Beyond the Cabin

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. I seriously have no clue how Enos and Tabitha could have convinced her to join.”

  “I know,” Luke said. “It must have been Tabitha. All Enos knows how to do is fix cars.”

  “But I still don’t get how she would want to join,” I said.

  “Me neither,” Luke agreed.

  “Maybe she’ll think better of it during Celebration and run out screaming,” I said.

  Mary laughed from the other side of the table.

  “Or maybe she’ll scream when Miriam puts the oil on her,” Luke said.

  Mary laughed again. “That’s so rude, too. I mean, then you’ve got a bunch of little dabs of oil all over. That’s got to feel gross.”

  I nodded. Then I realized what was going on. It was a normal conversation. We were acting like normal people, talking like friends. Luke too. Awesome.

  Luke had noticed it too. “What’s up with you?” he asked Mary, echoing the question he’d asked me earlier. I liked the coincidence.

  Mary’s brows drew down in a V. “What do you mean?”

  I said the same thing! And the same thing is ‘up’ with both of us! I tried not to smile too much.

  “You don’t usually talk,” Luke said.

  “I do too!”

  “Not here,” Luke said.

  “Why shouldn’t I?” Mary asked.

  “Exactly,” I muttered.

  “What?” Luke asked.

  I looked up. “What?”

  “You said something,” Luke said.

  “So did you,” I said.

  “Shut up,” Luke said.

  I glanced at Mary. I liked the smile she wore. “Buzz off,” I said to Luke.

  “Eat me,” Luke said.

  “I’d rather eat breakfast, thanks,” I said. I stuffed some eggs into my mouth. I hoped my chewing camouflaged the grin that was trying to break free.

  “Lot of conversation around here,” Luke muttered, turning back to his breakfast.

  “Nothing wrong with that,” Mary said.

  I swallowed. Exactly.

  A few minutes later, Luke pushed his chair back and stood. “I’m gonna feed Chewie.”

  “You better get back to help with dishes,” Saul said.

  “I will, I will,” Luke said, heading outside through the kitchen.

  I stood as well. “Hurry up Sauly, I don’t want to be down here all day.”

  “Got an important date?” Saul said.

  “You’re such a twit,” I said. I had a sudden urge to flick Sauly’s ear as I went past. Better not. “Hurry.”

  I glanced at Mary as I went into the kitchen. She didn’t notice. I didn’t mind. I just wanted to look at her again.

  * * *

  “You’ll dry!” I called over my shoulder, walking quickly out of the kitchen. Saul was such a jerk sometimes! He’d gone even slower than usual. It was like he enjoyed bugging me and Luke. So what if I had been a little extra enthusiastic with the rinse water when Saul was standing nearby? It wasn’t like Saul was going to melt.

  But no, Sauly had thrown a fit, yelling that I had done it on purpose and trying to pick a fight. I had told Saul that yes, I had in fact done it on purpose and no, I really didn’t feel like beating the crap out of the irritating punk.

  Free of my morning interruption to life, I headed up the stairs to grab a book. I pondered briefly whether I should get two books. I’d already almost finished the one I’d started yesterday.

  “Nah,” I said aloud. Maybe Mary would come and talk to me. Maybe I would go to the cabin or something too, try to stay out of the way so I wouldn’t get sucked into extra chores.

  As I left my bedroom, I heard a faint flush come from the bathroom a door away. The bathroom door opened as I started down the stairs. I glanced back.

  Ethan jogged out of the bathroom, a grin on his face.

  “Ethan!” I said. “Get the light.”

  The little kid made a face at me, but turned and reached up. I caught a glimpse of something peeking out of the pocket of Ethan’s jeans.

  “What’ve you got there?” I said, facing Ethan.

  “What?” Ethan’s face went bland and innocent. “Nothing.”

  “In your pocket, duh,” I said. It looked soft and white.

  “Nothing.”

  “I see it right there you twit.” I shook my head. Kid needs to learn to lie better.

  Ethan’s face fell. He pulled the thing out of his pocket. “It was in the cupboard. Under the sink.”

  I stepped closer, trying to get a better look. “Where?”

  “In a pink box! It’s like an airplane made of clothes or something. It’s sticky on the back. I was just gonna show it to David.”

  “You’d better put it back. You don’t want to get in trouble.” I had no clue what the long, oval cloth was for, but if Ethan got in trouble, there was a pretty good chance all the kids would be reamed.

  “I’m just gonna show David!” Ethan protested.

  Keep it cool, stupid to get mad here. I held out my hand. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know,” said Ethan. “It was under there.”

  “Let me see.” At Ethan’s expression, I tried to reassure him. “I’ll give it back. Then you put it back. You don’t want to get in trouble for messing with something that’s not yours.”

  His lips in a sullen pout, Ethan handed the floppy cloth to me. The thing felt soft in my hand.

  I heard a door open. Glancing over Ethan’s head and down the hallway, I saw Mary step out of her room. Our eyes met. Then her gaze shifted to my hand that was holding the thing Ethan found.

  Her eyes went wide and she quickly disappeared back into her room.

  What the? What’s that all about? “Listen kid,” I said. “you need to―”

  “Joshua!” My head snapped up at the shout. Laura stood in her door. “What on earth are you doing?”

  “What?” Confusion flooded me.

  “There is no good reason for you to have that in your hand,” Laura said, advancing on me.

  “No,” I said. “I don’t even know.. I mean, I was telling Ethan to put it back.”

  “This is completely inappropriate,” Laura said. “That is not for young boys to be playing with.”

  You’ve gotta be kidding me. “I wasn’t playing with it. I was telling Ethan to put it back.”

  “Give it to me.”

  I handed the thing over. I couldn’t understand what the big deal was. And what did she mean about how it wasn’t something for young boys to play with? I’m not a young boy and I wasn’t playing with it!

  “You need to keep your nose and thoughts clean, young man,” Laura said.

  Still confused, I nodded. What was she even talking about? “Okay.” I turned away and headed back to the stairs. What was the big deal? Mary acted weird when she saw it and now Somehow I get in trouble when it’s not even me messing with the thing. No surprise there, but you wish it would change sometime.

  On the front porch, I sat in one of the beat-up chairs and settled in to read, ducking low to try to stay out of sight. I knew that if I sat on the porch there was a chance an adult would rope me into helping set up for Celebration, but I also wanted to make sure Mary could find me if she came looking.

  I had read all of one page when I heard my name.

  “Joshua.”

  I looked up and craned around the back of the chair.

  Gwen stood in the doorway.

  Oh great. There goes the morning. “Yes?” How did she even see me?

  “Give me a hand?”

  I gritted my teeth, wondering what she would do if I said I was busy. “I guess.”

  Gwen’s face registered surprise. “Oh, well thank you. Sorry to interrupt you,” she said in her best condescending voice. “If you please, sir, I need some help setting up chairs. And then we need to arrange the candles.”

  I held up my book. “I need to put this away.”

  “Fine. Hurry back.”

&nb
sp; I slid past her and went up the stairs, mentally berating myself. I should have known better. I opened the door to my room.

  Saul was in there, changing his wet shirt, but he jumped when I walked in. I immediately saw why. Saul’s chest, back and shoulders were all covered in bruises. Some were dark and fresh-looking, while others looked old and faded.

  “What are you doing in here?” Saul asked, his voice breaking. He backed toward the bathroom, holding a dry shirt over his chest.

  “Sauly,” I said. “What the-?” You’ve gotta be kidding me. It took only a second to understand what had happened.

  “It’s nothing,” Saul said, shaking his head. “I just fell down.”

  “Yeah, a lot.” How could Saul think that I would believe that? Suddenly it came to me. Saul always changed in the bathroom. Always. He’d been doing that for years.

  Holy crap. “Saul, it’s okay.” I stepped toward him.

  “NO!” Saul was in the doorway to the bathroom now, fear burning in his eyes.“Get away!”

  “It’s Abraham isn’t it? Freakin’ Abraham’s doing that to you isn’t he?” I couldn’t believe the fury that had suddenly exploded in me. “That bastard’s beating you up, isn’t he?”

  “No, it’s not,” Saul said. “He just… he… sometimes he loses…”

  “It’s not sometimes,” I said. “It’s always.”

  “I irritate him is all,” Saul said. “I need to learn to play better.”

  “No! It’s not you, dammit! It’s Abraham. He’s a freakin’ psycho!”

  “No he’s not! He’s my father! At least I have a father,” Saul said. Tears soaked his cheeks.

  I chose to ignore Saul’s attempt to divert me. “He’s gotta be stopped. You can’t suffer―”

  “He said he’s trying. He knows he loses his temper. I just have to play better and he has to control his temper and it’ll be fine,” Sauly said.

  “No,” I said.

  “No, yeah. It’ll be fine.”

  “You’re not the only one!” I said. I couldn’t believe I was going to do this. I stepped back and pushed the door to our room all the way closed with my foot. Then I pulled my shirt off.

  Saul stood paralyzed.

  “See? He did it to me, too. For no good reason,” I said. Wait, there’s never a good reason. “I mean, he thought he had a reason, but you know what? He’s a bully.”

  “No. You fell or something,” Saul said.

  “Wrong, dummy. He beat the crap out of me. It scared me half to death,” I wondered where this was coming from. “He can’t do this. It’s so wrong.”

  “But you can’t tell anyone!”

  “He’s got to be stopped,” I said.

  “But nobody knows, nobody knows. Not even Mo—I mean Penelope,” Saul said.

  What? Did he almost call her ‘Mom’? What’s going on here? I shook the questions away. There would be time for that later. “Listen, Saul. We’ve got to do something about this.”

  “No. You don’t have to do anything. He’s my father,” Sauly said.

  What was that supposed to mean? “Big deal!”

  “It is a big deal. You can’t tell anyone. You weren’t supposed to know.”

  “Why shouldn’t I tell someone? With both of us as proof, they might actually believe us. Then maybe they’d call the cops or something. I bet they’d throw him out of the Faith.”

  “That’s why you can’t tell anyone! He’s my father! I don’t want him to get thrown out.”

  I stared at Saul. He wasn’t making any sense.

  “Please, Josh. Please don’t tell anyone,” Saul said. He yanked his shirt on.

  “I don’t get it. He beats the crap out of you and you’re trying to protect him?”

  “He doesn’t mean to,” Saul said.

  Keep telling yourself that. “Then don’t you think he’d stop?”

  “He’s trying.”

  “The hell he is!” No, I had to stop letting anger control me. I took a breath. I could do this. “Look. If he really was gonna stop, he would have. You’ve been changing in the bathroom for years. You’re lucky he hasn’t broken any of your bones… or killed you.”

  “No! That’s how I know. He doesn’t mean to hurt me. He’d never actually injure me. He sometimes loses his temper.”

  You keep saying the same thing over and over! “But don’t you see that we can help him if we talk to somebody?” Good idea. “I mean, we could get him help.”

  Saul shook his head. “No. That wouldn’t help him. He’s gonna stop. Please don’t tell anyone.” He left the bathroom doorway and walked toward me. “Please don’t tell anyone.”

  Unbelievable. Saul was completely cowed. But I had to make him feel better. “Okay. I won’t, for now. But we need to talk about this more.”

  “Sure, sometime,” Saul said, brushing past me and heading for the door. “Just don’t tell anyone.” Saul closed the door behind him.

  I stood there, a powerful image hitting me hard. Me kicking Saul down on the porch. Maybe his tears had been real; maybe I had kicked a bruise. I sat on Ethan’s bed. Kicking Sauly in the side. Threatening to break Davy’s arm. I’m almost as bad as Abraham.

  I put my face in my hands. I’m a bully too. I’ve got to stop… I’ve got to stop. I repeated this to myself several times. I can’t be like Abraham.

  I knew what I had to do. I would tell no grown up. But I would tell Aaron about Abraham and Saul. I might even tell Mary, although I wasn’t sure I wanted to get into what had happened to me that day. Maybe together we could find a way to help Saul. And if nothing else, I wouldn’t let what Abraham had done to me make my choices for me.

  But I was glad the bruises were fading; glad the feelings of fear and shame were fading too.

  What I didn’t understand was why Sauly would want to protect Abraham. All this stuff about him being Sauly’s father seemed completely idiotic. But as I thought about it, I realized that I really couldn’t judge Saul. I didn’t even know who my father was. I had no idea what I would do if my father were beating me. Maybe I’d be so happy to even have a father that I would take the beatings.

  Yeah, maybe not.

  Chapter 31

  I couldn’t get away from Gwen until a few minutes before the Celebration was supposed to begin. When I finally did, I had to go and change for the stupid ceremony. I pulled on some dark pants and dug around in the closet until I found a white, button-up shirt. Don’t know if this is mine. I put it on anyway, then pulled on some socks and found my old dress shoes. They didn’t really fit me, hadn’t for over a year, but I wasn’t going to ask for more. I wore these like flip-flops, so they were still comfortable enough.

  As I hurried out of my room, closing the door behind me, I heard an echoing door close. I glanced to my left and saw Mary coming out of her room. I remembered briefly her face a few hours previous, how she had seen me and then darted back into her room. I shrugged off the confusion and smiled at her.

  She stepped from the dimness of the hallway into the natural light that illuminated the landing.

  Mary wore the dress that I’d seen her in probably hundreds of times. Her hair was held back from her face with some kind of pin, but one lock of wavy brown hair had escaped and hung next to her cheek.

  I stood frozen, my heart hammering. I had to stop staring. How could I have not noticed her?

  “Hi,” Mary said.

  “Hi.”

  She made a face, like she was trying to say something hard. “What were you doing earlier?”

  “Huh?” I heard the emotion in her voice but couldn’t figure out what it was for.

  “Earlier. With the…” her face went pink. “Um, the pad-thing.”

  “The what?”

  Mary seemed to study my face.

  “You mean that thing I took from Ethan?” I asked. What’s up now?

  She kept looking at me. Then, shrugging, she gave a little smile. “Forget it. You going down?” she asked.

  “Yeah. You?” />
  She nodded.

  I gestured for her to go ahead of me. “Ladies first.” Really I wanted to look at her more. As she crossed in front of me, I watched her profile. She looked like an elf, or like a character in the books I read. Was that what they meant when they called someone’s features ‘fine?’

  Mary tossed a glance at me and headed for the stairs. I tried to get myself under control.

  Tell her how nice she looks. I wondered if I should. Would that make things weird? I started down behind her. “You look nice,” I said softly, unsure if she had heard me.

  “Thank you,” she said, gently throwing the words over her shoulder.

  When we got to the bottom of the stairs, we turned left, but Mary stopped. “So do you,” she said quickly, her face pink.

  I looked around; nobody was in the living room. “Thanks.” Was my heart always going to feel like this when I was with Mary? I wondered if a heart could get tired of beating so fast. It’s probably good exercise.

  When we got to the Celebration room, people were already milling around, some sitting and flipping through hymnbooks. Mary walked around the double circle and sat in the back row, opposite from the door. I wanted to sit next to her, but knew that would look odd to people, since we’d never done that. Instead, I sat across the circle from her in a place that the altar wouldn’t get in the way of me seeing her. I watched her until she met my gaze and smiled quickly.

  Celebration began like usual. But when the song, prayer and scripture reading was over, the ceremony of Accepting Luciana began.

  Miriam, holding a small, glass dish of olive oil, said, “Are there any who would join in this fellowship? Any who will build their lives and faith on the rock that is God? Any who will dedicate their lives to service and will separate themselves from the trappings and cares of the world?”

  Joan said, “There is one.”

  “Let her come forth,” Miriam intoned.

  Luciana, dressed in a simple, light-blue dress with short sleeves, stood and stepped forward. Her face seemed to have been cut from a flesh-colored rock.

  “What is your name?” Miriam asked when Luciana had stopped in front of her.

  “Luciana.”

  “Are you willing to sacrifice all that you have for the service of God?”

  “I am.”