by Tillie Cole
A gown. A white marital gown mocking me, teasing me, telling me by sundown today I would be married. The seventh wife of Prophet David. The wife revealed to him by God. I would be the one to bring eternal blessings to all in The Order—his chosen people. I would help redeem the status of the Cursed, absolve us of our sins.
Leaning my head against the gray brick wall of my quarters, I closed my eyes, imagining what it would be like to be free. What was life like outside of the great fence? Were people truly evil out there? Did everyone on Earth want to inflict harm on us? Did men really just want to possess and ruin women?
I did not know. Sometimes I doubted Prophet David’s teachings, but I would never say that out loud. No one questioned the teachings—at least those who wanted to avoid punishment. I knew nothing of life beyond these walls, and after tonight, my duty would be as head wife. I would never be able to leave.
Rubbing my shaking hands down my face, my stomach flipped. I just could not do it. And worse, I had no idea where my oldest sister was. My blood sister, Bella, who disappeared weeks ago—no sign, no contact, simply vanished. No one would tell me where she had gone. After too many days of silence, I had begun to fear the worst. Brother Gabriel knew something. The way he looked at me, smirking, almost gloating, gave it away. He had grown obsessed with Bella over the years, but she never returned the sentiment. You could see in his eyes that he wanted her to pay for her indifference toward him.
A sharp knock interrupted my wayward thoughts. Sister Eve walked into my room, clutching a garland of fresh white flowers in her wizened hand. She spotted me on the floor and stomped in my direction.
“Get up, you insolent child. Why are you not in deep prayer? Do you realize the significance of this night, of your marriage; the significance to us all?”
I was jerked off the floor as her hand gripped my upper arm and pulled me to a standing position. Sister Eve, one of the twelve Originals and the woman I both feared and disliked most, was here to aid me in my preparations. The feeling of dislike was mutual. The envious jealousy seeping from her large, aging body was so intense it thickened the humid air around us.
I was one of the four Cursed. One of four females classed as too tempting to men. One of four who were segregated from the rest of the commune, as it is believed the devil had a hand in our creation. The four consisted of my blood sisters Bella and Maddie, our friend Lilah, and me.
“Sister Salome! You best pull yourself together and get dressed.” Sister Eve wrenched me closer to whisper in my ear, “You are not worthy of Prophet David in my eyes, but God chose you as the seventh wife and I cannot doubt the revelation.”
I bowed my head. Sister Eve was a superior and I did not want to face the punishment of disobedience. Lashes, lots and lots of lashes.
“Yes, Sister, I understand. I will begin to dress immediately.”
She walked to the table and laid down the floral head garment, fragrant vanilla oil, and white ceremonial sandals. She held the edge of the table for a few seconds before facing me, lips tight, hesitation in her stance.
“You will need to take special care this evening in your consummation.”
I swallowed back the bile rising in my throat. Prophet David had a disease. Puss leaked from huge, gaping sores all over his skin and I had been instructed on how to care for him, but the duty made me feel sick at the thought.
“Prophet David, due to his ailments, finds it difficult to become… aroused sexually. You will need to take great care in preparing him for your joining this eve. Your union will change the fate of us all and must be sealed under God’s eyes. You must fall pregnant to complete the prophecy.”
My legs wobbled as I thought of what I must do. Prophet David was in his seventies, very overweight, and apparently smelled… badly. When I was thirteen, he declared I would be his wife when I reached the age of twenty-three—the Lord revealed it to him whilst he was in exile out of the The Order. My fate was sealed from that day forth.
Sister Eve took my chin in her hands. “You understand, Salome?”
I bowed. “Yes, Sister.”
She nodded curtly. “I must go to the altar. I shall return within the hour to bring you to your wedding. Be ready.”
With that she exited my room.
Sinking to the floor once more, I resumed my staring at the long white gown. Trepidation swelled in my stomach as I thought of the task I must endure. I had no idea why I was deemed worthy, but then I would not wish this duty on anyone else.
I dressed quickly in my gown after pouring anointing vanilla oil on my naked skin. Letting my long hair down from my wrap, I placed my flower garland upon my head and crept to the door, searching for a disciple guard. The hallway was deserted, so I quietly ran along the corridor and out into the courtyard. The entire house was empty and silent and I needed to breathe fresh air.
“Salome!” A loud whisper sounded from the west side of the building. Turning my head in search, I spotted Delilah. Picking up the bottom of my gown, I ran forward, ushering her behind the tall brick wall, out of sight.
“What are you doing here? You will be punished if you are found!” Checking over my shoulder, I failed to immediately notice Lilah’s red eyes and flushed skin.
“Mae…” Lilah whispered, softer this time, her quiet tone sending chills down my spine.
“What? What is it?”
Reaching out, Lilah’s hand encased mine and squeezed. I knew in an instant what was wrong.
Bella.
“What has happened to her?” I asked quietly.
“She… she… Maddie and I just found out where she is being kept…”
Jerking my best friend forward, I prompted, “Where? Where do they have her?”
Sucking in a shaky breath, Lilah revealed, “Imprisoned… but…”
“But what?”
“Mae, she did not look well. She met my eyes, but her expression was not right. I fear… I fear she is fading. I think she has been there for a long time. We were ordered to deliver dinner to the guards at a new location and… and we… saw her, Mae. My goodness…” She failed to finish her sentence, her pale hand covering her mouth.
Feeling as though my heart had just been ripped in two, I set off at a run.
“Mae!”
I glanced behind me and spotted Lilah chasing after me. Thrusting out my hand, I grabbed hers and asked, “Where is she? Show me!”
A long moment passed before she said, “I shall lead.”
We headed down a tree-lined path and over two gardens. My heart raced, my pulse throbbed, my stomach churned, and a light sheen of sweat spread across my forehead.
Turning in the direction of the altar, we passed through the forest rather than risk the exposed path that would lead to the ceremony and the waiting congregation. As we neared the forest edge, I spotted a stone building: a stone building with a small black-barred gate. And just through the iron bars of that gate was a body, the slight frame of a young female lying face down, unmoving on the hard floor.
A sob clawed its way from my throat as I burst from the trees, my legs moving of their own accord.
My sister.
Approaching the rear of the building, I was about to break the tree line when I was knocked down and roughly pulled back under the cover of the trees. I scrambled to be free, clawing at the skin of the person who held me back.
“Salome, it is Delilah. Stop!” she whispered gently but firmly.
I froze, tears streaming down my cheeks. “What have they done to her? She is not moving!”
Delilah held her hand to her mouth, lips trembling, shaking her head in sorrow. “I do not know. I do not know what has been done.”
As I scanned the area, I could not see a guard. I ran to the bars of the gate. Clutching the thick steel rods, I whispered, “Bella?”
My sister lay on the floor, dirtied and bloodied, her body too thin and her black hair matted in clumps. The twitch of her finger signaled that she had heard my voice. With painfully slow movemen
ts and great effort, Bella managed to raise her head just an inch off the stone floor and then I noticed scripture painted along on the ceiling of the cell.
“Revelation 2:20,” I whispered out loud.
“Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols,” Lilah recited from memory and my stomach churned.
My hand automatically went to my mouth. What had they done to her? She was so thin.
“M-Ma—” Bella tried to say my name, but her voice was almost non-existent. She tried to open her eyes, but they were bruised and swollen shut, her crusty lashes covered in a mass of dried blood.
“I am here, Bella. Lord! I am here!” I said, slamming myself farther against the iron bars, reaching through as far as I could to grip her boney finger with my hand.
Bella exhaled and her lips curved into a broken smile. “I am glad.” She coughed and moaned in pain, struggling to move an inch. “I am glad you found me before it was too late.”
“What have they done to you?” I hissed as I gazed at her battered body. Huge pools of dried blood covered the stone floor, her dress was ripped at the back, and her skin was marked with deep gashes from the leather lash. But the bottom of her dress… the blood… Oh no… they… I… could not even think it, let alone ask her if she had been taken against her will. Handprint bruises covered every inch of her thighs. There were discarded whips leaning against the wall at the back of the cell.
“Disobeyed…” she whispered. Bella tried to crawl closer to me, my hand now fully encompassing hers as I aided her tired movements.
“Disobeyed what… who?” I questioned as she resettled near the gate, smiling weakly as she inhaled the fresh air of the late afternoon, the sun warming her cheeks.
“Gabriel… disobeyed in my duty… to be with him… resisted… he said I was selfish…” Her brows furrowed in confusion. “I cannot… remember the rest… It is all blurry…”
Sucking in a sharp breath, I whispered, “No, sister!”
A quiet sob slipped from her throat, but the tears could not escape her swollen eyes. “I cannot remember… anything… I think… I was drugged… I…”
“Bella, I am so sorry…”
“Shh… it’s not your fault…” Wincing, biting back pain, Bella managed to shuffle slightly closer, then settled back, only to say, “Gabriel has taken every part of me since I was a child: my innocence, my body, but never my heart. He is not worthy of my love, Mae. The disciples never gave me the chance to find the one man in the world who deserved it. Gabriel is a bitter and twisted monster.”
Pressing my stomach flat to the mud, not caring if I soiled my wedding gown, I leveled my gaze to look straight at my sister’s swollen blue eyes, eyes just like mine. “Bella, you are pure of heart. You are a good person, no matter what he did to you.”
“You are right, my sister, and I will meet our God with a clear conscience,” she rasped in a barely audible, gravelly voice.
My muscles tightened and my breath came in short, sharp bursts. Meet our God?
Lowering her hands, then gripping the iron bars, I frantically pulled at the gate. Lilah joined me. Even working together, it did not move an inch.
“Bella, I shall get you out—” I assured her as we shook the gate harder, but to no avail.
“Stop… stop… I am dying, Mae…”
“No!” I cried in despair as I slumped down to the ground once more, Lilah this time following suit.
Stretching out her boney hand, I grasped my sister’s fingers once more and kissed the broken skin on her palm.
“I want to go, Mae. I want to be with our Lord. I cannot keep living like this,” she confessed.
“No, Bella, please… I need you.”
“I think she has been in this cell, kept like this, for a long time. Maddie and I heard a guard say it has been weeks. Too long, Mae. Bella is badly injured… badly… hurt,” Lilah whispered.
“Where is Maddie?” I suddenly asked, fear seizing my body at the thought of my younger sister being taken too.
Lilah ran her shaky hands down her face. “Brother Moses took her for his Lord’s sharing.”
I winced. She would come back even more of an introvert. Every time Moses took her away for his release, he did things to her. Maddie was a shell: never speaking, barely living. She was a walking ghost.
“Please…” I cried out in frustration to no one, but Bella’s weak squeeze of my hand in hers showed me how far gone she truly was… that she was fading away.
“Please… please stay with me, just while I—”
She coughed up blood; streaks of red dripped down her chin. Squeezing my eyes shut, I stroked her head in comfort.
With a sigh, she forced out, “I must go now, Mae. I must rest. I am so tired…” Her eyes cracked open a fraction and with renewed determination, Bella urged, “When the last breath leaves my body, you run, my sister, you run… and keep running…”
Tears flowed freely down my cheeks, and I whispered, “I love you, Bella. I am so sorry…”
That small, sweet smile of hers returned to her bruised lips but for a moment, and she hushed out, “And I you, my beloved sister. More than you know… tell Maddie… good-bye…”
I do not know how much time passed as I watched her chest slowly rise and fall, but I knew the moment my sister left me. Her hand fell limp in my hand and an eerie stillness seeped into her tiny, broken frame.
A tear slipped down my cheek, and I felt Delilah wrap her arms around me from behind, rubbing at my back, trying to be a comfort.
My throat became so clogged that I scraped at the skin of my neck with frantic fingers just searching for relief. “Delilah, I cannot lose her. She is my family, my best friend, besides you and Maddie. She is my everything.”
“I know, sister, I know. But it is God’s plan.”
“Salome, where are you going?”
I had not even realized I had stood up and started running, that is until Delilah’s hand grabbed my shoulder and stopped me in my tracks—her fingers firmly gripping the material of my bridal gown.
“Wait!” she commanded.
In reply, I gripped her hand and pulled hard, demanding, “Come with me. We will find Maddie, then go.”
“Where?”
“Outside.”
Her blue eyes widened. “Outside where?”
“Outside the fence. I cannot stay.”
“But you are meant to marry Prophet David within the hour! Salome, do not disobey or you too shall be punished. I can take no more. Maddie can take no more!”
“Gabriel and Prophet David have killed my sister! How can I marry the prophet now? How can I stay here a moment longer when he sanctions such punishments?”
“But… but… the revelation. You are twenty-three today. You must marry for all our sakes. We will all be damned if not!”
My boiling blood cooled rapidly and my previously unshakable faith cracked like ice on a winter lake. “May God strike Prophet David down and may he burn in hell for all eternity! I believe in good, not sacrifice. I believe in forgiveness, not revenge. The Lord I believe in is compassionate and good. I see none of that in the prophet or the disciples. Where was forgiveness with my sister? Where was compassion with the sisters all of our lives? I am through with this miserable life! This cannot be God’s way; I refuse to believe it any longer. Prophet David has bastardized a pure faith. I no longer believe in anything he and his loyal disciples say!”
Delilah gasped and backed away. “You blaspheme, Salome.”
“I DO NOT CARE!” I screamed, my eyes darting around to check I had not been heard. Delilah was watching me with tears falling down her cheeks, the rise and fall of her chest betraying her fear.
Pushing my hands out in surrender, I begged, “Please, Delilah, escape, come with me. There must be more to life than this. For us all.”
&n
bsp; Her head shook back and forth. “No, outside is evil. Evil stalks. It waits for us to be weak—you know the teachings, the warnings. You will be in danger outside. You will be swayed from the righteous path. And Maddie… Maddie will not go with you either. She does not even like to leave our quarters, never mind go out there!”
She was plain wrong about outside. Had to be. There was no righteous path to be found here. I will take my chances out there, outside the fence.
“I must go. Do not tell anyone you saw me, please.”
“Salome, I cannot lie. It is a sin. I will be punished.”
She was right, of course.
“Then disappear for a while. Give me time to get free, anything.”
“The fence is too high. They will not allow you to leave. You will have to pass over miles of harsh land, and then where will you go? We have never been outside, Salome. We do not know what is out there. The disciples will find you. They always find those who try to break free.” Her breath hitched. “You know how they treat deserters, Mae. I… I cannot lose you too…”
“That may all be true, but I will try regardless. Go back to your room and stay hidden. If they find you, do not lie about what I have done. Protect yourself first. Protect Maddie.” I moved toward my closest friend and held her tightly in my arms, memorizing her comforting embrace, then whispered sadly, “I will pray for you every day. You will see me again, Lilah… Tell Maddie… Someday, I you will see you both again…”
I withdrew. Delilah backed away in the direction of the Cursed quarters and shock, fear and sadness contorted her face. I lifted my bare feet and ran toward the perimeter of the fence.
I had to leave.
I told myself to run… run … just keep running…
Chapter Six
Salome
Letting out a sharp gasp, my eyes sprang open and fixed on a dark wooden sky above me. My vision pulsed around the edges.
It was a dream. It was only a dream…
My momentary feeling of peace quickly evaporated as I stared at the strange ceiling and I stiffened as I realized I did not recognize my surroundings.
