Beth yanked Agnes’s braid and passed her a folded paper.
“I wish you wouldn’t pass notes,” Agnes murmured irritably.
But their Sunday school teacher hadn’t arrived yet. The other girls were busily chattering, enjoying their time away from chores.
The note, written in Beth’s bubbly cursive, was short and sweet:
I forgive you.
Agnes looked into her wide green eyes, surprised. Beth smiled so graciously that Agnes couldn’t help but smile back. Her sister had a good heart. Of course one single secret wouldn’t come between them.
Beth turned away, and Magda Jameson tapped Agnes’s shoulder.
Agnes felt an inwards curl of disgust.
Magda was Red Creek’s most vicious gossip. She was prone to mincing, fussing, and looking down on anyone whose father owned less land and fewer livestock. Though Agnes braced herself, nothing could’ve prepared her for the lash of Magda’s poisoned tongue.
“I heard your sister’s been tempting my brother Cory.”
Her pencil clattered to the floor. “What?”
Magda wrinkled her nose in distaste. “Everyone says she’s utterly shameless. Practically in rebellion.”
Agnes wanted to shake her for saying such a thing. Girls had been shunned, humiliated, banished for less.
“That’s vile gossip and you know it.”
Magda only smirked. Agnes was grateful when Mrs. King marched into the room, angling her hips between rows of identical desks.
“Well, girls? Who’d like to share her summary of the sermon?” Mrs. King’s eyes roamed across their faces and, finally, with a cruel glittering, fell on hers. “Agnes? Will you?”
Her stomach dropped.
Since childhood, she’d dreaded public speaking.
She looked helplessly at her hands. On her right was the ugly broken knuckle, never properly healed. She didn’t blame Mrs. King for breaking it. Her methods may have been harsh, but Agnes had dearly needed the correction.
She had spoken blasphemy, claiming to hear God—but never again.
Mrs. King sighed. “Well. I see the cat’s got her tongue.”
The other girls tittered, and Agnes could’ve died.
“You know she can’t answer in front of everyone.” Beth’s voice rang clear as a bell. “So why do you keep calling on her?”
Mrs. King’s face darkened. Agnes held her breath.
Rebellion, her heart beat. Beth, are you in rebellion?
“If you object to how I run my class, you can leave it,” spat Mrs. King. “I’m sure the Prophet will be happy to see you in his office.”
Fear buried itself in Agnes’s chest like an arrow. Beth must not choose this path. Didn’t she know what was at stake?
Punishment. Exile.
And worst of all, the wrath of God.
A long, tense pause, while the other girls watched, curious as crows.
“I only mean, it seems unfair,” Beth said—but repentantly enough.
Agnes slumped with relief.
“Careful, young lady,” Mrs. King warned her sister. “Now. Who will summarize?”
Magda’s hand shot up, and Agnes grimaced.
“The sermon was on the role of the sexes.” That mincing voice, sickly sweet and taunting. “The Prophet says that until marriage, girls must keep themselves pure and chaste, and treat men as if they were snakes.”
Beth laughed, a punched, angry sound.
Mrs. King whirled. “Who’s laughing? Raise your hand.”
Beth stared innocently at the chalkboard. No girl proved brave enough to point a finger. But the damage was done, her reputation further sullied.
Agnes squirmed, underlining the lesson’s title over and over: Why Perfect Obedience Produces Perfect Faith.
Then came a bitter rush of guilt. Beth was toying with rebellious urges—Agnes saw that quite clearly now. For years, she’d been entirely focused on Ezekiel’s illness. But all along, something dark and equally dangerous had been happening inside Beth.
She remembered her sister saying, If you are in rebellion, I understand. Don’t you know I have doubts, too?
At the first opportunity, Agnes promised herself she’d speak to her sister. She hoped it wasn’t too late to stop her from doing something stupid, or dangerous, or both.
3
AGNES
Women are wholly incapable of interpreting God’s word.
—PROPHET JACOB ROLLINS
Sundays are a day of rest.
Fortunately for the people of Red Creek, however, God Himself had revealed to the Prophet that women could still perform housework.
For Agnes, that meant mountains of laundry followed by the dull, repetitive work of ironing. Afterwards, she and Beth baked crackers for the week ahead. If they had time, they tackled mending—loose buttons, torn hems.
Today she planned to corner Beth while the crackers baked. Father had gone to his Scripture meeting. If she sent the kids outside, they could talk—really talk—alone. But when it came time to heat the oven, her sister was nowhere to be found. Not in the living room or the bathroom (where she often lingered before the mirror), or in the meadow.
While Agnes searched, her throat tightening, the twins, Mary and Faith, perched outside the screen door, practicing their reading.
“M is for Mary, the Mother of our God,” they recited from a tattered workbook. “And N is for Noah, who saved the Naughty world.”
Beth disappeared sometimes. Probably, she was only scribbling in her diary at the forest’s edge. But she’d never abandoned Agnes on a busy Sunday before. Glancing at the laundry heaped on the kitchen table, she frowned.
“O is for Obadiah,” intoned the twins, “who hid the prophets from Oppression.”
“Have you seen Beth?” she asked Sam.
He glanced at her, face troubled. “Something’s wrong with Ezekiel.”
Panic swooped in on black wings. “Where is he?”
He pointed. “He said he was too tired to come up the hill. I called him a wimp, but—”
It was low blood glucose, had to be. Agnes felt inside her pockets, where she kept hard candies, each fifteen carbs exactly. She brushed past Sam and raced outdoors, pulse throbbing in her temples, glucose meter cutting into her thigh. She found her little brother slouched beneath a tree. Deep circles had etched themselves around his eyes. He looked like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
“Agnes?” he slurred.
“Here.” She handed him a candy. “Eat this.”
With her back turned to the trailer, she reached under her skirt and unstrapped the meter for a check. She’d assumed he was low, but still the number shocked her.
65!
If Sam hadn’t warned her—if he’d passed out, all alone…
Try not to scare him, Matilda had said. But understand, a low could kill him faster than you’d believe.
“Why didn’t you eat one of your granola bars?”
“Tommy King took them,” Ezekiel whispered.
Agnes shuddered, hating that little bully. But her feelings weren’t fair. No one but her and Ezekiel knew anything about his dangerous illness.
It had all started when Ezekiel was five years old. Suddenly, he couldn’t get enough to drink. He hogged the bathroom all day and wet the bed every night. He grew as sinewy as a starving lamb.