Page 93 of The Confidant
But since we had already made so much progress tonight and I didn’t want to risk ruining the moment, I just kept those thoughts to myself.
As long as we were still talking, we might just have a chance.
30
SCARLETT
I sleptin on Sunday morning, needing more rest after staying up so late talking to Hunter the night before. So instead of grabbing breakfast and having time to get dressed for church before my dad’s sermon started at ten, I just watched the meeting online at my desk in my pajamas.
But as my dad started talking about the story of David and Goliath and how we can apply it into our lives today, my mind wandered back to what Xander had said about Samuel Williams’ spiritual partners and how Hunter had actually confirmed that those things really did happen in the past.
Maybe I should have borrowed that journal from Xander after all.Just to see what it had said.
I pulled up my phone to text Xander and tell him that maybe I would like to look into that journal, but when my eyes landed on my text thread with Hunter, it gave me another idea.
I scrolled through the last few messages. Which were very few, since we hadn’t texted in weeks, and clicked on the link he’d sent me.
It opened up to a page on my browser that had a single photo—an image of a couple sitting together on a bench—along with a hyperlink with the wordsQuestions for the High Priest.
My pulse thrummed hard and fast as I hovered my finger over the link.
Did I dare click it?
Should I do it?
It’s just a simple essay, right? One little document couldn’t hurt a faith eighteen years in the making.
I had a good head on my shoulders, and I would be able to see past any lies…
I closed my eyes and held my breath as I tapped my finger on the screen. When I opened my eyes again, I saw a page with a light teal block at the top and a quote from one of the well-known church leaders.
I released a shaky breath.It’s just a quote from a church leader. It can’t be anything bad.
But as I started to read the quote that talked about the importance of finding truth, even when it came from unexpected places, an overwhelming feeling of darkness crashed over me.
I shouldn’t be doing this. I shouldn’t be reading this essay when I knew it had led so many church members astray.
Before I could get curious and read any more, I quickly exited out of the page, locked my phone, and tossed it onto my bed like it had burned me.
Okay. So that didn’t work.
But Hunter had said something about reading some essays on the church’s website, right?
Reading those should give me the answers I was looking for, shouldn’t they?
With my dad’s sermon still playing in the background, I opened a new tab on my computer and typed in www.thefold.org. I typed in the wordsSpiritual Partnersalong withSamuel Williamsin the search bar, and a few articles popped up. The first one was titled, “Spiritual Partners of Samuel Williams in Chester, Pennsylvania.”
I scanned through the essay, checking in with how I was feeling as I looked it over. My heart was still beating fast. But since this was the church’s website, I told myself that it would be okay. And even if whatever I find could be new and something I hadn’t known before, it would all be okay because the church was true and God worked in mysterious ways.
The first few paragraphs mostly described the practice as being difficult for the members to accept at first—having multiple wives and husbands wasn’t accepted in western culture like it had been in biblical times and in other places around the world. Then it said that the first spiritual partnership happened with Samuel’s foster daughter, Flora Wadsworth, who was not yet fifteen.
Not much was known about this relationship, but it didn’t last very long and was done in secret. Samuel knew it went against the norm and it was a hardship on Samuel’s first wife, Melissa.
The practice was so sacred, though, that the revelation wasn’t even written down until five years later in 1846 when Samuel was commanded by the Lord to continue the practice with Margaret Johnson—a girl of seventeen who was the daughter of his close friend.
I did the math in my head. Samuel was born in 1812, so he was twenty-nine years old when he was commanded to be with a fourteen-year-old? And then thirty-four when he was partnered with a seventeen-year-old?
Why were they so young?
