Page 107 of Kiwi Sin
Raphael looked at him, at me, at Dad. And couldn’t decide. He stayed sitting down. I didn’t blame him. My heart was beating like a drum, and I felt sick.
It was one thing to turn my back on the Prophet. It was another to turn my back on my father.
Finally, Dad said, “You can stay. Oriana and Priya should hear anyway. I know you won’t change your mind, Daisy, but you won’t hold your sisters back from considering their options.”
“That was the entire point,” Daisy said. “That they should know they have options.”
“Exactly,” Valor said. “Everyone has options, and they always have. The gate is no longer closed, and nobody can spread lies about Mount Zion anymore or say that anyone’s being held against their will. You should have known that already. How many times have you stood outside the gates and invited the saved to join you amongst the damned? If they didn’t go, why not? The Prophet forgives you, though,” he told Dad. “He sees that you were torn, maybe anticipating the need for this before he realized it himself. He admits that he’s getting older, has become an imperfect vessel for God’s word. He needs a worthy heir to take up the mantle. Maybe it’s better that you’ve been Outside all this time. You understand this world and can work between the two places and make his vision a reality.”
“How is it,” Dad asked, “that he’s not telling me this himself? He knows how to use a telephone. Why are you authorized to speak for him?”
Valor leaned forward, his brown eyes wide and trustworthy. He’d always had that ability to look straight into an elder’s face and lie through his teeth. It had enraged me back then to see him get away with it, and it was enraging me now. He said, “That was my secret, mine and the Prophet’s. I left Mount Zion to be his eyes and ears, to see what was happening out here. He feels a great responsibility for the souls cast into the darkness. Our God is a merciful God, and where there is true repentance, He forgives. If the Prophet couldn’t do the same, he would be a poor messenger.”
“He’s a poor messenger anyway,” Daisy said. “Or I’ll say what I really feel. He’s no messenger at all.”
Valor said, “Well, I think we can all guess thatyou’renot going back. You’ll be glad to hear this one, though. And Oriana, of course.” He smiled at her, and my fist needed to be in his face. “God has also revealed to the Prophet that he should wait to give women to their divinely appointed husbands until they reach the age of eighteen.”
“A convenient revelation,” Daisy said, her voice nearly a drawl, “now that they have to get the court’s permission and not just their parents’, since the new law’s been passed. How many times has the court said ‘yes,’ I wonder? ‘The Prophet’s given me to a man eight years my senior, whom I’ve never spoken to, because he says that’s God’s plan,’ doesn’t sound much like, ‘of my own volition.’ And I should’ve guessed that was why you left. Being a spy suits you.”
Valor’s face reddened. “Oriana wants to go back, though,” he said. “To be with her mum again instead of … well, somebody like you. A sinner, who’ll pay for her sins. Oh, and to find a husband, as I notice Gabriel’s still as marriage-shy as ever. Why did the Prophet never give him a wife? Maybe he knows something the rest of you don’t. You bet on the wrong horse there, Obedience, and who else are you going to get, damaged as you are? How old was Daisy before she found a man?”
Daisy would have said something, or I would have, but Oriana beat both of us to the punch. “Oriana,” she said, “can speak for herself.”
“Can she?” Valor asked. “Can she really, here in Uncle Aaron’s home? The right hand of the Prophet, who is God’s messenger on earth? Let’s call the rest of the women in, shall we, while you speak for yourself? While you tell them everything?”
“Yes,” she said. Trembling, and defiant. “Let’s do it. Right now.”
* * *
Oriana
This was the thing I’d worried about most. The thing I’dsweatedabout. It was bad enough for Daisy and Gray to know, and even Gabriel. My aunt and uncle, though?Everybody?
What else was I going to do, though? I couldn’t quite tell what was going on here—some people were going back to Mount Zion? Everybody was? Nobody was? I had no idea—and what about my brothers and sister and my cousins, who were still there? What would all this mean for them?
What would it mean for my mum?
Uncle Aaron left the room and came back with the women. They arranged themselves against the wall, their hands folded. My own hands wanted to fold, but I didn’t let them. I felt like Joan of Arc, standing there, as vulnerable as if I’d been stripped bare.
I didn’t wait for anybody else to talk, for Valor to explain … whatever it was he was going to explain, or for Uncle Aaron to do it. I said, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but Valor’s still threatening me, even though last time he did it, Gabriel nearly broke his nose and kicked him down the stairs so he fell in the dirt. I don’t know why he’d ask for more of that, but he is, so I’m going to tell you that he touched me, when I was a girl. Over and over again, and I’m guessing he did it to other girls, too. And you know what?” I was breathing hard, suddenly. Not out of fear. Out of fury. “That’s a crime, and I’m going to the police and reporting it. If the Prophet is opening Mount Zion to the outside, let the police find out how many girls that happened to. I don’t think I was the only one, and I don’t think Valor was the only one, either.”
“He wasn’t,” Gabriel said.
“Shut up, arsehole,” Valor said.
“Be silent,” Uncle Aaron said. Not to Gabriel, and not to me. To Valor. “Is this true?” he asked me, his face troubled.
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve told Gray and Daisy and Priya and Gabriel already. Valor wants to say it’s my fault, that I invited it. That doesn’t work when the girl’s four years old and the boy is ten, or when she’s twelve and he’s eighteen. Icouldn’tconsent. Gilead raped Frankie and Daisy, they told the truth about it, and he’s in prison. What’s going to happen to you, Valor, now that Mount Zion is opening up? What else have you done? When the light shines on the community, what’s going to be revealed, back there in the shadows?”
Valor was trying to say something, but I wasn’t done. “And when the light shines on you at the end of your life, when God examines your soul, how can you think he won’t see your sin? You can say anything you like. A snake has a clever tongue, too. A forked tongue. That tongue’s not going to save you. Not anymore.”
Patience said, “He did it to me.”
Now, the others weren’t staring at me. They were staring at her. Glory took her hand, and Patience’s chin wobbled, then rose. She said again, “He did it to me.”
Valor said, “You littlebitch.”
“Are you willing to go to the police with me?” I asked. “I know I haven’t … that maybe you want Gabriel, too. I know why. Because he’s not just beautiful, he’s so much more. But somebody hurting little girls … shouldn’t that matter more?”
