“Are you okay?”
Without thinking, she held a finger to her lips, listening harder, leaning into the dark.
Strangely, Agnes felt like the humming sound had been there all along, the way the stars were still there, though obscured. She just hadn’t been listening until now.
She studied the Outsider boy. For the first time she let herself wonder: What if he were telling the truth?
She spoke slowly, cautiously. “What did you say was out there?”
He blew out a breath. “Danger.”
The sound was filling her up. Prying her open. She couldn’t guess why he didn’t hear, but something was out there. She was sure. And it bothered her, the thought of something lurking in the woods—something the Prophet surely must know about, as God’s emissary on earth.
“If it was really dangerous,” she said, “our Prophet would’ve warned us.”
Danny frowned. “Are you sure?”
Agnes felt suddenly nauseated. As the sound hummed around her, blurring the lines that once were so clear, Agnes saw herself for the first time through an Outsider’s eyes.
To Danny and Matilda, the Laws of Red Creek weren’t her shelter.
They were her prison.
It’s a test, she thought wildly. God sent this boy as a test.
“Take the phone. Please. My mother says she’ll pay through the summer. If you’re ever in trouble, all you have to do is tap her name. See?”
He tilted the mobile phone’s lighted screen, showing her.
Agnes almost walked away then, leaving him holding that sinister device.
But the humming sound remained, plucking at her ribs.
Agnes, are you in rebellion?
Impulsively, she snatched the phone, pocketed it. Then, with the cooler in hand, she started back uphill, too shaken to say goodbye.
Danny said, faintly, almost sadly: “Goodbye, Agnes.”
She kept walking.
The sound—she’d heard something like it before, but when?—stayed with her until she reached her trailer.
When she touched the cold metal doorknob, the humming ceased quick as light.
She pressed her back against the wall, breathing hard. The sound couldn’t be the same haunting she remembered from childhood, when all the world seemed to sing. It wasn’t possible.
She flexed her hand, gazing down at the broken knuckle.
She thought, It can’t be.
9
AGNES
Who is worthy to receive the Lord’s holy messages? The head of house and prophets only…
—PROPHET JACOB ROLLINS
Sunday, again.
At dawn, Agnes buried the phone in her garden beside Ezekiel’s insulin cooler.
All was silence. In the cold gray light, she could almost believe she’d imagined the otherworldly humming. But the phone, so slippery and black, was a concrete reminder.
She never should have accepted it, but it was only a momentary stumble. If she buried her sins deep enough, she wouldn’t have to think of the Outsider boy or his wild tale ever again.
At church, despite her best efforts, her mind wasn’t easy. She struggled to shut out little things, like how the patriarchs huddled together before the service, whispering urgently.
Or how the Prophet’s sermon specifically condemned—for the thousandth time but with uncommon force—the reading of newspapers and the keeping of radios.
“One day soon the Outsiders will fall,” the Prophet bellowed from his pulpit. “And we will shelter in the Underground Temple. Until then, we trust in our perfect faith. Amen.”
Agitated, Agnes tapped her foot against the hardwood floor.
Surely the Prophet had good reason for keeping them in the dark, if indeed he did. Surely it was better to swallow her curiosity than indulge a sin.
But Lord, it was hard to keep steady today. The events of last night—and the Outsider boy—had set her mind to rattling like a rainstorm shuddering a windowpane.
“Let us pray,” intoned the Prophet.
For the first time in her memory, Agnes’s eyes batted open while the others bowed their heads. She thought: But the sound, oh, God, the sound.
If she hadn’t known better, she would’ve said it was God’s voice she’d heard.
She fought not to think: The glory of God thundereth.
And fought not to think: Mine ears thou hast opened.
It was the deepest possible sin—wasn’t it?—to entertain the idea that God would deign to speak to her, when everyone knew only patriarchs and prophets were fit to receive divine guidance. Her eyes met Beth’s over the heads of the faithful. A charge leapt between them, and a question appeared in her sister’s gem-green eyes: What’s wrong with you today?
But this time it was Agnes, consumed by her own inner turmoil, who looked away.
10
BETH
Cherish this holy community, for it is your only bastion against the heat of hell.
—PROPHET JACOB ROLLINS
At the Kings’ after-church gathering, Beth leaned against the wall of the dairy barn, struggling to imagine her life after Agnes’s wedding in two weeks’ time.
No matter how she sliced it, that life looked miserable.
In the pasture below, her siblings—all except Ezekiel, who’d gone home with Agnes—played the Apocalypse Game with the ten little King children. Beth, caught in the sticky web of her thoughts, twined her braid around her knuckles and silently fumed.
Did anyone care how much harder her life was about to become? How much responsibility she’d be forced to shoulder, just to keep the kids dressed, fed, alive?
She wasn’t sure she could manage it, and Lord knew she’d have no help from anyone.
Then the Jamesons arrived—Cory with his lesser brothers and Magda—and Beth smiled. Smoothing the waist of her prairie dress, she pushed away from the wall, knowing whose eyes would find her.
Cory winked and nodded towards the barn, and Beth’s belly tightened with anticipatory pleasure.
They kissed in the stifling gloom while the cows lowed. She’d missed the feel of his body against hers, and she kissed him like she meant to drink him.
Then she backed into a spiderweb, felt its sticky tendrils against her neck, and shrieked.
“That’s one of God’s creatures, too, you know.” Cory laughed.
“Maybe so, but I still hate them. Their crawly legs…”
With his sleeve, he gallantly brushed the spiderweb away. “There. Better?”
She thought: Here was a boy who would do anything for her. Anything.
“Cory,” she said, testing, “next time you go to the gas station to watch television, can’t you take me with you?”
“Oh, Beth.” His face fell. “Why would you want to take a risk like that?”
In truth, she wasn’t even sure she wanted to go—it was a grave risk, and Father would belt her if she were caught Outside. Anyway, soon enough she’d be too busy with chores to even dream of meeting Cory.
I’m going to have to change my whole self, from the inside out. No more quitting chores. No more distracting the kids when it’s time for lessons. No more fun at all.
She sighed. The future unfurled itself before her, bleak as a yellowed scroll.
“Cheer up.” Cory touched her chin. “I brought you a present.”