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Instead, I reach for what will incense them most. While they drag me to the chair, I curse their God with every vile thing I can think of. The crowd's medley of shocked gasps makes me smile, a deranged looking thing I’m sure but who am I to them now but a wicked, broken thing?
Let them witness it. Let them see.
I’m pushed down and tied to the chair, now forced to look at the faces I’ve avoided for the last thirteen years. I fight against the urge to close my eyes, I can’t stand the thought of showing them any more weakness. I refuse to find the one person I can’t bear to see in the crowd, or else I’ll crack. So for now I focus on a point at the back of the room and keep my eyes averted.
“For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered,” my brother says in a commanding tone. A small murmur ripples through the crowd, heads nodding to what Frederick just quoted.
The words rake over my skin and suddenly I know with absolute certainty what’s to come. I might have left a long time ago, but an infuriating part of me still remembers most of what I was forced to memorize as a child.
My head is yanked backwards and I hear the snip of the scissors before the first strands of hair drift to the floor. I feel my fortitude fail and can’t help but close my eyes. Not when Frederick continues to cut strand after strand of my long black hair.
I’m shaking, but I can’t crack now. I can’t let him win.
The crowd begins to chant a hymn I recognize from childhood, the words eating through my soul like acid. Eventually, I hear the buzz of the clippers and when I feel the cold, hard glide on my head, my resolve disintegrates. My eyes open, and my gaze sweeps over the sea of faces staring back at me. I find her sitting near the front.
Lucy.
My worst fear was to find her sneering with the same vitriol as everyone else. Instead, her face is nearly blank, shut down, but she can’t hide the emotions in her eyes. The hurt I find there reaches out to me and I take it. I hold on to it with everything I have, connecting us to one another, everything else fading away.
I don’t even realize I’ve been crying until I feel the tears soak into my dress, but still, I hold on to the hope that my sister isn’t lost to me. I hold on to the belief that there’s a part of her that still loves me as deeply as I love her even after all these years apart.
While my brother continues to shave my head, something shifts and I’m suddenly filled with hope so powerful that if I still believed in their God I would find awe in this grim moment. I would find purpose in what I’m being subjugated to and know with absolute certainty that I will find my way out of this.
When arms take hold of me again, I don’t fight back. They drag me out of this godforsaken place and I hold on to Lucy’s gaze instead until the very last moment.
Back in my room, I’m stuck in a shocked daze, back between the four walls that call out to all of my fears and laughs at my pain. The silence is deafening, the overwhelming fog of the past and present oppressing my future.
Listlessly, I walk into the small bathroom, unbutton my dress and step into the small shower. The water is too hot and not hot enough, it turns my skin raw while I feverishly rinse away as much as I can of what just happened. The steam rises, turning so thick I can barely see in front of me. My shaky hands slide over my shaved head while the tears continue to spill.
It’s not the loss of my hair that has me choking back a sob. It’s the manner in which it was done. The power Frederick tried to strip away from me as he did so. He wanted me to feel shame. He yearned for my submission.
And I gave it to him.
I let him see my tears, and I grit my teeth at the memory. I slam my palm on the wall and slide down to the floor, the hot water still scalding my skin. I don’t know how long I stay huddled like this but I can’t move. It’s long enough for the water to turn cold, and I invite the feeling. By the time I shut the shower off, I’ve turned numb.
Before leaving the bathroom, I force myself to look into the small cracked mirror. I can no longer recognize who I find reflected back.
Was Lenix ever real?
I can’t tell anymore. Nothing makes any sense.
All I know is that I’ve been stripped bare. Broken open.
I don’t know who I’m supposed to be. Or who I ever was. None of these skins fit.
How am I to discern the truth hidden behind all these lies?
When I finally walk out of the bathroom, I find fresh clothes waiting for me. I don’t bother obsessing about the lack of privacy and just slip the dress over my head. I sit on the bed, losing myself in the dire thoughts claiming my sanity, and stare at the wall until my vision blurs. Through the fog, the vision from long ago finds me once again. The same I used to have back when I was Penelope. Of a bloody knife. Of hurt and heartache. And of retribution straight through the heart.
“Penelope?”
I’m so far down in the tunnel of my own thoughts that it takes the voice a few more times repeating my name for me to wake from wherever I was lost to.
“It is me… Lucy.” Her voice cracks when she says her name, sounding like a part of her is as lost as I am. Uncertainty lingers in her tone as if I wouldn’t remember her after all this time.
How could I ever forget my baby sister?
Having fallen asleep, I roll on my side slowly, terrified she’ll morph into all the others who were condemning me today.
