Enjoy a preview of Gil’s upcoming second novel, The Last:

He could feel the closeness of Death, as palpable as the blasts of cold winter wind that shook the cabin to its very foundation. Samuel Morehouse accepted his early demise stoically, as his ancestors had for hundreds of years. What saddened him, though, was his wife’s stubborn denial of the inevitability of his demise and the implication of his passing on their daughter’s future.

Rebecca Morehouse, her face flushed from the radiance of the wood fire, lifted the cast-iron pot from the fire with a long bar and set it on the oak table that had been in the Morehouse family for generations. The heavy metal kept the water boiling while she dipped a ceramic cup in and held it there until the handle to become almost too hot to hold. Then she poured in a spoonful of dried herbs and stirred until the steam carried the aroma up to her nose in a soft, warm cloud. Using a thick linen cloth to protect her fingers, she carried the cup to her pallid husband, who lay in bed across the darkened room.

“Drink it while it is still hot. It will break the fever more quickly.”

Samuel rose with painful slowness, then leaned on his elbow and held the cup with a skeletal hand, his veins painting dark blue patterns through his translucent skin. As he sipped the tea, he periodically coughed up thick wads of bloody mucus. His sunken eyes reflected his profound weakness, and several times his wife supported the cup so it wouldn’t slip from his grasp. He wrapped his cold fingers around his wife’s hand and gave it a gentle, loving squeeze before she set the empty cup down on the nightstand.

The sound of a heavy footstep crunching on gravel made Rebecca start. “What was that?” Her ears strained to hear through the night wind.

“I heard nothing,” Samuel mumbled.

“No, I heard someone treading on the trail from Artemis’s shack.”

“Perhaps it is your sister and my brother, come to visit.”

“Why would they come up the trail? Their house lies in the opposite direction.” Rebecca took a lantern and stepped onto the porch into the bitter winter night.

Their farm lay at the edge of a dense forest that covered the entire slope of Eden Mountain up to its flat crest, which had been painstakingly cleared and transformed into the Morehouse family compound over many generations. A single trail led through the trees to the settlement, and poor drunk Artemis Donnard, their neighbor, was never sober enough at this hour to make the difficult journey from his pitiful shack. At the trail’s end, Rebecca and Samuel had laid a broad gravel pathway to keep their vital connection to the outside world from becoming a muddy morass during heavy rains. It was from that path that Rebecca had heard the sound, like the crunching of a single pair of boots.

Rebecca’s lantern was too dim to illuminate anything beyond the porch, so she crept cautiously down the steps, swinging the lamp in broad arcs. She sensed nothing but the clouds speeding through the starry sky and the wind rustling the trees.

“Isaiah? Miriam?” she called into the darkness. Hearing nothing, she retreated inside from the bitter cold but was stopped by an intense fit of coughing that left her dizzy. She steadied herself against a nearby chair.

“You should be drinking some tea yourself, woman,” Samuel said.

“Never you mind what I should be drinking. It is your job to do the farm work and mine to know the remedies, so do not tell me how to do my job.”

“For fifteen years, have I ever been able to tell you how to do anything? Why should my dying allow me any new rights?” He sank back into the bed.

Rebecca wagged her finger at her husband. “Do not babble on about dying. I will not hear such talk in this house.”

“We have been married too long to be deceiving one another,” he said with a sigh. “Besides, it does not matter what happens to me, or to you. We must concern ourselves only with Ruth.” He summoned all his reserves of energy and sat up. “She is the last.”

“She is not the last,” Rebecca cried. “Not yet. We are not dead, and Miriam and Isaiah are younger than either of us.”

“They remain childless. Ten years trying and nothing has come of it. Get it through your head that it is a matter of time until our daughter is the last. She cannot be allowed to contract our illness.” Samuel stopped to catch his breath, then continued. “In town, there are real doctors, trained in schools in big cities. Two years ago, one of them came up here and saved her life. They can examine our blood with machines that can look inside our bodies, and they have medicines—real medicines—not your roots and herbs. We should see if they can help us.”

“It is the Lord’s doing that Ruth’s life has been spared so far. You know we cannot leave this mountain. Besides, I will not abandon the two of you to seek help.”

As Samuel’s head fell back into his pillow, a knock sounded.

Rebecca grabbed the bar from the fireplace and took a tentative step toward the door. “Who is there?”

“Miriam and Isaiah,” said a woman’s voice. “Who else would it be?”

Rebecca opened the door to a burst of cold wind that whistled over the bare mountaintop. Two dimly lit forms stood outside the reach of the fireplace’s glow. “I thought I heard someone walking outside a few minutes ago. It must have been the wind. Come out of the cold. I have water boiled for tea.”

“We have not come for tea,” Miriam said, remaining on the porch. “We have come for the child.”

Rebecca’s eyes blazed. “You shall not have Ruth. Not while I or my husband still live.”

“It is not your decision,” Isaiah boomed. “We cannot have children, and if either of you should die, Ruth will be the last. If she doesn’t come with us, she will die as well, which cannot be allowed to happen. It is God’s will.”

Rebecca retreated from the doorway and screamed at the shadowy figures. “You cannot have her. She is my child. I will not let you take her from me.”

Samuel spoke out from his bed, too weak to raise himself. “Let Ruth go, Rebecca. This house holds nothing for her but death.”

“It holds my love for her, and that is enough,” Rebecca cried, tears streaming down her cheeks onto the rough-hewn pine floors. “I will not give her to them.”

“We have talked about this many times,” Miriam said. “We knew this day would come for you, as someday it will come for us. But for now, we are the only ones who can help her.” She stepped toward the threshold, the firelight illuminating the concern and weariness in her face. “Please do not make me risk my life by coming in. Your daughter needs me too much.”

A silence enveloped the house, broken only by the crackling of the logs burning to embers in the hearth.

“There are no alternatives,” Samuel said wearily. “Let the child go.”

Rebecca stood quietly and gathered herself, then called out to the back of the house. “Ruth, your aunt and uncle are here. Please come out and greet them.”

A door in the back of the room opened. A pretty, slender girl with long chestnut hair and olive skin stepped into the room. Her intense brown eyes made her look years older than her twelve years. She wore a plain white linen dress, her hands clasped in front of her as she kept her eyes looking shyly to the floor.

“Good evening, Miriam and Isaiah, and may God’s grace be on you. We have not had the pleasure of your visit for many days.”

“Good evening, Ruth,” Isaiah said, stepping into the cabin, “and may God’s grace be on you as well. Your father’s illness has kept us away. I am glad to see you well.”

“My mother makes me stay in my room. This is the first I have seen of my father except from my doorway.” Ruth gazed sadly at Samuel.

“Your parents should have sent you to us a long time ago,” Miriam said, “but we did not have the heart to come here ourselves to get you. Get your coat, Ruth. You must come stay with us for a while until your father… recovers.”

Ruth glanced at her mother, who nodded slowly, her face expressionless. Ruth retreated into her room and closed the door.

“You must at least let me kiss her goodbye,” Rebecca pleaded.

“Sorry,” Isaiah said, “but we cannot take that chance.”

Ruth returned, a coarse woolen coat covering her dress, her eyes downcast. Her mother turned away quickly.

“Do not touch your mother,” Miriam commanded. “Nor your father. You must not become ill with their affliction.”

“Can I not kiss them goodbye before I leave?” Ruth said, seeming to fight back tears.

Miriam rushed in, put her arm around Ruth’s shoulders, and hurried her out the door. “There is no time for that now. We must leave quickly.”

As Ruth fought to free herself from her aunt’s grasp, her uncle clutched her tightly and led her into the darkness.

The bang of the door as the wind slammed it shut made Rebecca jump. She struggled to maintain her composure as her daughter’s cries faded into the night air, replaced by the crackling of the logs. She collapsed onto a fireside stool, her body convulsing with sobs.

“Is it God’s will that we should die here alone, without our child?” she wept to her husband while looking for the answer in the heavens.

Samuel held his arm out and called to her. She walked over, lay down beside him, and cried herself to sleep in his arms.

The fire had burned down to dull red embers when a sharp knock on the door awakened Rebecca. Opening her eyes, she felt disoriented, not sure if the sound had been part of a dream. But it returned, more insistent. She jumped out of bed and shook Samuel.

“Wake up. Your brother has brought our child back. Wake up!” But so close to death, Samuel barely opened his eyes before sinking back into his stupor. Rebecca ran to the door and flung it open, surprised and frightened by what greeted her.

Alone in the doorway stood a looming dark figure, dressed not in homemade linen clothing but in a manufactured wool coat and black leather gloves, like someone from town would wear. He carried an elegant black leather bag, and his face was shielded from the cold by a thick woolen scarf.

“Who are you, and what do you want?” Strangers from town rarely visited—and never unannounced—especially at this hour. She narrowed the door’s opening to a few inches, partly to block the cold wind but mainly as a shield between herself and the ominous stranger.

“My name is unimportant, Mrs. Morehouse. I came to talk about Ruth.”

“What do you know about my daughter?”

“I know a lot, in some ways more than you do. I know that someday she will need special care that you and your family cannot provide. But don’t worry, Mrs. Morehouse. When the time comes, I’ll look out for her. I’ll make sure she doesn’t die the way you and your husband are doing.”

Rebecca’s features softened, and for the first time in weeks, a smile played across her face. “Are you truthful?”

He nodded.

“Then you must be an angel. An angel from God.” She opened the door to let him in.

“I suppose you could say that.” He stepped through the doorway into the cabin. After looking around, he set his leather bag on the table, removed a bottle from it, and poured a clear aromatic liquid onto a handkerchief from his pocket. Then, without warning, he grabbed Rebecca and twisted her arm behind her back, forcing the handkerchief into her mouth and muffling her screams. She fought in vain to free herself, but bit by bit she weakened, her vision darkening, and her consciousness ebbing. Thirty seconds later, she fell limply into his arms.

He laid her body across the table, then strode to the bedridden Samuel and yanked the pillow out from under his head. As Samuel awakened with a start, the visitor pushed the pillow onto his face and held it fast with the weight of his body. Half dead already, Samuel’s struggles proved weaker than his wife’s, and he perished quickly.

After confirming Rebecca’s demise, the intruder pulled the handkerchief from her mouth and set her next to Samuel, carefully positioning them as if they were sleeping in each other’s arms.

 Then he poured half of the bottle’s contents onto them, sprinkling the remainder around the cabin. With one smooth motion, he held the handkerchief against the embers until it burst into flame, then he flung it onto the bed. The mattress erupted in a blaze, followed by a flash so intense that despite the protection of the scarf, the stranger had to shield his face as he grabbed his bag, rushed into the night, and hurried down the gravel path to the trail from which he had come.