What?!My entire body trembled with a new fear beyond being found out by the rest of the village before Reuben was ready.
“Reuben? What is she talking about?”
“I was just practicing,” he blurted to Marta without so much as a glance back at me. “I knew we’d be getting married soon, andI didn’t want to be bad at it on our wedding night. That’s why I practiced with Sadie. To be ready. For you,Schatz. My real wife.”
Each word cut into me, gutting me like the boning knife my mother used to clean the insides of the fish I’d brought back from the river yesterday.
The world went fuzzy as the real story came together in my head.
Reuben had claimed to be secretly courting me. But he’d asked Marta’s father to court her in real life. He’d gone to her family. Begged the building steward to make her stay.
He’d been practicing with me. But planned to actually marry her.
Oh, mein Gott.
Somewhere in the distance, Reuben assured Marta in Wölfennite, “I would never choose Stinky Sadie Schaduw over you. I swear it on my soul. This was only for me to become a better husband to you.”
Suddenly, the river wasn’t outside the village but filling my ears in a rush of noise, shame, and regret. How could I have been so gullible? So stupid?
Without thinking, I ran. And ran. Until my legs cramped. And I still didn’t stop.
Not until I reached the two-bedroom cottage I shared with my mother and ripped open the door.
A shower.I needed to light our stove for a scalding-hot shower before my mother got home from the community meeting?—
“Sadie! Sadie Ellis!” My mother’s voicebroke through the icy rapids of shame and betrayal rushing through my head. “What are you doing? Why do you smell like that?”
I froze.
And that’s when I realized two things with regrettable tardiness.
One: Of course my mother—who would not even let me go to the college in the neighboring city—would opt out of the community meeting with an international Bridal Exchange at the top of its agenda.
And two: After months of sneaking around with Reuben behind her back, there was now nothing I could do to keep the woman who stood at the counter in our small open kitchen from finding out that I’d broken the 3rd rule in the St. Ailbe Ordnung:Thou shalt not engage in marital relations outside of marriage.
But I reeked of the male who’d just shattered my only hope of being able to get married and raise a family in St. Ailbe.
Surrounded by the pungent plants and metal pots she used to make medicine bags, the person I was most scared of in this entire world stared at me with rage glittering in her eyes.
Punishment
“Mama,”I choked out. “I can explai?—”
That was all I managed before a barrage of the metal dishes and spoons she used for her poultices came flying at me.
“Explain what, you filthy… slutty Jezebel? Why would you shame yourself like this?! Shame me?!”
She yanked off her left boot and came flying around the counter to slap my shoulders and arms with the hard sole.
“No, don’t cover your head. Don’t try to hide your disgraceful self now,” she screeched when I made the mistake of shielding my face.
She swung her boot again and again, so fast and furious, I didn’t realize she was herding me into my room until it was too late and the door slammed behind me.
Click.
She locked the door.
No! No! No! Not again!
