“She’s coming with me,” I repeat. “I’m not asking.”
The silence that follows is heavy. Every set of eyes in this compound is fixed on the two of us, waiting to see the outcome.
I assess the men around me in case this gets physical. The two burly guys who dragged her here are to my left. The one with the whip is behind me. I’m outnumbered by a factor that should make me reconsider.
It doesn’t.
Buford’s chin lifts. “I’m afraid that won’t do, Mr. O’Rourke.”
Chapter 3
Prudence
The stranger unbuckles the cuff on my right wrist. Then the left.
My arms drop. Then so does the rest of me. My knees give, and I am falling, and then his hand is under my elbow, catching me.
The stranger’s knuckles brush the back of my neck as he settles the torn fabric over my shoulders, and the warmth of that single point of contact travels through me like a bolt of lightning.
“Put your arms in,” he says.
I do as he tells me. My fingers find the edges of my shift and pull them closed. I don’t understand why this is happening or who the man is, but he puts himself between Father and me.
My forehead almost touches the dark wool of his back. I can smell him now. His scent is clean and expensive and foreign, not sweat mixed with the lye soap the sisters boil on Mondays. He smells of a world I have no words for.
“She’s coming with me,” he repeats.
No one breathes. I keep my head down, since lifting it is sinful, and see multiple pairs of feet in the dirt, all of them angled toward Father the way sunflowers angle toward the sun.
“I’m afraid that won’t do, Mr. O’Rourke.” Father’s voice glides into the space between us. “The girl is not yours to take.”
The stranger—Mr. O’Rourke—is not at all intimidated by Father and that alone is startling.
“I beg to differ,” the man spits out.
“She is a daughter of this community. An unwed virgin. She cannot be in the company of a man who is not her husband. It is sinful. These are our ways. Scripture is clear.”
Father’s hand lifts. Over a hundred heads lift with it, and murmurs rise in a single obedient hum, “Amen. Amen. So it is written.”
He again addresses this stranger, this man who has come between me and punishment, “You cannot take her without shaming her, and I will not allow you to shame her in front of the only family she has ever known.”
The stranger doesn’t move. “How much?” he says.
Father’s smile does not change, but something happens to the muscles around his eyes.
“I don’t understand.”
“Yes, you fucking do. How much?”
A sound travels through the Flock. Not a word. A small collective inhale.
Father’s hands fold in front of him. His shoulders straighten.
“Mr. O’Rourke, we are not the sort of community that trades in?—”
“Fifty thousand.”
I have never held money. No, that is untrue. I held a penny once, a copper circle Sister Temperance slipped into my palm during the harvest festival before anyone saw, and Housemother Ruth made me confess it and give it up. I do not know what fifty thousand is. I only know the number has weight.
