“ARE YOU READY, Kyra?” Mother Claire stands looking into my room with Mariah on her hip. “We’ve got a long way to go.”
I’ve washed my face, changed my clothes. I feel like Laura in a Little House on the Prairie book. The way they got dressed up before heading to town so they would be respectable.
My Laura and I have braided each other’s hair. We’ve made sure our dresses are ironed, that our white tights have no holes. I’ve polished our black shoes.
Neither one of us speaks. There’s nothing I can do to change this. Nothing. I grab Laura’s hand.
Outside, it is a lie of a morning. Everything is beautiful: The air fresh. The sky so blue it hurts my eyes. A breeze moves my Russian Olive trees. It’s like they are waving me a good-bye. All is quiet except for the cry of a baby from someone’s trailer.
Mother Victoria jangles the keys. “Let’s go,” she says, grinning. She seems anxious to get away. To travel out of here and into the real world.
We head to the family van, a sixteen-passenger that we outgrew years ago.
Mother Sarah sits shotgun. Mother Victoria starts the engine while Mother Claire fastens Mariah into her car seat.
I slide in on the middle bench and pull Laura with me.
We drive forward, moving slow through the black-topped streets, past the trailers, the Temple, the store, the Fellowship Hall. We’re headed to the gates of The Chosen Ones.
When people go to town, they go in groups of three or four families. “There is safety in numbers,” Prophet Childs always tells us.
But not us. Not today. It’s just my three mothers and Laura and baby Mariah, because she’s so young.
I glance at Laura sitting there beside me, quiet.
Could I live without any of my sisters? Without Laura? Even for Joshua?
Laura squeezes my hand but doesn’t look at me.
Even in my imagination, could I leave her?
But I am going to leave her.
In one month, I’m gone.
The fabric, this morning.
The date, tonight.
All the days will fly past.
And then I’ll leave these women and my sisters and brothers and my father and go to live with my uncle. The thought causes real pain right in the center of my chest.
Mother Victoria turns left toward town—fifty minutes away—the opposite direction I go when I walk to the Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels.
My mothers, all of them, once we are free from the Compound, start to talk. They laugh with each other. They tease. They tell stories about “before,” when they traveled to town anytime anyone wanted.
Down the rutted road toward civilization we all go, me listening to their laughter, headed to the things that will help me start a new life I do not want.
I will be a seventh wife.
ONCE, A FEW YEARS BACK, I saw Mother Sarah angry at Mother Victoria.
I listened in at the back door that stood open to let the morning’s cool air into the trailer. I peered in the window. I saw the whole thing. Laura and I were supposed to be pulling bugs off the watermelon plants. But I heard Mother’s voice coming out the kitchen window.
“Just because I’m younger, she’s angry with me,” Mother had said.
There was something in her voice that made me want to eavesdrop. I crept under the window to listen.
“What are you doing, Kyra?” Laura said, looking over and seeing me. Her arms were crossed. “You have to help.”
I held a finger to my lips. “I will,” I said. “Just give me a minute.”
“It’s jealousy,” Mother Claire said. “None of us can help but feel it. Sharing a man the way we do.”
“She gets nasty sometimes,” Mother Sarah said.
“You’re supposed to be working,” Laura said.
I waved at her like I was flapping away flies. “Shhh,” I said. But I thought, Sharing a man? What did that mean? Like I shared work with Laura? Or toys with little Margaret?
There was quiet in the trailer for a minute. Then Mother Claire said, “Follow the Prophet, Sarah. We give up things now for a life in the hereafter that will be better.”
“I know,” my mother said. Her voice was soft with tears. “But, I’ll never be a first wife. I’ll never be anything but a third wife to him.”
_________
WHEN DID MOTHER SARAH get over being unhappy? And how long did it last? And would she have felt this jealousy if Father had been an old man like Uncle Hyrum?
“IS THIRD BEST?” I asked Mother Sarah, later, much later. I remember Father was gone to another wife’s house, but I’m not sure which one.
“What do you mean?” Mother asked. It was bedtime and my younger sisters were all asleep themselves or getting ready for bed. Mother slipped from her dress into a nightgown that hung all the way to the floor.
“You’re the third wife,” I said. I looked off over the bed toward the window. Joshua and I had just started meeting in secret. Could I share him? I wondered. “Do you feel, like, third place?”
“Oh,” she said, surprise in her voice.
Out of the corner of my eye I watched her pull her hair free from its braid. Her hair so long she can sit on it. And thick, too. Beautiful to run your hands through. I have, brushing it till it shines in the bulb light of this room.
Did Father do that?
I was embarrassed by the thought.
“Are you ever jealous?” I wanted to say “still.” Are you still jealous? But I didn’t.
My question hung in the air. Mother walked through it to climb into bed.
“This is God’s way, Kyra,” Mother said after a long while. “This is God’s choice for us. Prophet Childs has told us so.”
But what do you think? I wanted to ask her. I didn’t. Instead, I just ran a brush through Mother’s hair for her, feeling the heavy silkiness of it and smelling the odor of lavender.
One day, I thought, I’ll leave home. Start my own family.
I was struck with how I would miss this. Miss my mother. My sisters. My throat tightened and I thought I might choke. Oh!
Tears rolled down my cheeks. Dripped from my chin. But I kept brushing my mother’s hair, until she was ready to sleep.
I’VE SEEN WOMEN screaming at each other. Fighting over their husband. It’s true. Not often. But once it happened right outside the Temple. Three women married to Brother Smythe. He stood there between them, trying to keep one wife from hitting another.
The Prophet was called. And all us kids standing around watching things unfold were sent home.
“This is the Devil’s work,” Prophet Childs said. “Get on home to your fathers and tell them what you saw.”
We ran.
Father told us all that evening those three women were beaten by the God Squad.
“They’ll not step out of line again,” Mother Victoria said. Her lips were thin and white.
Mother Claire just glared. Making sure we each saw that she disapproved what those wives had done, I guess.
“Next time,” Mother Sarah said, “you come home when something like that starts to happen.”
“I will,” I said.
But I couldn’t help but wonder about the little red-headed wife. Not more than fifteen. Maybe. Those other two women pulling on her, slapping at her. Because she was prettiest, I bet. And thin still. Not chubby like the others, though I could see the shape of her belly growing under the dark green of her dress.
_________
MOTHER VICTORIA DRIVES GREAT. She flies along the two-lane road like she is a professional driver. Uses only one hand on the steering wheel, even. Better than Mother Sarah when she taught me.
“We have an engagement to attend to,” she says, eyeing me and Laura in the rearview mirror. She can’t wait to get to Applebee’s. Every once in a while she laughs with happiness, just from being out from the Compound, I think. Her laughter causes us all to smile.
“You’re dead crazy,” Mother Claire says.
I
watch as the world zips past. Look at the sky. Sit quiet next to Laura.
I want to tell Mother Victoria to slow down some, so I can see everything.
If I run away, this is the direction I’ll go. Florentin is north of here a few hundred miles. That’s what the map in the Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels says.
Soon the barren land grows greener. There are more houses. Then more cars. Just like that, Mother Victoria loses her professional-quality driving. She puts her foot on the brake so often I think I might get whiplash. She drives close to other vehicles—not just too close to cars, but to buses and trucks, too. It’s scary. Mother Sarah is white-knuckled in the front. I can see her hand gripping the armrest.
Mother Claire gives instruction from her seat right behind Mother Victoria. “Watch it on your left,” she says. “Brake! Brake! Brake!” And “If I get out of here alive, Victoria, I swear . . .”
“Stop it, Claire,” Mother Victoria says. She’s leaned forward, her face almost over the steering wheel. “You keep startling me.”
“I can’t look,” my mother says, covering her eyes.
From the middle seat, Laura and I stare out the side window. There are people everywhere. Cars everywhere. Horns blare. Stores and car lots and restaurants line the streets.
If I have ever thought of running away—well, seeing all this slows me down some. How could I manage to get around in this? And surely Florentin would be much worse.
But, a voice says in my head, if there’s enough people they couldn’t find you, you’d be safe. I push the thought away.
Laura has moved behind me so she can get a better look out the window. “There has to be a million people here,” she says. “Look at them all. And look what they’re wearing.”
“Do not look at their clothes,” Mother Claire says. She pats Mariah’s cheek and doesn’t even glance at the people outside. “They’re from Satan.” The baby is getting fussy. Not used to being strapped down for so long. Or maybe she’s worried about Satan, too. Ha!
Mother Sarah rolls down the windows. Dirty-smelling air comes in our van. I keep staring at people wearing Satan clothes. What I see are girls in blue jeans, and guys, too. Every once in a while, some man or boy doesn’t have his shirt on.
We maneuver down the street. People seem to be beeping at us, maybe because we’re going so slow.
“Keep a steady pace, Victoria,” Mother Claire says. “We’ve got to be almost there.”
My mother laughs a nervous laugh. I can see her profile. She looks kind of gray near her mouth. This back-and-forthing must be making her sick to her stomach.
Laura looks nervous, too. “I’m scared,” she says where only I can hear. “All these people.”
I nod.
“There! There it is,” Mother says. She points a shaking finger to a line of stores across the road.
“Oh no,” I say to Laura. “Close your eyes. She’s got to cross all that traffic.”
We make it to the parking lot of where Carole’s Fabric Store is, with only one man in a truck having to screech on his brakes. He lays on the horn, beeping all the way past us and then some.
“We’re alive,” Laura says when the van stops. She grins full in my face.
I grin back.
Mother Claire unbuckles Mariah from her car seat. Laura and I climb out and into the parking lot. The world smells like hot tar right here.
“Don’t say anything to anyone,” Mother says as she gets out. She slams the door shut. It feels good not to be rattling around still. I’m glad to be on solid ground.
“They’ll look at us,” Mother Claire says. “They’ll stare. But you ignore them, girls. You remember who you are. The Chosen.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Laura and I say together. We follow our mothers down the sidewalk. The air is hot. The sun beats down. It must be noon straight up.
A family leaves the grocery store. The boy pushes the cart ahead, jumps on it. Rides to the parking lot, passing us.
His mother sees us and calls, “Ryan. Wait for me. Wait for me right there.” She casts a glance at us as she goes by, a little red-headed girl in tow.
A brown-haired girl with a several streaks of pink color rushes toward the grocery store, tying on a red apron. She takes a moment to stare at me and Laura, then runs on inside.
I grab hold of Laura’s hand, squeeze it. Ahead is a group of girls just older than me.
“Let’s go, Kyra, Laura,” Mother Claire says over her shoulder. She’s gotten to the fabric store door. She turns and waves, like she’s trying to hurry us. Her face has two bright splotches of pink in it.
The girls break apart like the Red Sea must have for Moses and let us pass. We haven’t even gotten through the six or seven of them, when one throws back her head and laughs.
“Freaks,” a girl says.
As we pass the glass window of the shops, I catch a glimpse of us in the storefront windows. Laura and me in long dresses, our hair pulled back, our arms and legs covered from sight.
I see plain as day we don’t look like anyone else in this town. The girls here wear blue jeans, T-shirts that show their bellies. One girl, who leans against the brick of the fabric storefront and smokes (smokes!) a cigarette, has an earring in her eyebrow (her eyebrow!). There’s a dragon (a dragon!) on her arm. Long, curled down and around her arm, its tail touching her elbow. She looks at me, her mouth hanging open.
I can’t stop myself. “What are you staring at?”
Then I slip into the Carole’s Fabric Store before Dragon Girl can answer. The door lets out a tinkling sound. My mothers have moved ahead of us. Laura drags me along. For a moment, I can’t see, that’s how angry I am. I squeeze my eyes shut, then open them again. There is so much fabric in here, so many colors, that I am reminded of the dragon on the girl’s arm. Lots of colors there, too.
The whole world is different than we are, I think. The whole wide world.
And I’m horrified. Embarrassed. I feel everyone’s eyes on us. Even here in the coolness of the store, people notice. They are watching. I see it. I hurry to where our mothers are, near bolts of flannel. I hear people whispering.
“Polygamists,” someone says, “you can tell by their clothes.”
If I hadn’t found the Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels, if I hadn’t found words, if I hadn’t found out that I love Joshua, would I feel this way today? So much has changed in me because of a few things. How can that be?
“Oh, Kyra,” Laura says. Her cheeks are stained red. Tears have filled her eyes. She stands behind Mother Claire, then takes Mariah, who reaches for me when I get near. Outside, a car horn goes off again and again. This place is crazy!
“Did you see that girl?” I say. My back is straight with anger.
Laura says nothing, just looks at the tile floor.
“She was outside.”
My sister kisses the baby’s face.
I look through the huge glass window. There she is. Dragon Girl, cigarette still in hand, works to unlock her car door. The beeping continues.
“Her,” I say, pointing.
Laura looks, then shakes her head. Tears run down her face. She turns her back to me.
Now I am really mad. Make my sister cry? My Laura cry. There’s a part of me that wants to run out to Dragon Girl. Grab her by her black hair. Throw her on the ground and punch her face in.
But what about everyone else? Would I have to smack the cashier who shakes her head after looking at us? Or pinch the woman with her three small children after she hurries them all past? And what about the woman cutting large swaths of material, the way she keeps staring, not even bothering to look away when I meet her eyes. I’d have to beat up this whole town for hurting Laura, embarrassing my mothers.
I hug Laura’s neck, kiss her face.
“We’ll ignore them all,” I say. “Like Mother Claire said.”
Laura nods.
My mothers are getting fabric for new nightgowns for all the girls and pajamas for the boys, cott
on for shirts and dresses, and last of all, a simple white fabric with a white eyelet coverlet that will make my wedding dress a little less plain.
During all this shopping, Laura, Mariah, and I wander the store. We look at the DMC threads and talk about maybe getting a pattern for cross-stitching. We look at the fabric paints and the scrapbooking paper. Near the dried flowers I think, only for a moment, what’s going on with Joshua?
Has he gone to the Prophet?
The material that they’re picking out right now, is it for my marriage to Uncle Hyrum. Or to Joshua?
“You know what?” Laura says near the patterns. She isn’t embarrassed anymore. “I don’t think I could wear anything in here.”
Mother Sarah has found a pattern for my dress. Long sleeved, to the floor, high on the neck, the eyelet material covering it all. (Joshua? Is it going well?)
“I know what you mean,” I say. I hold Mariah now. She slaps at the models in the McCall’s pattern book.
“Can you believe this?” Laura points to a purple satin dress. The back is bare, and the front plunges low. I’m surprised I can’t see the model’s belly button.
“Or this?” I say, tapping a picture of a girl in a short skirt. Mariah grabs my hand and I kiss her face. “How do girls wear stuff like this?”
Laura shrugs. Then she draws her hands into claws, and in a deep voice says, “It’s Satan.”
I laugh. Mariah laughs, too, like she understands what we’re talking about.
In the van on the way to Applebee’s, I wonder if this, the stores and people milling about and tattoos, is really all influenced by Satan and his Dark Angels. Can it be, I wonder, a new thought, a scary thought, that everyone in the world is wrong, and just The Chosen Ones are right? There are so few of us and billions of them.
_________
ONCE, two years after Prophet Childs took over and closed us into our community, people started peering in.
“They are Satan,” Prophet Childs told us.
Television crews came, men and women to interview him. He said he would talk to no one unless God instructed him to do so. God never did tell the Prophet to talk to them.
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