Morevna’s hand was on my shoulder, and she was beside me again.
“Sallie will begin her training immediately,” Mother Morevna said. “Hopefully, her services will not be needed for a long, long time. But meanwhile, I am certain she will prove to be an excellent leader, worthy of your utmost admiration and trust.”
It was a challenge to the crowd, I realized. She was challenging them on my behalf, daring them not to trust me—not to trust her.
“Do you have anything to say?” she asked me.
A speech? Now? I blanched. Public speaking was always my worst subject.
“I…” I started. “I would just like to say that…” What would I like to say?
But before I could finish, something caught my eye. A figure on top of the wall, small and quick. A child? A woman? I squinted. It turned, looked right at me.…
I began to hear it: the rain. Not now, not now, not now… I fought with everything in me. I fell to my knees, trying hard not to vomit. The wind seemed to roar as the rain approached. My nose filled with the smell of it. The last thing I heard before the vision rose up and took me was one of the guards shouting.
“The Sacrifice! We’ve been robbed!”
CHAPTER 3
The rain came like it always did, with a distant rumble that shook the base of my brain. It rolled in much like dust storms roll in. The sky was swollen and roiling; the entire dome of the heavens was so dark that the few trees standing inside Elysium seemed vividly green against the darkness. Then the horizon began to blur with falling rain. The desert began to look like an oil painting, ruined and bleeding as the rain came toward me, turning the dust to mud. It came in sheets, in curtains. Biblical rain, blowing my braids over my shoulders, soaking me to the skin. And as I stood there in it, my wet dress clinging to me, I lifted my arms up as though to welcome the rain home to this dusty, thirsty world, thinking as I always did, Why can’t this be real?
When I woke later, I could still smell the rain for a few minutes. Then the pain hit. It always felt like I’d been thrown from a roof when I woke from seeing the rain. It was morning. But I wasn’t in my shack. I was in a bed and wearing a white nightdress—old-fashioned in style. Here, there was no dust on the top of the covers, nor on the floor, despite the fact that there were no sheets over the windows or rags under the doors. But there was something familiar about the room. It had been my own Sunday school room, I realized, long ago. There had been a table in the middle, and Miss Willis had gathered us around it and made us read from the Bible, out loud, every Sunday.
“Hello…?” I said. My voice sounded creaky and hoarse.
The voice that answered was as old and slow as a weather vane rusted stiff.
“Hey there, girl.” Mr. Jameson was sitting in a rocking chair by the door, holding a cup of coffee in his weathered hands. The sight of him made me feel relaxed, despite myself. I wondered how long he’d been there.
“That must have been a bad one,” he said. He handed me a plate covered with a napkin. I removed it. Toast. It had been buttered, and the butter had sunk deep into the hard bread.
“What happened after I… after I fainted?” I asked.
“We brought you here and put you to bed,” he said. “Fortunately, the room was already waiting for you. Sal Wilkerson, the Successor to Mother Morevna.” He smiled. “I’m proud of you, kid.”
A ripple of excitement went through me. So it hadn’t been a dream. This was real. I had really been chosen. Gingerly, I sat up, and without thinking, I touched my nose. It was straight and normal, not even a hint of tenderness.
“Mother Morevna fixed that for you,” Mr. Jameson said. “Nobody can tell it’s been broken anymore.”
I looked around at the unfamiliar familiar room, so stark, so sterile.
“Everything’s so… clean,” I said.
“A lot better than that ol’ chicken coop, huh?” Mr. Jameson said. “Mother Morevna prefers you to live here while you’re in training.”
“Training,” I breathed, letting the smile I felt creep into my voice. I was really going to do this.
Mr. Jameson sighed and put his coffee cup down beside his chair. “I don’t know if