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. Herpeople.
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.
