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She’s confused. “I used the stepping stones. You saw me—”
“No. I mean, you’re not like the other girls. You’re not hobbling or waddling. You’re like … normal.”
“You mean ugly.”
“What?”
“I have ugly man feet. Just say it.”
I stare down at her boots, stained darker brown by the water. “I don’t see how—”
“Yes, yes, I know. They’re huge. They’re man feet. I get it. So they haven’t been beautified into lotus feet yet. You don’t have to stare.” Her lips turn down in revulsion. “But my time is coming. I was supposed to have my procedure last year. But then I got assigned.”
“Assigned to what? What are you talking about?”
“I’m a wood collector. I need to have man feet to forage the forest, gather wood. That’s my assignment.”
“That’s why you were so far away from the village. At the cabin.”
Her eyes open in alarm; she looks quickly around. “Broadcast that to the whole world, why don’t you?” She steps closer to me. “Please don’t tell anyone, okay? I’m not supposed to stray that far away. Not anymore, anyway.”
“The log cabin. That’s where the Scientist—Elder Joseph— retreated to, wasn’t it, where he lived?”
She nods, her eyes dropping.
“Why did he live there? So far from the Mission?”
“I must go now.”
“No, please. You’re like the only person I can talk to here. What happened to the Scientist?”
Her eyes narrow with suspicion. “He died. Suicide by hanging.” She studies me carefully. “Haven’t you been told?”
“It wasn’t a suicide. It wasn’t, was it?”
Her face goes dark, her eyes recede into their sockets. “I have to go now,” she says. “We’re breaking the first bylaw. ‘Remain together in groups of three or more. Solitariness is not permit—’”
“I know what the bylaws state. Forget them for a second, will you?” I step toward her, soften my tone. “I’ve got the creeps about this place. You can tell me, Clair. What happened to the Scientist?”
For a moment, a light flickers in her eyes.
“He didn’t die by suicide, did he?” I say with urgency.
Something in her relents. Her posture softens and she opens her mouth to speak—
The sound of singing issues behind us, rhapsodizing about sunshine and grace and a bright new beautiful day. A line of village girls, arms weighed down with full baskets of laundry, appears from around a bend. The girls stop in surprise on seeing me standing on the deck.
I turn back around. Clair’s gone. I scan the woods, trying to catch movement. “Clair?”
But she’s disappeared.
Frustrated, I walk past the line of laundry girls. They stoop low, heads bowed, lips pulled back to expose teeth in what’s supposed to be a smile. So fake, even my put-on smiles look more sincere. Good morning, they chime. Good morning. Good morning.
A few of them have already rolled up their sleeves, readying to dip clothes into the stream. I see the flash of skin, then an ugly puckered scar on the inside of one’s forearm. A thick protruding scab in the shape of an X, thick pale pink bands, like intersecting leeches. I’m ready to ignore it and move on. But then I see the same scar on another girl, except she has two such scars on her arm.
I stop. Stare at the scars. Realize what they are. Realize what’s been done to the girls.
They’ve been branded.
The girl sees me staring, and quickly rolls her sleeve down to cover the scars. But only her left sleeve; she doesn’t touch her rolled right sleeve still bunched over her elbow. The skin on her right forearm is also marked. Not with branded scars, but with a curious tattoo:
?
“What’s your name?” I say to her.
She flinches at the sound of my voice. For a moment she freezes; they all freeze. “Good morning, sir?” she says, her mouth smiling to the ground, her voice withering with fear.
“What’s your name?” I ask, as gently as I can.
“We’re not supposed to speak to you,” she says. She’s cringing.
“Why not?” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “Just your name. That’s all. What’s your name?”
“Debby,” she mumbles after a pause.
“Debby,” I repeat, and she jumps at the sound of her name coming from my mouth. “What’s that?” I ask, pointing.
She peeks up, sees me indicating the tattoo mark on her arm. “It’s my Merit Mark,” she says, casting her eyes back to the ground.
“What’s a Merit Mark?” I ask.
But she doesn’t answer. Strands of her loosened hair tremble in the wind.
“What’s the matter?” I say. “Why won’t you—”
“Leave her alone.”
There’s an audible gasp. All heads quickly stoop lower. Except the girl who spoke. Her eyes are on mine. There is fear in them. But there is also something hard as stone that does not wilt. But only for a second. Then she lowers her head, stares hard at the ground.
I look at this girl closely. She is the tallest of the group, but also the thinnest. A splattering of freckles splash across her nose and cheeks. But that’s not what is most distinctive about her. It’s her left forearm. She has four Xs branded into her skin. Brutal, ugly, like metal instruments burrowed into her skin.
And then her eyes rise up again to meet mine. Without shyness. Or shame.
Instead, there is a careful, cautious speck of … hope.
“What are those?” I ask, pointing at the brands on her arm.
“They’re called Demerit Designations.”
I glance at her right forearm. It’s clean, void of any smiley face tattoos.
“Why do you have these … Demerit Designations? What do they mean?”
And all she says is: “Please.” Her voice is soft but sturdy.
“What?” I say.
“If I answer your questions,” she says, “I break the bylaws. And if I break the bylaws, we all do. That’s written in the precepts. Guilty by association. We’ll all get disciplined, not only me.” And her eyes come up to meet mine again. There is an urgent pleading in them. “Some of us stand to lose a lot with one more demerit.” Her voice lowers. “So please. Please let us be about our business. Please leave us be.”
I take a step back, not sure of what
to do next.
She shuffles forward. “Come girls,” she says, and they all follow her onto the wooden deck, their feet clocking hollowly on the planks.
I walk up the path, confused. So many questions, half-formed in my mind, the answers to which I know I won’t receive. The colors of the village greet my eyes, the bright flowery dresses of yet more village girls making their way down the path, the bright red splash of bricked chimneys, the gaudy yellow of window frames.
Before I turn the bend, I look back at the deck. All the girls are now stooped over, pulling laundry out of their baskets and scrubbing clothes in the river. Only the girl with freckles is standing. Her head is turned sideways but I can tell she is watching me, carefully, from the corner of her eyes. Then she, too, kneels down and tends to the laundry.
* * *
My morning is spent ambling around as if on a casual, relaxed stroll. In fact, my eyes are peeled for … I’m not sure. Something. Anything that seems out of sorts. But it’s all the same—groups of girls settling into their daily chores, carrying bags of flour to the kitchen, watching over the play of a group of toddlers in a playground, hammering away at new cabinetry in the woodwork barn, carrying bottles of milk in the maternity ward to row after row of babies howling in their cribs. When my legs tire, I sit down in the village square and watch all the activity from a bench. Basking in the warm sunlight, I hear the occasional squawk of a low-flying eagle, the chatter of children, the clatter of dishes coming from the kitchen. It’s easy to be lulled into the provincial pace, the warm colors, the honeyed aromas drifting from the kitchen. I can almost understand how Epap and the boys could so easily have the wool pulled over their enchanted eyes.
My thoughts drift to my father. Every cobblestone I step on in this village, I wonder how many times he’d stepped on it; every doorknob I turn, every fork I use, I wonder how many times his fingers touched them. His fingerprints are everywhere here. But invisible. His presence seems to be floating around the streets, his eyes on me, as if he’s trying to tell me something.
By the time Sissy finds me, I’m drowsy and, despite everything, almost content. She’s edgy, sitting next to me with a razor-sharp posture.
“I can’t find the boys,” she says with irritation.
