The Tithe

by Elle Hill

  But you didn’t feel it, Josh thought. The brush of the feather, the calm spreading like a virus, the world glowing whitely before she sank downward into sleep.

  Besides, Elovah had to exist. Maybe not exactly the way the imrabi and minnabi talked about, but She existed. What else explained, well, everything?

  Avery was a smart and loving person, but he was a Tithe, too, with some ideas as wonky as Josh’s legs.

  Silence spread like spilled oil.

  Finally, Avery chuckled once again and patted Josh’s arm. “I know it sounds like nonsense. It wouldn’t work if it didn’t. But especially for you, raised in the manner you were, it must sounds outlandish. No need to pay my rants any heed.”

  Josh opened her mouth, closed it. “You’re my friend, Avery,” she finally blurted.

  “Thank you, Joshua.”

  After a very tasty breakfast of some kind of cheese, potato, and veggie casserole, Blue took their dishes to the kitchen with promises of returning after he’d done some dishes. Garyn sat on her left, the place Lynna usually occupied. Lynna and RJ still hadn’t emerged from their love nest.

  “So, what’s the new procedure for laundry?” Josh sighed to Avery.

  He shook his head. “And they say I’m the one with delusions,” he said with a smile. “Marcus told me we now make an appointment with Jame. At the time of our appointment, we place out clothes outside our room and sit nudely and chastely in them while they get clean.”

  Josh sighed. “I’d best make an appointment, then, for Blue and me. Not together, I mean. Well, maybe at the same time, but not in the same room. You know.”

  Avery grinned and shooed her away.

  Josh chatted with Jame, made a three o’clock appointment, and then shuffled into the nearest bathroom. She did her business, wondering if she should consistently ask for strong tea for breakfast. Black tea tasted like sweet heaven, but she felt pretty sure it also helped her aspirin kick in a little faster.

  Josh flushed and unlatched her door. She just felt so bad, asking people for favors. Maybe tomorrow she could—

  “Oh!” she cried, literally running into someone standing outside her stall.

  “Sorry,” the young woman whispered.

  Mare, the young woman from Jeet’s group.

  Josh moved past her to the sink. Mare followed in silence.

  “You want something?” Josh asked. She turned off the faucet and shook her hands in the sink. In the mirror above the sink, she saw Mare just barely nod her head.

  Josh turned around, and Mare refused to step back. Josh tried to back up, but the shelf of sinks pressed into her back.

  “What do you need, Mare?”

  The girl glanced up. “I . . .” She looked down miserably. “I wasn’t supposed to be a Tithe,” she said in a whisper. “I have a mom and dad who love me a lot. But a few months ago, my headaches, they started getting so bad I’d have to stay in bed.” Still staring at their feet, Mare tapped her temple. “My dad took me to a healer. We found out I have a brain tu—” Her voice broke. “Can you believe it? I’m only fifteen.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Josh said. Three inane words against a lost lifetime. Sometimes the limitations of words shamed her.

  Mare nodded. “A week later, they came to my house. ‘You’re a Tithe, Mare,’ they said. This year. I got three months to say my goodbyes.” She lifted her head, and tears dropped from her nose. “But I would be dead soon, anyway, so I guess it’s not that bad. May as well help the town, right?”

  Josh’s teeth clenched against her own pain, but she threw an arm around Mare and drew her close. The girl patted her awkwardly before pushing away. Her eyes rolled left to right, presumably making sure they were alone.

  The women’s bathroom, where life happens.

  “Even if I weren’t a Tithe, I’d never grow up. Healer said I had six to ten months left. I’m going to die any day now, and I’ll never get to be an adult. But me and Kadin, we could . . .” Her voice melted away.

  Aha. “You want to make love with Kadin?” Josh asked smoothly. Heaven, she’d talked more about sex in this place than she had her entire life. Times ten.

  Mare took a jerky step backward. “I know having s—sex before marriage is wrong,” she said. “So, um, I was wondering.” She paused.

  Josh waited.

  Mare’s words emerged in one crumpled ball. “Maybe you could marry us?” She stopped, breathed. “Then, it wouldn’t be wrong.”

  Whoa. “You want me to marry you?”

  Mare nodded.

  “But I’m not an imrabi, let alone a minnabi.” Minnabi typically presided over celebrations and rituals. Imrabi performed the occasional marriage or funeral, but they were usually busy researching and taking care of their charges.

  “You’re practically an imrabi,” Mare said. “You heard Merryl yesterday. You’re the closest thing we have to one.”

  “Marcus and Blue were also raised by imrabi,” Josh said.

  “So you won’t do it?” Mare asked, tone flattening.

  Josh raised a hand. The pain in her legs had moved beyond cries and into bellows. She needed to sit, posthaste. “I don’t know how they do it in your town, but in Barstow, citizens need to be eighteen to get married.”

  “I’ll never reach eighteen!” Mare yelled, and then glanced around her, eyes wide. She hung her head again. “I’m sorry.”

  “I know you’re frustrated,” Josh said. Boy, did she.

  “Does the Bit’ say anything about how old people need to be to get married?”

  Josh thought for a moment. “I don’t think so.”

  “Then please.”

  Josh sighed. “What will Jeet and Netta say?”

  “I’ll be a married woman!” Mare whispered fiercely. “What can they say?”

  Oh, naïve girl. Josh sighed.

  “Please, Josh?” Mare asked.

  There was nothing right about this, but her legs itched and burned. “Fine,” Josh snapped. “Bring Kadin—” Kadin? The boy who’d locked her in the hallway to save his own scrawny behind? “—to see me tonight . . .”

  “Can we do it sooner?” Mare asked. “I mean, what if the angels . . .?”

  “Fine. Sure. Come get me later. I have to sit now.” Josh scuffled to the door. If she hurried, she could make the nearest chair before collapsing.

  By the time Josh finally made her aching, trembling way back to her place on the couch, Lynna had joined them. As was usual when Josh left the group, Lynna sat about five feet to Blue’s left. Garyn clasped Lynna’s left hand and played with the buttons on her own yellow shirt.

  Her friends.

  Josh plunked down between Blue and Lynna.

  “Mornin’,” Lynna chirped.

  “Where’s RJ?” Josh asked.

  “Making us some food. We were, uh, late for breakfast.” Lynna’s face twitched under the pressure of portraying nonchalance.

  Josh patted her arm absently before noticing the touch.

  What in heaven? She never did such things. Come to think of it, hadn’t she just tried to hug Mare? Josh shook her head. She didn’t hug. She didn’t even like shaking hands.

  This place has changed me. She glanced to her right. Maybe, and more accurately, someone here had.

  And now, just as uncharacteristically, she opened her mouth to share the last ten minutes with her friends. A part of her sat back in amazement while the words drizzled from her mouth. Was this her? Josh, the friendly-but-distant library caretaker? All this change in a week. Imagine what two months would do.

  Provided she had that long.

  “You really going to do it?” Lynna asked.

  “I said I would. I don’t think I have any kind of authority, but if it makes them feel better . . .” Josh shrugged.

  “Better hope the word doesn’t get out, or you’ll have couples begging you to marry them just so they can snag themselves a piece.” Lynna shot her a saucy grin.

  “I’m no imrabi.” Josh sighed. She turned t
o Blue. “What do you think?”

  He sat beside her, hands resting on his thighs, eyes bright and clear. His hair tumbled, wavy and unbrushed, around his shoulders. Her fingers twitched to restore some order to those curls. His neck and chin remained smooth. He was definitely one of those men whose facial hair grew sparsely, if at all.

  “I think things are changing,” he said.

  At noon, the town leaders checked in. Josh accounted for all six of her town members. Six, what used to be seven. It’s just going to decline from here, she reminded herself.

  Come lunchtime, Mare made sure she and Josh entered the kitchen at the same time. “One hour from now in my room,” she muttered.

  “I don’t know where your room is,” Josh muttered back.

  “First hallway, sixth door on the left.”

  “First hallway” had somehow, sometime become the one closest to the elevator on the right side of the room. The neighboring hallway was second hallway. If Josh’s and Blue hallway had garnered a name, Josh hadn’t heard it.

  She nodded. It made sense, she guessed, meeting in Mare’s room. No need to go anywhere after the ceremony.

  An hour later, Josh knocked tentatively on the sixth door down on the left. Mare opened it and shooed Josh inside.

  “What is he doing here?” she whispered fiercely, as if no one could hear her in the tiny room. She nodded toward the tall, black-clad man behind Josh.

  “Blue’s a little overprotective,” Josh said. “Besides, we need a witness.” Well, two, but nothing else was traditional about this wedding. “Are we ready?”

  Mare nodded enthusiastically. Kadin, sitting on her bed, said nothing, but his eyes blazed hotly from his red-and-tan face.

  Why him? Given the number of conditions that showed up in childhood, Tithes—or at least their seven-year group—overrepresented young people. Mare could have chosen from several other boys and young men. Why this one, who locked the door on a terrified and endangered person, who mocked other Tithes, and who assuaged his terror with glassy-eyed sessions of sugary gluttony?

  Josh was pretty sure Mare would regret marrying this boy, but their marriage, however real it may be, would last at most two months.

  “Please sit down, Josh,” Mare said, gesturing toward her bed.

  Josh’s face grew hotter, but she wisely chose to switch positions with Kadin. Her legs couldn’t handle a lengthy ceremony.

  Kadin scooted around Blue and slipped his arm around Mare’s shoulder. The couple stood at exactly the same height, Josh noticed as they stood facing her.

  “Do you have the veils?” Josh asked.

  Mare nodded and held up two white, creased pillowcases.

  “Rings?”

  Kadin reached into his pockets and withdrew two mostly circular objects.

  Josh leaned closer. The couple had twisted two pieces of wire into circles and wrapped the ends into a knot where a gem might lie. A hand squeezed her ribcage. These kids, with their homemade rings and their pillowcase veils.

  “All right,” she said gruffly. “I assumed you didn’t have any coins, so I asked around and found two.” She handed one to each.

  “Before the ceremony starts, each of you must place the pil—veil on the other’s head.” They did, both with over-serious expressions on their young faces.

  “Ready? Right. Welcome, friends and family of these two persons.” In this case, that meant Blue, but whatever. “The couple thanks you for joining them and supporting them on this sacred day.

  “Behold, we have before Elovah and all of us Mare Kamrin d’Ijo and Kadin Marin d’Ijo. They have pledged to spend their lives together, in support to one another and in fear of Elovah, may we remain shielded from Her wrath. Their pasts have led them down this path so that their lives may now intertwine. Together, they shall work toward the glory of one another, their town, and Elovah.

  “To demonstrate his support, Kadin presents you, Mare, with this coin, a symbol of hard work and financial stability.” Something about if he shouldn’t be there . . . what was it? Oh, well; it wasn’t as though that would apply here, anyway. “To demonstrate her support, Mare presents you, Kadin, with a coin, a symbol of financial stability and hard work.”

  The couple exchanged their coins.

  “The coins represent your obligation to one another. Your rings are promises of pleasure and companionship. As you, Mare, slip the ring on Kadin’s finger, think of it as a promise of never-ending support, kindness, and friendship. Like the circle of your ring, may your companionship be everlasting.” For two months. Dear heaven. She repeated the words, more or less, for Kadin.

  “Do you have vows you’d like to repeat to one another?” she asked.

  Kadin looked a little startled. Perhaps he’d never attended a wedding before. Maybe he’d begun to realize the enormity of their actions. He shook his head in quick jerks.

  Mare cleared her throat. “Um, thank you,” she said. “And I will try to make a really good wife to you, Kadin. I wish we had longer. And, um, no, that’s it.” Her jaw cracked open in some kind of smile.

  Josh smiled at both of them. “I am no imrabi, and neither of you are eighteen, but as much as this is legally and spiritually sound, you are now joined before Elovah as cherished wife and beloved husband. May Elovah bless you, and may you remain shielded from Her wrath. Please remove your spouse’s veil. Your new spouse has been reborn into a partnership with you.”

  The two turned to one another with smiles. Kadin yanked the pillowcase from Mare’s head, but she slowly and reverently pulled his from his head. For a brief moment, it covered the scarred half of his face. One eye stared out at them all.

  “I know not all towns do this,” Josh said, “but in Barstow, we conclude a wedding with the couple drinking from the same glass. Blue brought some juice.” From the folds of his cloak, Blue brought forth a glass half-filled with dark red liquid.

  Mare and Kadin raised the glass to grinning mouths and tried to take a sip at once. She hadn’t meant at once, but she had to admit, the bumbling and spilling of juice did make the ceremony a little more entertaining.

  Two sips later, a silence wound around the group.

  “Okay, we’re off,” Josh said briskly. “Bye.” With Blue’s help, she rose from the bed.

  Mare’s thanks ushered them all the way to the door, which slammed behind them.

  Once outside the room, Josh stopped walking and stared down the hallway toward the Great Room. “Did I do the right thing?” she asked Blue.

  She expected some kind of evasive or enigmatic answer. Instead, Blue placed his hand under her elbow. “You did the compassionate thing,” he said.

  They continued down the hallway, ever farther from the dead man in the utility closet and the lovemaking newlyweds.

  They called her an angel. Her, whose holiest achievement lay in never forgetting to say her daily prayers.

  Her, who, when she was ten or so and doing laundry, donned a robe and play acted, knowing perfectly well impersonating an imrabi was a punishable offense, until Ima Christina found her and gently urged her to place the garment in the washer. That was the last they spoke of the matter.

  Her, whose brusqueness had offended countless worshipers and many an imrabi.

  Her, whose short brown hair framed a plain, square face, whose shirt and pants obscured unremarkably beige skin.

  No, there was nothing angelic about Joshua Barstow. But still they invoked the term.

  It began with the all-too-familiar discussions that swooped through the Great Room, debating the minutiae of the Bitoran and its applications. Josh drifted away, imagining Blue rubbing her stomach again, when someone spoke her name.

  “Then how did Josh survive the angel’s touch the first night?” someone called out.

  Eyes swiveled toward her. She stared back calmly, even blandly, but her throat had dried.

  “Who says she did?” a voice asked.

  Josh snapped her head to the right. Several seats down from her, her c
rutch slumping against the giant couch, Hollyn, she of the diabetes and the peanut butter crackers, stared, squinty-eyed, back at her.

  “What do you mean?” Josh asked.