Chapter 8
Angel
I run away from the confession shack as quickly as I can, paying no attention to the sharp thorns and brambles that slash at the bottoms of my feet. He told me to go, and I have to get away.
Do I feel better? Do I feel purged of sin? I'm not sure. Confession is supposed to improve us. It’s supposed to lift the burden of our sins, but I don't know if I did it right. I still feel twisted up and confused about everything that's happened.
And I still don't know what to believe. It was not a demon? Then what was it?
Almost everyone has left the area of the sermon barn, returning to their jobs or homes. Automatically I look for my mother, but I'm sure she's already working in the reclamation shack or the quilting barn. There's always a lot of work for the aunties to do.
“Hey, what do you think you're doing?”
I flinch back from the sound. Seth sidles around the corner of the barn, smiling at me as though he knew I was coming.
“It's none of your business, Seth,” I hiss at him as I pivot on my heel and try to walk back the other way. He catches me around the arm and pulls at me.
“You can't talk like to me like that, you know!”
He snarls like a cornered animal, his foul breath close to my ear. “I'm a man. Men don't tolerate that kind of disrespect!”
I jerk my arm away, stumbling backward a few feet along the long side of the barn. He keeps walking toward me slowly, his chin down, a gleam in his eyes.
My heels bark against stones in the dirt, but I’m determined not to wince. “You just watch yourself, Seth,” I warn him.
His swagger is weird and off-balance, like he just learned how to do it. I can't believe he's got this attitude with me. He's grown so fast that his trousers are way up over his ankles, revealing filthy, knobby flesh, all pale and lashed with scabs from walking through the weeds.
“Watch myself do what?” he singsongs like a little kid.
He's teasing me, thinking I'm going to get afraid of him. But I'm not afraid of him. He is still just a scrawny little jerk on the inside. On the outside, he’s barely anything you could call a man. He’s spindly and weak. Spineless. Cowardly.
“You just need to act right. You can’t treat an innocent like this, Seth. You’re lucky I don’t tell Mary how you’re talking to me. I have to be going now,” I huff.
I try to turn away again and feel his bony fingers snatch up my sleeve. Automatically I yank my arm back, but he is using those long legs to shift to the other side of me. Before I know what's happening, he has caged me in, his arms and legs boxing me against the side of the barn.
“Seth, knock it off,” I choke out, but my voice sounds strange. Some feeling rises in me, an acidic sensation that tells me something has gone very wrong. The situation has gone sideways off the path, skidding into a ditch. He really is bigger than me, I realize. And stronger than I would have guessed. I can’t get away.
“You need to learn a lesson,” he growls, reaching down with one hand and yanking at my skirt. He shoves his arm against my leg, squeezing me hard just over my knee and pulling my legs apart.
“You stop that right now!” I try to say, but I'm not sure the words got all out. Outrage, terror, and anger slosh through me. I’m overwhelmed by this mysterious feeling of being frozen, unable to move. Like in my worst nightmares, all of my body parts have suddenly turned to concrete, and I can't figure out how to run away.
“That's right, Angel,” he grunts, his breath oily and sick against my bare neck. I feel his hand drifting upward as he jams his hips against me. I should have known how strong he'd be. I feel as weak as a weed, crushed under his weight.
Something in his pants is hard and pointy, poking painfully against my belly. He fumbles at the front of his pants, trying to expose it.
I close my eyes tight, not knowing what's going to happen, but knowing it's going to be awful. I don’t want to be here. I want to be asleep, or away, or unconscious. I don't want to live through this. I don't wanna…
And then daylight.
My eyes open again and I try to make sense of what I'm seeing. It’s Father Daddy. Seth is tumbling off to my left, falling in slow motion while his arms pinwheel frantically. He looks a doll that's been kicked in a game. Eventually he hits the dirt, right on his backside with his ankles shooting up into the air like a poorly drawn cartoon.
“You're okay, right, Angel? Tell me you're okay.”
My eyelids flutter as I look up and see Father Daddy standing over me. His teeth are bared as he searches my body, probably looking for signs of injury.
It is all starting to sort of make sense. He must have taken Seth by the scruff of the neck and just tossed him like the mangy little runt that he is. Just tossed him away into the weeds.
“I'm — I'm okay,” I stammer, not entirely sure that's true. I feel the bruise starting above my knee where his hand clawed at me. Another bruise. How humiliating.
“Annie!” Father Daddy barks out. Annie appears from somewhere and comes to me. She looks concerned at first but scowls judgmentally as soon as Father Daddy’s eyes are elsewhere. I see the sneer flash across her features as she sniffs, disgusted. I probably look a mess. I’m dirty, with bits of weeds all over my skirt, crushed into the wrinkles, and now the stink of Seth on me too.
“Yes, yes, Father Daddy,” she mutters obediently, careful to conceal her true feelings from him. “What can I do to help?”
“Take her to her mother,” Father Daddy commands her. He won't even look at me now.
“Right away,” Annie simpers. She holds me gently by the elbow and guides me toward the other side of the barn, but as soon as Father Daddy can't see us anymore her grip tightens cruelly. She's almost dragging me down the path. I stub my toes again and again on half-embedded rocks in the dirt, but I don't even care anymore. What part of me isn't ruined by now?
“You're hurting me,” I finally tell her she drags me toward the quilting shed.
“You're hurting all of us!” she shoots back, then grins to herself in triumph. Annie always has something to say to everybody. The perfect mean thing to say, every time.
She flings open the door, shoving me in ahead of her. It takes a second for my eyes to adjust but when I do, I see everybody is staring at me, mouths open slightly, fingers poised in midair with sewing needles glittering faintly like tiny, lethal weapons.
“What is this?” I hear my mother say. For a moment I'm grateful to hear the sound of her voice. Comforted, even.
“This one almost let Seth rape her behind the barn!” Annie practically yells, outraged. I twist away from her grip and stumble a few steps to my left. Everyone seems to gasp in horror at me and glare their judgments upon me.
“I didn't let Seth do —”
“Sit!” Annie commands me, snatching my sleeve again and jerking me toward a low, wooden stool. Obediently I sit. I try to keep my eyes down, but everyone is still staring at me. Their lips purse and work back and forth as they consider what they could say to me.
“You say that you didn't—” I hear my mother say. Her voice quakes slightly.
“I didn't! I swear I didn't!”
She narrows her eyes at me, looking me over. Taking me in. I'm sure she sees my hair is a mess. I'm sure she see the smudges of dirt on the knees of my shift, right where I was kneeling in the confession shack. I'm sure she's thinking most awful things about me now.
“You're sure!?”
“I'm sure,” I plead. “Father Daddy came and… nothing happened!”
My mother's mouth drops open. She looks at Annie for confirmation.
“Yeah, Father Daddy saved her. Can you believe it? Outrageous!”
I look around, confused. Outrageous? Why? What did I do?
But the aunties all seem to know what I did. They all seem to have some kind of understanding of how I've transgressed. I'm sure it's related to my demon. I'm sure they all suspected all this time. And with all the evil thoughts I've been having, they must be right. I know it.
“Your mother should make you a dress that fits, anyway,” Mary murmurs, leaning closer to me. Her eyes slide back and forth over my shift, taking in the parts that are probably too tight, the tear that seems to be lengthening against my thigh as I sit here.
“How am I supposed to make her a dress that fits every couple weeks when she keeps eating like that?” my mother shouts back, brazenly addressing Mary from across the large, complicated quilt they're all working on. Several of the women drop their eyes back to their patterns and begin sewing again, at least pretending to not get involved.
Mary takes a deep breath and lets it out in a cough. She’s the oldest, so she gets the most respect, usually.
“It's your responsibility, Melissa,” she informs Mama imperiously. “Exactly what do you need to do besides keep your daughter’s flower safe until the ceremony? If making her appropriate clothing is too hard for you, you should've reached out to us.”
I hear my mother draw in a sharp breath, that familiar sound before she goes full warfare on someone. But to my surprise, she seems to change her mind.
“You know how these young women are,” she says in a measured voice, one with the venom almost completely hidden. “As far as I'm concerned that dress does fit her. She's just wearing it wrong.”
Mary looks at me again, as though she is considering whether or not I might be outgrowing my dress on purpose.
“Well there's one easy way to solve this,” she sniffs. I watch her begin to sew again, her sharp, gleaming needle tracing ovals in the air. It dives back into the fabric then out again, like a bird of prey plucking fish out of the river.
“Do you have an idea, Mary?” Annie scoffs from her seat. She's not even pretending to work. From what I hear, Annie doesn't ever pretend to work.
“Get her through the ceremony. She'll join the others in a marriage… She’ll have her own home. She’ll have a Master. Everything will be done.”
Despite myself, I gasp. The ceremony? Already?
“Ha!” Annie barks. “That's not up to us, Mary, and you know it. Father Daddy and Brother Owen will let us know when it's time to —”
“It's time,” Mary interrupts.
The room goes quiet. Mary keeps sewing while her curly, salt-and-pepper hair falls around her wrinkly cheeks. She doesn't even need to raise her eyes. She knows things. She's been here since the beginning too. She helped write the ceremonies. Some people call her “Mother Mary” behind her back but we don’t have an official “Mother” in the Family. Just a Father.
Everybody starts peeking, watching to see what Mary will say next. Her word is almost law, almost as much a law as something Brother Owen might say. But not quite.
“I'll tell him myself,” she says calmly with a nonchalant shrug. “There's no good reason to delay. She's obviously ready. We can demand it.”
“Oh, we can demand it, can we?” my mother sneers. Her voice is higher than it should be, as though this idea worries her for some reason. I don’t look her way. I’m afraid she’ll see right through me.
“We can. Actually, you could have requested it any time in the last year, Melissa, didn’t you know that?”
Mary stops. She raises her chin and looks directly at my mother who blushes and clamps her lips shut. I don't understand exactly what just happened between them, but apparently my mother doesn't have anything else to say about it.
Mary drops her hand and pets me gently on the knee, careful not to dislodge any bits of vegetable matter filth that's clinging to me currently. When she picks her hand back up, she rubs her fingers together to clean them.
“We'll get you fixed right up, dear,” Mary tells me dotingly, though I realize some of this is contrived as a way to aggravate Mama for some reason. “When you take your place among the women, and then you get a Master like a woman should, then you'll see. You won't have to deal with this sort of strife anymore.”
Is she referring to Seth? Or is she referring to Mama?
“Thank you,” I whisper, because I know I'm supposed to.
“You should go now,” she says in a low voice.
I stand up quickly, knowing that her permission will only last a few seconds before someone else has a chance to object. No one tries to stop me, but I hear little whispers rise up as I move away.
As I push out the door toward the sunlight again, I wonder exactly what this all means. They are going to request a deflowering ceremony? For me? And then… what?
But, I can't worry about what happens after that. All I can think about is what would happen on that day. That beautiful night, where I will be the girl on the floor. Where I will be transformed by our beautiful leaders. Where I will learn the secrets of being a woman, from the most perfect men in the whole world.
I'm thrilled, happy enough to dance. But then I feel it again. My demon. I feel it as though I've just disturbed it from slumber. I feel it lift its head and sniff the air. I feel it in my belly, hot and throbbing, ready to uncoil again.
It's still in me.