Poor Little Nathanael Hill Looks to God

Poor Little Nathanael Hill,

On Sunday Morn’ his folks fell ill,

By Tuesday Night they both were dead,

And Poor Nathanael’d lost his head.

         The day Moritan Puffring found Nathanael Hill in the cupboard was the day he started believing in God. His whole life he had believed that everything could be explained, even magic, and that everything had a tangible reason for being.  He had believed that miracles didn’t exist. But after that day, after that moment, everything changed.  Nathan Hill’s survival, he decided, was a true miracle.

         That day began fearfully, when Moritan opened his bakery at the edge of the Low Country, and found that there was no one waiting outside the door. Usually, there was a line of unfortunate people, waiting for a loaf of day old bread they could bring to their family.  On that day not a single person stood outside who had any intention of begging. A few people passed by quickly on the street, all of them going in one direction, toward the center of the Low Country, with their heads down and their faces set in a worried frown.  Moritan looked around the street for anyone familiar, but there was no one. The most conspicuous absence was that of young Nathanael Hill.  The boy, then age 6, had come to the bakery everyday for two years asking for bread. He came through snow drifts and hail storms, through blazing heat and the torments of other children to get to that bakery. This was the third day in which he had not come. That was when Moritan got scared.

         He rushed up the stairs to the bedroom he shared with his wife and, grabbing his coat and hat, told Camille to start the day off as usual, but not to expect any beggars that morning.

         “I think something’s happened at the center of town.”

         “You’re not going down there, are you?” Camille rushed to get her robe on and followed him downstairs.  “What if it’s The Sickness?”

         “I think that’s exactly what it is.  You just stay here, Mille. I’ve got to go down there and see for myself. I think it has hit hard this time.”

         Camille’s hands were shaking as she took him by the shoulders, “Moritan, don’t go down there, please. If it is the Sickness then we should stay as far away from it as possible. Please, just stay home. We’ll keep the shop closed today. We’ll stay upstairs and wait for some news.”

         “No.” Moritan tore away from his wife, as much as it hurt him to do so. “I have to go and see what’s happened. I’m worried. There’s not a single person waiting down there, and he didn’t show up again today.”

         “Who didn’t show up?”

         “Nathanael Hill.”

         Camille’s eyes widened for just a moment before she nodded, pressing her hands together to stop their shaking. “Okay.  Okay, Moritan, just…come back. Come back soon.”





         Moritan reached the slums of the Low Country just as a group of Palace Guards on horseback galloped past, trying to head off the large moving crowd that had assembled on the main road. The crowd was full of solemn people who trudged slowly down the street, with their chins on their chests. Moritan could hear some people in the crowd sobbing quietly, but other than that no one made a sound. They walked past old, decrepit houses, many with marks on the doors indicating quarantine. The further down the street Moritan looked, the more houses were marked.

         The guards caught up to them before they reached the most heavily quarantined part of the street. They rode through the crowd, shoving people aside, and stopped ahead of the crowd, pulling their swords from their sheaths and pointing them at the sad faces of the leaders of the group. Moritan stopped a few feet behind the crowd, not wanting to be mistaken for one of its members. He stood on his toes and looked over the people’s heads, past the guards, to the houses on the street beyond. He knew little Nathan Hill’s house was on that street. 

         “This is a quarantined area!” shouted one of the Guards. “Do you know what that means? It means you can’t go here! The Sickness is here!”

         “We know what it means,” replied a man in the crowd, “but some of us have family and friends in those houses. We want to help them.”

         The other Guard shook his head like one might at a small child, “You can’t help these people. Most of them are dead anyway, and the ones that aren’t will be soon. There’s no point.”

         A murmur went through the crowd as everyone looked at each other in disbelief.

Dead?

         “But this area was just closed off last night. They can’t have all died that quickly.”

         The Guards looked at each other. Then sheathed their swords and looked back at the crowd. “Look, we need you all to turn around and go back home. No one can help these people now, no one but God. Please, just return to your houses and concentrate on not getting sick yourselves.”

         Some of the crowd, moved by this warning, began to disperse, leaving in small groups of confused friends and family members, all talking quietly about their lost loved ones and the Guards’ obvious incompetency. Some people, however, did not leave. They stood in their spot and silently demanded the right to enter the houses. Moritan joined the crowd, and began quickly moving past people to reach the front. He had seen the Hill’s doorway, and just as he had suspected it was marked with a big red X, just like most of the other doors on the street.

         Both the Guards and most of the crowd stood their ground, but neither side was willing to make a fight out of it. Things came to a standstill. Moritan pushed his way to the front and addressed the Guards amid complete silence.

         “I have to get into one of those houses,” he said in a low voice.

         “’Well, you’re not going to,” one Guard replied. “How clear do we have to make it?”

         “No, you don’t understand,” Moritan continued, making sure that both Guards were looking into his eyes as he spoke. “This is a matter of utmost importance. There is a little boy in one of those houses.  He is a very good friend of mine. I have to know if he’s all right.”

         Slowly the Guards’ gazes began to soften, and they released their grip on their swords.  Mindlessly they nodded, pulling their horses out of Moritan’s way. “All right. But this is the only time…”

         “Of course, sirs,” Moritan bowed respectfully to them and went on his way, trying not to hear the crowd jeer at him as he moved down the road.

         Outside the Hill’s house a bed of flowers was wilting in the sun, and a layer of dirt had collected on the windows. Mrs. Hill had always taken very good care of her house, but by the state of things she had stopped keeping up appearances some time ago.  The people on this street must have been ill for at least a week, Moritan thought, running his hand over the mark on the door and feeling wet paint beneath his fingertips. The guards had only gotten around to quarantining the place when people actually started dying. Bastards, he thought viciously.  Who knows how many people have contracted The Sickness here in all that time.

         Moritan was able to open the front door without much effort.  He entered the house and was immediately struck by the smell of death.  He fell back against the door for a moment, unable to see or move properly as the stench of rotting flesh filled his nose. Suddenly he found himself wishing that he had headed his wife and just stayed home. It was some moments before he was finally able to open his eyes, but when he did he wished he hadn’t.

         In the middle of the room was the Hill’s bed, and in that bed were the Hills themselves. They had been dead for some time, as Moritan could gather from the swollenness of their bodies, and the pale green-gray tinge of their flesh.  They both lie with bulging eyes open, staring up at the ceiling.  Under the covers he could see that they were holding hands. Moritan had been fighting the urge to vomit since he’d walked in, but as he took in the sight of them he couldn’t help himself. He collapsed to the floor, hunched over a dusty urn which he had managed to grab just in time. When he was finished he sat there, gasping, against the door for what felt like hours before he could bring himself to move again.

         Standing up on shaking legs, he looked around the room. There was a cot in the right corner, where he was sure little Nathan usually slept. As to where the boy was at the moment, however, he couldn’t say. Maybe he’s gone, Moritan thought hopefully. Maybe he left when his parents died. Maybe he’s with a friend now.

But Moritan had never seen Nathan with a friend before; in fact he had always entertained the idea that the boy didn’t have any.  But then where was he?

         “Nathanael?” He called, doing his best to keep his eyes away from the Hill’s bed.  “Nathan, are you here?”

         A noise came from the cupboard a few feet away. It was a whimper, a cry. Moritan looked to his left, where the cupboard stood, next to the fireplace. “Dear Lord…” Moritan could feel cold sweat drip down his neck. Slowly, for he was still shaky on his feet, he picked his way through dishes, garbage and dust to reach the cupboard.

         Please, God, let it be the cat. Please show me that Nathan is not here, has not been here for…

         “Nathan?” he whispered, standing in front of it. “Are you in there, son?”

         He heard another whimper, a hoarse but high-pitched sound, and without hesitating, without thinking, Moritan dropped to his knees and flung open the doors of the cupboard.

         Poor little Nathanael Hill sat huddled inside, looking out at him with sunken, desperate eyes.  He was weak, pale faced and shivering. At the sight of Moritan, tears spilled from his eyes and ran down his cheeks, making clean, red rivers through the dirt on his face. In one shaking hand the boy clutched a small gold cross. Moritan recognized it as something that had belonged to his father. The boy was holding onto it so tightly that blood dripped from his fingers onto the cupboard’s bottom.

         Although he looked ill with grief and hunger, Nathan didn’t appear to have any symptoms of the illness that had killed his parents. There were no ghastly sores on his body, and his face was plump, not emaciated, like so many of the afflicted people’s faces were. Nor did he have the glossy eyes of the newly diseased, eyes that had lost all awareness of the world around them.  No, it was quite obvious to Moritan that the poor child knew exactly what was happening.

         Tears welled up behind Moritan’s eyes as he tried to figure out what he could possibly say to the boy. He took Nathan’s hands in his own and willed himself not to cry in front of him.

         “Nathan,” he said finally, “what are you doing here, son?”

          Nathan’s whole body shook with the force of his sobs, “God…” he cried, furiously shaking his head, “God didn’t want me.”