The Chosen One - Carol Lynch Williams Page 0,22

the brown of her dress. Her skin is smooth. She’s Mother Sarah’s older sister. Older by five years. They have the same hair color, the same noses.

I don’t say anything, just listen like I care. But I don’t care. Mother Claire should have run away with Mariah. No, I should have. That’s what I kept thinking in my tree. I should have run and not looked back. Tied Mariah onto my chest, leapt over the fences, jogged all the way to Florentin, or past that. Out of the state. Away.

“Remember in the Bible where it says it is better to obey than to sacrifice?” Mother Claire says.

I nod. Sort of.

“Kyra.” Mother Claire’s face is close to mine now. She smells like garlic. I can see she spent some time crying. Her eyes show it. “Listen to me. It’s easy to fall astray. It’s easy to lose hold of the truth.”

When I don’t say anything, Mother Clair speaks again. “They watch. They see.” Her voice is low as the sand. “They hear what’s going on in our homes. They know everything.”

Everything.

Fear races up the back of my spine, stopping at my hair. Do they know Patrick? Do they know the books? Do they know Joshua?

“Your father does what the Prophet says. Screaming babies can mean a disobedient child. We do what they teach us to do. You’ve heard of people doing what we did today. Others do it more than we have. It’s what we’re supposed to do.”

I look Mother Claire right in the eye. Why stay here, I wonder. And she answers with a shrug like she hears my thoughts.

“This is what I know. What your father knows. This is our lives. We are obedient.”

It’s not my life, I think.

We stare at each other a long time.

Then I nod and go home.

I REMEMBER BEING SIX or seven years old. Father held me on his lap and said, “Always do what God says to do. Always do what Father tells you. And Mother, too.”

He caught me outside the Compound fence, just standing there, looking past the chain link. “Kyra,” he said at home, me on his lap, “you must be obedient. You must do as you’re told. Stay home. Stay close.”

“What’s out there?” I said.

Father was silent. Then he said, “The world.”

“I want to see the world,” I said.

“We’re safe here,” Father had said. “We’re away from everyone. Alone. Safe. Out here. Just us. Just The Chosen Ones.”

“Looking outside the fence, going outside the fence alone is dangerous,” Mother said. “It’s like standing too close to the edge of a cliff. You peer over the side, you might fall. You might lose what you have.”

But I looked anyway.

THERE’S A NOTE under the garden rock. “Meet me tonight,” it says. “Behind the Fellowship Hall. Southwest corner. 1:30.”

I can hold on till then.

Mother Victoria comes over after dinner. Father is with her.

“I’ve settled my brood down,” she says, smiling. Her smile is fake. She shows her teeth, and her lips curve, but something is missing in her eyes. Does she know how I feel? Did she feel the same when she had to marry my father? Mother Victoria waves a pad and paper in the air.

“Sarah,” she says to Mother, still wearing that smile. “I’ve come to take measurements.”

Laura is in the kitchen, helping me with the dishes. “Mea surements for what?” she says. Even with my hands in hot water I feel cold.

“For Kyra’s wedding dress,” Mother Victoria says.

“No,” I think and until I hear the sound I don’t even realize I was going to say this.

Mother Victoria keeps talking, though she stumbles, grasping for words. “Umm. I have some ideas,” she says. “You know, to make it, nice.”

“No,” I say again. My hands become fists. I can smell grease in the dishwater.

“Kyra,” Father says and Mother Sarah stands and walks toward me. Laura is silent.

“I won’t do it,” I say. I drop the dishcloth and turn to face my mothers and my father.

“I’ve talked to them,” Father says. “Kyra, the Prophet Childs says it was direct from God. A vision was opened to him.” Father’s face has lost color. And he looks old. Old. I’d never noticed before that he’s growing old.

“I don’t care what was opened to him.” I say this between clenched teeth. Just hold on until this evening, my mind tells me, and then you can see Joshua. “I don’t care what he saw.” My stomach tumbles on itself. “He wants me to marry my uncle. Your brother.”