These are the opening pages of Even the Faithful, set in July 1941 in Dayton, Ohio.
Step into the beginning of a story shaped by faith, longing, and choices that refuse to remain small.
Pressed into the haze of incense and July heat, Henry joins his fellow seminarians to practice the rite of baptism. It should have been a simple exercise. Instead, it marked the beginning of a path that would change everything.
Cincinnati, 1941
Outside, the world was beautiful and blooming, but the baptistery was dark and cloudy with incense. A stifling heat, the only sign of July in that marble tomb of an antechamber, rose in shimmering waves and cut off the breath of all assembled.
The shifting of bodies and a steady child’s wail drowned out the voice of the lecturer and the ceaseless drip of water. Henry wondered if he dared run his finger along the inside of his collar, but everyone else was standing stock still and flush-faced, so he decided against it. His hair was damp and fluffing into tendrils. Dripping salt from his brow stung and burned his eyes, but even John Markwell wasn’t moving, and if he wasn’t fidgeting, neither would Henry.
The baby changed pitches, and the resulting shriek was like diamonds on glass, only endless. Dulled by heat and irritation, Henry didn’t even bother to wonder who the child was or why they were allowed to practice upon him. He imagined that if he could master the writings of Ambrose and Aquinas, he could probably pour water on a baby’s head with no trouble, but the choice to be present today wasn’t his to make.
“Mr. Werther, why don’t you go first?”
Henry started and noted the smirk on their professor’s face.
“Yes, Father.” Jostling the sweaty bodies before him, he trudged to the front of the room and regarded the baby in their teacher’s stiff, outstretched arms. The older man’s expression was just as awkward as everyone else’s, and he thrust the baby at Henry like a sack of flour.
His hands involuntarily slackened, and he nearly dropped the child out of shock. Warm, elastic flesh and the ridges of ribs beneath the cotton baby gown met his hands, and the child quieted. Henry realized that his grip was now cold and clammy. With tender caution and care to avoid the eyes of his classmates, he brought him to his breast.
He knew he was supposed to be meditating on the innocence of childhood, saving young souls from limbo, and reminding himself that he did not intend to baptize in truth, but the alien creature made him think instead of hearing his brothers read The War of the Worlds aloud to the rest of them. “The coming of the Martians,” he thought and almost laughed aloud. “I baptize thee, Martian Child…”
“We’re waiting, Mr. Werther.” The professor glowered at him and rubbed a handkerchief across his brow for emphasis.
Henry found the Latin tucked behind his tongue and duly performed the false ceremony.
“Very good. Mr. Markwell?” The professor nodded to his next victim, who approached and took the baby out of Henry’s icy hands. After the sixteen-tentacled octopus was secure in John Markwell’s incapable grasp, the professor nodded to Henry, then toward the door, and Henry fled.
Down the concrete path, through the main house, and out the back door to the rolling hillside beyond, Henry did not stop until his legs were flailing beneath him. He skidded to a halt near the top of the rise and looked out over the terraced lawn below at brothers tending the gardens, vegetables ripening, roses climbing, wisteria vines spilling over a pergola, and beyond them, the river, peppered with steamboats and barges.
The sun dazzled his eyes, warmed his hands, and burned his awkwardness away. He was the youngest of seven; what did he know about all that? His brothers would have manfully scooped the shrieking thing up and doused him, but they were fifty miles away, and he was here.
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