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Kandace let her head loll forward, another deep shudder running through her body, nerve endings zinging with intolerable pain. Tears coursed down her cheeks and she let out a barely perceptible cry as the salt of her pain ran over her raw skin. Her gaze moved over the girls. Please don’t look up. Don’t see this. She could only imagine what she looked like, strung up like some alternate version of Christ, wearing only a bra and underwear, skin bloody and ruined. But she knew they’d be made to look. After all, she was there as an example for the rest of them. Repent. Obey. Or this will be you. Apparently, whatever injuries the other girls who’d been disciplined had sustained while she was there, hadn’t been enough of a show. This though? This was plenty.
“Please rise,” came Ms. Wykes’s voice. She was standing somewhere on Kandace’s right but Kandace didn’t bother trying to lift her head to see her. She didn’t have the strength. The girls rose slowly, lifting their gazes to her, some visibly drawing back, others standing in shocked silence while tears rolled down their cheeks.
The heat from the window beat into her injured flesh and a memory enveloped her, causing the pain to recede momentarily. Light had streamed into the attic where she and Scarlett used to play. It’d been beautiful, like a spotlight God had made just for them, not the god Lilith House described, but the one she’d felt in her spirit, and she and her friend had danced in its glow, twirling and whirling and dreaming the dreams of little girls whose lives stretched before them—wide open and full of possibility. She’d been innocent then, no mistakes, no failures. No regrets. Just unending grace. Why had she let go of that? Why had she given it up so willingly?
Kandace closed her eyes and pretended she was there now. She heard the words Scarlett had said, so long ago, when she’d found Kandace crying after her mother had rejected her once again: You’re stronger than you think you are, she’d whispered, taking her hand.
You’re stronger than you think you are. The words repeated in her head now, like a mantra, like a life raft in a sea of misery and pain.
Because the thing was, Scarlett had offered her that same grace even after she’d fallen. She’d reached out her hand but Kandace hadn’t taken it. Not that time.
She’d eventually been sent to Lilith House. And there was no grace here, only shame.
“If we confess our sins,” Ms. Wykes’s voice broke through her thoughts, “He is faithful and just and will forgive us and purify us from unrighteousness. Isn’t that right, Ms. Thompson?”
Kandace moved her eyes toward her but didn’t answer.
“Are you ready to confess your sins?”
You’re stronger than you think you are. “Yes, Ms. Wykes.”
She smiled. “Good. Tell the other girls what you have done, and why you required cleansing.”
Kandace moved her eyes toward the other girls. Her gaze met that of Lucille, the girl she’d passed in the hallway and the girl lowered her eyes, a flash of guilt moving over her expression. She’d followed Kandace. She’d seen her entering Ms. Wykes’s office. She’d told on her. Which meant . . . it was all they knew? She pulled her shoulders back very slightly, holding back the sob of pain. You’re stronger than you think you are. She looked from one classmate to the other, hoping they could see in her gaze that though she was bent—burned and bloodied—she was not broken. “I snuck into Ms. Wykes’s office to find the drugs I brought with me,” she said. “Drugs, a tool of the devil.” She let her head fall slightly.
“Yes, drugs, a tool of the devil, indeed,” Ms. Wykes said. “Will you cast away all tools of Satan from this moment forward, Ms. Thompson?”
“Yes, Ms. Wykes.”
“Why? Why will you do that?”
She looked at her in confusion for a moment, and then realized what she wanted from her. “Because,” her voice cracked, “my utmost for His glory.”
Ms. Wykes nodded proudly, like one of her students who had formerly been severely lacking suddenly showed a sign of possibility. “Yes, Ms. Thompson. All that you are. All that you must cast away. All that you must relinquish and forsake. Your utmost for His glory. Do you understand?”
“Yes, I understand. My utmost for His glory,” Kandace repeated weakly. Behind her, the sun blazed. On her wrists, the cord bit into her bloody flesh. She cringed and shook, biting the inside of her cheeks to keep from passing out. Her eyes, so, so heavy, lifted slightly to capture Ms. Wykes in her fiendish satisfaction.
“Repeat after Ms. Thompson, girls,” Ms. Wykes said, turning toward the other students. They repeated the words in a low monotone.
Ms. Wykes, a pleased smile on her lips, raised her arms in the air and sang out the words herself, throwing her head back as though in ecstasy. “Now then. Shall we begin our service?”
