Page 18 of Whispers of Fire

I stand and grab her elbow to stop her from pacing the room.

“What is it, Mother? Isn't it something you wanted?” I sign, frowning my brows.

She sighs. “It’s just, I know we must follow our great leader to reach the Ascension…”

“But?” I sign, not getting where she’s going.

“I’ve heard about a few young girls he… cared for in the past.” She emphasizes the word cared . “Remember the girl from the Millers? The nice one with red hair?”

“Anna? Yes, she was in my class two years ago, what about her?” I sign.

“She… she disappeared. Her parents said she’d gone to live with a relative in Florida but I know her mother, and since she got engaged with the Shepherd at that time, they never saw her again.” I’m shocked to hear that he’s been engaged before, but then again, he’s a sixty-year-old man, why wouldn’t he? Anna was fifteen when she left to live with her grandparents. I still remember that she never said goodbye to us. Even though I wasn’t her friend, I knew everyone in class was shocked that one day she was there, and the next she was gone.

“Do you think the Shepherd has something to do with this?” I ask, almost looking over my shoulder. My mom freezes, quickly closing her eyes, and shaking her head.

“He, I’m sure our Shepherd did what was necessary for these girls to achieve the Ascension. But…” she swallows hard, looking nervously at my door, probably afraid of my father hearing her, “maybe, when the time comes, we’ll have to say goodbye to you too,” she says, as if insinuating the disappearance of your own child was a possibility.

I step forward and grab her arm, shaking her, looking in the depth of her eyes to try to put some sense into it.

Is she telling me that I’m going to have to leave to go wherever he sends the girls he claimed? I am going to die? What is going on?

Tears build in my eyes as I step back and sign to my mother.

“You’re going to let him have me? Body and soul?” I don’t care if I cross a line talking about lust, or the lack of it actually. I need to know if she’s really giving up on me and letting her eighteen-year-old daughter be raped by a sixty year old man. Because that’s exactly what I am asking, and she knows it. That’s why she was fidgeting at the Chapel today, because something deep inside her awoke at the idea of my flesh being ruined by this man, no matter his title.

But my mother is weak, so she didn’t put up a fight.

I know from some pictures I've found in our basement that she did have a normal life until she met my father when she was about my age. He’s the one who enrolled her in our community and she followed him blindly. But now she can’t see anymore, blinded by faith and fear. The woman she used to be, wearing a t-shirt on a beach in a polaroid I once saw, is no longer there. She was never affectionate with me, but she’s still here, making my food and making sure I have clothes on my back.

Probably not the ideal mother, but still, my mother.

And I know deep down she cares, otherwise she wouldn't be standing in front of me, struggling between reason and faith.

Is she right? Do I have to follow my heart or my duty?

“He will be your husband. It won’t be a sin…” she says.

“But, Mother, he’s, he’s an old man,” I sign, pleading, then pacing the room, crying my eyes out, turning to her.

She shakes her head, quickly closing her eyes as if the vision of me and the Shepherd was difficult for her to bear. “Rose, you must do your duty and carry his children. I’m sure with time… you will… it will all become natural,” she says with a frozen grin.

I’m in shock, trying to take her word for it and find a peace of mind. She begins to talk again when I raise my palm to her. I don’t want to hear it anymore. And I don’t have it in me to fight with her any longer. I just want her to go.

Walking to my door, I open it and show her the way out with my chin in a rough movement. There’s nothing to talk about anymore. My father is over the moon to have his child marrying our leader, and my own mother doesn’t fight the idea of my upcoming rape. I bet she just needed to appease her conscience, tell herself that at least she came to warn me. I sigh loudly, get on my bed, curl up on the cover and cry myself out.

I’m drowning in an ocean of fear and sorrow, confused about what I must do.

Freedom or duty.

I stay up all night crying, until the roar of a familiar engine gets me out of my tears. My heart quickens as I get up quietly, watching my clock. It’s five am.

Without taking a cardigan or my slippers, I reach the stairs to the living room and look over the garden.

Would it be so crazy to go out there and see him?

Chapter 6

Vox

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