Page 73 of Kiwi Sin
“No,” I said. “I do.” Before, in a place where we were meant to confess everything, I’d held the secret shame close, not even telling my sisters. Now, when I didn’t have to tell at all, I needed to. I didn’t want to, but I needed to, if that makes sense.
Gabriel said, “Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter.” Quietly, because Gabriel was usually quiet, but like he meant it.
I thought,It will matter. But it matters now, too, inside me.It had lain there, all these years, like a blot, ugly and dark. I wanted to scrub it out so badly, and this was the only way I could think to do it. However hard it would be to say it, and to know that everybody would know that about me.
We ended up inside the yurt. All of us, including Valor, sitting around the table as if we were about to have dinner. Gabriel sat beside me, and he was still holding my hand. After we’d sat, he’d picked it up again, then hesitated, looked at me, and said, “I won’t hold it if you don’t want me to. But I thought—”
“Oh,” I’d said, flustered once more. “No. It’s … it’s fine.” It was more than that. It was an anchor.
Now, Daisy said, “Valor grabbed you just now. That’s all I know. Why? Is there more to the story? Something else he did? What, exactly?” Sounding the way Daisy always did sound. Brisk. Efficient. Like she expected a straight answer, and would keep asking until she got it.
Valor said, “You want her to confess her shame? You want everybody to know that about her?”
Daisy whirled on him so fast, he flinched. She wasn’t even as tall as me, but when she pulled herself up to her full height, she looked bigger. She said, “I don’t care if the rest of the story is that you raped her. I don’t care if it happened twenty times. That still wouldn’t be her shame. It would be yours.”
“Not hers, if she’s spoilt for marriage?” Valor asked. “Not what a man will think.” He glanced at Gabriel and smirked some more.
Gabriel was on his feet like a shot, and so was Gray, the two of them pinning Valor between them. I scrambled out of my chair in the opposite direction, because this felt bad. It felt violent, like when my dad had disciplined one of us, and the others had to hear. When you’d put your hands over your ears and squeeze your eyes shut, your lips forming the words to a prayer. At least, that was what I’d done.
“Shut up.” That was Gray, and his voice was full of that violence. “Sit down and shut up.”
“You have no authority over me,” Valor said. “You’re not the Prophet. You can sack me? Right, I’m sacked. And I’m leaving.”
He turned, but before he made it a step, Gray’s hand was on him, clamped straight down on his arm. Gabriel was still on the other side, and there was no getting around him. Gray looked across Valor at Gabriel and said, “Sit down. I’ll hold him. And if somebody needs to bash him, I’ll do it. I’ve wanted to bash the men of Mount Zion for more than a year now, and I’ve only managed to hit one of them.”
“Gray,” Daisy said. “You could get …”
“Yeh, nah,” Gray said. “It’ll be worth it. Also, I was defending Oriana at the time. Keeping him off her.”
“You aren’t,” Valor said, nearly spitting the words.
“Yeh?” Gray asked. “Who’s going to tell them that, mate? You? I’m sure that’ll go well. Sit down and shut up. Somebody more important is talking.” Then he shoved him into the chair, stood over him, keeping a hand on his arm, and nodded at me. “Go.”
What had I been thinking? How could I do this? Daisy, though, had come to sit beside me, was taking my hand. Gabriel didn’t have the other one anymore, but the way he sat, so squarely between Valor and me, it felt like he did. As for Priya, she looked gobsmacked. As if nothing like this had ever happened in her life, which was probably true. I didn’t know anybody else it had happened to, so it must be me. My carnal self, again. But that still didn’t make it all right for Valor to do, did it?
Too confusing.
I said, “When I was little, he made me … he made me wee in the grass. And he touched me other times. Through my clothes. Down there.” And blushed until it felt like my head would erupt in flames. My hand started shaking, and now, Gabrieldidhold it. With his bandaged hand.
Everybody sat there, and I thought,Why aren’t they saying something?Finally, Daisy asked, “Is that everything?”
“Yes,” I said. “Except that he weed, too, that first time. On a tree.”
“Which you watched,” Valor said. “And when I told you to pull up your skirts and pull down your undies, you didn’t say no, did you? What else did you do for me? Why do I know what you look like? All over?”
“You don’t,” I said. “Youdon’t!”
I didn’t see it happen. I didn’t know it was happening. But somehow, there was athud,the back of Gabriel’s chair was hitting the floor with a clatter, and his hand was pulling back. And Valor was staggering, his nose spouting blood like you’d turned on the tap.
“She couldn’t say no,” Gabriel said. He was over Valor, had hauled him to his feet, was propelling him toward the door. “She wasn’t allowed to, and she didn’t know how anyway. You’re not in Mount Zion anymore, though. Neither am I. So try it. Just try it. I’ll be one step behind you.”
“You?” Valor was trying to laugh, even though he still had a hand over his nose, and the blood was running down his shirt. “Think I’m scared of you? Know what we called you? Peter Pious. You’re not going to hurt me.”
Gabriel said, “I just did.” After that, he opened the front door and put a boot in Valor’s backside, and Valor flew down the stairs and landed hard before staggering to his feet, cursing.
It was terrible. Violent, like I’d thought.
But I knew I’d be reliving it tonight, after I went to bed. And I might even be smiling.
