Captive Bride - Alta Hensley Page 0,37

love does not find you. You have to find it. You have to fight for it. And though your nature is not one of a fighter, it’s time you learn how. You will have to have an inner strength to be married and to hold that love near at whatever cost.”

I look down at the gold in my palm and picture the rings on my and Christopher’s fingers. The weight of the bands are heavy with hidden tales of my future. They nearly burn.

What is ahead for us?

Once we become husband and wife… then what?

“You go on and get ready, and then I’ll help you with those buttons on the back of your dress,” he says. “We don’t want to keep Scarecrow waiting long. A storm’s brewing and we don’t want him getting caught up in it.”

He leaves my room, and the sense of warmth I briefly felt is suddenly replaced with a deep chill that runs up my spine. But I do exactly as he commands and dress for my wedding.

15

Christopher

There’s a chain around my ankle.

There’s a chain around Ember’s ankle.

We are connected by this chain.

And we are about to be wedded standing before a one-legged pastor who leans on a crutch. The sound of hay rustles beneath his denim pants with the slightest move, and I think it’s fair to say I have never seen a more disgusting creature in my life.

I have officially entered a new phase of Hell.

“Good Lord, bless us on this day,” the pastor known as Scarecrow begins. “Brother Christopher and Sister Ember stand before the Almighty to be crowned under the union of matrimony.”

He looks at Richard who is actually wearing something besides a ranger uniform, although his faded black pants and wrinkled black shirt are far from what I consider fancy.

“Who gives away this woman?” Scarecrow asks.

“I do with the blessing of God. Her father.”

Scarecrow raises his arms up toward the ceiling of the schoolhouse, and I see the sweat stains under his pits. His stench nearly makes me as sick as the act of being forced to marry a woman while literally chained to her. This is my wedding day. No guests other than a madman father, no flowers, no best man or bridesmaids. It’s my wedding day and I wear the same dirty outfit I arrived in—minus the shoes.

Ember, however, is beautiful in a haunted, captivating way. Her long hair hangs down her back and shines beneath the sunlight that invades the room we stand in. The dress she wears is ancient in appearance but still seems to fit her personality and size perfectly. I feel as if I have stepped back in time, trapped in a bleak and dark vortex, yet Ember does offer some light. The blue in her eyes sparkle with happiness.

My heart breaks over her happiness.

She’s happy even though she’s chained to me.

She’s happy to be marrying me even though it’s not by her choice.

She’s happy…

We stand inside her favorite place. The schoolhouse is our church for this day. At least getting here allowed me to see the underground tunnels Ember told me about. Getting outside the cellar allowed me to take mental notes on every step of the way. Richard was smart, however, which I expected him to be. When he showed up with a pistol in his hand and another chain in his hand, I knew what he planned before he even said a word. Shackling me to Ember would make it next to impossible to run unless we somehow mastered running together in a cadence and step that would take careful practice and discussion.

"Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter for the other. Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth to the other. Now there will be no loneliness, for each of you will be companion to the other. Now you are two persons, but there is only one life before you. May beauty surround you both in the journey ahead and through all the years. May happiness be your companion and your days together be good and long upon the earth. May you both walk under God as dutiful servants. We honor fire and ask that our union be warm and glowing with love in our hearts. We honor wind and ask that we sail through life safe and calm as in our father's arms. We honor water to clean and soothe our relationship—that it may never thirst for love.