Page 14 of Torn

“Are you looking forward to the day you finally reach fruition?” she asked me, eyes bright with curiosity.

I swallowed a small mouthful of cake. “Yes, of course. I can’t wait to participate in the Joining rituals,” I said as I wiped the crumbs from my lips.

Elena was silent for a beat. Then another. “You are fortunate that you have been able to wait so long,” she finally said in a low voice. “The pain the men make us endure is not quite as gratifying as you may have been led to believe.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I was torn between the lessons I’d been taught about all females deserving pain and the contradictory words my best friend had just spoken. My father was the divine Prophet, so I knew he wouldn’t spread falsehoods, but at the same time, Elena had no reason to mislead me either.

Was there some way they could both be right?

I would have to think it over when I had more time.

Elena must’ve taken my silence to mean that she’d said something wrong, because her demeanor quickly changed. She stood up straighter and her voice turned somewhat higher. “Of course, it is your duty to endure the pain. Our duty,” she said. “For Him.”

“For Him,” I echoed.

“I must go. The ritual will begin soon. You should go too,” she said. She turned and briskly stepped out of my room.

As she left, I was struck with the strange feeling that I’d missed something, but I couldn’t think what.

I quickly finished my slice of cake, said another prayer, and hurried down the narrow hall. As I wasn’t permitted to participate in the Joining rituals yet, it was my duty to watch over the children and babies in one of the larger nursery rooms. I wasn’t alone in my duty. There were several other girls who were old enough to care for children but had not yet reached fruition, so they shared this task with me every week. I was simply the oldest.

When I arrived, the women who had children were already dropping them off to be cared for. I put the babies in cradles and set the children up on a rug on the floor with some toys and copies of His Word for the older ones to read.

One of the girls on care duty with me, a thirteen-year-old named Shandie, approached me around half an hour later. “Some of the children are complaining about hunger.”

“They had dinner. I’m sure they’ll be fine,” I said with a wry smile. Children could be so crafty about obtaining extra snacks for themselves.

“It’s the boys,” she whispered.

“Oh, you should’ve said so,” I replied, wiping my hands on the front of my dress. “I’ll go and fetch something from the kitchens for them.”

Unlike girls, boys had to be fed whenever they said they were hungry. They grew up to be men, who were usually much bigger and stronger than women, so it made sense that they would require a lot more sustenance than us, especially when they were still growing.

I headed out of the nursery and turned left. The flames of candles held in sconces on the walls flickered in the air coming through the ventilation shafts, bathing the hall in an eerie yellow-orange glow. I shivered and hurried toward the kitchen. I didn’t like fire, even in little candles. It reminded me of how much the people above ground had suffered when all the bombs dropped and ravaged the world. They may have been sinners, but I still pitied them for that terrible pain.

In order to reach the kitchens, I had to pass by the long hall which led to the Great Room, where the Joinings were held. By now, this week’s ritual had begun, and I could hear faint moans and grunts of pleasure coming from behind the large double doors at the end of the hall.

I crept a little closer, wondering what it would be like to be in there. I also wondered how the ritual would be different once I was married. Would I love my husband and want him to punish me for all my sins as we made love in there? Or would I end up like Elena, who seemed to dislike her husband and the things he did to her?

A memory suddenly flashed in my mind. An old one. It was the day of New Eden’s establishment, before the carnage broke out. Elena had told me in all her childish naïveté that I would marry a boy I met that very day.

A small smile played on my lips as I remembered the boy. Mason. He was nice. Nice-looking, too. Probably one of the most attractive boys I’d ever seen.

My stomach began to twist and ache as it occurred to me with a pang of sadness that Mason would’ve perished along with his family in the flames of the Great Reckoning. They weren’t religious, but I still liked them. Especially Mason. He’d promised me he would come and visit me when I was eighteen so we could be friends.

I sighed. That would never happen now. I would never see the man he would’ve become, and I would never know what might’ve happened between us as adults.

A scream ripped through the enormous doors of the Great Room, followed by a long, shuddering masculine groan. I jumped with fright and scurried away toward the kitchens. I wasn’t supposed to eavesdrop on the Joining rituals.

I stopped a moment later. The ache in my abdomen had intensified, spreading down to my lower belly, and I grimaced and doubled over, clutching at my stomach. The chocolate cake seemed to have disagreed with my system. Perhaps that was my punishment for eating it.

I headed for a toilet and carefully lit a candle before hiking up my dress and pulling down my underwear. Something strange immediately caught my eye, and I let out a gasp. It wasn’t the cake that had caused the cramps. It was this. Little red spots on the white cotton of my underwear.

Blood.

I chewed on my bottom lip, flooded with a mixture of trepidation and excitement. It was happening. I was no longer a girl.

I had finally become a woman.

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