She gagged on the memory but forced herself to remain strong, knowing just how much this hurt him—this hateful Messiah. More folks arrived during her confession, gathering silently together in the lightening night. Behind her, she heard the sounds of vehicles approaching, saw the red and blue lights reflected on smoke, but it didn’t matter. Worse than killing Isaiah was embarrassing him in front of his men—his people. It would be all the vengeance she needed.
“What about the Mark, Isaiah? Is everybody here aware of what you and a few of the men did to me?” He took another step in her direction, this one furtive rather than self-assured, but she ignored him, turning in the glow of the headlights and unexpectedly catching her mama’s eyes.
Her breath caught in her throat, and her thoughts briefly scattered. “Oh,Mama, I was so afraid you were dead. I thought—”
“What are you doing?” her mother asked, looking horrified.
Abby forced herself to go still, not to rush to her mother. Instead, she studied her, trying to put the pieces of everything she knew and remembered together. The mother of her childhood, before this place; the woman standing in front of her now.
“Did you accept the Mark, Mama?” Abby impulsively asked.
No response.
“You did, right?”
Her mother nodded.
“Did you know they forced me? To take the Mark on my back? Over and over again?”
Abby wasn’t sure what she expected. Maybe some sort of acknowledgment that her mother hadn’t wanted this for her. What she got instead sent her back a step.
“You’re awickedchild,” her mama hissed. “Always been that way. Too curious by half.”
“He tell you he was gonna take me as his wife, Mama? Two wives for this man?”
Her mother blinked and glanced at Isaiah—at her husband.
“Didn’t know that, did you?”
The crowd parted as Abby made her way to her mother and grasped the older woman’s hand. “Did he tell you how he cut open my best Sunday dress to get to me, Mama?”
Behind her, people whispered. From farther off came the sound of footsteps in gravel, but no one interrupted. “My back…here.” Turning, she urged Mama’s hand up the back of her coat and shirt, to where the ridges of her shame resided like braille, the letters scabbed up beneath her fingertips. “You feel that? I didn’t want it, so I got it tenfold. All over my back. You think God wanted that, too? Huh?”
“Oh, I knew all about it,” spat Mama, pulling away and shocking the words right out of Abby’s mouth. “You think Isaiah’s the one who gave you to Hamish? You think he’s the one who hears God?” Her gaze swung around to take in the crowd, her body vibrating. Everyone was still. “Isaiah may be God’s tool on this mountain, his mouthpiece, but I am the eyes and ears. Only God told me the people wouldn’t heed the word of a woman.” As she leaned toward Abby, the words came low and vicious. “If he’d let me, I’d have marked you every day of your life, you vile, wicked child. Defiled and rotten to the core. With a father like yours, I’d have—”
“Were you the one who ordered the children killed, too, Mama?”
Silence.
“Lord, I knew you lot had this place rigged to blow, but I didn’t think you’d do it.” She threw an accusatory look at the crowd behind her. “You all let him do it?”
Someone in the crowd said an outragedNo!and people moved, the tide changing. From out of the murmuring came a woman’s voice.
It was Brigid. Lord only knew how she’d gotten back down here so fast. “The children are fine.” To the side, behind the men, Brigid stood stiff, her skin black with soot, her chin held high. She met Abby’s gaze with a burning one of her own, and a strange sort of sisterhood bloomed between them.
Isaiah jolted, a look of sheer surprise on his face. It would have been comical if this weren’t such a tragedy.
“She helped us get them out in time.” Brigid’s attention moved from Abby to Isaiah. “You could hurt anyone else you wanted, Isaiah. I’d take it, for the sake of our Lord and Savior. But I couldn’t let you hurt the babies.” She looked around the crowd, her eyes soft and sad. “We’ve all been defiled here, ain’t we? I never did like Abigail, but she’s right. God surely don’t want the babies to suffer. So we got ’em out. While you men were guardin’ your perimeter, us women saved the babies.”
Isaiah was livid. “You’re just worried about your own child, aren’t you, Brigid? Always—”
“Yours, you mean?” she responded, and everyone stopped.
Benji, mouth open, turned between his wife and his leader, looking lost.
Isaiah spoke. “Listen, Brigid, you’re—”
She spun toward Abby. “You think you had it bad with Hamish? I was thirteen when Isaiah started making me do things. For God, he told me, over and over. Then he got me with child and used Benji to cover it up.”
