“I told you, I don’t know.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“There’s a chance he’s . . . Never mind.”
“What? What were you going to say?”
He picks at his bread. “It’s just that . . . no one’s mentioned having him in their house. People really like to brag about housing Propheteers, so I sort of think maybe he isn’t in a house.”
“So where could he be?”
“Before I tell you, I need you to do something for me.”
I can’t believe his nerve. “Why do I owe you anything?”
“You don’t. I know that. But . . . please.” His eyes are soft. He takes a big breath, brushing the hair off his forehead. “I need you to go to Promise Prom with me tomorrow.”
Laughing, I say, “You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m very serious.”
“Silas . . . ” I don’t know how much I should say. “Juda and I . . . we, uh . . .”
“I know you’re involved,” he says, his forehead creasing.
“How do you know?”
“Every time his name is mentioned, your face wakes up, like you haven’t really been listening to anything anybody says until that moment.”
I look away, deeply embarrassed. I thought I’d been keeping my feelings a secret.
“I don’t care,” he says, putting his hand on mine. “You can have feelings for Juda and go to Promise Prom with me.”
“Any of the Unbound girls would be happy to go with you. I see the way they look at you.” Susanna would eat tissue flowers if she thought it would get her time alone with Silas.
“I don’t like those girls,” he says, as if the idea is distasteful.
“I’m flattered, but––”
He removes his hand. “The place they have Juda isn’t very nice.”
Dread rising, I say, “What do you mean? Where is he?”
“Are you going to the Prom with me?”
“I won’t forgive you for this blackmail, Silas,” I say, and I mean it. He knows I have deep feelings for Juda, and he’s using it against me. I no longer think he’s a nice person.
“Yes or no?” he says.
Can a “Promise Prom” really be that bad? I have no desire to spend more time with Silas, but, for the most part, the event should be painless, right? It seems like a small price to pay to find Juda. Seeing little choice, I say, “Yes, okay, fine. Where is he?”
“I think he might be in the Forgiveness Home.”
“What’s that?” Bithia threatened me with the Forgiveness Home yesterday.
“It’s hard to describe, but it isn’t a place where anyone wants to spend time.”
“Why wouldn’t he be with a family like the rest of us?”
He chews a nail. “People tend to get sent there when they’re, uh, uncooperative.”
Nyek. That sounds like Juda. “Is it a prison?”
“There aren’t cells or anything. There’s a lot of praying and . . . listening.”
I exhale. “That doesn’t sound so bad.” He isn’t being beaten or abused with tasers.
“Yeah,” he says. “Not so bad.” He gives me a big smile, but I can tell he doesn’t mean it. The way he’s gnawing at his nails tells me whatever is happening in the Forgiveness Home is more than praying, and it’s bad.
“Where is it?” I ask.
He pulls of another bite of bread. “I don’t know.”
“How can you not know where the big prison is?”
“It’s not a prison, and I never said it was big. Ram likes to keep the location a secret. So it’s more, um, disorienting for the people that end up there.”
“So the information you’ve given me is really no information at all.” I push the bread he bought away from me. “I don’t think the Prom thing is going to work out.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “Don’t be that way. It will be really benny.”
I let my face go blank, trying to express my feelings about all things “benny.”
He leans in closer. “Tabby knows where it is.”
Tabby? “Why?”
“Getting her to tell you is a whole other problem.”
Tabby can’t stand me. Why would she help me with anything?
“It’s time for dinner. We should go,” he says, standing.
We abandon the uneaten bread puffs. When we reach the metal stairs, he says quietly, “Sorry I lied to you. Please forgive?” He smiles and those long lashes flutter in the light.
I could be a lot more forgiving if I knew why he did it, but he’s made it clear he’s not going to tell me.
I nod in resignation, knowing I can’t keep up a war with someone in the same household.
As our Bees find us, he gives me a large hug. “I care about you so much. Let’s never fight again.”
I’ve never had a friendship like this before—where one minute a person adores me and the next is lying and avoiding me like a disease. It makes me feel more off-balance than Kingsboro already did.
“Make sure you go to bed early tonight,” he says as we leave the Center. “Tomorrow will be a long day, getting ready and everything.”
“How long do people usually take to get ready?”
“The girls? Around seven or eight hours,” he says. “It depends.”
Eight hours? What could they possibly be doing to themselves for eight hours? I look at Silas, a big smile on his face.
What have I gotten myself into?
Fourteen
The next day, I’m steeped in misery. Prom prep has taken over the Dixon household like a tornado, but I’m consumed with worry about Rose and how to find Juda.
As soon as Bithia hears I’m attending the Prom with Silas, she’s all smiles and exuberance (she seems to have forgiven our late night excursion). She begins digging into Tabby’s old dresses to find something suitable.
She locates a long, blue gown that Tabby wore to a Promise Prom when she was thirteen.
“Don’t I have to wear white?” I ask.
“No, dear,” she says with excitement. “Promise Prom is the only night of the year you can wear any color you want!”
“Then can I please not wear blue?” I ask. The dress reminds me of the one I wore to my Offering, and I have only bad memories of that night.
Bithia looks astonished. “I can see what else we have, but you don’t have all the choices in the world, child.”
She comes back to my room twenty minutes later with a bright red dress. “I think this one is just stunning! It will be perfect!”
“Won’t everyone . . . look at me in that color?” Mother says red is the color of harlots and demons.
“Yes! And that’s what every young lady wants at Prom.”
It is? I thought I was supposed to avoid “eye traps.”
Taking it to her sewing room, Bithia lets out the stitching so it’ll fit me. After lunch, she tells me to get into the shower (which still terrifies me) and then to cover my body in something called talcum powder. Smelling of geraniums, it clouds the bathroom and makes me sneeze as I shake it from its container.
Next, she puts me into a robe and uses a loud “blow-dryer” to form my hair into some sort of big bubble. Much to my embarrassment, Silas enters the bathroom, says the bubble is awful and that Bithia needs to let me wear my hair down.
After some protest, Bithia stops using the blow-dryer, spraying something that smells like grass all over my head. She uses her hands to tousle my hair in all sorts of directions. After that, she curls my lashes and puts some sort of gloss on my lips.
She then brings me the red dress. “Here you are, honey,” she said. “I hope it fits. You’re slightly larger than I was remembering.” She smiles. “But you’re probably being fed properly for the first time in your life, right?”
“My mother is a very good cook,” I say, feeling defensive for her. She was difficult in many ways, but she always made sure we ate well.
Bithia nods, but I can see she doesn’t believe me.
“Now this has a satin top and a chiffon skirt. See how the bottom has all these pretty layers?” She holds out the dress.
The skirt fabric is transparent but there are so many layers no one will be able to see my legs, which is a relief. The satin top goes up to the collarbone but has no sleeves, which is worrying.
I let her help me put it on, since there are hooks and zippers I can’t reach. Once everything is fastened and closed, I have a hard time breathing.
Bithia beams at me. “I’m going to allow myself a moment of pride here and say not bad for one day’s notice!”
Tabby walks in. She’s wearing a stiff white skirt made of many layers which shoots out horizontally. The tight fitting top hugs her breasts and shows her ribs. Her hair is piled on top of her head like the bread loaf Silas bought me. The high hair accents her sharp cheekbones and tiny features.
Bithia inhales sharply, saying, “Don’t you look gorgeous!”
Tabby looks down at herself without smiling.
“Turn around!” says Bithia.
Tabby obeys.
“Doesn’t she look stunning?” Bithia asks me.
“Yes,” I say. “She does.”
“What do you think?” Bithia asks Tabby, gesturing to me.
Tabby crosses her arms, studying me like a hard word. She comes closer, touching my hair. “Her hair is not bad, but . . .”
“But what?” said Bithia.
“Her forehead,” said Tabby.
Bithia inspects my forehead, searching for flaws.
“She has pimples,” says Tabby.
My hand jerks up to feel my skin. What’s she talking about? Just as I’m about to tell her to go away, I feel them: little bumps just below my hair line.
“I would give her bangs,” Tabby says.
Bithia squints at my face and a moment later says, “Yes! You are a genius, Tabby.”
Tabby then eyes my red dress. “That dress is perfect on you. The style was really popular last year.”
“Thank you,” I say, knowing she thinks I’m too stupid to understand the insult. I tell her, “Your gown is pretty too.”
She smirks. “This dress is for the pre-show. It’s not my gown.”
“Oh. Sorry,” I say. How will I ever get information from this girl? She doesn’t like me. She doesn’t seem to like anyone. I don’t have anything she wants or needs. My search for the Forgiveness Home is hopeless.
As I agonize over my problem, Bithia takes scissors from the drawer and begins cutting the hair that falls in front of my face.
When I start to protest, she says, “Sit still or I’ll mess up!”
Five minutes later, I have a short shelf of hair above my eyebrows, just like Tabby.
“Very nice,” says Bithia. “Now let’s find you some shoes.”
She rushes out of the bathroom, while I stare in the mirror. It hasn’t been very long since my Offering, but the girl in the mirror looks completely different than the one that Mother prepared for suitors.
Instead of a tight bun, my hair is loose and wavy with “bangs.” My face seems rounder and has more color from my time walking around uncovered in the sun. The mascara has made my eyes look wide and alert and the gloss gives my lips a wet effect. The red dress is flattering to my figure, but I can’t help but worry that if Mrs. Prue is there, I will be getting demerits for calling attention to my body. It’s all so confusing—look pretty but not so pretty you create lust.
Bithia returns with a pair of black flats. “These are mine and they should do––probably a little big, but I always say better too big than too small, right?”
Once I have the shoes on, I go downstairs, where Silas waits. He wears an olive suit and shirt that bring out the green in his eyes. His wrist brace is perfectly hidden under his clothes.
Grinning when he sees me, he says, “Gorgeous. I knew you’d clean up well.”
He looks nice, but I’m still too annoyed with him to say so. “How much time do we have?”
“Ten minutes at the most.”
“I need to talk to Tabby.”
“This really isn’t the best time,” says Silas. “She’s jumpier than a cricket.”
“She won’t hate me any less tomorrow.”
Smiling again, he says, “That’s true.”
I clunk back up the stairs, not wanting to waste one second.
From outside of Tabby’s door, I can hear Bithia fussing over Tabby’s hair and telling her to pull her top up higher. She then says, “Hurry up. Don’t make us late!”
When Bithia leaves the room, she sees me hovering. “What are you doing here?” she asks, looking suspicious.
“I wanted to tell Tabby good luck,” I say, not exactly sure what Tabby is doing tonight but knowing it seems a lot like an Offering.
“Well, be quick,” says Bithia. “We can’t be late!” She walks to the master bedroom, shrieking, “GILAD! You READY?”
Bithia has left the door open, so I walk inside. I’ve never been in Tabby’s room before. I’m not sure what I expected, but it wasn’t this. Everything is baby blue: the bed, the walls, the curtains, even a little skirt around the dressing table. At the top of the bed rests a teddy bear wearing a baby blue beret.
Next to the blue bed is a night table, and the top is covered with straws, just like the ones we used in our fruit drinks at the Leisure Center. What an odd thing to collect. Is Tabby commemorating how many compressions she’s had? Or is she on some strange diet where she needs to keep count of them?
To my right, Tabby looks into a full-length mirror, tugging at her top and skirt. She seems unhappy with the way she looks.
Seeing me in the reflection, she turns around, her wrinkled nose suggesting a bad smell has entered the room. “What?”
“You look great, Tabby,” I say.
She turns back to the mirror. “Gee, thanks, woolie.”
I want to walk out, but I can’t. She’s my last hope. “Uh, I have a question for you.”
“Yes, my brother is a turd.” She laughs at her own joke. Seeing my serious face, she says, “Lighten up, Mina. You’re major uptight.”
I laugh a bit, trying to show her how “normal” I am, then I dive in. “So, uh, can you please tell me where the Forgiveness Home is?”
She stops smiling, turning to me again. “Who told you I knew?”
“So you do know?” I say, pulse racing.
“Who told you?” As her eyes narrow, she takes an angry step toward me. I stumble backward, instinctively throwing up my hand to protect my face.
She stops. “What’s wrong with you? Freak.”
My face goes hot.
She stares at me like I’ve thrown up all over her carpet.
“I just wanted––” I say, determined to ask again.
“I don’t know where it is, and whoever told you I did, is full of twaddle. Besides, if you really want to go there so major badly, why don’t you just sneak out again? I’m sure Mom and Dad would happily lock you up in the Forgiveness Home, and then we all win.” She brushes past me to the open door.
I follow her, despising my weakness. I blew it. Now she hates me more than ever. I’m no closer to finding Juda than I was before I agreed to go to this stupid event. I wish more than anything that I could walk out of this house and never see Tabby again.
Fifteen
As I walk outside with the Dixons, I’m surprised when Gilad leads us in the opposite direction of the Leisure Center. I’d assumed Promise Prom took place in the atrium where we were making decorations.
We stop at the corner of the next street, and I survey our group. Bithia’s cherry pink dress is covered in ruffles from top to bottom, and she resembles one of the tissue flowers we made this morning. Gilad looks more restrained in a dark plum suit. Cornelius’ hair has been parted severely down the middle, doing no favors for his big ears. His lemon-yellow suit is adorable, but I can't imagine it will stay clean for long. Tabby picks at a bead on her skirt, avoiding eye contact with me.
A g
reen bus comes into view.
“Finally!” says Corny.
When the bus stops right in front of us, Silas takes my hand and leads me on board. The affection makes my uncomfortable, but I don’t feel like I can say anything in front of his family.
Naomi Benjamin, Jeremiah’s mother, is the bus driver. A woman! She wears a bright yellow gown, and her hair is pulled up into an elegant twist. Smiling, she waves hello. I’m glad my misdeed with Silas hasn’t soured the Elder’s opinion of me.
The seats are packed, leaving standing room only. The Dixons don’t seem to mind. They chat and laugh with the families already aboard.
The men wear silky thin suits and the women all wear long gowns like mine. The colors are dazzling.
When the bus starts moving, we’re all thrown backward for a moment, and everyone bursts into laughter. I’m so mesmerized by people’s exuberance that I don’t notice that Silas is staring at me. He’s standing so close, it’s disconcerting. “What?” I ask.
“You look different.”
“How?”
“It’s the first time I’ve seen you in a dress.”
“Oh.”
He studies me more. “You look terrific, but . . .”
I knew it. Something about me looks weird.
“You’re still in Tabby’s clothes. I’m curious to know what you look like in your own clothes, how you are when you’re really you.”
I stare out the window at the houses whizzing by. If Silas saw me at home wearing simple cotton clothes, or a cloak and veil, would that be the real me? Someone else chose those things, too. I don’t know that clothes have anything to do with who I am. The last time I felt completely like myself was when I was reading the Time Out with Nana and Grace.
“I feel like myself when I’m reading,” I say.
His eyebrows go up in surprise. “Me, too.”
I want to smile, but I remind myself that I’m going to this event against my will.
The bus stops. The tight crowd makes it impossible to see where we are. Only when I step out of the bus am I able to take in our surroundings, and I’m pretty sure we’ve arrived on another planet.
An expansive lawn stands between us and a huge . . . structure? Building? I don’t know what to call it. It’s round with massive concrete columns and no walls, like the world’s largest gazebo. The circular roof is made of pink and yellow glass and might break during a hard rain. The edge of the roof is bright yellow and covered in spikes that look a bit like fangs.
Time Next Page 13