It is Risen

by H. Claire Taylor

  “Well shit,” she said, pushing back a strand of sweaty hair from her face. “Maybe there’s some truth to that.”

  “There is. A couple months ago, I overheard a vegan talking about getting an abortion.” If anyone would understand how confused that’d left Jessica, it would be her mother.

  “I’m not sure exactly what a vegan is, but doesn’t feminism allow for anyone to get abortions whenever the hell they want? Even on, say, a Tuesday?”

  “Oh. Um. I honestly don’t know. But never mind. Don’t worry about it.”

  “No, no … don’t just brush me off just ’cause I don’t know something. I gotta learn too, baby. Vegans … are those the ones who can’t move their arms or legs?”

  “Nuh-uh.”

  “Ohh, right. I’m thinking of vegetarians.”

  “Vegetables. That’s what you’re thinking of.”

  Destinee scrunched up her face, shaking her head minutely, but let it go. “Fine, I’ll play along. What’s a vegan?”

  Jessica was only half certain herself, but she tried to explain. “They don’t eat meat—”

  “But chicken’s okay, right?” she asked quickly.

  Not the question Jessica was expecting, but she rolled with it. “Uh, maybe. And I don’t think they eat dairy.”

  Destinee scoffed. “That’s probably because nobody eats dairy. They drink it.”

  “And they definitely don’t eat eggs.”

  Destinee threw her hands into the air. “Who the hell won’t eat an egg but’ll eat a chicken?! And you say these people live around here?”

  “Yeah. They’re kind of everywhere in Austin.”

  Destinee’s head swiveled, scanning for the woods for sneaky vegans. She whispered, “I think you’d do best to steer clear of folks like that, Jess. Some gears ain’t turning for them, sounds like.”

  “Don’t worry. I do.”

  Destinee straightened up and continued on down the path. “After what you just described, I almost think vegans should get extra abortions. Be bumped up to the front of the line, ya know? I heard about that kinda crazy being passed from one generation to the other. Take Kathy Mae. You remember her and how she was always collecting them aluminum cans?”

  “Yeah, she recycles them, right?”

  Destinee wagged her finger at her daughter. “That’s what we always thought, yeah. But when she passed away—oh, by the way, she passed away last month; I forgot to mention that on our last call—the authorities went into her home and found all them cans from the years. She wasn’t recycling them after all. She was just making a can maze in her home or some shit. Turns out, her daughter Jeanne, who was a few years behind me at Mooremont, has started asking people for their cans lately, too. I think Kathy Mae’s passed on her sickness.”

  “I’m so glad I’m not in Mooretown anymore.”

  “Yeah.” Destinee nodded resolutely. “I need to get the hell outta that crazy shithole.”

  The trail opened up to the wide, shallow creek, and Jess led the way over to the lip of a rock overhanging the water. As they both took a seat, their only company for the moment was a tall, lean man in his early twenties, shirt off, hair pulled back into a sloppy bun as he threw a tennis ball into the creek for his large mutt, over and over again.

  “I need to come out here more,” Jessica said.

  “It sure is peaceful,” Destinee agreed.

  I THOUGHT SO TOO … WHEN I MADE IT.

  Not so peaceful when you shout shit like that in my skull.

  RUDE.

  Obnoxious.

  “I hate to be the one to bring this up,” Destinee said, “but we ain’t really talked about it yet, and it seems long overdue.”

  The muscles in Jessica’s abdomen clenched. There were a number of things Destinee could be referring to. The bakery, Rex’s clear interest in making an honest woman out of Destinee and her obvious lack of interest in it, or—oh no—had they ever had that sex talk? No, they’d never actually had the sex talk, had they? Would Jess have to listen to her mother describe good sex, undoubtedly in graphic and personal detail?

  “I assume you’ve read Jimmy’s book,” Destinee said.

  That hadn’t even made it onto Jessica’s list of terrible things they hadn’t yet discussed, but she supposed it should have. “I’ve read some of it.”

  Destinee’s eyes shot open. “Wait, you haven’t read it all the way through?”

  “No, but don’t worry, I’ve already been lectured.”

  Destinee’s eyes grew even wider and she leaned back, a flat palm pressed to her chest. “Oh no, baby. I ain’t here to lecture you on it. I just figured you’d’ve read it already and want to talk about it. But if you haven’t read it, good on you!” She nodded to punctuate the sentiment. “Whole book is full of lies. I could hardly stomach it.”

  “Wait, you read it?”

  “Of course I read it! You know Jimmy’s a lying sack of shit. I had to know what sorta lies he was telling.” She leaned close, mumbling conspiratorially from the corner of her mouth, “Could hardly get through the part about his childhood. Almost made me feel sorry for the fool. If any of it were true, I woulda.”

  “God says a lot of it is true. Not all, but a lot.”

  “Huh.” Destinee scratched at her sweaty scalp. “The part about the cult leader? That part true?”

  “Oh shit, is that a thing?” Destinee nodded. “I haven’t gotten to that part. I don’t know if it’s true.”

  “No, I mean, ask him.” She pointed skyward.

  “He’s not in the—“ But she stopped herself. If the consensus had it, God was actually in the sky. And who was she to argue, really? It wasn’t like she’d ever asked Him flat out. Maybe someday she could ignore the echoes of His obnoxious voice in her skull long enough to ask. “I can’t ask him right now. I told him to leave me alone.”

  “Ah.” She stared at the creek. “How long does that usually last?”

  Jessica leaned back on her hands. “Not long enough.”

  “But you did read the foreword?”

  Jessica sighed. “Sure did.”

  “And did you smite anything?”

  “Not right away.”

  Destinee put her arm around Jessica, pulling her in close. “I’m proud of you, baby. There’s a reason God didn’t give me the ability to smite.”

  Jess conceded with a slight nod. It was as good a case as any for Him actually possessing infinite wisdom.

  “Oh! I almost forgot.” Jessica pulled out her phone from her sports bra and wiped the sweaty screen on her shorts. “We should get a selfie.”

  “What for? You putting it on Twitter?”

  Jessica leaned toward her mother and snapped a pic. “I’m not. I have someone who does that for me.”

  “Ooo …” Destinee mocked playfully. “Look at you! So you just send the pictures to her and she posts them? Or is it a him? Are you two friends?”

  Jessica considered it and decided upon the most merciful option for everyone, considering how quickly the vegan conversation had been derailed.

  Baby steps.

  “I’ll tell you about them later, Mom.”

  Destinee grinned mischievously. “Ooo … you have a whole team working for you?” She put her arm around her daughter, pulling her close. “Don’t let it go to your head, baby.”

  Jessica resigned herself to her mother’s firm hold, relaxing into it. “Don’t worry. I won’t.”

  Excerpt from Railed to the Cross

  Then one evening I overheard a wife speaking with Rupert in the small, poorly ventilated kitchen, her voice low as she prattled on hurriedly about two men who had questioned her while she was in town buying groceries for the evening. I peeked around the corner and could see the pastor’s expression vividly. His eyes would have seemed more appropriate for a spooked horse, and the reputably docile lover reached forward, grabbed the wife, and shook her, insisting more information and immediately.

  The world crumbled quickly from that moment on. W
e didn’t see Pastor Heathrow the next day, as he remained locked in his room until that night’s worship. His sermon was disjointed, his glow fractured and subdued. One might assume a speech like that would lodge itself in my young mind, the stark contrast to all previous ones wedging it in painfully between two fonder memories. But I don’t recall what he said that night because it made so little sense. All I’m sure of is that it had nothing to do with his message. Much of it seemed contrary to his previously consistent beliefs.

  When it came time for him to select a wife for the night, he hurriedly grabbed my mother’s hand, then, to my utter amazement, he grabbed mine as well and led us both out of the great room and into his bedchamber.

  His sons and daughters were never allowed there, and as I entered, I immediately felt the need to escape. But it seemed I wasn’t the only one with that plan in mind.

  The room was nearly bare. The bed was made with the prickly colored comforter spread across it, not a wrinkle visible to the eye. The curtains around the four-poster were drawn and tied neatly, and while two chairs and two side tables remained, there was not a single item on them—no clock, no book, no knick-knacks of any sort. As I had no previous example to compare this to, having never been in the room before, I didn’t know for certain that this wasn’t the usual state of things. Yet, while we practiced an austere lifestyle by most standards, Rupert had never struck me as the type to adhere to it himself. Plus, at the end of the large inviting bed was a heavy wooden trunk, upon which sat two bulging suitcases, shut but threatening to pop open at any moment. The sparse room and the packed bags relayed the truth of the situation.

  “We’re leaving, Paula,” Rupert said. “I’ll explain on the road, but you and Jimmy are the only ones I’m bringing with me.”

  My mother bobbed her head excitedly, thrilled, no doubt, to be the one among many chosen as his companion.

  I’ve since come to terms with never precisely understanding why Mother and I were the ones Rupert chose, but I do entertain theories. Firstly, she was the only wife with one child. The rest all had three or more. Traveling with a single child would be far less noticeable than with six, like Melissa had, or even four, like Gertrude. The second possibility is that my mother was easily the most lethal of the wives and could fill the role of bodyguard as much as she could wife. It was a twofer. And if she was led to believe Rupert truly loved her, well, all the more deadly for any men in suits who tried to take him from her. I’d never heard her disclose the sordid details of her past relationships to Rupert, but then again, I wasn’t there for all those long nights they’d spent together. Looking back on it now, there must have been a great deal of stories shared for him to have bonded so strongly with each of his wives. Women are only ever that loyal to a man if they feel he’s not only heard but adequately comprehended the worst things they’ve ever done. And a man is only as loyal to a woman as Rupert was to my mother if she’s able to accomplish incredible physical feats in the bedroom. Which brings me to the third possible reason why my mother was chosen: her time with Terrance had schooled her in the devilish art of lust so that none of the other wives could equal her prowess.

  But while my mother was more than happy to flee with Rupert, I was not.

  For the first time in my long twelve years, I had a home. I had brothers and sisters. I didn’t get beaten. I had a bed to sleep on, regular meals. I even had a father whom I loved. And because I’d witnessed Rupert’s connection to the Holy Spirit fade since the two men arrived on our doorstep, as he stood before me in his bedroom, explaining how we would find a new home and start again, this time even better than before, I didn’t believe him. I didn’t believe he could start again, let along better than before. I despised him for letting his light dim. I detested him for making me choose, for creating a family only to shatter it in such a reckless manner.

  I nodded along with his plan, though my mind on the matter was already made. I wouldn’t leave with Pastor Heathrow and my mother. But I would leave.

  Rupert asked me to stay in his room for the night, but I asked if I could sleep in the bunks; that way the others wouldn’t become suspicious of our flight the next morning. I promised I could sneak out undetected before breakfast, and perhaps because of his preoccupation with other loose ends (and his own continued survival), he overlooked my obvious lie. Not the sneaking out part—I really was good at that skill—but the motivation behind my request.

  He told me to meet him on the front porch at five minutes before sunrise, and I enthusiastically agreed.

  I didn’t hug my mother before I left Rupert’s bedchamber, and I’ve never regretted that decision.

  The next morning, I slipped out of the front door a half hour before sunrise and hid behind one of the large willow trees, out of sight but with a clear view of the heavy front door of the—let’s call it what it was—compound.

  Ten minutes before sunrise, I saw Rupert and my mother creep from the house, shutting the door slowly and with care, and glance around suspiciously. They carried four large suitcases between the two of them, though I imagine it was all Rupert’s belongings since my mother had little more than the clothes on her back and perhaps one or two spare articles. She was anxious; her eyes darted around, skipping right over my hiding spot without a hint of a hitch, the crest of her arched brows approaching the sprigs of bangs from the pixie cut she’d maintained fastidiously since the first day Rupert had complimented it. I lowered the bucket deep into my internal well, attempting to draw forth emotion I should have felt for her. She was my mother. She’d raised me. We’d been through so much together. And this might be the last time I laid eyes on her for the rest of my life.

  The well was dry, no sentimentality to be found. Instead, when I brought up the bucket, I found it filled to the brim with a rugged determination that had laid dormant at the bottom of the well for my twelve years of existence and demanding to be released, finally, from its confines.

  Rupert checked his watch compulsively like he was addicted to the passage of time. While I didn’t own a watch myself, my suspicion has always been that the two most important adults in my life to that point didn’t wait until five minutes before sunrise before departing. Or if they did, they certainly didn’t wait a moment longer.

  He handed two bags to my mother and she nodded, understanding the implication: they were leaving without me.

  I watched them go.

  They didn’t take the shared car but instead went on foot, so deep was Rupert’s paranoia of being tracked. Perhaps it was founded. Perhaps not. Perhaps they were eventually caught by whomever sent those men in suits. Or perhaps they escaped. Maybe, as I write this, they’re enjoying cocktails on a beach in Mexico. Or maybe they’re both in prison. Perhaps both are dead.

  To this day, I don’t know where they are and I don’t wish to know.

  I returned home, or the place I had called home once. Not the one Rupert created for us before razing it to the ground with his betrayal, but the one my mother had built for us, just the two of us with the occasional interloper, that held no pretense of security or happiness, that demanded from the moment one set foot in it, “Don’t get your hopes up.”

  It was a long walk and took me nearly all day. I don’t know what drew me back. Habit? A desire to pretend the last year of my life was but a dream? Curiosity? The chance my mother and Rupert had stopped there on their escape route and that I might find them and expose them for the horrible people I now knew they were?

  I think it was none of those options, and by the time I arrived, I had little I desired to be where I was. The house had never looked as sullied, and that was saying something. Four seasons of neglect in the muggy climate was enough, at least, to allow the surrounding nature to assert a slow, crawling reclamation of its territory. The front door was locked, but a window in the back was smashed out, though who knew the cause? Had it been a bird? A brick? It didn’t matter. My childhood home wasn’t long for the world. God had a plan for it.

  I spent o
ne night in that house, alone, not sleeping, not even trying to, just thinking. Praying here and there. I thought about crying, but the tears wouldn’t come. So instead, I planned.

  When the sun crept above the hollow windowpane at dawn, I rose from my place on the dingy carpet and walked in the familiar woods one last time before striking out on my own, leaving all the ghosts behind.

  I can’t explain what happened in any scientific or legal terms, but I returned to the house only to discover it afire. Both then and now, I believe it was an act of God. A purification of the ground upon which that festering den stood and a sign that there was no going back for me. Not even God Himself could look upon my childhood home without scorn, so irreparably saturated in sin it was. And just as He burned the sinful brother cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to the ground, so did he set that ramshackle shake ablaze.

  Setting my jaw, I watched the flames extend their forked tongues from the windows, licking the exterior bricks unflinchingly. I would make my own home henceforth, one that was clean and pure, blessed by One who, at the time I knew only as God but now know as Deus Aper.

  So long as I let Him guide me, I thought, I might finally build the home I deserve—one large enough, pristine enough to house my innate greatness so that others may enter and be purified of their filth.

  As you know, I have accomplished such a feat. But humility compels me to honesty: my path was not a straight one, and young Jimmy had many more mistakes to make, many more lessons to learn, many more herculean trials to pass, and many more evils to overcome before he could build that home in Texas.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “How’re you feeling?” Miranda asked from the driver’s seat of her Honda Fit. “Less aggro on the whole?”

  Jessica laughed. “I’m never aggro, Miranda.”

  “There’s an empty statue pedestal on the Texas State campus that might disagree.”