Out of Heaven's Grasp

by V. J. Chambers

  A few nights ago, when I’d been out in the desert, I’d come upon a group of young people who’d all snuck out. They were drinking beer in the desert, boys and girls together. If Gideon found out, all of them would be severely punished. He would probably cast all of the boys out and marry off all the girls, even though some of them had been as young as thirteen. Boys had been disappearing lately. When a boy was cast out, it often wasn’t discussed. One day, he would be there, the next, it was as if he’d never existed.

  Gideon’s voice cut through my thoughts. “And what did our community do to Becky Morris?”

  They’d killed her. Everyone had been in such grief about the death of Robert that they’d simply executed her without involving the authorities.

  “They did her the best favor that they could,” said Gideon. “They sacrificed her sinful nature, so that her pure spirit could remain free. They cut her off from the demon that was controlling her. Brothers and sisters, they freed her.”

  Well, I’d never heard it put quite like that before. It was generally considered that Becky Morris had to die, but I didn’t think anyone said it was a good thing exactly, just a necessary one.

  “This principle of sacrifice is one that we must do for our own brothers and sisters of the community,” Gideon declared. “If someone is so deeply under the thrall of a demon that they are as far gone as Becky, we must free them as well. The only way to save them from that demonic influence is to end their life. If one among us is so rebellious, so sinful, and so far from their proper place in the community, then we will sacrifice them as well. We will spill their blood, and we will free them.”

  I went cold all over. He hadn’t just said what I thought he’d said.

  Gideon was preaching that people who didn’t follow the rules were now to be killed?

  I glanced at Bob, wondering what he was making of this. After all, I was very disobedient these days. Was my life in danger?

  “Their spirits will then rise to Heaven, free and pure,” said Gideon. “They will join their Father in Heaven, rejoicing at the sacrifice of their earthly bodies. In this way, they will know paradise. But if we do not sacrifice them, if we leave them under the thrall of the demon, their souls will eventually be consumed, and they will go straight to the fiery pit of Hell. But we will not allow something so horrible to happen to those we love, to our family in Christ. We will protect them from eternal torment by sacrificing their bodies in life.”

  I twisted my hands together in my lap. This couldn’t be.

  * * *

  Jesse

  I rented a one-bedroom apartment in the nearby town of Melville. I managed to get a month-to-month lease, so I committed to staying in the area for at least a month. If I couldn’t convince Abby to leave within that time period, then I would decide if it was worth it to stay. But I would keep trying for at least a month.

  For the next few days, I only watched. I came back under the cover of darkness, but the jeep was always in the driveway. I peered in the windows, and I found Abby sleeping in the room where I’d last found Bob alone. That night the curtains in one of Bob’s other wives’ rooms were drawn. I assumed it was because he was with her. I knew that Bob must have been sleeping alone in Abby’s room, but I couldn’t figure out why.

  I tried to wake Abby up by knocking on her window, but she slept right through it, no matter how I tried.

  On the fourth night, however, I saw Abby sneak out of the house and get into her jeep. She put it in gear and backed it soundlessly out of the driveway. Only when she was at the end did she start the engine.

  I darted back to my truck and followed her jeep from a safe distance.

  She drove out into the desert, and once we were far enough from the community that it didn’t matter, I closed the distance between her jeep and my truck.

  She sped up when she saw me, like she was trying to outrun me.

  I chased her through the darkness for over half an hour, until her jeep finally pulled to a stop in front of me.

  She leaped out, screaming, “Fine. If you’re going to sacrifice me, I guess there’s nothing I can do about it.” Tears were running down her face, and she looked terrified.

  I got out of my truck, leaving the headlights on so that we could see. I didn’t know what this sacrifice thing was about, but I figured the best way to calm her down was to let her see my face, so I hurried closer to her, and I was illuminated in the the headlights.

  When she recognized me, she put a hand to her mouth. She staggered to her jeep, holding onto it for balance. “Jesse?” she whispered.

  I went to her. “Abby.” I wanted to touch her so badly, but, like before, I couldn’t. I stopped just short of her, just a foot away.

  “What…what are you doing here?”

  “I came back for you,” I said. “You can’t stay here. I can’t let you stay here. Come with me.”

  She dragged her hands over her face. “You cut your hair. You shaved your beard.”

  I shrugged. “Well, I could never grow a beard for shit, anyway.”

  “I liked it.” Her voice was tiny. She chewed on her lip, studying me. “You look so different.”

  “So do you,” I said.

  “But I didn’t change anything.”

  It was true that her hair and her clothes remained the same, but she carried herself completely differently now. There was something defiant and mature about her now, and I could see it in her eyes.

  “You’re still beautiful,” I said.

  She flinched a little.

  Had I never said that to her? I reached out and brushed my knuckles against her jaw.

  She shuddered, cringing from me. “Don’t.”

  I pulled away, shoving my hands in my pockets. “Sorry.” I should have known better. I knew the way she’d reacted to me when I left, and I knew this wasn’t going to be easy and quick. I needed to go slowly. I didn’t want to scare her. “Look, it doesn’t have to be about… I want you to come with me, even if there’s nothing between us. I can’t leave you here in this place.”

  She glanced at my truck. “You mean now? You mean you want me to get in your truck, and we’ll drive away and never come back?”

  Maybe this wasn’t going to be so hard after all. “Yeah, we could do it like that.”

  She wrung out her hands. “I don’t believe you’re here.”

  “Well, believe it.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. “Look… Jesse, things are different now, and I can’t…” She opened her eyes. “Things have happened to me. When we… when you… I don’t think I could ever…”

  “Look, if you’re saying that you can’t leave, I understand. I know you think that leaving the community means that you’ll burn in Hell for all eternity, but if you and I could just talk a little bit, if you could open your mind to some possibilities, then maybe I could help you feel less frightened of that.”

  She laughed harshly. “That doesn’t matter. I’m already going to Hell.”

  “What?” I hadn’t expected this. The change in her, it was more than maturity, I realized. When I looked at her, I now saw the same things I’d seen in my mother’s eyes, resignation and exhaustion. Anger surged through me, and I grabbed her by the shoulders. “What has he been doing to you?”

  She cringed again, shrinking from me. “Don’t touch me.”

  I backed off again. This was worse than I thought. I turned away, dragging a hand through my hair. “I shouldn’t have waited so long,” I muttered. What had been happening to her while I was away, while I was figuring myself out and waiting? Why had I put this off for so long?

  “I’m sorry. Maybe if I’d thought that I’d ever see you again, or that there was any chance that I’d need to have…” She hugged herself. “It’s only that I can’t feel things for you the way I used to. And I don’t think I could ever let anyone touch me.” Her face twisted. “I can’t… I can’t be beautiful for you, Jesse. Go back to the world. Find someone else. I’m sorry.” She rushed back to t
he door of her jeep, threw herself inside, started the engine, and drove away.

  I stood there in the darkness, too stunned to know what to do.

  I really hadn’t thought this through. I had thought about Abby being back here, stuck in the community, but I hadn’t spent any time thinking about what was happening to her while I was gone. In my mind, she’d stayed the same Abby, young and sweet and just a little bit rebellious, eager to try new things.

  What was wrong with me not to have realized that she would have been hurt? I didn’t know Bob Carroll personally, but I did know the way things worked in the community. I knew the way men treated their wives. I’d seen what my father had done to my mothers. They were both timid women who were afraid to speak up for themselves or their children. There was always a wild, frightened look about them.

  And Abby had that same look now.

  My chest tightened in shame.

  This was my fault. I’d waited too long.

  But it didn’t mean I was giving up. I still had to get her out of here. I just wasn’t sure how.

  Dejected, I got back in my truck and drove away. I didn’t try to go after her, not yet. I needed to figure out the best way to approach her.

  As I drove, I fantasized about finding Bob Carroll and pounding his face until it was nothing but a bloody mess.

  * * *

  Abby

  My heart was pounding inside my rib cage as I pressed the gas pedal down as far as it would go.

  I didn’t think I’d ever see Jesse again.

  Some part of me had been sure that he was dead to me. I couldn’t believe that he was here, that he still cared about me, that he thought I was beautiful. It was all too strange and foreign to even comprehend. The way he’d touched my face. No one had touched me in such a gentle way in months. When he’d looked at me, there had been real concern in his eyes. Concern for me. Not anger. Not disappointment. Not condemnation.

  Concern.

  And that was when I realized that I was broken. I hadn’t noticed while it was happening, but I remembered the way that Jesse used to make me feel, and I tried to find that feeling again, and it…

  It wasn’t there.

  I wasn’t capable of excitement or joy or pleasure or… whatever it had been.

  It was gone.

  So I had to get away from him, because it wasn’t fair for him to have to try to deal with a girl who was broken. I couldn’t do that to him. He should have something—

  I slammed on the brakes.

  Are you insane? I screamed at myself.

  I backed the jeep up, turning around. I went back the way I’d come.

  Jesse wanted me. Jesse had come back for me. I was trapped in a world where I was a sinner, and I couldn’t stop sinning, where I was fairly sure that I was going to be sacrificed because I was under the thrall of a demon. If I stayed here, I’d die. And I wasn’t sure if Gideon was right about the demons, or if he was just making them up. But everything I’d ever loved about this place was ruined. There was no music. There was no school. There was no Jesse. My mother and father had abandoned me. My husband was cruel. I had no one.

  If Jesse wanted me to run away with him, then I was an idiot to say no.

  I pressed down on the gas pedal, and my jeep roared back to the place where I’d left.

  But Jesse’s truck was gone.

  Of course it was.

  Last time, when I’d told him to leave me, he’d gone, hadn’t he? He hadn’t kept trying.

  I started crying anyway.

  I cried and cried, my entire body shaking in the front seat of the jeep.

  I realized that it was because this was the first time I’d felt hope in months, and now it was gone again.

  Eventually, I was so exhausted that when I climbed into the back seat, I was asleep before I even got all my blankets wrapped around me.

  Late in the night, I woke up, because it was so cold. I looked outside to see that there was snow blowing around in the night air.

  I grabbed more covers, but it was still too cold.

  I turned on the jeep to run the heat for a bit, and then it was warm enough to go to sleep.

  But I woke up two more times that night and had to repeat the process.

  It was getting too cold to sleep in my car, and I didn’t know what I was going to do.

  * * *

  It was Thursday evening, and the men were all away at the prayer meeting. There was a knock at the front door, but I didn’t bother to answer it. There were enough other people in this house to do that, after all. When I was home, I tended to spend any minute when I wasn’t busy hiding in my room away from everyone else. Lately, I’d been feeling really depressed over the fact that I’d turned Jesse down.

  I wished I hadn’t run from him. Now I really wouldn’t ever see him again, and it was even more depressing than it had been the first time he’d left.

  “Abigail!” sang Holly’s voice. “Someone’s here to see you.”

  For half a second, I wondered if it was Jesse. But then I had to squelch that thought. There was no reason that Jesse would be here. Besides, no one would let him into the house.

  I went out into the hallway.

  Susannah was standing inside. She looked terrified.

  I ran to her. “Susannah.”

  She hugged me.

  I hugged her back. “What’s wrong?”

  She was shaking all over. “Not in front of everyone,” she whispered in my ear.

  There wasn’t anyone in the hallway except for Holly, but I could tell that Susannah was worried, so I pulled her into my bedroom and closed the door.

  Susannah began to pace the floor. “Oh, Abby, I’m so worried.”

  “About what? What’s going on?”

  “It’s Isabel.”

  “Your sister? Did Nicholas Wallace do something to her?” She and Jesse’s father had been married over a month ago.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “She disappeared, Abby. She’s gone. And when I asked Gideon about it, he said that I should forget that I ever knew her.”

  I ran to Susannah, throwing my arms around her. “You think she was cast out?” It was very strange for a girl to be cast out, though. Generally, rebellious girls were just married off. Marriage was supposed to tame a girl. I wasn’t sure how well it had worked on me.

  She pulled away. Her voice was agonized. “I’m worried she was… sacrificed. Like Becky Morris. It’s all Gideon talks about these days.”

  I felt ill. When Jesse found me in the desert, I was certain that someone had followed me to sacrifice me, and I knew her fear. It wasn’t unfounded. All I could do was hug her again.

  She buried her face in my shoulder and started to cry.

  “He would tell you, wouldn’t he?”

  “I don’t know anything about what he would do,” she sobbed. “He scares me, Abby. He’s not like other people. Martha says it’s because he’s so holy, but sometimes he doesn’t seem very holy to me.”

  I held her as hard as I could, thinking frantically of my own sisters. None of them had been given in marriage yet, miraculously, even though my sister Jennifer was already fifteen. I worried that I’d hear the news any day now, and I didn’t know what I was going to do if that happened. Now I had a worse worry. I thought of the teenagers I’d seen out in the desert. If Gideon discovered them, would he sacrifice them? They’d been drinking beer, after all. What if Jennifer was out there with them?

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Abby

  The next night that I was scheduled to spend with Bob, I left in my jeep again. I’d spent most of the day scrambling to find gas. Bob kept gasoline, like most men in the community. He bought large quantities of it when he went to Melville or Lebenet and stored it in his shed. However, about a month ago, he’d decided to try to stop me from leaving in my jeep by locking up his shed and only giving the key to people who asked. Of course, he wouldn’t give the key to me. Undeterred, I’d found other sources of gasoline. There was some stored
behind the meeting hall, for instance, and I’d been taking that. But it had been running low, and there was very little left. I wanted to make sure that I had enough gas to run the heat as much as I needed to. I obviously couldn’t run it all night, but I wanted to be able to stay as warm as possible. I went to see my brother Thomas instead, and he gave me several cans of gas to keep in the back of my jeep just in case.

  Thomas had been assigned another wife recently. Gideon was marrying up all the younger girls. Thomas’s new wife was about sixteen, and when I went in to say hi to Carla, I could sense that there was tension in the house. I tried to ask Thomas about it, but he wouldn’t say anything. He assured me that everything was fine. Indicating otherwise, of course, might imply that he was under the thrall of a demon, I supposed. Now that Gideon had threatened to kill people who didn’t follow the rules, everyone was terrified.

  Likewise, when Thomas asked me why I wasn’t getting gas from my husband, I made up a vague excuse. I didn’t want him to know what I was up to, both for my sake and for his own. I didn’t want to get Thomas in trouble.

  Before I left, though, he pulled me aside so that no one else could hear us. “Look, Abby, I know that… I worry sometimes that I led you astray.” He swallowed. “I know now that the things we did when we were in Lebenet—buying the food and sending you off without a chaperone—they were wrong, and I should never have—”

  “No, Thomas, it’s not your fault.”

  “But we were meant to be examples for you, and we failed you. Carla and I failed you.”

  I shook my head. “You didn’t.”

  He gave me a hug. “I’m so sorry. I really hope you find some happiness.”

  Was it so obvious that I was unhappy?

  Once it was dark, I drove off into the desert again. I ran the car for a while, keeping the heat on and listening to the radio. As I was debating when I should turn it off and try to wrap myself in blankets, I saw headlights approaching.

  I put on my own headlights to try to determine who it was.

  Almost immediately, I recognized Jesse’s truck.

  Jesse! He hadn’t left after all. He was still here. He hadn’t given up on me. I was overcome.