BSG: The Unforgiven Ones, Part 2: Forsaken
Back to Part I: The Genocide Prayer
II: Forsaken
When John got home from school the next day, his parents were waiting for him, standing in the swirling dust outside the house. His father's arm was around his mother, and that was strange enough to make John nervous, even before they spoke.
"We've got something to tell you," his mother said.
"What is it?" John asked.
"Come and sit down, boy," his father told him.
He followed them inside, feeling like a martyr. Nothing like this had ever happened. They always ignored him unless he messed up -- and he hadn't messed up that day. He hadn't! Yet it was happening just the same, and he couldn't help fidgeting on his chair as his father paced back and forth before him.
"We're going to the Pantheon at Illumini," his father finally said. "Next week."
"Where?" John asked.
His father looked angry at the interruption, but his mother spoke quickly. "It's a special temple on Gemenon. You can be redeemed there."
"If you're worthy," his father growled.
"Gemenon?" John whispered. He couldn't believe it. He, John Webb, was going off-world, actually off-world!
"Pack your things," said his father. "But just one bag, you hear me?" He glanced over at his wife, and then continued. "You won't need much."
---
As the next week flew by, John thought of nothing else. His parents said they were going on a "transport", which John imagined as a luxury liner, like the ones in tracts which warned about the decadence of other worlds. It'd be dripping with gold and jewels -- stolen from the hard-working people of Sagittaron, of course -- and the people would be swimming in rich food and drink.
He wondered if they'd have ice cream on the transport. That was one thing most of the tracts agreed on: the people on other worlds all had ice cream, which was a bizarre frozen food so deliciously iniquitous that it caused them to sin.
If they have some, I'm going to try it, John quietly decided. He didn't pray to Hera to forgive him for it, either. The Gods made his father whip him when he did wrong, but he'd long since realized that as long as he didn't speak his blasphemous thoughts out loud, the Gods didn't notice.
---
Finally, the day came. His father bribed a truck driver to take them to the city, and John got his first look at a spaceship.
It looked nothing like the ones in the tracts. It was made of ugly metal, not silver or gold. The outside of it was smudged with some sort of oil or grease, and it picked up the red Sagittaron dust in thick streaks. Clouds of greasy yellow vapor billowed out of its wide, squat engines.
John hesitated when he saw the long line of people waiting in front of it. They didn't look rich at all. In their linen shirts and dusty jeans, most of them looked just like the villagers back home. John cringed, suddenly afraid to get in line.
"Come on", his father said. When John didn't react, he grabbed John's wrist and yanked him forward. "Move!"
John stood between his parents at the end of the line, trembling inside. Someone was shouting for order; when John glanced over, he saw a tall man in a uniform -- an honest-to-Gods baby-killing soldier -- pushing through the crowd away from him. John watched until he lost sight of the soldier in the crowd. Then he turned away, watching the people in front of him instead.
As the line filed slowly into the ship, John noticed something strange. No one was staring at him, or at his parents. Nobody was even looking at them, and when they did look, they simply looked away again.
It was as if no one here knew he was taranad, and that his parents were sinners.
The inside of the ship was nearly as dirty as the outside. The halls were narrow and claustrophobic, made of the same dark steel, and the dust had gotten into everything. John followed his parents to a little berth, no more than a bare metal shelf on a long wall full of bare metal shelves. He crawled into it.
"You stay there while your mother and I turn in the tickets," his father told him. "Don't move."
John nodded, too intimidated by his strange surroundings to protest much. He glanced around at the empty berths -- no one else had come to fill them yet -- and then rolled over to examine the wall. Someone had written FRAK ZEREK on it in red pen.
"Hey there," a voice said. John turned to see the soldier from before, standing in the hatchway.
John said nothing. Soldiers killed children, everyone knew that; if he spoke, this one might get mad and pull out his gun.
A moment later, the man shook his head. "Frakkin' root-suckers," he muttered. "Who even knows what they teach you kids down here." He raised his voice again. "You want something to eat?"
It was tempting, baby-killer or no. John hadn't eaten since they'd left the house.
"Is there any ice cream?" John finally asked.
The soldier just laughed, and tossed him a ration-packet.
---
The launch was scary; even nestled between his parents, John was terrified by the roar of the engines. The ship shook like a tree in a thunderstorm, and he wondered whether it might rattle itself apart, leaving them all to suffocate in space.
Then the shaking stopped, settling into a quiet thrum. John could feel it when he laid his hand on the wall. For a while he fidgeted there, tracing the letters of FRAK ZEREK with his fingers. He was pretty sure that one of the Es was supposed to be A.
From all around him came the murmur of humanity. He glanced to the side and saw a family of five, all of them stuffed into the next berth. The daughter was looking back at him, twirling her hair around her finger as though she was bored. Beyond her, someone was singing a lullaby.
After a while, his parents dropped off to sleep. The sound of their breathing mixed with the noise of the engines to create an even, soothing hum. John closed his eyes, laid his head down on his worn canvas rucksack, and curled up against the wall, surrendering to sleep.
The next thing he knew, someone was chasing him. John ran and ran, but the walls closed in on him; the floor became the dirt road, the ceiling became cottonwoods, and then his pursuers were on top of him. He screamed, thrashing, as lightning split the sky overhead. For a moment he saw his attackers -- the bully from before, or was one of them his father? -- and then the dream broke.
John snapped awake quickly, gasping. The thunder boomed again, huge and terrible. All around him, people were stumbling in the dark. He could hear someone yelling in the hallway, but he couldn't make out the words.
At first, John thought it was another dream. Then he dismissed it as normal; what did he know about space travel? Maybe this happened every time.
Then the ship lurched hard, like a raft over rapids. People fell, screaming. The thunder crashed. John grabbed up his pack and hugged it like his boyhood teddy bear, willing himself to wake up.
It wasn't a dream, and it wasn't normal.
A woman in a uniform ran to the open door from outside. "Get to the lifeboats!" she screamed. "We're under attack! Get out, everybody get out!"
The compartment burst into pandemonium. People rushed toward the door, piling down onto each other as they tried to get out. A girl jumped from one of the upper berths, or maybe she fell; John watched as she disappeared beneath the surging crowd.
John and his parents were up front, right by the door, and it was only this that saved them. John grabbed his mother's skirt as she ducked out, just before the wave of people hit, and then the three of them were running, pounding down the hall. The others soon caught up, though, and before long they were lost in a sea of desperation.
"Line up, line up!" someone was yelling. "Stay in order!" It was the woman from before. She was standing in front of a metal door, fighting with the controls. Finally, the door clanged open.
"No, one at a time!" she shouted, as the crowd surged forward. "The Cylons are coming! We don't have time for this!"
It didn't matter. The people were too panicked to listen. They shoved toward the door in a single mass. John and his parents were close to the front, and were pushed inside along with the first few people. The inside of the lifeboat was padded all over, and there was a row of little windows in the far wall; John ended up shoved against one, driven forward by the press of refugees.
There was a thump, and another bang, and then they were moving. The view out the window changed; stars wheeled wildly by, and then John caught sight of a ship. It looked rough and ungainly, a lot like their own ship, and it was surrounded by smaller ships, fierce-looking things with a round, sleek shape. They pounded the bigger ship with missiles. John watched as flame bloomed from the side of the ship, and just as quickly went out.
Abruptly, he realized that it was their ship.
Out beyond it, there was a sudden flash. In its wake a much, much larger ship appeared. It was like two sharp triangles connected at the middle. Out of it came a trail of fire. When the fire touched the ship John had just been on, the ship detonated in an eerily silent explosion.
John turned away. The lifeboat was packed tight, right to the doors. All around him, people were clutching their children. One man had such a tight grip on his little boy that the child's hand was beginning to turn red. A woman was cradling her baby, whispering to it beneath her breath.
John's parents did not hold him, though. They were right there, over by the wall, but they just kept staring out the window, for hours, until the lifeboat was rescued at last.
---
When the door finally opened, no one walked through. The refugees seemed to have lost their will to live along with their wild abandon. They stared doe-eyed at the officer in the doorway.
"Move along," she told them. "Come on out, it's all right. It's safe."
Slowly, people began to shuffle through the doors. John watched them for a long time. They went in little groups -- families, probably -- and when they got to the door, a man with a clipboard met them. He had a uniform, but the markings were different from the other uniforms John had seen. John couldn't hear what he was saying.
As the lifeboat emptied, he looked over at his parents. His father was standing almost at attention, blue eyes locked on the man by the door. His mother was watching him, fiddling with her skirt as though lost in thought. Neither of them would look back at John.
"Dad?" he asked.
His father's jaw tightened. He did not look at John, or speak to him, even though he'd normally have raged at John for speaking out of turn.
For the first time since reaching the lifeboats, John was afraid. "Mom?" he called.
She didn't answer.
The space before them slowly cleared. A family with two children stepped forward, into the doorway. John's parents followed, without looking back, and John trailed after them.
"Names," the man with the clipboard asked the couple in the doorway.
"Aias and Mary Callas," said the woman. "The children are Damon and Jane."
The man filled in their names with a pen. Then he flipped the paper up and consulted the next page.
"OK, you're on Deck C, Section 20. They're setting up cots and some food down there. Welcome to the Galactica; Gods be with us."
The woman nodded. Her husband hauled his son onto his hip, and took his daughter's hand. John watched, envious, as they turned the corner.
John's parents stepped forward.
"Names," the officer said.
"Robert and Emily Webb."
John stepped forward a little. His father pushed him back.
The officer frowned. "Is he with you?" he asked.
John's parents glanced at each other, just for a moment. Nothing was said.
"No," John's mother replied.
"But--" John tried.
"No," said his father, firmly. "It's just the two of us."
The officer frowned down at John.
"Are you sure about that?" he asked.
John's father grew angry. "We said we were, damn it. We said it! For frak's sake, don't make this--" he broke off.
"All right," the officer sighed. He glanced at his paper. "Deck C, section 20."
John's father nodded, and stepped down the corridor. His mother followed, half a step behind.
"Mom!" John cried.
Neither of his parents looked back. He tried to run, to follow them, but the officer grabbed his shirt.
"No, no, you better stay," he said soothingly. "C'mon, it's OK. What's your name?"
"John."
"John," the man muttered, and wrote on his paper. "All right, John. You need to get yourself to Deck C, Section 5 -- there's a room there for orphans, understand?"
"But I'm not an orphan!"
The man glanced up the hallway where John's parents had gone. "You are now. And you're not the only one, either. These people have frakkin' lost it." He shook his head, and then turned back to John.
"It's the end of the worlds, kid. The Colonies are gone. It's everyone for themselves now, you understand?"
"Gemenon is gone?" John whispered.
"Yeah," the man said gently. He crouched down to John's level. "It's gone. Is that where you're from? Gemenon?"
"No," John said. "But Gemenon was my last chance. I guess that's why, isn't it?"
The officer shook his head. John could see tears shining in his eyes; tears, even though he was a full-grown man. "I don't think there is a 'why' anymore, son. The Gods have forsaken us."
---
John wandered through the ship's crowded corridors, drifting aimlessly. He didn't know where Deck C was, and truth be told, he didn't really care. All he wanted was to be held, and fed, and rocked to sleep. The people around him were in the same state, though; every sleeve he tugged, every question he asked was met with glass-eyed emptiness.
He tried one more person, a man with the neat look of a banker. The man didn't even look down, though. His lips kept moving, as though he was praying. John watched as he shuffled away, in no particular direction.
John shivered. It was cold on the ship, at least to him, like a fall night on Sagittaron. He made his way to the edge of the crowd, and then took his sweater out of his rucksack and pulled it on.
Be sure to pack something warm, his mother had said. It's always cold off-world.
For a moment, John just stood there, blinking away tears. Why had she told him that? Why, if she was only going to leave him? This wasn't his fault. It wasn't his fault that Gemenon was gone.
He turned, pushing angrily back through the crowd. He was going to find his parents. He was going to find them, and tell them that they couldn't just leave him, that they were not allowed not to want him.
They had to want him. They were his. He was theirs.
As he shoved his way forward, he bumped into somebody: an old man in the dark shirt of a priest of Ares. The old man dropped the papers he was carrying, and they scattered across the floor. John half-expected him to react with anger. The priests of other sects were dangerous and vicious; they supported blasphemies like war and modern medicine, and they stole children and forced them to take part in their unnatural rituals. They were monsters.
This priest did not look monstrous, though. He just stared at John, with eyes that held none of the placid acceptance John had seen in everyone else. These were sharp eyes. Eyes that knew what they were doing.
Eyes that had a plan.
Then the crowd was moving again. Someone else -- a pretty lady -- bent to pick up the lost papers, and the priest turned to speak with her. John walked away, reluctantly.
No one else looked at him like that. Not that day, or the next, or any of the days that followed.
Forward to Part III: A Mean God
II: Forsaken
When John got home from school the next day, his parents were waiting for him, standing in the swirling dust outside the house. His father's arm was around his mother, and that was strange enough to make John nervous, even before they spoke.
"We've got something to tell you," his mother said.
"What is it?" John asked.
"Come and sit down, boy," his father told him.
He followed them inside, feeling like a martyr. Nothing like this had ever happened. They always ignored him unless he messed up -- and he hadn't messed up that day. He hadn't! Yet it was happening just the same, and he couldn't help fidgeting on his chair as his father paced back and forth before him.
"We're going to the Pantheon at Illumini," his father finally said. "Next week."
"Where?" John asked.
His father looked angry at the interruption, but his mother spoke quickly. "It's a special temple on Gemenon. You can be redeemed there."
"If you're worthy," his father growled.
"Gemenon?" John whispered. He couldn't believe it. He, John Webb, was going off-world, actually off-world!
"Pack your things," said his father. "But just one bag, you hear me?" He glanced over at his wife, and then continued. "You won't need much."
---
As the next week flew by, John thought of nothing else. His parents said they were going on a "transport", which John imagined as a luxury liner, like the ones in tracts which warned about the decadence of other worlds. It'd be dripping with gold and jewels -- stolen from the hard-working people of Sagittaron, of course -- and the people would be swimming in rich food and drink.
He wondered if they'd have ice cream on the transport. That was one thing most of the tracts agreed on: the people on other worlds all had ice cream, which was a bizarre frozen food so deliciously iniquitous that it caused them to sin.
If they have some, I'm going to try it, John quietly decided. He didn't pray to Hera to forgive him for it, either. The Gods made his father whip him when he did wrong, but he'd long since realized that as long as he didn't speak his blasphemous thoughts out loud, the Gods didn't notice.
---
Finally, the day came. His father bribed a truck driver to take them to the city, and John got his first look at a spaceship.
It looked nothing like the ones in the tracts. It was made of ugly metal, not silver or gold. The outside of it was smudged with some sort of oil or grease, and it picked up the red Sagittaron dust in thick streaks. Clouds of greasy yellow vapor billowed out of its wide, squat engines.
John hesitated when he saw the long line of people waiting in front of it. They didn't look rich at all. In their linen shirts and dusty jeans, most of them looked just like the villagers back home. John cringed, suddenly afraid to get in line.
"Come on", his father said. When John didn't react, he grabbed John's wrist and yanked him forward. "Move!"
John stood between his parents at the end of the line, trembling inside. Someone was shouting for order; when John glanced over, he saw a tall man in a uniform -- an honest-to-Gods baby-killing soldier -- pushing through the crowd away from him. John watched until he lost sight of the soldier in the crowd. Then he turned away, watching the people in front of him instead.
As the line filed slowly into the ship, John noticed something strange. No one was staring at him, or at his parents. Nobody was even looking at them, and when they did look, they simply looked away again.
It was as if no one here knew he was taranad, and that his parents were sinners.
The inside of the ship was nearly as dirty as the outside. The halls were narrow and claustrophobic, made of the same dark steel, and the dust had gotten into everything. John followed his parents to a little berth, no more than a bare metal shelf on a long wall full of bare metal shelves. He crawled into it.
"You stay there while your mother and I turn in the tickets," his father told him. "Don't move."
John nodded, too intimidated by his strange surroundings to protest much. He glanced around at the empty berths -- no one else had come to fill them yet -- and then rolled over to examine the wall. Someone had written FRAK ZEREK on it in red pen.
"Hey there," a voice said. John turned to see the soldier from before, standing in the hatchway.
John said nothing. Soldiers killed children, everyone knew that; if he spoke, this one might get mad and pull out his gun.
A moment later, the man shook his head. "Frakkin' root-suckers," he muttered. "Who even knows what they teach you kids down here." He raised his voice again. "You want something to eat?"
It was tempting, baby-killer or no. John hadn't eaten since they'd left the house.
"Is there any ice cream?" John finally asked.
The soldier just laughed, and tossed him a ration-packet.
---
The launch was scary; even nestled between his parents, John was terrified by the roar of the engines. The ship shook like a tree in a thunderstorm, and he wondered whether it might rattle itself apart, leaving them all to suffocate in space.
Then the shaking stopped, settling into a quiet thrum. John could feel it when he laid his hand on the wall. For a while he fidgeted there, tracing the letters of FRAK ZEREK with his fingers. He was pretty sure that one of the Es was supposed to be A.
From all around him came the murmur of humanity. He glanced to the side and saw a family of five, all of them stuffed into the next berth. The daughter was looking back at him, twirling her hair around her finger as though she was bored. Beyond her, someone was singing a lullaby.
After a while, his parents dropped off to sleep. The sound of their breathing mixed with the noise of the engines to create an even, soothing hum. John closed his eyes, laid his head down on his worn canvas rucksack, and curled up against the wall, surrendering to sleep.
The next thing he knew, someone was chasing him. John ran and ran, but the walls closed in on him; the floor became the dirt road, the ceiling became cottonwoods, and then his pursuers were on top of him. He screamed, thrashing, as lightning split the sky overhead. For a moment he saw his attackers -- the bully from before, or was one of them his father? -- and then the dream broke.
John snapped awake quickly, gasping. The thunder boomed again, huge and terrible. All around him, people were stumbling in the dark. He could hear someone yelling in the hallway, but he couldn't make out the words.
At first, John thought it was another dream. Then he dismissed it as normal; what did he know about space travel? Maybe this happened every time.
Then the ship lurched hard, like a raft over rapids. People fell, screaming. The thunder crashed. John grabbed up his pack and hugged it like his boyhood teddy bear, willing himself to wake up.
It wasn't a dream, and it wasn't normal.
A woman in a uniform ran to the open door from outside. "Get to the lifeboats!" she screamed. "We're under attack! Get out, everybody get out!"
The compartment burst into pandemonium. People rushed toward the door, piling down onto each other as they tried to get out. A girl jumped from one of the upper berths, or maybe she fell; John watched as she disappeared beneath the surging crowd.
John and his parents were up front, right by the door, and it was only this that saved them. John grabbed his mother's skirt as she ducked out, just before the wave of people hit, and then the three of them were running, pounding down the hall. The others soon caught up, though, and before long they were lost in a sea of desperation.
"Line up, line up!" someone was yelling. "Stay in order!" It was the woman from before. She was standing in front of a metal door, fighting with the controls. Finally, the door clanged open.
"No, one at a time!" she shouted, as the crowd surged forward. "The Cylons are coming! We don't have time for this!"
It didn't matter. The people were too panicked to listen. They shoved toward the door in a single mass. John and his parents were close to the front, and were pushed inside along with the first few people. The inside of the lifeboat was padded all over, and there was a row of little windows in the far wall; John ended up shoved against one, driven forward by the press of refugees.
There was a thump, and another bang, and then they were moving. The view out the window changed; stars wheeled wildly by, and then John caught sight of a ship. It looked rough and ungainly, a lot like their own ship, and it was surrounded by smaller ships, fierce-looking things with a round, sleek shape. They pounded the bigger ship with missiles. John watched as flame bloomed from the side of the ship, and just as quickly went out.
Abruptly, he realized that it was their ship.
Out beyond it, there was a sudden flash. In its wake a much, much larger ship appeared. It was like two sharp triangles connected at the middle. Out of it came a trail of fire. When the fire touched the ship John had just been on, the ship detonated in an eerily silent explosion.
John turned away. The lifeboat was packed tight, right to the doors. All around him, people were clutching their children. One man had such a tight grip on his little boy that the child's hand was beginning to turn red. A woman was cradling her baby, whispering to it beneath her breath.
John's parents did not hold him, though. They were right there, over by the wall, but they just kept staring out the window, for hours, until the lifeboat was rescued at last.
---
When the door finally opened, no one walked through. The refugees seemed to have lost their will to live along with their wild abandon. They stared doe-eyed at the officer in the doorway.
"Move along," she told them. "Come on out, it's all right. It's safe."
Slowly, people began to shuffle through the doors. John watched them for a long time. They went in little groups -- families, probably -- and when they got to the door, a man with a clipboard met them. He had a uniform, but the markings were different from the other uniforms John had seen. John couldn't hear what he was saying.
As the lifeboat emptied, he looked over at his parents. His father was standing almost at attention, blue eyes locked on the man by the door. His mother was watching him, fiddling with her skirt as though lost in thought. Neither of them would look back at John.
"Dad?" he asked.
His father's jaw tightened. He did not look at John, or speak to him, even though he'd normally have raged at John for speaking out of turn.
For the first time since reaching the lifeboats, John was afraid. "Mom?" he called.
She didn't answer.
The space before them slowly cleared. A family with two children stepped forward, into the doorway. John's parents followed, without looking back, and John trailed after them.
"Names," the man with the clipboard asked the couple in the doorway.
"Aias and Mary Callas," said the woman. "The children are Damon and Jane."
The man filled in their names with a pen. Then he flipped the paper up and consulted the next page.
"OK, you're on Deck C, Section 20. They're setting up cots and some food down there. Welcome to the Galactica; Gods be with us."
The woman nodded. Her husband hauled his son onto his hip, and took his daughter's hand. John watched, envious, as they turned the corner.
John's parents stepped forward.
"Names," the officer said.
"Robert and Emily Webb."
John stepped forward a little. His father pushed him back.
The officer frowned. "Is he with you?" he asked.
John's parents glanced at each other, just for a moment. Nothing was said.
"No," John's mother replied.
"But--" John tried.
"No," said his father, firmly. "It's just the two of us."
The officer frowned down at John.
"Are you sure about that?" he asked.
John's father grew angry. "We said we were, damn it. We said it! For frak's sake, don't make this--" he broke off.
"All right," the officer sighed. He glanced at his paper. "Deck C, section 20."
John's father nodded, and stepped down the corridor. His mother followed, half a step behind.
"Mom!" John cried.
Neither of his parents looked back. He tried to run, to follow them, but the officer grabbed his shirt.
"No, no, you better stay," he said soothingly. "C'mon, it's OK. What's your name?"
"John."
"John," the man muttered, and wrote on his paper. "All right, John. You need to get yourself to Deck C, Section 5 -- there's a room there for orphans, understand?"
"But I'm not an orphan!"
The man glanced up the hallway where John's parents had gone. "You are now. And you're not the only one, either. These people have frakkin' lost it." He shook his head, and then turned back to John.
"It's the end of the worlds, kid. The Colonies are gone. It's everyone for themselves now, you understand?"
"Gemenon is gone?" John whispered.
"Yeah," the man said gently. He crouched down to John's level. "It's gone. Is that where you're from? Gemenon?"
"No," John said. "But Gemenon was my last chance. I guess that's why, isn't it?"
The officer shook his head. John could see tears shining in his eyes; tears, even though he was a full-grown man. "I don't think there is a 'why' anymore, son. The Gods have forsaken us."
---
John wandered through the ship's crowded corridors, drifting aimlessly. He didn't know where Deck C was, and truth be told, he didn't really care. All he wanted was to be held, and fed, and rocked to sleep. The people around him were in the same state, though; every sleeve he tugged, every question he asked was met with glass-eyed emptiness.
He tried one more person, a man with the neat look of a banker. The man didn't even look down, though. His lips kept moving, as though he was praying. John watched as he shuffled away, in no particular direction.
John shivered. It was cold on the ship, at least to him, like a fall night on Sagittaron. He made his way to the edge of the crowd, and then took his sweater out of his rucksack and pulled it on.
Be sure to pack something warm, his mother had said. It's always cold off-world.
For a moment, John just stood there, blinking away tears. Why had she told him that? Why, if she was only going to leave him? This wasn't his fault. It wasn't his fault that Gemenon was gone.
He turned, pushing angrily back through the crowd. He was going to find his parents. He was going to find them, and tell them that they couldn't just leave him, that they were not allowed not to want him.
They had to want him. They were his. He was theirs.
As he shoved his way forward, he bumped into somebody: an old man in the dark shirt of a priest of Ares. The old man dropped the papers he was carrying, and they scattered across the floor. John half-expected him to react with anger. The priests of other sects were dangerous and vicious; they supported blasphemies like war and modern medicine, and they stole children and forced them to take part in their unnatural rituals. They were monsters.
This priest did not look monstrous, though. He just stared at John, with eyes that held none of the placid acceptance John had seen in everyone else. These were sharp eyes. Eyes that knew what they were doing.
Eyes that had a plan.
Then the crowd was moving again. Someone else -- a pretty lady -- bent to pick up the lost papers, and the priest turned to speak with her. John walked away, reluctantly.
No one else looked at him like that. Not that day, or the next, or any of the days that followed.
Forward to Part III: A Mean God