10

Abby limped into the Main Chapel and nearly collapsed, her knees turned to jelly by the sight of all these people, waiting.

For me. They’re waiting for me.

The only thing that kept her standing was the knowledge that Sammy had made it out.

Isaiah started off the day with “Morning has broken,” as if this were a regular service. As if she wasn’t sitting in the front row like a witch on trial.

To add to the charade, she sang with everyone else, accompanied by the amplified strum of Isaiah’s guitar.

When Hamish had been alive, they’d played together, Isaiah and him up there. They’d divided the sermon in half—Hamish’s older, doom-filled words the perfect contrast to Isaiah’s uplifting words of hope.

By the time the song wrapped up and everyone sat down, Abby’s pounding heart had calmed. Maybe it was just a normal Sunday. Maybe she would be forgiven.

Isaiah’s voice oozed through the speakers they’d spent hard-earned money to purchase a few years ago. Funny how Isaiah’s God was fine with this modern convenience but not the ones that saved lives. The sound came through strong and melodic, though a tiny bit of static came out with every brush of his beard.

“There is an enemy on the mountain today. A serpent among us.” Isaiah’s gaze ranged across the gathered crowd before landing, firmly, on Abby. “And that enemy is doubt.” With a gentle smile, he paused before continuing. “Sliding into our hearts, it need take root in but one of our number. One.”

She’d admired the sound of his voice, once upon a time. As a child, she’d looked forward to the sermons, their Sunday morning lessons, their daily Bible stories. Today, every syllable vibrated up her spine like the chords of a harp being tweaked. Exhausted, her mind wandered, taking in Isaiah’s words like a rhythm without meaning.

She forced herself to focus back in.

“‘For I am the Lord, who heals you.’” Isaiah stopped, eyes bright, breath puffing audibly against the mic. “‘I will take away sickness from among you,’ the Almighty did say. ‘Heal me, Lord, and I will be healed; save me, and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise.’”

There was a long pause while the room sat quiet and the listeners rapt. With a startled jolt, Abby recognized what he was saying.

“Some among us—and you know yourselves—have deigned to question our Savior’s capacity to heal. You have dared to doubt His very choices. And through that doubt, you show your lack of faith.” He raised his brows at the agitation running through the crowd. It wasn’t a sound, but a low rumble of excitement that showed he’d gotten through to them. They knew something was coming, just like the sheep at shearing time, although some of them still hadn’t figured out who would succumb. It was excitement, Abby recognized, at the prospect of someone’s condemnation.

Someone’s punishment.

When Isaiah focused again on her, the sheep knew, with absolute certainty, that she was the object of this lesson. Eyes turned to her, wide and hungry.

“It is not our duty to question our Lord and Savior, nor His very word. It is our duty to obey.” After a pause, during which his long, pale fingers reached out to the congregation, Isaiah smiled. “Let us pray, my children. For the prophecy is nigh.”

Head down beside her neighbor’s, Abby sat, heart pounding so loud and hard she was sure everyone else must have heard it. When she finally looked up, it was to meet Isaiah’s fox eyes.

His inhalation rasped through the speakers. “Abigail Merkley, come forth.”

Everything in her body tightened. Around her, the air crackled with expectation. Accusation burned. Oh, look at the glee on those faces!

Pulling in a long, shaky breath, she stood, head bowed, and made her way to the front of the room, feet whispering on the carpet. Silently, she chanted, Sammy’s safe, Sammy’s safe.

“Come here, child,” Isaiah said in that friendly voice.

After only the slightest hesitation, she stepped onto the wooden platform before turning to face the audience. Her Church. Her peers. Her people.

Only none of it felt like hers anymore. These people were strangers, with ideals and beliefs she could no longer understand.

Except Mama. Mama would be on her side. She’d forgive Abby’s sins like last time. She searched the crowd frantically for that pale face and the love she knew she’d see there.

Brigid sat, pious and prim, with Benji beside her. Abby’s ribs still ached with the echo of his zeal. Farther along sat the Cruddups and—

There. Mama sat a couple rows back, eyes wide and watchful, glazed with a visible sheen of unshed tears. Abby tried to catch her eye but couldn’t.

Please look at me, Mama, she begged. Please.

Nothing. Not a moment of shared eye contact, not the tiniest acknowledgment.

Chest tight and heart tripping fast, Abby fought the fear and the drowning sensation. She lifted her chin, squared her shoulders, and awaited judgment, while her mother never once looked her way.

The day wore on—a marathon celebration, punctuated by singing and the sound of children crying, quickly hushed. Throughout it all, Abby stood before her only family, accused of more than just the crime of questioning God. It turned out she was responsible for Sammy’s illness to begin with—along with afflictions endured by every Church member since the dawn of time.

It must have been around lunch when Abby sagged halfway to the floor, eliciting jeers from the crowd. When Benji and Denny Cruddup were called forward to prop her up, Abby tried to catch their eyes. Nothing. I am forsaken. A sacrifice. To God, to the Church. To the mountain, maybe.

Just before letting her go, Denny’s hand tightened briefly, and though she looked to him for confirmation that this was, indeed, a communication, there was nothing. She’d no doubt imagined it.

By midafternoon, the Main Chapel windows were fogged over with the congregation’s collective breaths, the air ripe with body odor, the room rank with Abby’s shame and their blame. There was a ritual to confession at the Church of the Apocalyptic Faith. It was a balancing act, and from where she stood today, on the outside in a way she’d never been before, Abby could see it clear as day. Although she wouldn’t call it confession today. She’d call it indictment.

In the Church, there was no right without a wrong, no wrong without a right to counter it. Punishment for Abby was someone else’s reward, and they mostly enjoyed it. Oh, she could see it on their faces—that gloating pride. Look how bad she is. The devil inside her.

A cry rang out late in the day, interrupting the almost meaningless stream of preaching and startling the crowd. Isaiah, jolted from his tirade, turned to the sound, looking wrathful and out for blood.

“Give me the child,” he said in that quiet voice Abby knew better than to trust.

Nobody moved, though someone whimpered. Brigid, Abby thought. Had it been her baby?

“Who was that? Bring it to me.” The words rang out sharp as thorns. Nobody moved, and Brigid’s face, always pale, was white as a sheet. Seconds ticked by as everyone waited with bated breath, the silence shocking after so much noise. And then it started up again—a snuffling, followed by the squall of an unhappy baby, kept too long inside. Brigid hushed her child, frantic now, only they all knew it was too late. God’s wrath cut deep when His words were interrupted.

As Isaiah moved to step down from the altar, Abby opened her mouth to scream. She didn’t think it through, she just let out an explosive wail, dragging the attention back to her. A long, high shriek emerged, piercing and raw, and it stopped Isaiah in his tracks.

Shaking, she went on screaming until she’d emptied herself of breath and inhaled in preparation for another. The next one was cut short by a slap from Isaiah, strong enough to knock her head to the side and rock her on her feet.

A stunned silence hung over the room.

“Get it out of here,” Isaiah spat, his smooth voice torn raw with anger. “Get them all out. The women and the children. Now!” He lifted those yellow eyes from Abby’s and directed them straight at Brigid, who wrapped her arms around Jeremiah and scuttled out fast.

Isaiah shook himself visibly and straightened before heading to the door. “Take her to the Small Chapel, gentlemen. Mr. Kittredge, stoke the fire.”

There’d be no pain worse than this. She couldn’t remember anything as bad as the branding of her arms: the hot press of metal to skin, the sizzle that took her out of her body and into the thin air, weightless and numb. There’d been a smell, at first, of her own flesh, but even that had disappeared after her mind had floated out of herself, up into the air.

“Abigail Merkley.” The men muscled her down the hall, everything reminiscent of the last time, except for the place in her brain that used to believe. “This is your day of reckoning.”

I can take it. Hands tightened into fists, she took in the men gathered there. Benji, Denny Cruddup, James Kittredge, and even his son, Carter. He was only fourteen and looked slightly green. A dozen more stood around them, all men she’d known most of her life. Men she’d trusted and cared about.

“I don’t want this,” she pled, looking from one man to the next, the agitation making her desperate. “Denny. Denny, you used to hold me in your arms, remember? You taught me how to play with a yo-yo?” Before Hamish had taken it away. She’d been eight, maybe.

And Benji, weak and repentant. Holier than thou. He grabbed her arm, avoided her gaze, and dragged her down the hall.

Eyes glued to her feet, Abby went along. Because Sammy was safe. He had to be; otherwise, he’d have been here today.

Isaiah was speaking, but she barely heard. The irons were in the fire. Three of them. The air stank of smoke and cinders, the ghost of burning skin. A sob tried to work its way up her throat, too big for the tight space. She forced it down.

Isaiah’s words finally reached her. “Do you accept the teachings of Isaiah of the Mount? Are you a Disciple of the Apocalypse?”

Her attention rolled around the room, her eyes hopping from one person to another to the beat of that same comforting litany: Sammy’s safe. Sammy’s safe.

On the edge of hysteria, she squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “No.”

Utter stillness. No one, as far as she knew, had rejected the Mark before. Even she had agreed to it that first time, convinced of her own wrongdoings. She’d wanted it. Begged for it.

“I need to hear your acceptance of the Lord, Abigail. Say it.”

“No,” she whispered. Then stronger. “No, I do not accept your Lord unto my heart.”

She opened her eyes and focused them hard on the first man she saw—how fitting that it should be Benji. “I took responsibility for the sins of others. Not today. I do not take responsibility for your sins,” she said, shocking them all. Except for Carter, who’d collapsed against the door, eyes wide.

“How dare you—” Isaiah started.

“I don’t!” she shouted as loud as she could, lungs full, chest tight as if she’d just run back from the fence. Hands restrained her, angry fingers digging into muscle and bone. The air was full of something new—a violence she hadn’t felt that last time. There was another element, too, as Isaiah drew close and the men held her for his perusal.

“Let her go,” he said before drawing closer. “You think he got away safe, your little gimp?” he whispered in her ear. Abby stiffened and opened her mouth to protest. “Samuel is back. Did you know that? We found him, and he was so happy to come home, because this is where he wants to be. It’s where he belongs, Abigail. Who are you to take him away from God?”

“No,” she whispered, louder, harder, harsher. Pained breaths escaped her throat as the scissors came out, tips pointy enough to gouge her eyes. Instead, they cut open her dress and bared her back to these men. Oh, how they stared, soaking it all in, starving for this: her shame, her near nudity, her pain. Daniel, who’d watched her with lust for years, finally feasted his eyes on her. Even Benji, as he watched, lost that tiny bit of guilt she’d seen on his face.

Dry, racking sobs consumed her body as she tried to shake the men off.

Tried and failed. Again and again.

From somewhere by the door, someone retched. Carter, of course.

“Best cut the rest along the seams,” came Isaiah’s voice, calm and instructional as he ambled over to check the irons in the fire.

Waste not, want not. Always thinking of the good of the Church, isn’t he?

Abby almost laughed.

Until the brand hit her back. Then she screamed.