There was no sound on the video, though, so I couldnt hear what kind of music theyd had or what they were saying.
Maybe the sin and temptation were more obvious in the parts I couldnt hear.
We turned left on the cracked sidewalk in front of our house, and I eyed the dark clouds in the sky, struggling to bring my thoughts back on task. September twenty-ninth, 2036.
Melanie held her toast by one corner. She still hadnt taken a bite. The first verified exorcism. Established worldwide credibility for the Unified Church, whose exorcistthe great Katherine Abbotperformed the procedure in front of a televised audience of millions.
Good. June
Did you know that wasnt even her real name? Melanie said suddenly.
What wasnt whose name? We turned left again and followed the railroad tracks between the backyards of the houses a block over from ours. The train hadnt run since long before I was born, but little grass grew between the rails, which made it an easy shortcut on the days we were running late. Which was most days, thanks to my sister.
Katherine Abbot. Her name wasnt really Katherine. The Church renamed her because they thought her real name didnt sound serious enough, or holy enough, or something like that.
So what was her real name?
Melanie shrugged, and her uneaten toast flopped in her hand. I dont know.
Then how do you know it wasnt Katherine?
Adam told me.
Adam, who needs your help to add double digit numbers? I said as we cut through the easement between two yards and back onto the street.
Hes bad at math, not history. His dad says the Church does it all the timechanges facts. Mr. Yung says history is written by the victor, and if the elderly dont pass down their memories, eventually there wont be anyone else left alive who knows how the war was really fought.
I stopped cold on the sidewalk and grabbed her arm, holding so tight she flinched, but I couldnt let go. Not until she understood. Melanie, thats heresy, I hissed, glancing around at the houses on both sides of the road. Fortunately, the street was deserted. If Adam Yung and his father want to risk their immortal soulsor more accurately, their mortal livesby questioning the Church, thats their business. But you stay out of it.
Skepticism and profanity were largely harmless in private, and goodness knows I couldnt claim innocence on either part. But the more often they were indulged, the more likely they were to be overheard. And reported. And punished.
Youre going to have to tutor him in public. At the laundry, or the park, or something. Anywhere public exposure would keep him from filling my impressionable sisters head with dangerous thoughts she couldnt resist sharing with the rest of the world.
I wanted to tell her to stop tutoring him, but frankly, we needed the food.
Why arent you eating? I glanced pointedly at her untouched breakfast.
I told you. I dont feel good. She scowled and pulled her arm from my grip. Next date.
Um June 2041. I pushed her toast closer to her mouth, and she finally took a bite.
The Holy Proclamation, establishing the Unified Church as the sole political and spiritual authority, she said, with her mouth still full.
Okay, lets backtrack. I made a gesture linking her breakfast and her face, and Melanie reluctantly took another bite. May twelfth, 2031.
The Day of Great Sorrow. Her face paled, and she chewed in solemn silence for several seconds before elaborating. The day the number of stillbirths officially surpassed the number of live births. A day of mourning the world over. The Day of Great Sorrow led to the realization that the well of souls had run dry, which led to the discovery of demons among us. Which then led to the Great Purification, undertaken by the Unified Church, and the dissolution of all secular government in the Western Hemisphere. Right?
Thats a bit simplistic as a summary. The discovery of demons was a particularly grisly time in human history, and the various factions of our former government didnt disband voluntarily or peacefully. But probably good enough for a tenth-grade history test. Eat your toast.
We could see the school compound by then, behind its tall iron gate. She couldnt take food inside, and we had only minutes until the bell.
Here. Take half. Mellie ripped her bread in two and gave me the bigger piece. I cant eat it all.
I shoved the bread into my mouth and chewed as fast as I couldwe couldnt afford to waste perfectly good foodand Id just swallowed the last of it when the bell started ringing.
Come on! I pulled her with me as I raced down the sidewalk, and we slid through the gate a second before it rolled shut behind us.
Cutting it close again, Nina, Sister Anabelle said as she locked the gate, her skirt swishing around her ankles beneath the hem of her cassock.
My fault! Melanie called over one shoulder, racing toward her first class in the secondary building, her hair flying behind her. Gotta go!
What do you have this morning? Anabelle fell into step with me as she tucked her key ring into a pocket hidden by a fold in her long, fitted Church cassocklight blue for teachers. Anabelles robes were very simple and plain because she was still a pledge, but once she was consecrated, they would be embroidered in elaborate navy swoops and flames, signaling her status and authority to the entire world.
Um I have kindergartners today. All seniors began the day with an hour of service. Id been selected as an elementary school aide because I already had experience with kids, from working in the childrens home on weekends.
Have you given any more thought to making an early commitment to the Church? I think youd make a wonderful teacher.
I glanced at the brand on the back of her right handfour wavy lines twisting around one another to form a stylized column of fire, burned into her flesh the day shed pledged. A permanent mark to seal a permanent choice.
Anabelles brand was a simplified version of the seal of the Unified Church, displayed on flags, official documents, currency, and the sides of all public vehicles. Each individual flame represented one of the sacred obligations, and together they formed the symbolic blaze with which the Church claimed to have rid the world of evil.
Except for the degenerates roaming unchecked in the badlands and the demons still resisting purification in several volatile regions in Asia.
But no one was worried about any of that. Not openly, anyway. The Church had it all under controlthey told us so every dayand the only time willful ignorance didnt qualify as a sin was when the Church didnt want us to know something.
Which was why Melanie couldnt understand my determination to pledge. But Mellie and I were living different lives, with different obligations and responsibilities. She had three more years to read illicit books and pretend to care about math while she tutored Adam Yung while wearing stolen mascara.
I had a deadbeat mother to hide from the Church, utility bills to pay, and a decorum-challenged little sister to shield from the watchful eyes of the school teachers. The Church represented my best shot at holding all that together until Melanie was old enough and mature enough to fend for herself.
I had a deadbeat mother to hide from the Church, utility bills to pay, and a decorum-challenged little sister to shield from the watchful eyes of the school teachers. The Church represented my best shot at holding all that together until Melanie was old enough and mature enough to fend for herself.
The catch? Church service was forever. Mellie would grow up and have a life of her own, but I would not. I would belong to the Church until the day I died, and even when that day came, they would decide what would become of my immortal soul.
Id been mentally fighting the choice for months, scrambling to find some other way to make things work, but my miracle had failed to materialize, and wasting the rest of my senior year wasnt going to change that.
I couldnt officially join until I turned eighteen, which was still a year and four days away, but early commitments were encouraged, and the earlier I pledged, the more likely I was to get my first-choice assignment.
Teaching. In New Temperance. Near Melanie. That was the whole point of pledging, for me.
I was thinking of doing it during the afternoon service. I took a deep breath and swallowed a familiar wave of nausea. Today.
Oh, Nina, Im so happy for you! Anabelle threw her arms around me as if nothing had changed since I was a needy twelve-year-old, desperate for friendship and advice, and she was a senior, already pledged to the Church and assigned to mentor the girls in my seventh-grade class. Anabelle knew about my mothers problemshed known even way back thenbut she hadnt told anyone. She trusted me to take care of Melanie and to ask for help when I needed it.
Sometimes talking to her still felt like talking to an older classmate, but the powder-blue cassock and the brand on the back of her hand were stern reminders of her new reality.
She was Sister Anabelle now. The Church owned her, body and soul.
Soon it would own me too.
I have to admit, Im happy for me too, Anabelle said, and her smile was reassuring. If she loved her job so much, pledging to the Church couldnt be that bad, right? I was hoping youd decide to pledge before the consecration. I didnt want to miss your big day!
Oh, I completely forgot! Anabelle had been selected for consecration into the leadership levels of the Church just five years after shed joined, much sooner than the average. Unfortunately, after the annual ceremonyjust a few days awayshe would be transferred to another town, to learn under new guidance and to experience more of the world than New Temperance had to offer.
I could hardly imagine school without Anabelle. Even with our age difference and her Church brand standing between us, she was the closest thing I had to a friend.
We were three doors from the kindergarten wing when the rain started, an instant, violent deluge bursting from the clouds as if theyd been ripped open at some invisible seam. Even under the walkway awning, we were assaulted by icy rain daggers with every gust of wind. Anabelle and I sprinted for the door, but the knob was torn from my hand before I could turn it.
The door flew open and Sister Camilla marched past us into the rain, dragging five-year-old Matthew Mercer by one arm. If he was crying, I couldnt tellhe was drenched in less than a second.
Blasphemy is an offense against the Church, an insult to your classmates, and a sin against your own filthy tongue! Sister Camilla shouted above a roll of thunder.
Yes, Matthew Mercer was a brat, and yes, he had trouble controlling his mouth, but he was just a kid, and everything he said hed probably heard from his parents.
I stepped out from under the awning and gasped as the freezing rain soaked through my blouse in an instant. Anabelle pulled me back before I could say something that would probably have landed me in trouble alongside the kindergartner.
Blasphemy is a sin, Sister Anabelle reminded me in a whisper.
Of course blasphemy was a sin. A lesser infraction than fornication or heresy, but a grievous offense a strict matron like Sister Camilla would never let slide. Even in a five-year-old.
Especially in a five-year-old whod already demonstrated a precocious gift for profanity.
Anabelle and I could only watch, shivering, as Sister Camilla dragged Matthew onto the stone dais in the center of the courtyard, then forced him to kneel. She was still scolding him while she flipped a curved piece of metal over each of his legs, just above his calves, then snapped the locks into place, confining the five-year-old to his knees in the freezing rain.
The posture of penitence. Voluntarily assumed, it demonstrated humility and submission to authority. And contrition. Used as a punishment, it was a perversion of the very things it stood for, just like anything accomplished by force.
In third grade, Id once knelt in the posture of penitence in the middle of the school hall for four hours for turning in an incomplete spelling paper.
Id never failed to finish an assignment again.
Sister Camilla marched toward us in the downpour, wordlessly ordering us inside with one hand waved at the building. At the door, I looked back to see Matthew Mercer bent over his knees, his forehead touching the stone floor of the dais, his school uniform soaked. Hed folded his arms over the back of his head in a futile attempt to protect himself from the rain.
Pray for forgiveness, Sister Camilla called to him over her shoulder. And hope the Almighty has more mercy in his heart than I have in mine.
Well, I thought as the door closed behind us, he certainly couldnt have any less.
THREE
Okay. I crossed my legs and angled them to one side, trying to get comfortable in a chair built for five-year-olds. On the other side of the room, one of my fellow seniors had her own group of six kids assembled at the reading center while Sister Camilla taught math to six more at a table covered with little plastic counting cubes. I was in charge of the faith unit. Who can name one of the four obligations of the people to their Church?
Five chubby little hands shot into the air; five eager faces stared at me, hoping to be called upon. At some point between the ages of five and fifteen, that eagerness would be replaced with indifference, but in kindergarten, they still cared. They still wanted to please and to be rewarded for their effort.
Elena.
All five hands sank and four frowns emerged, while Elena beamed at me from her chair in the semicircle. Devotion! Her brown eyes sparkled with triumph. That means we love the Church and well love it forever!
Good! But on the inside, some vulnerable part of me shriveled a little more at her enthusiasm for a childs happy lie, which would surely mature into an adults bitter burden. Who else? The other four hands shot up again. Dillon?
He picked at the cuff of his white school shirt. Obedience.
And what does that mean?
It means you have to do what the Church says, even if you dont want to. Just like at home, when your mom says you have to eat your peas, even though theyre yuck.