The Tithe

by Elle Hill

  Looking into his eyes, she didn’t think his parents had been the most creative souls. “Blue what?”

  “Blue Lenwood.” No, his parents hadn’t taught him about staring, probably hadn’t even named him. Living in the town right next to Barstow, he’d never had any.

  She opened her mouth to further question him, but Lynna suddenly appeared in the doorway. “I thought I heard voices!” she exclaimed. She and Josh cringed when her voice reverberated off the various hard surfaces of the hallway. “You okay?” she asked in a softer tone.

  “Yeah,” Josh said.

  “What hap—? No, wait. Marcus wants to ask you in front of everyone.” Lynna extended a hand.

  Fantastic. A public interrogation. Instead of grabbing Lynna’s hand, Josh pointed to her boots. “Would you—?” she asked. Lynna had already covered her up, had seen her wasted feet.

  “Oh, of course. Sure!”

  A minute later, back tight and ankles trembling, an upright Josh limped to the bathroom just after the bend in the hallway. Her heart trembled briefly as she proceeded down the hall, but nothing seemed as dangerous with the lights blazing brightly, orangely. On her way back to Lynna, who stood as she had last night at the barrier between hallway and Great Room, Josh halted before Blue. “You coming?” she asked. “Here’s my hand.”

  He reached out and felt for it. She gritted her teeth, but he barely pulled on his way to his feet. His hand felt cool, probably from resting against the floor.

  They’d gone a few steps before he released her hand.

  In the Great Room, Marcus stopped talking in mid-sentence to someone and beckoned to Josh to move to the front of the room. She ignored him and walked to the circular couch. The three of them sat.

  “Good morning,” Marcus said.

  All eyes in the room had turned to them, and Josh wondered if Blue could feel also the weight of their attention.

  “What time is it?” Josh asked.

  “A few minutes after nine,” Blue said.

  She turned to him in surprise. “How in heaven do you know?”

  He didn’t reply.

  Marcus nodded. “There’s a clock in the kitchen. He’s right.” He paused. The room hummed with silence. “Lynna and Pius told us about your experiences last night. Are you two all right?”

  Josh nodded. Then, remembering Blue, she said, “Yeah.”

  “What happened?” Hollyn demanded.

  Josh hadn’t seen her before. She now sat in one of the chairs, munching on a handful of, yes, peanut buttery crackers.

  “Well, first of all, that little twerp shut the door on me,” Josh snapped.

  Lynna was nodding. “I told them!” she said.

  Marcus shook his head. “Kadin told us he was terrified. He saw something, panicked, and shut the door.”

  Josh snorted. “So why didn’t anyone open the door after that?” she asked.

  Next to her, Lynna vibrated. “I wanted to! No one would let me!” Her whisper hissed.

  Marcus looked steadily back at her. “It’s not very noble, but, like Kadin, we worried about our safety.”

  “So you waited till daylight to come check on me?” Josh asked, mouth quirked. Humor burned in her stomach.

  Marcus nodded.

  “So what was it?” someone called out.

  “Was it Elovah?” someone else asked.

  “Lynna said it sounded like wings,” another said.

  “Was it an angel?”

  “Did you talk to it?”

  Josh looked over at Blue, the second-to-last person in the room with it, but of course he stared forward, his face completely free of expression. She finally shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “Was it an angel?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Was it Elovah?”

  “I don’t know.” She didn’t think so.

  “What do you know?” Hollyn ground out.

  “Same as you, seems like.” Josh shrugged.

  “Okay, let’s try again,” Marcus suggested. “Tell us what happened last night.”

  Josh recounted the story, minus shoving Izel and Blue. She floundered at the end, unsure how to phrase it and not entirely willing to share the experience.

  “Then what?” Hollyn asked.

  Josh hesitated before saying, “Something touched the back of my neck.” She kept her chin high as most people gasped.

  “What was it?” someone asked softly, reverently.

  Feathers. “I’m not sure,” she said.

  “And then what?” Hollyn repeated.

  “I don’t know. I can only remember waking up after that.”

  The room sat in silence for several seconds before someone marveled, “Touched by an angel. You were touched by agents of Elovah.”

  “Did it hurt?” Len, the fearful fighter from last night, warbled.

  Josh shook her head. “Nothing hurt. And I don’t know for sure it was an angel.” Liar. She thought about telling them to ask Blue, who had also felt the touch, but if he hadn’t told them, who was she to do it?

  Conversations rippled throughout the room, some speculating why the angels hadn’t done more than touch her, wondering if maybe it was the hand of Elovah, a few muttering something about mass hysteria.

  About ten feet from Josh, a woman in her forties was telling an eager group of three others, “I saw an angel once.”

  “You did?” an older man, his joints knotted into bulbs, asked.

  She leaned forward, licking her lips in anticipation of a lengthy discussion. “Don’t your towns have an annual Twelve Day to celebrate Elovah’s return?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Once every few years, Elovah sends an angel to our Twelve Day celebration. It was, I don’t know, maybe five years ago the last time it happened. My sons and I were at the celebration, visiting some of the stalls and eating braided bread, when we heard some people shouting. We walked until we found what the fuss was about. A beautiful angel had shown up to our celebration.”

  “What did he look like?” one of her companions breathed.

  “It was a she,” the woman said. “She was beautiful, just like the Bitoran says. Hair as dark as midnight, golden skin, a dress made of the blue of the skies.”

  A description straight out of the Book of Wrath.

  “Literally golden?” Josh asked.

  The woman turned to her. “What?”

  “Her skin. Do you mean light brown, or was her skin literally metallic?”

  The woman’s eyes narrowed. “You, who have been marked by an angel, have a lot of audacity to mock me.”

  “Light brown,” someone sitting on the left of Lynna commented. They all turned to him. “I’ve seen one, too. It was a male, and he had black hair, but his skin was light brown. His eyes were white as clouds, and he had feathery wings folded behind his back.

  “I’m from Lucerne. We have a couple of factories; I worked at one making vat meat. A fire broke out. We all got out and stood outside, watching it burn. The mayor showed up and told us to pray to Elovah for deliverance from the fire. A few minutes later, the angel showed up.”

  “How?” Josh asked.

  “I don’t know. I blinked, and he was there. He told us we would be rewarded for our faith. The flames just . . . died. I know it sounds like I’m crazy. I’m a Tithe because the cancer spread too fast, not because I’m out of my head. I tell you, the flames shrank and shrank until they disappeared. It didn’t take more than ten seconds.” The man, probably in his mid-fifties, stared at them, eyebrows raised and chin defiant.

  Against Josh’s side, Lynna squirmed. Josh glanced at her, saw the disbelief swimming beneath the woman’s pleasant expression. Unlike Lynna, Josh didn’t exactly disbelieve them, but neither was she willing to accept uncritically some of the same folk stories she’d heard before.

  “After that, did he stick around?” she asked.

  “He said a few words about the power of Elovah. Then, he got really bright, like he was a piece of t
he sun, you know? We closed our eyes, and I heard this sound . . .” The man looked down, chewing his lip. “A crack, and then, like, whomp, whomp, whomp. He was gone when I opened my eyes.”

  They all remained silent for a minute.

  Finally, Josh said, “Having a run-in with supernatural beings makes a girl pretty hungry. Anyone else want some breakfast?”

  Breakfast, someone told her, had actually been scheduled for eight to nine.

  “You hungry, Blue?” Josh asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  Then why in heaven had he waited with her? Still, she rocked to her feet. “I can’t make anything on a stove,” she said, “but the science of sandwiches does not elude me. Anyone else?”

  “I’ll help you,” Lynna offered.

  Together, they entered the kitchen. The enormous kitchen. A kitchen that gleamed, whitely and brightly, in spite of its advanced age. Perhaps the townspeople had recently installed new appliances and white tile flooring. She enjoyed imagining Eryl, a hairnet securing his springy curls, a caulking gun in hand, on the floor by the sink. The kitchen didn’t match the size of the Great Room, but it was easily a third as big and featured multiple stoves, refrigerators, and squat freezers. A white-tiled island, above which dangled shining copper pots and pans, dominated the center of the kitchen.

  Josh hovered just inside the kitchen, partially blinded by the glare. Finally, she murmured, “Where’s the bread?”

  “In the freezer,” Lynna replied. “You have to toast it for sandwiches.” Together, they toasted bread, applied peanut butter and honey, and cut the sandwiches into triangles. By the end of the excursion, Josh’s legs had begun shaking in exhaustion.

  Josh carried the platter of sandwiches into the Great Room, while Lynna lugged a pitcher of water and some glasses. Josh, Blue, and two other late risers grabbed a sandwich and sipped the cool tap water.

  “So what’s your story, Blue?” Josh asked between sticky mouthfuls of peanut butter.

  He stared forward. “I don’t know any stories,” he replied.

  Josh and Lynna glanced at one another. “I’m not asking to hear your version of Mikenna and the Bat. I meant your history. What town you’re from, where you worked, your family.” Putting it like that, she felt like the world’s biggest busybody.

  “Lenwood,” Blue said without any inflection. Oh, right. “I have no work, no family.”

  “Hmm,” Lynna said. So polite, always encouraging.

  Josh, in contrast, said, “Have you been blind since birth?”

  Lynna shook her head very slightly.

  “Yes.”

  Whoa. “So when I tell you your eyes are blue and mine are brown, this doesn’t mean much?”

  “I know the meaning of the words. I know blue eyes often go with lighter skin,” he said. “I’m told my skin isn’t light.”

  “No, it’s not tan like mine or beige like Lynna’s.” She paused. “How old are you, Blue?”

  “Twenty-six.”

  Josh glanced at Lynna, saw the same question on her face. “You’ve been blind since birth,” Josh said slowly. “How come Lenwood waited twenty-six years to make you a Tithe?” It was a terribly rude question, but Blue didn’t seem to take offense at her bluntness.

  “Lenwood has more than one of us a year. Every seven years, the town does a lottery. This was my fourth lottery.” Still expressionless.

  Josh popped the final bit of her sandwich in her mouth, chewed slowly. Lynna widened her eyes, jerked her head toward Blue. Josh had no idea what she was trying to indicate. Finally, figuring Blue would stop her when she’d pried too far, she asked, “Did you live with the imrabi for those twenty-six years?”

  “Yes.”

  “They didn’t let you do work, even cleaning?”

  “No.”

  She’d been even luckier than she’d imagined.

  A teenage girl strode up to the three of them, hovered for a moment, and then burst into an artificially bright smile.

  “Hey,” she said to Josh.

  “Hi there,” Lynna responded with a matching smile.

  Josh nodded.

  Blue faced forward, completely expressionless.

  “So, um, me and some people—” She waved a hand toward a group of five or six others. “—-were wondering if you might lead us in prayer. I heard you were an imrabi.”

  Josh ground her teeth. Sending over a kid to ask for a favor . . . now that was gutsy. “I wasn’t an imrabi,” she corrected. “The Barstow imrabi raised me as an orphan.”

  “So, you won’t do it?” the girl asked, biting her lip.

  Josh sighed in annoyance. “I’m no more qualified than you or Marcus or my friend, Lynna.” The girl looked down as if reprimanded. “Fine,” Josh relented. “But it’s going to be quick, not like a service or anything. Go tell your friends I’ll be over in a minute.”

  The girl walked away, grinning.

  Josh chugged the last of her water and rocked to her feet. Blue stood up as well. “I’ll be back to help with the dishes,” she told Lynna, and shuffled toward the group.

  A moment later, she turned and demanded, “Why are you following me?”

  “I want to be around you,” Blue said.

  Her eyebrows slammed down, but she remained silent.

  The group offered her a seat among them, but she declined, worried sitting would encourage them to linger over the prayer. “I’m going to recite one of the prayers in the Book of Salvation,” she said. Some in the group nodded. “Say it with me if you know it.

  “Almighty Elovah, spread Your forgiveness like the stars over us, points of wisdom in the dark world we, Your children, created. You, who are a god of benevolence, long ago You gifted your human children with the sunshine of the desert to warm their hearts, the waters in the ground to nourish their spirits. ‘Revel in the sunshine,’ You said. ‘Unite your hearts in purity and wonderment, your innocence forever blessing your children, your spouses, the plants that feed you and the animals that comfort you.’

  “But these children, gifted with a place in the winding chain of life and love, did not listen. Instead, they let greed and corruption and selfishness twist them and isolate them from their neighbors, their world. Instead of basking in the sunshine and the water, they hoarded them and coveted others’. Only Your cleansing fire, Almighty Elovah, saved them from destroying themselves and the world around them.

  “Now these selfish children have become us, and we pray for Your forgiveness, for Your mercy. Most of all, we pray to remain innocent and humble before You so that You continue to stay your hand against us. May we always remain humble servants who glorify You, that for the rest of our days remain shielded from Your wrath.”

  “Let us strive to be blameless,” everyone muttered.

  They were silent for a moment. Finally, the teenage girl whispered in awe, “Did you really touch an angel?”

  Josh sighed. She’d felt centered after reciting the prayer, one she’d heard countless times during services. But she wasn’t at services, would never again hear Ima Emm use her deep voice to mesmerize, to soothe, to snap awake or invigorate as desired.

  She looked behind her at Blue. He stood silently, impassively. As much as she honored his wishes for privacy, she wished he would share the attention.

  “I don’t know,” she finally replied. “It felt soft, but I don’t know for sure.”

  “Soft like what?” a man asked, leaning forward.

  Josh opened her mouth, closed it. “I have to sit down,” she said. “We can discuss this another time.” She and Blue returned to the couch.

  “Hey,” Lynna said. “Now that you’re back, I guess we should do dishes.” She piled everything on the sandwich platter.

  Josh waited for a moment before rounding on Blue. “Aren’t you even going to offer, Blue?”

  “Offer what?” he asked.

  “To do the dishes. You know, whoever cooks doesn’t do dishes.”

  “I don’t know that rule. I’ll was
h dishes.” He glided to his feet.

  “Oh. Well, um, I’ll help,” Josh said with a mental sigh. Maybe RJ, the factory worker, would let her borrow her wheeled chair.

  Together, they made their way into the kitchen, Blue once again practically in her shadow. At the sink, she turned and faced the tall man. Dressed in an untucked black tunic and baggy black pants, his long black cloak swishing about his knees, he stood behind her, face blank. With his longer hair and bright blue eyes, he looked like . . . like a pirate, a Twelve worker Josh had seen pictured, although, admittedly, she knew almost nothing about. She thought they did something with boats.