Peace

By Hannah Carter

You can’t eat morals. This motto had earned Abraham quite the reputation across town, meaning many shady characters ended up in his tent on darkened nights. When the work Abraham had done for his clients tormented his mind, he told himself one thing.

Scruples didn’t stave off starvation—money did.

And the fellow in front of him held a bag full of it, enough to feed Abraham for weeks.

Abraham shifted forward, his legs crossed as he sat on the floor. “So all I need to do is find this pregnant woman and kill her.”

The stranger, swathed in amaranthine-colored clothes and jewels, reclined against a cushion. He toyed with a silver coin, staring at Abraham with dark, hooded eyes. “Precisely. A teenage girl, need I remind you. Barely grown. A man like yourself should have no problem taking care of my… issue. Not to mention the location is ideal—a stable on the outside of town.”

Abraham imagined the face of a girl his sister’s age and winced. No—stop. He didn’t care who this teenage girl was—a jilted lover, a disobedient daughter, an unfaithful wife. And he certainly was in no position to judge an adult man who wanted her dead, either. This stranger might have been paying for the knife, but Abraham was the one who would drive it through her heart. “All right. What do you want as proof that the job is done?”

A thin smile curved the man’s lips. “Oh, I’ll have ways of knowing when she’s dead.” He tossed the bag of thirty coins to Abraham, and a few spilled onto the ground. The stranger’s voice turned prickly, like thorns in a garden. “But if you break our agreement, I’ll have you arrested and crucified for all your sins.”

Abraham stuffed the fallen silver pieces back into the leather bag. “I’ll do it tonight.”

Abraham hated crowds, and right now the town bustled with people due to the census. Crowds typically meant witnesses, which made Abraham’s work harder. But he could also use it to his advantage. No one would notice if a slip of a girl and her unwanted baby went missing. Every relative would just assume she was with someone else until they realized the truth. Even then, they may not suspect her dead.

He coughed, an attempt to loosen the lump in his throat.

I’ve killed before. Lots of times. Never cared before if they were guilty or innocent.

Another strangled cough.

It’s one more person’s blood on my hands. Who they are doesn’t matter.

Sand collected on Abraham’s sandals as he followed the man’s instructions to a stable on the outskirts of town. A star blazed brightly overhead, illuminating the path before him.

His grip tightened on his knife as he neared. No sound drifted from the large house up on the hill, the closest residence. All the candles had been blown out for the night.

Something snapped in the bushes behind him.

He whirled around and threw the knife at the sound with practiced accuracy. Whatever lurked there died with a quiet bleat, and Abraham raced over to find—

A lamb.

Cursing his nerves, he yanked the knife out of the lamb’s side. Some shepherd would be punished for that, surely. And if it somehow got traced back to Abraham…

No, impossible. It was one sheep. In a huge flock, would one even be noticed?

Abraham swallowed, though the action felt like he’d stabbed himself in the esophagus. He hacked and wiped his mouth, but the pain didn’t lessen.

One stupid sheep. One stupid teenage girl. One stupid lump in his throat choking him.

He wanted this job to be over.

The barn was a few yards away now. He crept toward it, muscles tense. The star in the sky seemed to burn brighter, like a second, watchful moon with its eye on him.

A girl’s cry shattered his nerves.

No! She couldn’t give birth now. That would draw attention. Someone might come check—

He dashed to the stable, but by the time he got there, a second wail joined the first. Knife poised for the kill, Abraham burst inside, his only thought to silence the mother and newborn. But instead, he dropped to his knees.

The girl lay on a bedroll, propped up on hay. A man crouched beside her, his arm around her shoulders, one hand protectively placed against an infant. And the baby himself…

The emotional dam that had strangled Abraham all night exploded as he glimpsed the infant’s face. There was nothing extraordinary about the child—the babe was quite plain, covered in afterbirth—but when he turned his eyes upon Abraham, the rest of the world faded away.

The babe’s eyes had only opened for a second, seeing the world for the first time. So how, when they met Abraham’s, did they carry the weight of the world in them? How did they pierce him from across the stable, expose all the blood on his hands, and strew his sins across the room like the straw? But this newborn child carried no condemnation in his eyes.

Abraham’s grip on his knife slipped, the blade still covered in the blood of the lamb.

Had he ever known peace until he’d seen those eyes?

“Who are you?” the man asked, his voice gruff, the reverent moment destroyed. He rose halfway to his feet, his face red. “What’s your business here?”

“I—” Abraham fought to loosen his tongue.

The girl placed her hand against the man. She glanced knowingly at the knife before she offered Abraham a tired smile. “It’s okay, Joseph. I think we’ll have all sorts of visitors tonight.” She adjusted the infant in her arms. “Would you like to come meet Yeshua?”

The glow of the star poured through the windows, shafts falling on the infant’s head.

“Yes,” Abraham whispered.

Peace.

Outside the stable, Abraham could have sworn he heard singing.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hannah Carter is just a girl who wakes up every day hoping it will be the day she discovers she’s secretly a mermaid. Her debut novel, Depths of Atlantis, is out through SnowRidge Press now. Her stories have been included in several anthologies: Whispers From Before, The Never Tales, and Havok’s Casting Call and Prismatic. Her flash fiction piece, “A Home for Nova,” won the 2022 Flash Fiction Realm Award.

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