by Tosca Lee
I lower my head, trying to think.
For all I know, Blaine put together a few pieces of bad meat and sold it for whatever Magnus would give him.
But while Magnus may be many things, stupid isn’t one of them. He built and sold a hybrid seed company. The man knows something about science—or knows plenty of people who do.
“Ashley!” Jackie says. And I’m not convinced she isn’t babbling to herself again. Or worse yet, that she’s forgotten my name.
“What?”
“It’s an animal disease. You need a veterinarian.”
I feel my expression twist. I can’t see her like this. Can’t watch the way she stares at her gloved hands, hear the soft wonder in her voice. But neither can I turn away.
“You need to see Ashley,” she says, glancing up. Her eyes are clear. “At the Veterinary College in Fort Collins, Colorado. He knows who Magnus is. And he’ll believe you because of me.”
“Jackie, who’s Ashley?” I say, confused.
She gives a quiet smile.
“Truly’s father.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
* * *
Come, Wynter,” Magnus said, not even waiting for me to answer as he strode out the office door.
Enzo drove us to Story City, a town large enough to boast a McDonald’s and an outlet mall—even a park with an old-fashioned carousel in the middle. I had only heard about it from Ara, who had been there several times for sewing supplies.
The entire way I felt the weight of Magnus’s gaze heavy upon me, as though our first outing had been the prelude to some new level of intimacy between us.
“I’ve thought a lot about our last conversation,” he said, turning toward me in the back seat.
So have I.
“You’ve brought something out in me that has been buried beneath this burden of leadership. That I thought had gone dry. You don’t know how grateful I am to you, Wynter. You’re a gift to me, and I have so much I want to tell you.”
But I didn’t want to hear it. He was supposed to bear that burden with only God to confess to.
He leaned forward to say something to Enzo, directing him to the far side of town.
“You should unbraid your hair,” he said to me. “This town doesn’t understand us and what we’re about. There’s people here who distrust the Enclave and some, even, who wish we’d go away.”
Two thoughts assaulted me at once. First, it had never occurred to me that there were people who didn’t want us. The second was: Then why are you bringing me here?
I reached back reluctantly, started to unpin my braids as Magnus openly watched me, hand over his chest, stroking the skin in the open V of his shirt.
“I’m supposed to be in the kitchen by three,” I said. “Rosella asked if I’d be able to help with dinner.”
It wasn’t entirely a lie. I had volunteered just an hour ago to show up then. It wasn’t my normal time.
“You’re with me.”
“But I promised—”
“Who cares? Rosella,” his lips flattened as he said her name, “will never understand people like us.”
“Rosella is a true believer,” I said, aghast, having never thought I’d find myself in a position of wanting to defend her. She was a praise-hungry tyrant. But she was earnest.
“Are you chiding me?” he said sharply.
“No. No, of course not,” I said quietly, looking down between us.
He tilted his head, seemed to appraise me. “You have such beautiful hair, did you know that? Now, if we wanted to make today extra special . . .” He paused, reached into his pocket, and pulled an object from it.
When he opened his fingers, my heart stopped at the thing nestled in his palm.
A lipstick.
“Go on,” he said.
I took it slowly. The metal case was warm.
Did he know about that day?
But how could he?
I swallowed, throat dry, not daring to open it.
“I forget that you were too young to wear makeup when you came to us, weren’t you?” he said softly, taking it from my hand. He pulled off the lid and twisted the tube until a bright red column emerged from its shadows.
Red.
The tip was uneven, concave in the middle where it had been pressed to another woman’s lips before. I wondered whose it was. The waitress’s at the café?
I didn’t move as he lifted my chin and opened his mouth, indicating for me to do the same. He slid the color across my lower lip.
It’s forbidden.
You didn’t care that it was forbidden when you pocketed one at the farmers’ market . . .
Hadn’t I wanted to do this? Hadn’t I planned to, in secret, while everyone was asleep?
He smiled as he finished. Twisting the lipstick closed, he returned it to his pocket, from which he produced a cell phone. Swiping his thumb across the surface, he held it up. A light flashed in my eyes, startling me.
“So beautiful,” he said. “Now I can see you like this any time I want.”
But photos, like cosmetics, were forbidden. What would happen to me if that picture ever came to light—of me, obviously outside the enclave inside a car, my hair down, wearing that forbidden lipstick?
My palms began to sweat as we pulled up in front of a row of buildings. And then he got out, reaching a hand toward me.
I forced myself to take it, to slide across the seat toward him and step out. His arm immediately went around my waist and I stiffened as he led me into a bar.
You will not touch a woman who is not your wife.
You will shun the appearance of evil.
This couldn’t be right. He had to have another business meeting, I reasoned—perhaps on an upstairs floor. But inside, there was no staircase, no meeting area. He led me to a high-top table as Enzo took a seat at the bar itself.
Loud music played over the speakers. There were perhaps only four people total drinking and staring at a baseball game on the TV over the bar itself.
“This is a special place,” Magnus said, leaning over the table toward me, his gaze falling to rest on my mouth.
I didn’t see how that could be. It was dark and grimy, the guys at the bar slouched against it defeated by whatever had brought them here.
“How so?” I asked, trying to sound pleasant.
“When I was writing the third volume of my Testament, I used to come here to work,” he said.
“Here?”
For a minute I wondered if there was an audience somewhere. If my response was being judged.
I’d spent countless days locked up in a white cell for listening to worldly music on Shae’s phone. And now the man I’d come to know as a minor deity was telling me he’d written one of our holy Testaments in a bar?
Magnus Theisen was the Interpreter of God! God Himself had chosen Magnus to receive His new Testaments and record the precepts of salvation! Precepts Magnus had all but said needn’t apply to us.
Which meant either everything I had been taught was a lie or that God had made a terrible mistake.
I could feel him waiting for some kind of answer. When I gave none, he turned his attention to a rut on the table, which he traced with his thumbnail as the waitress came over. But instead of asking for an order, she reached around Magnus and gave him a hug.
“I missed you!” she said, chewing out each word as though it were a piece of gum. He didn’t look up. “Hey. Everything okay?”
“Sure,” he said, and glanced at me. But his gaze was flat, his expression—so rapt before—was dead. “Order whatever you’d like,” he said, sitting back, not looking at me.
“Juice. Whatever you have.”
“Orange, cranberry, or tomato?”
“Tomato,” I heard myself say.
“Magnus?” she asked, her brows drawn up in a concerned look.
“Just give me some water.”
She gave me a look and turned to go to the bar, where Enzo was already drinking a beer from the bottle, apparently unafraid of t
he ramifications. Magnus, meanwhile, looked restless, ready to go. And though I didn’t know what was happening in the air rapidly cooling between us, I knew I was somehow supposed to fix it. Because as much as I did not want this attention from him, spurning it, I somehow knew, would only turn out badly.
For me.
He sighed, refusing to look at me. “You know, maybe I shouldn’t have brought you here.”
In that instant I knew that as bad as life was before, it was about to get much worse. Because for me to commit my own sins was one thing. But for me to know and judge the sins of Magnus . . . would be unforgivable.
Not that anyone would believe me. And that was the worst part. There was no one I could go to with any of this. Including my sister, who had refused to hear it.
“No,” I say quickly. “It actually makes me feel better.”
“Better how?” he asked, impatient.
“I just like the thought of it. I like the thought of a lot of things I’ve never talked about,” I said.
“Like what?”
Here, then, was the test.
“First, why don’t you order what you really wanted to a minute ago?” I suggested.
He gave me a small smile and got up to go to the bar.
My mind was spinning, wondering what would happen if I got up, took off for the ladies’ room, and ran out the back door. But I had nothing waiting for me on the other side and everything to lose.
Including my eternal salvation.
I glanced over at him leaning against the bar beside Enzo as the bartender made him a drink. He openly flirted with the waitress, the playful smile he had given me in the car toying about his lips.
I hated that smile, the smolder in his eyes. I wished I could unsee it, scrub it from my brain.
When he returned to the table, his posture was easy as he slid a drink in front of me and crossed his arms on the edge of the table.
“Tell me a secret,” he said, gazing at me through his lashes and tracing the rim of his glass with a fingertip as he had the back of my hand the first day in the car.
I let out a slow breath. “My dad used to beat my mother. It’s why we came to the Enclave.”
“That’s unfortunate,” he said, his gaze falling past me. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear. But if I could bore him, maybe he would forget about me.
“Yeah,” I sighed. “Jaclyn probably doesn’t talk about it much. It was pretty bad. He drank a lot. One time he gave our mom a black eye that lasted for weeks.”
“Mm.” He lifted his cocktail and took a long drink.
“We had to spend a couple weeks with her friend Julie. I kind of hoped we’d get to stay. I really hated living at home. Julie had cable, and she had a PlayStation. You ever play that? There was this game Jaclyn and I used to love, maybe she’s told you about it—”
“So, Wynter,” he said, sitting back. “Listen. I just wanted you to know that you should prepare to be married. It’s time, and you’ve been upstanding—it’s obvious you’ve done everything you should and . . . so.” He drained the rest of his drink, clearly ready to leave.
No.
I grabbed his wrist.
It was too close to his hand, but my fingers dug into his cuff.
“You don’t want to hear about my father, do you?” I said.
“No,” he said, his expression blank.
“I don’t want to talk about marriage,” I said.
“Then tell me something interesting,” he said brusquely.
In that instant, something switched off inside me. And something else switched on. Self-preservation. A search for any weapon I had.
“All my secrets are in my Penitence file. Haven’t you read it?”
“No,” he said. “Should I?”
“Probably not.”
“Do tell.”
“I used to talk about boys. A lot. And then I realized I wasn’t supposed to think about that.”
“It’s natural,” he said, his gaze more intense. “Of course you should think about it.”
“The Admitter said I shouldn’t.”
“I don’t want you to talk to the Admitter anymore. I want you to tell me instead. What did you think about? What did you want to do with those boys?”
“The usual.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
He studied me for a long moment, his breath catching. And I knew in that instant I’d made a mistake. He not only wanted to go down this road I had no way to navigate, but he enjoyed the fact that I was uncomfortable. Which meant nothing I said or agreed to would ever be enough. He would only demand more, no matter the cost to me.
“There’s something else,” I said. “It’s—it’s embarrassing. Wrong.”
“Then tell me.”
I looked away. “I can’t. It’s about you.”
“Now you have to.”
I glanced down. Did I imagine it, or did his breath halt for a fraction of an instant?
I pursed my lips and said, “You’re the reason we joined the Enclave. I was obsessed with you the first time I met you. And now, just when I felt like I knew everything about you, I’ve suddenly learned so much more. About you. How complicated you are.”
It wasn’t the response he wanted. And I would not give him the kind of secrets I sensed he wanted from me. Had no arsenal to draw from, even if I’d wanted to.
But I’d seen the way he’d noticed me reading the article about him. The way no one spoke of the newspaper journalist calling, the magazines on the wall—openly displayed, never talked about. Needing to be admired.
“I mean, you’re famous, aren’t you?”
He gave a quiet chuckle.
“But you can’t say it, can you? That the world knows your name. Because the others don’t understand who you are in that world. What you give up to be with us. That you have to be two people.”
He lifted his gaze to mine for a long moment.
“No,” he said hoarsely. “They don’t. They don’t know what I go through for them. All that I’ve done. All that I do.” His eyes fell to my mouth. “The way I pour myself out for them. Yes. I’m two people. I have to be. It’s my great gift: faith. And it’s my burden, calling home the Select, catering to their needs, unable to move forward in my own freedom. But I’m a man. With no one to share and unburden myself with. Which is why you’re so important to me. Because you understand.”
“Jaclyn would understand,” I say quietly.
“I don’t want to talk about Jaclyn. Come. It’s time to go.” He handed me a napkin. “Wipe that off your mouth.”
In the car on the way back to the Enclave, I tried to rebraid my hair, elbows close to my sides.
“Let me,” he said.
“Please,” I whispered. “You’re my sister’s husband.”
“For God’s sake, it’s just hair, Wynter.”
I turned, reluctantly, in the back seat. Closed my eyes as his fingers brushed against my neck. He finished as we reached the heavy gate.
Pulling into the Enclave parking lot, Magnus straightened as the Prius came to a halt. This time he didn’t gesture me out on his side but got swiftly out of the car and shut the door behind him. Unsure what had happened, I let myself out of the other side . . . just in time to see Jaclyn stop in the middle of the small parking lot in front of the counseling center van.
“My love,” he said, walking to her side. He kissed her on the cheek, but her gaze fell on me.
“I’ve just finished hearing the story of your mother from my dear sister-in-law,” he said, gesturing to me, before going on about how sad it had been to hear the circumstances that had brought us here.
I saw the way her gaze slid from me to him. Her thin smile in response as they moved toward their residence.
The minute I stepped foot inside the Factory, the air threatened to stifle me. It was too warm, the women too curiously deferential. Hurrying through the common area to the bathroom, I fell to my knees in a stall and puked up the contents of my stomach.
• • •
THE NEXT MORNING was rainy, uncommonly cool for summer. When Magnus got up to speak at service after the hymns, I could barely look at him, knowing he was seeking my gaze as he preached on the gift of children, who would be the true measure of God’s blessing and bounty in the new Earth to come. By which God would repopulate the renewed world.
After so many sermons on the depravity of the world, a few women wept at the beauty of this vision. I did, too, for a different reason, grieving the thing I felt dying inside me.
I had never felt so alone in the company of the Select. Couldn’t wait to leave even as Magnus revealed that he’d received a new revelation: as Adam was commanded to multiply and fill the Earth, so was New Adam commanded to do the same.
Which was why, as in the days of Jacob the Patriarch, David the friend of God, and Solomon the Wise, he, Magnus, had been commanded by God to take a second wife.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
* * *
Truly’s . . . father?”
I hear the fear in my voice. Because I’m losing her, too fast.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she says. “I’m not crazy. Not yet.”
“But—” The idea of Truly being fathered by anyone but Magnus was ludicrous. First, because Magnus would never allow himself to be so humiliated. Second, because Jackie would never do something like that.
Would she?
Jaclyn’s talking to herself again, whispering in the darkness.
“Stop that,” I say.
She does, and the silence is almost worse.
“Jackie . . . how?”
“How was I with Ashley?” she asks. She smiles. “I was handing out tracts outside the center. He walked by and I thought he was the most handsome man I’d ever met.” She laughs softly. “We talked, and he came by again a few days later. After weeks like that, he asked me to meet him for coffee.”
“And you did?”
“Yes. I told the other women I was going to hand out tracts closer to campus. And then I met him at a little shop and we talked—about everything. He was doing his veterinary infectious disease fellowship at the university. Something about diseases in livestock. He was—is—extremely smart.”
