by Elle Hill
“You lied to them,” Josh said to Marcus.
“I said the angel took you,” he said calmly, although his fists had bunched. “That isn’t a lie.”
“You didn’t tell them why. You didn’t tell them about planning the deaths of four Tithes, including me.”
Several people gasped. Some clutched their neighbors’ hands.
Marcus nodded. “I’m not a perfect leader, but I’m all they have. Not everyone would understand I did everything for them, all of them.”
“You’re lucky Lynna and others rescued you from Blue,” she said calmly. “He would have killed you.”
“I expected he would,” Marcus said quietly.
“You’re as bad as the Twelves,” she said. So steeped in self-righteousness and convinced of their own morality. Willing to sacrifice everyone else for their own ideals.
He entered the room then. He came into the room. He came to her. Blue stepped into the Great Hall and stopped.
His face. She loved it. It contained millions of thoughts, innumerable words. He had known a world she had only glimpsed, had chosen to give up his existence as thought and don a material existence. For her. Everything for her. She could see the weight of existence in the straight shelf of his lips, his pain in the tautness of his jaw. His face, his beautiful brown face. How could she have ever mistaken him for human?
She could smell his difference from here, the tangy scent of the history of their worlds.
And he loves me, she marveled. The most precious gift, the gravity of being.
He said her name, and she felt the sting of sunlight, heard the growing of succulents.
“I’m here,” she said.
Blue strode to her, his cloak billowing behind him. When he reached her, he didn’t bother pulling her to her feet or throwing his arms around her. Instead, he fell before her and pressed his face to her hand.
“You honor me with your presence,” she whispered to him. “I never told you that.”
She felt moisture on her palm.
“Help me up,” she said. He rose and drew her to her feet. His arm curved around her shoulders.
Josh took a step toward Marcus. He stared at her, eyes burning behind their puffy eyelids.
“You were gone,” he said slowly, emphatically.
“She came back,” Blue said.
“No one comes back!” Marcus shouted. “Especially not a sinner who pretends to be an imrabi and an angel!”
She looked at him without comment. Marcus’ face crumpled by degrees. Finally, he sat before her, a man without purpose, without justification.
“Why did you come back?” he finally asked, almost pled.
“For you,” Josh said.
His eyes widened. He raised his hands, palm up, as if to ward her off.
Josh laughed. “Not just you, Marcus. I came back for everyone. It’s time for us all to go.” She walked toward the elevator, Blue at her side, always at her side.
“I shouldn’t have doubted you,” he said.
“You made your choice a month ago. I made mine today,” she said, smiling at him.
“I made the right choice.”
So had she.
They reached the elevator, and she pushed its call button. It lit. Mechanical systems groaned and squeaked into life.
The room swam in silence.
“We love,” she said into the room. “We breathe, we make love, we churn the world with our expectations. We hurt and are hurt. And most of all, we live. We deserve to live.”
The elevator door chimed, and the doors opened.
“Are we going free?” someone asked.
Josh looked across the room and into the smiling, weeping face of her closest friend. Lynna’s hand rested on Garyn’s shoulder.
Had Josh ever told her how she sparkled?
Her eyes grew wet, and her voice failed. She nodded and gestured to the open doors of the elevator.
It took five trips to get everyone to the surface. As she passed by, Netta grabbed Josh’s hand, pressed it briefly, and then boarded the elevator.
Hollyn grinned, whispered, “I knew it!” Marcus left on the fourth trip, supported by Quinn and Juss. Josh, Blue, Lynna, Garyn, and RJ stayed together on the fifth and final ride to the surface.
The women stared at her.
“You are an angel,” Lynna whispered. Tears clung to her eyelashes.
Josh grabbed her hand. She wondered how to respond. Finally, she smiled, said “no,” and squeezed Lynna’s fingers. She could explain later, after they’d rested. If Lynna really wanted the truth.
The elevator door slid open, and they walked out. Everyone looked at her.
“Where do we go?” Hollyn demanded.
She gestured toward the bend in the mountain, and they all made their slow, unique ways to the place where they’d last seen sunlight. Several people sobbed. One dropped to his knees and grabbed handfuls of dirt. His body trembled.
Josh left the shade and stood beneath the scalding sun.
“Wherever we want,” she said. They continued walking until they rounded a corner, where an autobus, complete with driver, sat idling.
As the remaining Tithes piled into the bus, Josh raised her face to the sunlight.
“It burns,” she said. She wasn’t sure if she meant the sun-saturated outdoors or the constant, throbbing pain that wove the fabric of her being. The heat made her more pliant. She flowed against Blue for support. He wrapped hot arms around her.
“It burns,” he agreed.
Author’s Note
Dear reader:
I hope you have come to love Josh, Blue, and others in this universe as much as I do. I am especially smitten with Josh, a strong woman who lives each moment with compassion—a brusque and sometimes prickly compassion, but still.
For those who are interested, Josh has a condition called Charcot Marie Tooth Syndrome. Charcot Marie Tooth Syndrome, or CMT, is a neurological disorder that results in muscle weakness and atrophy in the extremities, often the legs and feet. CMT can result in high arches and hammertoes, both of which Josh has, making her supremely self-conscious about her “wonky feet.” If you’d like more information on this syndrome, please feel free to visit this website: http://www.cmtausa.org/index.php.
In addition, Josh and Blue live constantly with pain. Unfortunately, this is a way of life for many people, due to injuries, neurological disorders, disease, or unknown causes. While writing this novel, I experienced extensive back pain that occurred every time I stood up and moved. I found myself feeling increasingly frustrated and trapped. Thankfully and eventually, I figured out the cause of my pain and have since remedied it, but not everyone is as lucky.
All of us will know pain in some way: intimately, temporarily, chronically, mildly, intensely. However, millions of us live every day with pain. Through Josh, I tried to explore what this looks and feels like, how it shapes the mold of our lives, our selves. While writing The Tithe, I also researched experiences of pain as well as methods of pain management. You can see some of this research in discussions between Josh and Blue. I hope I have sensitively and lovingly rendered the experiences of those who live with chronic pain.
On a final note, I would like to introduce a term I’m gleefully stealing from the disability rights movement: temporarily able-bodied. As I hope I have made clear throughout this novel, people with disabilities are not tragic persons, nor are they pitiable or unknowable. They are our mothers, brothers, coworkers, friends, and lovers. They are us, whether now or in forty years. Depending on the shifting definitions of “disabled,” they can be all of us right now. The chief question with which I hope this novel left you is: What are disabilities, and why do we define them in these ways?
Well, and maybe one more I want you to ponder is about intentionality. If you knew your words and thoughts shaped your reality in very tangible ways, how might you live differently?
Happy thinking, reader. And thank you for reading The Tithe. May you go forth and sprink
le compassion like confetti.
Kindly,
Elle Hill