let other people and the Devil trick us into doing things that are wrong. You see?"
David nodded then, feigning a smile and responding with a "thank you". It did nothing to stop the constant flow of conflicting messages running back and forth through his head. Apart from everything else, Sophie was just as human as anybody is. And the Bible says a lot about loving your neighbour, and how God is good and wouldn't want evil things to happen.
But Sophie isn't an evil thing, and that would make chasing and capturing her and her family evil, but not what God says, so that would mean God isn't good…?
He passed his mother in the kitchen, looking down at her feet still concealed by socks. He wondered why God would let mutants happen, then, but stops his brain before letting it wander into what his father would call "dangerous territory".
He told himself three times in a row "God is good, God is just," and pretended to be a norm, wondering if God would see.
David realises he's been staring at decades-old words for an unusually long time now, proceeding to sweep dust into the corner again. He can vaguely hear Rosalind in the background, never fully turning off the thought-shapes at least in connection with him. He projects an image of the first random thing that pops into his head – in this case, a broom – rather loudly in Rosalind's direction just to amuse her.
He is met with a simultaneous "DO YOU HAVE NOTHING BETTER TO DO?" from Rosalind, a "We can all hear you, David," from Michael, and "I AM HOLDING A KNIFE" from a very disgruntled Rachel.
The silence following it is rather lonely, despite the general decreased hostility of it. The past few days have had little room for jokes; the absence of Anne, distress of Rachel, and hesitant question of needing to flee at any time looming too close for comfort. Petra is the only one to not have enough knowledge to understand what is going on thus far, but can pick up bits and pieces of plain feeling through the thought-shapes.
"ACCURSED IS THE MUTANT IN THE SIGHT OF GOD AND MAN" is the next phrase to grace his field of vision. Sweeping the floor has turned into a sort of condemning torturous waltz he dare not make reference to aloud, should someone overhear and have him stuck between them the rest of his short life.
David didn't know what to think of Aunt Harriet and the baby's death until he lay awake one night in bed, listening to the rather loud conversation occurring between his father and mother. He was not able to erase the picture of her standing defiant before her sister, begging for sympathy and only receiving the law spat back in her face. It was only after she left that his mother began understanding what she had done in its full capacity, weight seemingly unknown to the rest of the household.
"You were too hard on her, Joseph!" she wailed, the sound flying down the hall and carrying with them so many good memories of sisterhood that can only be shared with sisters themselves.
"She brought a mutant into our household and desired to have it breed and pollute the true image, under God's name! There is no excuse for this… this crime!"
David sometimes wished his parents could communicate in thought-shapes, too, so he could understand what was going on much easier. Although if his parents had thought-shapes, he would not have to hide all the time because it would be right.
His mother doesn't really need them as much as his father, though. "She was my sister." Her voice cracked, caught between blood and purity thereof. "This… this isn't right."
David can hear his father stomp three paces, and presumably point to one of their many framed words to live by. "Read this out to me."
"Accursed is the mutant in the sight of God and Man." It only occurred to David years later that she will always do as he says, never question an instruction.
"Do you hear what you are saying? You are saying God's Word is flawed, that someone determined to bring evil on this entire household should have been spared!" his voice raised to an uncomfortably high level, pushing David's head under his blankets in an attempt to muffle the noise he could still hear and perhaps still wanted to.
Tears started to squeeze out of his eyes for his mother, for Aunt Harriet, for the baby that died less than a week after it saw the light of day, for Sophie and her parents. For himself, too, but he doesn't care to admit it. If his father found out he was a mutant, he would be killed just like Sophie in his dreams, or like Aunt Harriet at the bottom of the river. God's Word – so kind and loving in places, but here so cold – would be enforced just like it would be for anyone else.
His father's scolding rung in his head. Anything else. He and Rosalind and Aunt Harriet's baby and Sophie are all things, not people: mutants that look like humans sent into the world to spread the Devil's influence around the world that must be snuffed out before they can. He simultaneously found something wrong with that and couldn't find anything within him to even think so far against the Divine works.
"Mother!" he shouted weakly minutes after hearing her come tearfully down the hall, with or without his father. He normally wouldn't dare disturb anyone in such a state, but he's almost in the same kind himself.
He could not see her approach or enter the room, his eyes squeezed shut in a sorry attempt to control emotion from occurring. "Yes, David?" she asked, voice tired and slightly raspy from the conversation he pretended not to hear.
"If I were a mutant, would Father kill me?" the words tumbled out one after the other, David wishing he could take them back and say it a bit nicer, but not caring enough to try.
The slight exhale from her nose told him she was making that unanticipated smile, but it didn't make any sense from where she stood. "You're not a mutant, Davie." She paused, wondering what to say, David clenching his teeth together until he could hear blood rushing past his eardrums. His breaths came out shaky, matching that of his mother's and any child scared of death. "Go to sleep." She finally decided, David not daring to be more specific should she think it means something more serious and she went to tell Father.
He did not sleep that night for hours, begging on only imaginary knees to the picture of God that was painted in his head: of a powerful, robed man on a throne with spirits bent over at his feet, not with kind eyes but ones that could stare right through his soul and pick it apart.
Oh God, make me normal, make me human so my father would love me, so I won't go to Hell, so you would love me…
"Are you OK, David?" Petra asks him though thought-shapes, still rough and a bit too loud. He sees her in the doorway, big brown eyes peering from behind the wall, only one foot past the edge of the frame.
He puts on a smile, taking up sweeping the floor again with more glee and contentment than is ever associated with such a chore. "Of course." He replies, giving her a physical smile.
"You were sending kind of sad, lonely, scared." She fidgets uncomfortably near the door, motivation to go inside less than that to avoid David. "But you're OK?"
David shakes his head, sure his wandering mind didn't send any deliberate messages, making him wonder vaguely if any of the others heard him. "It was just a memory," he reassures her, turning his back and still smiling, if only to console himself now. "You were only a baby when it happened."
She hesitates, before replying with an impressively subdued "Okay." Once David turns around again, she has disappeared from the doorway, content with his currently physical well-being, although still suspicious in her mind.
Rosalind appears for the moment, asking in the sweet tone of voice that has whiled away hours and calmed a volcano of rage. "You okay?"
"Yeah, just. Sweeping the floor. Well, dusting 'WATCH THOU FOR THE MUTANT'." He drags his sleeve across the glass, adding a buildup of grey matter from where light shines directly through the glass now, illuminating random letters that mean nothing on their own.
It's always been the favourite saying of his household, in only five words equating mutants as a savage beast to keep yourself from, to walk the straight and narrow path, adding the ancient flair that has been chanted for hundreds of years. Watch thou for the mutant; the spawn of the Devil in a small girl's body, who began as an expression of love that was twisted into a pollutant to be exterminated lest it spread itself to the rest of humanity.
"Why don't we make reference to any of the deceased infants during the services?" David asked his father, upon being prompted of what his solemn expression was about. As if yesterday's announcement from the inspector of another 'mutant' was not news enough to put someone in a sour mood.
He looks at David, not surprised and not scolding either, but with enough of a warning to have him control his thoughts. As per usual. "What do you propose we reference about them?"
He took a preparatory breath then as he did so many times before. "We mention the rest of the dead. Hold ceremonies for them, too, but I'm not saying we should go that far for those without a certificate." He has learned over the years of hiding and lying to spin his words correctly, to disconnect him from his feelings to have people hear at least a part of them.
"You are proposing we put Deviants in our sanctioned prayers? Are you going to suggest the mutant pigs or crops next?" His voice passed the level of professionalism he usually carries so well in giving sermons and around family. With only the two of them close enough to make conversation on their walk home from service, it hardly matters.
"That's not at all what I was saying, I—"
"You are very close to blaspheming, son. On a Sunday, no less."
He bites his tongue, silently asking of the air if he should risk continuing or not. "But we should at least recognize them. They're never spoken of at homes until they have their certificate, and it's as if they weren't even born, even though—"
David was stopped with a hand on his shoulder, the rest of his family walking further into the distance as he remains on the path with his father. He is made to look directly into his stern gaze without diverting, David swallowing the years of fear he's had for the man.
His voice dropped to the level that he heard once around a whip, telling him the severity of his actions, tone itself unable to be separated from the event now it has glued itself to his brain. "It would be nothing short of a blasphemy, David, to include mutants in our respects for the dead as if they were human. Do you understand me?"
David swallowed, but did not make any sign of understanding.
"In the beginning, God created animals, and then man, and gave Adam the job of naming every species he saw. Mutants are naught but the Devil trying to corrupt what was named in the beginning; an abomination to Creation. You are old enough to know this, David."
He still stared in the face of his father, the wild illustration of God doing just the same but with support, and kindness, and companionship; the form of him with a hand on his shoulder, gazing sternly, but as equals. He'd last heard it in Sunday school and thought of it as a comforting thought. Now it is only brushed off as ludicrous, as taunting, as unreal as his father being all those things.
"What if Petra developed a mutation?" he choked out, looking nervously up the path only to see his family walking away, abandoning him. "You love Petra. She's your daughter."
"She would be no daughter of mine if you are suggesting she is a mutant."
David shook his head maybe a bit too hard, too fast, too frantically. "No, no, I wasn't suggesting, I just meant—"
The hand slid off his shoulder as the other gestured to continue moving. "You need to learn to watch your tongue, boy. It'll get you in trouble."
"David, are you done sweeping yet?" his sister appears in the doorway, causing the boy in question to jump slightly, starting to sweep faster.
"Yeah, nearly." He replies, checking all the corners of the room for unattended dust.
"Mother says you need to get prepared for dinner in a few minutes." She walks in the direction of her bedroom, leaving David alone again.
God is good, God is just.
He sweeps the floor.