She chewed her thumbnail. “I’m afraid she might be doing something noble.”
“Really? Like what?” As a future upstanding patriarch, Cory was always interested in gallantry. “No offense, but what can a girl do that’s noble?”
“I don’t know,” she snapped, faintly bothered.
For all that the faithful praised Agnes’s piety, no one seemed to see what Beth did—that her sister was special.
When she bowed her head for prayers, the craziest thought sometimes leapt into Beth’s mind: that Agnes was like an ancient prophet. The thought would overwhelm her like the vapor of a numinous cloud, then quickly pass, and she’d only see her plain-faced sister praying once more. She’d half forget the unsettling suspicion that Agnes was destined for greatness.
Real greatness.
Beth wouldn’t mind that she was destined for greatness, if only she’d share it. But last night, Agnes had slammed a door in her face.
And why? Hadn’t she always tried to be a good sister?
Beth broke away from her bleak thoughts and looked ardently at Cory, enjoying the way her gaze made him blush to the tips of his ears.
Despite his grand intentions, he was helpless to resist her.
“Let’s not talk about Agnes anymore,” she whispered.
Cory groaned, quickly conquered.
Under the juniper tree, they kissed until they were starved for breath, utterly consumed by their shared fire at the crimson edge of the earth.
5
BETH
Vanity on the part of a woman is whoredom. An affront to God.
—PROPHET JACOB ROLLINS
The bell tolled at sunset. Beth remembered: I’ve got to get home.
She pressed away from Cory, feeling the vise grip of panic.
It wasn’t just that Father would punish her if she were late for prayers. On this holy day of chores, there was one task that only she could perform.
Their mother—who Cory had explained might be depressed, according to a commercial he’d seen—refused to take food from anyone but Beth.
“She’ll be starving,” she muttered to herself.
“Who?” Cory’s lips looked bee-stung.
“Never mind, we’d better run.”
He glanced at the sun, barely clinging to a lavender sky, and blanched. They clasped hands once, then broke away, hurrying in opposite directions.
Beth raced through the far pastures, where the scent of manure assaulted her senses, and past the brackish baptismal lake. She cursed the heavy prairie skirt she clutched in one hand, while on the other side of town Cory sprinted unencumbered. She decided to cut through the western fields to avoid being seen on Church Street. Then she followed the green forest line to her own meadow and the hill that led her home.
She hoped to just beat Father, but dreaded Agnes’s cutting disappointment. Would she scold her in front of the kids? Or simply refuse to speak to her at all?
No one knew what a pain it was to have a perfect older sister. No one knew—
She slowed at the top of the hill, sighting Agnes on the porch stoop. Her sister’s arms were wrapped about herself like she was trying to keep out the cold. She looked exhausted, ancient.
Beth stepped onto the porch, automatically stamping her boots on the mat. Red canyon dust betrayed where she’d been. She froze midstamp.
Agnes displayed not a trace of anger or disappointment or even grief. She smiled kindly, with only the hint of a question in her eyes.
A look that said: If you want, you can tell me. If not, I understand.
No reaction could’ve made Beth feel more like slime. Her stomach turned in on itself, contorting with shame.
“Dinner’s on the stove. Mother’s waiting.” Agnes hesitated. “I’m so sorry that chore always falls to you.”
The screen door smacked behind her, and she was gone.
Beth doubled over, groaning her frustration.
Oh, why couldn’t Agnes shout and scold like other sisters? Why did she have to be so damned forgiving?
Insufferable. Infuriating.
Her sister, whom she couldn’t hate for loving so.
Their mother was born an Outsider.
Years ago, she’d come to Red Creek in search of a more spiritual way of life. Red Creek didn’t usually permit strangers onto the land, but their mother was persistent. Then Father fell in love with her and vouched for her purity of spirit. She’d already given birth to Agnes and Beth when it became clear she’d never fit in at Red Creek. In theory, she’d embraced their Laws; in practice, living among them was torture to her.
“I always thought she’d adjust to our ways,” Father had once told Beth, rubbing his bearded jaw bemusedly. “But she never did. She believed her opinions should matter as much as a man’s, and never understood that you can’t argue with God’s Law.”
Beth loaded a tray with homemade macaroni and cheese—Ezekiel’s favorite. Only the noodles were whole wheat now, which Agnes claimed was healthier. She was obsessive about caring for the baby of the family. Beth couldn’t help the rusty jealousy that hooked her heart. After all, Agnes didn’t care what she ate. Didn’t even care to ask where she’d been all afternoon.
Not that Beth owed her an explanation.
She walked the short hallway to the trailer’s back room, hardly aware that her hands were shaking, rattling the dishes balanced on their tray.
Once upon a time, Beth had loved being her mother’s special favorite. But as the years went on, her feelings had spoiled. Father claimed Beth was the spitting image of her mother when she was younger, a fact that disturbed her deeply. What if she’d inherited some kind of Outsider curse? What if that was why she was so unhappy living here, among God’s chosen?
She shook her head, clearing the doubts and fears, thick as cobwebs inside her skull.
I’m not in love, and that’s the main thing.
Cory couldn’t break her heart, as Father had broken her mother’s. She swore she’d never let herself love him so much that it destroyed her.
But she did love her family.
Even in her most selfish moments, her love for Mary, Faith, Ezekiel, and Sam remained like an inner ocean, sometimes ebbing, sometimes swelling—always there. And how could it be otherwise? She remembered the kids as toddlers, when they’d wandered about the trailer like clumsy bumblebees. She’d heard them speak their first words.
Mama, Sam had said, back when their mother was well.
May-ee, said Faith, and Fate, echoed Mary.
Aggie, cooed Ezekiel.
But love in the Prophet’s land was a treacherous thing, unstable as dynamite.
Beth took a breath at her mother’s door and knocked.
A wheezing whisper. “Beth? Is that you?”
Beth glanced back, and her eyes locked with Agnes’s. She hated her sister’s compassion—the way she tilted her chin, encouraging her.
Hated it and needed it, because Beth loved Agnes like the parched earth thirsts for rain. Her first word had been Aggie, too.
“Yes, Mother. It’s me.”
Beth swam through shadows to her mother’s bedside, her eyes slowly adjusting to the dark. There were only two other pieces of furniture in the room: a nightstand with the phone on it—for emergencies and for Father—and a dresser with an Outsider record player. The turntable was always loaded with Amazing Grace. Her mother had brought other records, but Father had broken them over his knee when Beth was five, because the lyrics were secular.