First, there are the books.
FINDING THE LIBRARY was an accident.
Prophet Childs would never let one of us check out books from a public library.
“We have our beliefs,” he’s said. “We have our God-given freedoms. And no one is going to take that away by brainwashing us with Satan’s teachings.”
Past the edge of the Compound. Past the fences. Past the river. Off our land, headed away. That’s where I was, looking off to the north and Florentin. I remember the day clear.
August 13. A late Wednesday afternoon. Hotter than fire. So hot the spit dried up in my mouth. So hot that when I stared at the empty road my eyes felt like they dried up, too. My work at home with my mother and with the other mothers was done—at least for a while—the quilting and helping with the laundry and working on dinner and even piano time.
So I stood there, just stood there, and then I heard something coming down the road behind me, the road that eventually runs in front of our Compound.
And here comes the Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels, rolling along, headed toward Florentin. Kicking up red dust behind it.
Why, as it got closer, a shiver went right down my arms even though it had to be a million degrees standing out there in the desert sun. The library on wheels went clunking past, coming from the south, and the man driving, clean-shaven face, ball cap pulled down low on his forehead, he nodded at me.
My heart just about leapt through the bones of my chest.
I gave the driver a look, squint-eyed because of the sun and his nod. Who did he think he was, nodding at me like that? I stared him right in the eye, even though the Prophet would have said it was a sin to look a Gentile in the face.
But seeing that van—that nodding driver—did something to me. I don’t know what. Or why.
The next day, same time, I went there again. Rushing through chores and piano practice and helping the mothers. Past the Compound. Past the fences. Past the river. Off our land. A good long ways away. I waited and waited. No truck.
So the next day and the next and the next, until a week had passed, and here comes the truck, rolling along again. Wednesday afternoon. Same man driving. He nodded. Again.
My heart thumped. I squinted. Looked him dead in the eye.
Third week he stopped.
Dust billowed up around us. I could taste the dirt. Crunched sand.
He rolled down the window. “You want a library card,” he said, adjusting the ball cap he wore. It wasn’t even a question.
And I nodded, like he’d done to me these past weeks.
“You can take four books out at a time,” he said when I inched my way into the truck, cooled by fans and air-conditioning.
I’d never seen so many books. Never. The sight made my eyes water. I mean, tear right up.
“Four?” I said. There was that sand on my tongue, gritting between my back teeth.
“Four.”
I eyed the man. Eyed the books. Stood still, my heart thumping.
“Maybe just one,” I said.
“You could start with this,” he said and handed me something from a basket near his feet. “A girl just your age turned it in on my last stop. She said she loved it. I loved it myself.”
His last stop? Another girl? He’d read this book?
I took the novel from him and glanced at the cover. Bridge to Terabithia.
I was there just a minute and I only took the one. One, I knew, would be easier to hide.
But oh, how my life changed with his stopping. My life changed when I started reading. I was different with these sinful words.
Who was this Katherine Paterson? Who was this Jesse and Leslie? People the writer knew? I could hardly read this book fast enough.
And when I did
when I got to the end
when I got to the end and
Leslie died
and Jesse was left alone without his best friend
I cried so hard that coming in from my hiding place, my tree, the book stashed in the branches, high in the prickles, Mother Victoria said, “Where have you been, Kyra? I needed help making bread.” Then she looked at my face and said, her voice all worried, “Honey, what happened?”
I couldn’t tell her a thing. Not about Leslie or May Belle or Jesse all alone. I couldn’t tell Mother Victoria a thing about drowning or running or painting.
Instead, I threw my arms around her waist and said, my head on her shoulder, crying my eyeballs out, “I love you so much, Mother Victoria.”
Then I set out delivering bread to my other mothers and to Sister Allred, who just had a baby, half-crying the whole way.
MY SINS.
A plan. Books. And a boy.
There’s a boy.
Oh, I am carrying the weight of what I have done. But no one seems to notice.
Mariah reaches for me. I look the other way. I’m too nervous to hold Mariah, baby Mariah.
I grip Laura’s hand and try not to think of what I’ve done. Keep my prayer chant going.
Everyone whispers together, all dressed up on a Tuesday evening, hair smoothed with water or in braids.
Mariah, quiet, holds her hands to me still.
I get to my feet again.
“Kyra?” Father says.
Mother Sarah looks at me. “Are you feeling okay, honey?”
“I want to . . .” I stop mid-sentence. I want to what? Leave? Stay? Run? Hide? “I was thinking about playing the piano,” I say. A big, fat lie. One more sin added to all that I carry.
Laura tugs on my hand and I sit down beside her again.
THERE ARE JUST a few places in the whole Compound with pianos.
Prophet Childs has a concert grand in his front room. I’ve seen it myself. Right through the plate-glass window. Pure white and shiny, that piano is. It has to be a concert grand. I bet a body could see her face in the shine of that thing. He lives in a brick house, so big it casts a long shadow on the lawn when the sun starts to set. The Apostles have houses and pianos, too. Not only does being an Apostle mean blessings from God, but blessings from the land, too. That’s what they’ve told us, and it seems that’s true.
There’re three pianos in the Temple, though I’ve only played the one in congregation room when Sister Georgia is ill. The final two pianos sit in the Fellowship Hall. One is an old Kawai. It’s my favorite.
It was there, on a Sunday morning after meetings that I wandered up to that piano and started playing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Just like that. Like I was born with the song stuck in my head. I was almost four.
“Listen to her,” Mother Sarah said. She ran right up to me, swooped me close, and said, “Did you hear her playing that song?”
Sister Georgia, who taught music lessons outside the Compound a long time ago, before she felt she was called to be a part of The Chosen, teaches anyone who wants to learn. My mother didn’t even hesitate when I plunked out that first song ten years ago. She marched me right up to Sister Georgia and said, “My Kyra is musical. She needs teaching.”
And I said, “I do.”
Music carries me away. Has since I was little. I can feel notes under my skin. Feel music in my muscles. Sometimes I even dream in Mozart or Beethoven scores. In the dreams, people speak out black musical notes, not words. And I understand every bit of it, exactly what they’re saying, when I dream.