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“Who are you then? Elders?”
Emmy laughs. “No, silly. We’re fellow sisters like Holly said.”
“So you’re going through initiation too?”
“All women of age are initiates before they get married,” she says as though it’s common info that we should’ve already learned.
“So you’re not married then?” I ask.
“No, silly. Husbands and wives move into their own huts. But we’re still bunked up with you girls for now,” Emmy says.
“Are you from our world or …?” April asks.
Emmy stops waving the broom around, and there’s a peculiar, judgmental look on her face that I can’t quite place. “Everyone is.”
Doom and gloom settle on April’s face. Maybe I should’ve warned her. Double-faced people can’t be anything but duplicitous. It’s in their very nature.
“Were you born here in the Holy Land?” I ask, without looking at either. I feel so ridiculous naming this whole community the Holy Land, but I have to play along in order to fit in.
“Yes,” Emmy replies.
The glass I’m holding almost breaks in my hand, so I release it just in time.
Born here, but they are our age. That means this whole “community” thing has been going on for a long time. How did I not know about this? Does anyone in the outside world know, apart from a few journalists and newspapers?
“Why do you ask? We’re no different from you,” she says.
“Right,” I mutter, and I look away.
“We’re all sisters here, waiting for our ritual to become wives.” She giggles gleefully as if it’s something to be excited about, but the mere prospect gives me the chills.
Ritual.
I wonder what it entails. If it’s more than simply putting a ring on a woman’s finger and calling her your wife. Maybe that’s why I never married a guy. The mere prospect of being reduced to nothing more than someone else’s belonging makes me feel like shit.
I am more than who owns me. I am more than the sum of my belongings or the people who surround me. And I am more than the scars on my body say I am.
I get up and turn away, sick to my stomach that I have to even think about it, let alone have a whole discussion. These people are nuts.
I go to the toilet and hold my belly. It aches right around the edge of where they once cut me, as though my skin wants to remind me of what it went through to get here. That I could’ve died …
I hold my breath for a moment.
“Are you okay?”
I’m whisked around by Emmy, whose eyes widen when she spots me touching my own belly underneath the dress.
“Oh, my …” she mutters as I quickly lower the dress.
“You have a scar … there,” she adds.
Fuck.
I was hoping she wouldn’t notice, but it’s too late now.
“Doesn’t matter.” I sigh, pushing past her.
“It does matter. You’re not untouched?” Her words resonate through the hut, and everyone’s looking at me now.
Untouched.
I think I know what that means.
Running my tongue along my teeth, I contemplate how I’m going to answer this ridiculous question that she has no right to ask. But if I don’t reply, they’ll surely report me to the elder wife … and I’ll be punished. So I say, “No.”
Both Emmy and Holly suck in the air as if it got knocked out of their lungs.
“What are you doing here then?” she asks, jaw dropped. “The ritual is only for the untouched.”
I close my eyes and try not to lose my shit, but I’m so close that I could scream in her face right about now. “I don’t know, Emmy,” I say as I turn around. “You tell me. Because I sure don’t understand any of this. None, whatsoever.”
I walk toward the door, but she follows me.
“But the men have never gathered captured without them being untouched. This has never happened before. Why?”
I shrug. “Some guy took an interest in me, I guess. Don’t ask me. Ask them.”
“Some guy?” she repeats. “No, that has to be from way up, if it’s ever allowed.”
I raise my brow at her, and her face completely tightens.
I don’t have to say another word, so I don’t.
Instead, I open the door and walk out.
I’m so glad those two left it unlocked, probably on purpose to test us, but I don’t care. I need the fresh air in my lungs because I can’t fucking breathe in that hut.
Why am I even here? I’m nothing to these people. I don’t belong here, yet they want me.
He wants me.
It’s all because of him; the man who took me from that joint where the Family was holding a speech. This Family. The one I’ve now been forced to become a part of just to please him.
Why? Why did he choose me? What on earth does he want from me?
Images of the symbol flash through my mind, and I can’t escape the thoughts circling through my head. Why did I have a cloth with that symbol on it? It can’t be a coincidence. This can’t all be a coincidence. There has to be a reason he took me.
