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Apostasy (/əˈpɒstəsi/; Greek: ἀποστασία apostasia, "a defection or revolt") is the formal disaffiliation from, or abandonment or renunciation of a religion by a person. It can also be defined within the broader context of embracing an opinion contrary to one's previous beliefs. (wikipedia)
Credence has a secret.
Credence can see the witches.
It had confused him at first, because mother has always said that there is no way to tell the witches from good, god-fearing folk. That’s what makes them so dangerous. Witches Walk Among Us, corrupt men and women who’ve sold their souls to the devil in exchange for unnatural powers. They could be anywhere and anyone, your neighbours, your grocer, any person you pass on the street. There’s no way to know.
Credence knows. There is this difference to the witches, something that happens in the air around them, to the way light hits them. They don’t look different but yet they do; it’s hard to put into words. They dress the same, their features are normal; they don’t have the devil horns or glowing eyes or sinister smiles that one might expect from a demon. It’s something that happens in the depths of their shadows, like he’s looking at them through something, in a subtly warped mirror or slowly moving water. They have something of the appearance of objects on display in the windows of the fancy shops, bathed in a light that doesn’t occur in nature. Or like a familiar object that has been only very subtly altered. A treasured toy that’s been painted just one shade darker than it should be. Like but not like any of those things really. Indescribable if he tried.
He doesn’t try, even though he should. It’s clear that he’s the only one who sees it, and that would be an invaluable tool to the church to be able to root out the witches in their midst, to finally be able to enact Devine Justice upon the interlopers. But he can’t.
Because Credence is a witch too. He sees it when he looks down at his own hands. When he presses his palms together to pray to the Lord he sees it. No matter how much he wills it away, clenching his fists and clenching his eyes and pleading with God to strip it off him, to cleanse him of this unnatural haze. When he opens his eyes it’s still there. In the bath he scours his skin with coarse sponges and soap until it is angry red and raw, but to no avail. When he looks in the mirror the face he sees is that of a witch.
He will tell mother someday, but only when the evidence of his own wickedness is gone. Until then he continues to pray, and continues to scrub. It has to work eventually, he just has to try harder. Some days he tries so hard he bleeds rivulets of his cursed blood down the drain.
That is how he’d known from the beginning that Percival is a witch. Well a wizard, as he’d later learn they call themselves, but at first Credence doesn’t distinguish between the men and the women; they were all witches as far as Mother told it. He notices him ages before they meet properly, the witch who walks down Broadway every morning at half seven.
Even if he hadn’t possessed the telltale glimmer of witchcraft, the man would have demanded attention. Against the grimy backdrop of asphalt and steel and choking automobile exhaust, the gentleman witch is a slash of stark refinement. He is not especially tall or broad, but he carries himself in a way that clears a path through even the pack of morning rush-hour. The lines of his clothes are so sharp and crisp that that it’s like they’ve never once been rumpled. He’s clean shaven, hair combed back without a strand out of order. Order yes, this witch man is order personified in the chaos of the city. He strides at a good pace, brisk but not hurried. He keeps his chin levelled straight ahead, unbothered by the cacophony of humanity around him, eyes never once deviating. Never noticing the pitiful boy who stares at him every day.
Until he does. Later Percival will be under the impression that he noticed Credence first, even. Credence will never correct him, it’s a better story after all. He will like the way Percival tells it, it makes Credence sound beautiful and mysterious instead of lonely and desperate. Plus Percival will become so proud, his eyes sort of glitter when he boasts that he’d found Credence and known immediately that he was special. Despite the fact that he had breezed by him hundreds of times before without ever sparing a glance.
(They could have had so much more time together had Credence gotten the courage to be the one to reach out first. But he hadn’t been ready. It wouldn’t have been the same.)
Credence always spends the morning on the east side of the street, beside City Hall Park. He’d learned from experience that shop owners didn’t like when he handed out pamphlets outside their stores, and would likely call the constables within the hour. There’s nothing to be done about the glares and occasional kicks from passerby’s, but at least in front of the park he won’t get chased or arrested. That’s what had happened to their older brother years ago. He’d been taken by the constables and never come home. The police are Corrupt too, their mother tells them, Godless Kidnappers and Perverts. They Cannot Be Trusted.
Traffic resumes in full force the day after the big rainstorm, so Credence goes about as usual too. Most people keep their eyes purposely turned away from his proffered fliers, staring through him with tense determination. Some glare and snap at him to get out of their way, and every once and a while one might spit on him or shove him. Nobody ever stops to talk to him. So when the witch comes up behind him and politely clears his throat, Credence is so surprised that he drops the whole stack.
The papers immediately soak through, paper turning translucent as onion skin, the words blooming into inky clouds. Heart in his throat, Credence drops to the ground and futilely attempts to salvage them. Ma will be furious if she finds out he’d lost them; printing isn’t cheap and takes up much of the church funds. She counts them every evening before supper and if he claims that he’d handed them all out she’ll beat him blue for blatant lie. They’re lucky if they manage to distribute a dozen in a day, let alone the fifty currently turning to pulp in the puddle.
He’s hardly even aware of the presence at his elbow, too caught in rising panic. But then the man speaks, voice rough of cadence but gentle in tone. “Please forgive me. I did not intend to startle you.”
Credence blinks back the spots of panic prickling at his vision and gapes at the sight of the gentleman witch knelt beside him. The knees of his fine pin-stripe suit are on the pavement, tails of his coat rapidly dirtying behind him. “Oh!” He can’t help but gasp in horror, “please sir don’t trouble yourself! I can- you shouldn’t-!”
“I insist.” He cuts off smoothly, tilting a reserved but warm smile at Credence. He looks him directly in the eye, which seems to suck the air from Credence’s lungs leaving him incapable of further protest. Together they fish the pamphlets from the mud, those intact enough to do so in any case. Most are too waterlogged, the pages clumping to the ground and tearing when touched.
“Will you be put out by this?” The man inquires as they finally give up the cause as lost and climb to their feet.
Credence looks bleakly down at the mere nine leaflets in shape to bother keeping. It’ll be no dinner for him tonight at the very least, most likely the strap and the night in the cellar as well. But this gentleman cannot know this, thoughts far too crude to pass through his fine head. “Please don’t concern yourself. It’s not important.”
“I fear that you are lying to spare my feelings.”
Of course he would be too keen of wit to be fooled by Credence. Shaking his head desperately he tried again, “It really doesn’t matter.”
“Well you see I feel that it does and that it is my responsibility to make sure you do not face repercussion due to my actions. Will you allow me to atone?”
Atone. It is the word choice that freezes Credence’s tongue against further protest. The word seems absurd falling between them, the pair of witches that they are. And he so resplendent begging for Credence’s meagre favour instead of the opposite. Atone. As if Credence isn’t dirtier with sin than the lost pamphlets, as if his forgiveness is worth anything.
But the gentleman witch is insistent. “Wait here for me.” He instructs, taking the remaining pamphlets from Credences limp grasp, “Please. I promise I’ll return soon, just wait for me.”
And Credence thinks that even if he wanted to leave he wouldn’t be capable. Perhaps the witch has cast a spell on him with only his words, soft and kind as they’d seemed. Perhaps not all witchcraft is darkness and blood and brimstone like in the stories; Credence thinks that this tender magic is more terrifying even.
So he waits in the park for the witch. Time passes oddly after the rush and subsequent crash of adrenaline the encounter left him with. He watches as the morning commuter traffic thins. A nurse pushes a pram past him, a group of men around his own age dressed in student jackets chatter loudly down by the pond, an elderly man appears to be asleep on the bench across from him. It’s odd to have the freedom for once to just be among these people and not be on guard for the next cuff aimed his way.
The witch returns quickly, as he said he would. Tucked neatly in the crook of his arm is a fat stack of pamphlets. Credence stares in disbelief. “There should be enough to replace the ones I lost you.” The witch says, offering them. Credence takes the pile mutely and flips the cover of the top one. It’s his pamphlets exactly, perfectly printed on crisp new paper.
When Credence goes to order a new batch from the printer it takes a week and drains the congregation wallet. The witch couldn’t have been gone for more then a half hour. It must have been one of his tricks. “Thank you.” Credence breathes when he finds his voice, “I’ll pay you for these - I don’t have anything right now but I’ll get it.”
“Please don’t.” The man responds, “I’ve already told you - it’s my fault yours were ruined so it’s my obligation to replace them. I’ll not take a single penny from you.”
They part ways then, the witch is already late for work apparently. Credence is gripped with curiosity as to what sort of ‘work’ a witch performs every day in the middle of downtown.
That evening Ma gives him a dozen lashes across his wrists and pushes him down the stairs. Not only did he fail to distribute a single flier, but the witch had gifted him with twice the amount he’d left with. Ma accuses him of overspending, demands to know where he’d gotten the extra money. But Credence finds that he doesn’t even want to tell her, even though it would probably lesson the punishment. He doesn’t want ma to know anything about the gentleman witch, doesn’t want her mind resting even on the vaguest idea of him.
His welts sting like always, but Credence’s eyes stay dry through it all. His stomach cramps emptily all night, but he closes his eyes and brings forth the memory of the witch’s face, his kind eyes and soft deep voice, the way his fingers had rested lightly on Credence’s shoulder. And his pains fade into a dreamless slumber.