III. Waste nothing.
IV. Tempt not, lest you be tempted. (Temptations include things like television, magazines, radios, or anything at all that has to do with bringing the outside world into our community.)
Emmanuel created these rules, and there is nothing more important to a Believer than following them. It’s not always easy, especially the striving for perfection one (as you can see), but like Emmanuel says: The only thing worse than not being perfect is not trying to be perfect. So I keep trying.
It really bugs me that Honey doesn’t. Try, I mean. And not only does she not try, but in the past year or so it feels like she has just turned her back completely on everything having to do with Mount Blessing. Honey’s always been kind of a rebel—once, when we were about six years old and Emmanuel invited all the kids into his room to listen to him play the piano, she stood up in the middle of a very slow, beautiful piece, and said, “I’m bored!” Can you imagine? Just to be invited into Emmanuel’s room is in itself a huge deal. But being in there and getting to listen to him play the piano is doubly special—like getting to celebrate your birthday twice. Dad says that listening to Emmanuel play is like hearing the voice of God whisper in your ear, and I couldn’t agree more. Lately, though, Honey’s contemptuousness toward Emmanuel has been getting worse and worse. I don’t know what started it or if it’s going to end, but I get horribly upset whenever I think about it.
She also does nothing to hide her scorn for what she calls my “saint-wannabe” campaign. She thinks that trying to become a saint is a first-class joke or something. “Human beings aren’t supposed to be perfect,” she says whenever I remind her of the first of the Big Four rules. “You’re just beating your head against a wall, Agnes. The whole point of being human is to make mistakes. That’s just the way it is.” But that’s not just the way it is. Emmanuel says that most of us are using only an eighth of our capacity as human beings, and that if we really tried, we could do so much more—even attain perfection. Honey guffaws whenever I try to argue about it with her, and she usually ends up storming off. It’s maddening; it really is.
But my resentment vanishes now as I spot her in the tall grass. She is lying on her side, facing away from me, behind the red barn. Her blue robe is a few feet away, flung in a heap beside a cluster of dandelions. The back of her white T-shirt is streaked with grass stains, and her jeans are smudged with mud. For some reason she is missing her shoes. I look around, but they are nowhere to be found. Her breathing is slow and steady and when she inhales, a small whistling sound comes out of her nose. I lie down silently in the space behind her, being careful not to touch anything. I am not sure where it hurts the most. It amazes me that even after all these years my body still fits along the curve of her back. The front of my knees still align perfectly with the backs of hers and there, right along the slope of her neck, is the little freckle I used to stare at just before I drifted off to sleep next to her in the nursery every night. I lean in a little closer until the tip of my nose touches one of her long red braids. Her hair smells like wet grass. Around us, the air pulses with the steady thrum of singing crickets and the sun, warm as bath water, caresses our skin.
“Did Christine send you out looking for me?” Honey’s voice, drifting out from beneath her arm, is clotted with sleepy tears.
“No.” I pause. “She didn’t say anything. I think she knows you needed some extra time today.” This is most likely true. It is no secret that as Mount Blessing’s only orphan, Honey is Christine’s favorite. After Honey’s mother ran away one night—leaving three-week-old Honey behind in the nursery—it was Christine who took care of her. Even when Honey got too old to stay in the nursery and was sent to live in the Milk House with Winky Martin, Christine came down every night to tuck her into bed. And while it’s been years since Christine has gone down to check on her, it is obvious that she still holds a special place inside for Honey.
Now Honey snorts. “How big of her.”
I stay quiet. It was Honey who had gotten us in trouble this morning, Honey who was caught kissing—with her tongue!—Peter behind the pool. She made me stand watch, but then Amanda Woodward—who is always sticking her nose into everyone else’s business—had popped out of nowhere and started yelling about how she was going to tell on us and so we all paid the price. But it was Honey who had gotten the worst of it.
“Well, if Christine didn’t send you, how’d you get out of afternoon prayers?” Honey asks, finally removing her arm and turning over to face me. Her forehead is dirty, her cheeks streaked with dried, salty tear tracks. The white, crescent-shaped scar above her lip is the only unsoiled spot on her face.
“I said I had a stomachache. Christine told me to go lie down. She thinks I’m upstairs in the East House.”
Honey’s eyes narrow. “You lied?”
I sigh heavily. The waist string is cutting so tightly into my skin that the area around it feels numb, and my pockets, bulging with stones, are pulled tight against my thighs. “Don’t remind me, okay? I was worried. You’d been gone for so long. I didn’t know what happened.”
“Wow,” Honey says. “Didn’t you almost tell a lie last week when Christine asked you where your consecration beads were?”
I nod, automatically moving my hand to the wooden beads around my neck. “But I didn’t.”
“Still. An almost lie last week. And now a real, full-blown one. What’s happening to you, Agnes? You’re never going to end up in The Saints’ Way if you keep going like this.”
For a moment I am genuinely stung. After everything I have just gone through for her, she is still not going to give me a break. Still. I open my mouth, ready to tell her off, when she turns her head. A blue bruise has blossomed on her cheek, wide and dark as a plum.
“Oh, Honey.” I reach out to touch it with my fingertips and then, thinking better of it, withdraw my hand. “Does it hurt?”
Honey pokes at the mottled skin roughly and then winces. “Sore.” There is a pause. “But not half as sore as my ass.”
I bite my lip. Given the situation, now is not the time to start reminding her of the sinfulness of curse words. “He was hard on you,” I say quietly. “After Peter and I left, I mean.”
Honey gives me one of her Sometimes I can’t believe we’re even friends, you’re so stupid looks. “Um, yeah.” She takes a deep breath and then shakes her head.
“Do you … want … to talk about it?” I ask gently.
“Well, you know, the man’s a perfectionist,” Honey says. “Gotta get it just right every time. The bastard.” I gulp hard. It makes me nervous when she speaks ill of Emmanuel—even if he did just punish her. Emmanuel never punishes us unless we really deserve it. Honey may not think so, but kissing a boy—with your tongue no less—is definitely a sin. A carnal one, too, if you want to get really technical about it, which is one of the worst kinds.
“But I screamed my head off,” she continues. “Made a whole big scene, just like I always do. Pissed him off royally.”
I stare at the sky. Emmanuel has a no-crying rule in the Regulation Room. No matter how bad it gets, if you cry out, it will only get worse. I’ve learned to hold my breath, taking tiny gulps here and there so that nothing but air emerges from my mouth, but Honey always carries on like she’s being tortured or something, just to make him mad.
“ ’Course, I paid extra for that,” she says bitterly.
“What do you mean?”
She rolls back over so she is lying on her stomach. “Lift my shirt up.”
“What?”
“Lift my shirt up. Take a look at my back.”
I sit up on my knees, tucking my robe beneath my legs. Honey’s never asked me to do anything like this before. Sticking out my arm, I let my fingers hover tentatively at the edge of her shirt before dropping them again. “I don’t want to.”
“Oh, just do it.” Honey sighs, letting her forehead drop against the ground. “God.”
I lift her shirt gingerly, as if it might
hurt, and hold my breath. Nothing prepares me for what I stare down at. Underneath the slashes of violet belt stripes there are letters scrawled in red marker, large and sloppy, across the tender skin:
H-A-R-L-O-T
My nose starts to wiggle, a habit of mine that started when I was three years old. Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle. Somehow it prevents the tears from coming.
“Nice, right?” Honey asks, craning her neck to see over her shoulder. “That was Veronica’s idea.”
“Veronica?” I repeat, letting go of her shirt.
Honey nods. “Yup, Veronica. Sweet, pure, chaste Veronica who can do no wrong.”
I stare disbelievingly at a blade of grass, feeling the blood pound behind my eyes. If Emmanuel is Mount Blessing’s spiritual father, Veronica is our spiritual mother. She’s second in command here, just one rung below Emmanuel, and is just as holy and virtuous as Emmanuel himself. The story of Emmanuel finding her twenty years ago while teaching one of his advanced divinity classes at a college in Iowa is legendary at Mount Blessing. Dad has told it to Benny and me numerous times over the years. My favorite part is when Emmanuel finally approached Veronica, who, as a college sophomore, had answered yet another one of his theological questions with a wisdom well beyond her years.
“You have an almost otherworldly knowledge of divinity,” he had said to her. “Have you ever studied it before?”
Veronica was really shy back then, so shy that she could not even look Emmanuel in the eyes as he addressed her. She was also very self-conscious of a skin rash that covered her arms and hands. It was so severe that it made her skin bleed, forcing her to keep her hands hidden inside her shirtsleeves at all times. “No,” she answered. “Never.”
“Then how do you know so much?” Emmanuel pressed.
According to the story, Veronica ducked under his steady gaze. “It’s not really me,” she answered. “It’s something bigger, something inside of me that knows. I can’t explain it.”
But it was explanation enough for Emmanuel. Back then, Mount Blessing was just starting to form, with nine Believers—all of whom had left their homes and come to live with Emmanuel in his little house next to the college. Soon after her conversation with Emmanuel, Veronica became the tenth Believer. Two weeks later, after leaving Iowa and moving to Connecticut where he would begin Mount Blessing, Emmanuel introduced Veronica in a formal ceremony to the other members. She was dressed in the very first blue Believer robe, and her hair, which smelled of lemons and rosewater, shone in the light. The red rash on her hands was completely gone. “Look carefully,” Emmanuel said to the tiny congregation. “She is the closest any of you will ever come to being in the presence of the Blessed Virgin.”
Every female at Mount Blessing—except Honey—strives to be like Veronica, beginning with how she wears her hair, swept off her face and knotted at the nape of her neck, to the way she holds her arms out straight during an entire prayer service, just like Jesus on the cross. I’ve spent prayer services—two, three hours at a time—just watching the way she moves her lips or the fervent way she closes her eyes when she utters certain phrases. She is the epitome of perfection, the example of what we are all striving to become. And she is brilliant. Sometimes even Emmanuel will defer to her while he is preaching and let her explain things in her own words. That is why I don’t want to hear Honey’s reason—if there is one—about Veronica’s participation in this. It just wouldn’t make any sense.
“What’s a harlot?” I find myself whispering instead.
“It’s a whore,” Honey says. Her voice is matter-of-fact, but when she starts talking again, it trembles around the edges. “Veronica said that’s what I am, running around trying to kiss boys like I do. Like I make a habit of it or something. It was one time, for God’s sake. Once!” The silence between us is deafening, interrupted only by a soft neigh from one of the horses in the barn. I take her hand in mine and stroke it tenderly, my fingertips caressing the rough patches along her knuckles.
“You’re not a harlot, Honey.”
“Yeah,” she says, pushing her hair off her face. “I know.” Her gaze is fixed on something I can’t see in the blue canopy above us. She points with her index finger. “Hey, look! It’s a Spangled Fritillary!”
I squint at a small orange butterfly swooping down toward some Queen Anne’s Lace. Only a butterfly could distract Honey from the conversation at hand.
She stands up slowly, watching as the small insect floats from one flower to the next. “Look how gorgeous. And so many markings on the wings.” She turns to look at me. “Did I tell you Winky and I started aerating the garden this morning?” I nod. “Winky found some wild fennel and turtlehead in the field, too. We’re going to transplant them tonight after dinner. The garden’s going to be so beautiful this year. I bet we’ll have over a thousand butterflies.” The butterfly soars past us suddenly and, after grazing the tip of more Queen Anne’s Lace, disappears from sight. Honey watches, shading her eyes with her hand.
A small, sudden shout interrupts the moment. “Agnes! Are you up here?”
Instinctively, Honey drops back down in the grass. “Who’s that?”
The voice floats over us, louder this time. “Honey! Agnes! Where are you?”
“That sounds like Benny,” I say, peering in the direction of the voice. Standing up straight, I wave my arm through the air. “Benny! Over here! We’re over here!”
“How’d he know where to find us?” Honey asks.
I lean up on my tiptoes. “Probably from when he followed us the last time. Remember?” My little brother is so small that I can see only the top of his white-blond hair as he turns and then swerves through the tall grass like a marshmallow on a stick. He’s a nervous little kid to begin with, but he gets even more nervous when he doesn’t know where I am. At all times. I love him to pieces, but sometimes it feels like he is suffocating me.
“Nana Pete’s here!” Benny says, bursting out all at once from inside the field. His blue robe flaps around him like a tent and his enormous black glasses slide down the bridge of his nose. A constellation of freckles stand out like tiny ants across his face.
“Nana Pete?” I say. “What are you talking about? Are you sure?”
Benny is holding his knees with his hands, breathing hard. He lifts his head at my barrage of questions. “I’m telling you, she’s here! Mom just came down and got me out of prayers so I could go get you! She’s waiting for us in the Great House!”
Honey looks at me accusingly. “You didn’t tell me Nana Pete was coming.”
I stare wide-eyed at her. “She wasn’t. At least, she’s not supposed to be. Dad said she wasn’t coming until August, just like always.”
Nana Pete is Dad’s mother. Despite living all the way down in Texas, she comes up to visit us at Mount Blessing every summer without fail. Sometimes she takes a plane, but more often than not, she drives her big green Cadillac, which she calls the Queen Mary. There’s nothing she likes more, she always says, than a “good ol’ road trip.” And while she is Benny’s and my paternal grandmother, she has made a point to include Honey in every single thing we’ve ever done with her, starting when we were just little kids living in the nursery. In fact, I can’t ever remember a single time with Nana Pete that didn’t include Honey.
Benny slaps his knees. “Can we go? Please?”
Honey laughs out loud and tosses her robe carelessly over one shoulder. “See you guys later.”
“Oh, come with us,” I say. “You know she’ll ask for you as soon as she sees us.”
“No more Great House for me today,” Honey says, walking on ahead. She looks over her shoulder. “But tell her I’ll see her later. Maybe after dinner.”
“Where are you going?” I ask uncertainly.
Honey spits out a blade of grass and wipes her mouth with the back of her hand. “Back to the East House, I guess. Christine probably thinks I’ve committed suicide by now or something.”
I cringe at her offhand comment. Suicide
is a mortal sin. “Okay,” I call after her. “I’ll see you later, then.”
Honey lifts her arm in response but doesn’t turn around. Benny tugs at my arm, leading me in the opposite direction, but I find it hard to take my eyes off Honey as she moves farther away from us. Her head is held high, her back straight and proud.
It’s so strange. Every once in a while, even though I know it’s wrong, I find myself wishing that I could be more like her.
HONEY
It’s the middle of May, which means that the field behind the horse barn is full of new butterflies. On any other day, I’d be running around like a nut, numbering the different species, examining their wing patterns, and writing everything down in the little notebook Winky gave me. Not today, though. Today those tiny buggers could have wings of pure gold and I wouldn’t give them a second glance. After tearing off that damn blue robe, I lie down in the grass instead, turning on my side when it hurts too much, and stare at the sky for a while. I’m supposed to be down in the East House with Agnes and all the rest of the kids, saying afternoon prayers, but that’s just not gonna happen. If I was in that room right now, I would probably punch someone. And if Christine wants to give me a hard time about it later (which she won’t), she can go jump off a cliff.
When the noise in my head gets too loud, I pull the tiny ceramic cat out of my front pocket and hold him up over my face, directly in line with the sun. George is a Siamese, about the size of a large pecan, and so small that most days I forget he’s even there. He’s the only thing I have left of my mother, Naomi, who left him behind just before she took off. Sometimes I wonder just how demented she really was, thinking that a four-inch ceramic cat could actually take her place. I don’t know whether to cry or laugh when I think about it.
“Hey, Georgie,” I say, studying the soft brown markings along his nose and ears. “How are you? You get squished at all from everything that went on in there?” His blue almond-shaped eyes stare back at me. I turn him around, checking every angle. The tiny chip in his tail is still there, but everything else looks intact. “You’re a tough cat, you know that?” I lower my arm so that I can see him up close. He is trembling.
The Patron Saint of Butterflies Page 2
