The Reformation of Marli Meade

by Tracy Hewitt Meyer

  “Go into the kitchen.” His voice was gruff yet quiet. “Put a chair in the corner by the refrigerator and sit there. Don’t move.”

  It only took a handful of steps to get to the kitchen. The cabin consisted of just the two main rooms—the front room where there was a couch, chair, and maybe a table, though I paid little attention, and this kitchen. Somewhere there must be a bathroom but I didn’t ask.

  I pulled a chair from the narrow table, pushing it into the space between the wall and the refrigerator. There was a window, but it was at the other end of the wall. Someone would not be able to see me if they looked in. Besides, there was a curtain to help further obstruct the view.

  Soon the sound of voices wafted through the wooden walls. Tension had my muscles sprung so tight, I was afraid they would snap.

  Robert didn’t say anything nor did he come into the kitchen. When someone knocked on the door, he opened it. I could actually hear my heart’s frantic beats.

  “What do you want?” Robert demanded.

  “Have you seen my granddaughter?” Edna’s tone was rude, impatient.

  “No.”

  Silence. I imagined them in a stare-off. Or maybe he was mouthing to her that her granddaughter was in the kitchen. Would he do that to me? The fact that I knew nothing about this man only added to my terror-filled unease.

  “If you see her, let me know.”

  Robert slammed the door without a response. The sliding of the lock was the sweetest sound I had ever heard.

  He stopped in the doorway and stared at me.

  “Thank you,” I managed.

  “Why are you running?” He sounded surprisingly normal for someone who lived his life secluded in a tiny cabin.

  “I don’t want to get married.”

  His brows flew upward. “They want you to get married?”

  “Yes. Tonight.” I bowed my head so he wouldn’t see the tears stinging my eyes. When I looked up, he was rubbing his hand over his dark beard. He didn’t have the nonblinking stare that Charles did and I could tell, even in the fading light, that his eyes weren’t black, but a few shades lighter like mine.

  “You’ll have to stay here for a while.”

  “I have to leave early in the morning.”

  “Why?”

  I didn’t answer. He had yet to earn my trust.

  “I’m assuming you have a plan. If you need to leave tomorrow, you should do so before sunrise.”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “Good,” he mumbled, turning his back to me. “Get out like your mother couldn’t.” But the words were delivered so softly I wasn’t sure I heard them.

  It didn’t matter, though. The only thing that did was that I needed his help. I would stay in this cabin until it was time to meet Nate and Polly.

  Would he allow me to leave? Or would he use me as a pawn in a game I didn’t understand? He was giving me no indication he would betray me, but yet, did I really know this uncle of mine? The answer was no. I didn’t know him at all.

  Further, something about him scared me, like he was a sleeping bear on the brink of a starved spring awakening.

  But trusting him was a risk I would have to take.

  DUSK DESCENDED THICK and heavy. The chatter of voices moaned on outside as did the flicker of torchlight. Robert made me a cup of coffee that sat untouched on the table. He offered to make something to eat, but I declined. The only light in the small cabin came from a kerosene lamp on the counter and a small candle in the middle of the table, casting every corner in flickering shadow.

  “You should try to sleep.” He stood in front of me, but didn’t look down. Instead, his eyes were trained on the window, the locked doorknob…anywhere but on me.

  “What time do you think I should sneak out?”

  He walked to the window. “I don’t know. It could be risky for several more hours. Then, I still wouldn’t trust that they aren’t in the woods looking for you, lying in wait somewhere. Is there someone you’re going to meet?”

  I remained silent and he glanced at me before returning his gaze to the window.

  “If they think you’re meeting someone, they might go in search of them.”

  “No.” I jumped up, unable to control the rise in my voice. “No! They can’t.”

  “Sit down!”

  I fell back and my butt hit the chair with a thud.

  He slid a chair close to mine and leaned forward, his voice dropping. “These walls are not thick and if someone is under a window, you might be heard.”

  “I have to get out of here,” I whispered. “Can you help me?”

  “I can help you but I’m not a fool. If you’re going to succeed in this, you need a plan. You can’t walk out this door and just hike down the mountain, thinking freedom awaits you there.”

  “Why not? It’s dark. I know this forest better than I know my own bedroom. I can find my way. I can be silent, making no more noise than an animal. I can steer clear of torches and voices.”

  “It’s not that simple.” He ran a hand through his disheveled hair.

  “Why not? Please!” Now was not the time to start whining, but I felt escape slipping through my fingers.

  “Look. I know how this church operates. And believe me when I say that if you’re caught—and they will be looking for you—you don’t want to know what will happen to you. Mary’s punishing was nothing.”

  A million pinpricks swept over my skin. “You were there?”

  “When I got there, it was too late. It was already over.”

  “Oh.”

  “You don’t want to go through that. You need more of a plan than just getting to the bottom of the mountain.”

  “Then what can I do? I…do have someone to meet. They’re supposed to bring a car and money and we’re leaving. Getting away, far away.”

  “Someone who lives here on the mountain?”

  I studied his face, trying to decide where to draw the line of trust. The problem was, I just didn’t know. This was a gut instinct moment and my gut instinct said that he was safe.

  “No, it’s no one from the mountain.”

  “Good. They aren’t to be trusted. Even someone you think is your friend. The church is too good at making sure it comes first. Always.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  “Yes. I’ll do my best to answer.”

  “Do you have any idea why this is happening now? I mean, I just turned sixteen and had no warning that they were thinking of marriage, certainly not that they were arranging it. Why now? Have I done something wrong?”

  “I can’t answer that last question, but the simple fact that you are your mother’s daughter and are now sixteen is enough to get these wheels turning.”

  “My mother’s daughter? What is that supposed to mean?”

  But then pounding erupted on the front door, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. In fact, if I didn’t have such nice solid skin, I would’ve torn right out of it.

  Robert put his finger to his lips and motioned me back into the darkness.

  “What?” he asked through the closed door.

  “It’s Charles. Let me in.”

  “Go away. You’re not welcome here.”

  “Open the door or I’ll break it open.”

  Robert burst into an ugly laugh. “Try it and you’ll be met with a bullet between the eyes.”

  Footsteps moved off the wooden porch. I was about to sigh in relief when someone tried to turn the doorknob on the back door, just feet from where I sat.

  Robert’s heavy boots pounded across the hardwood floor. “I’m cocking my gun now.”

  “Is she in there?” Charles’s voice was scratchy and cold, just like him.

  “Who?” Robert asked.

  “My daughter. My. Daughter.” He emphasized those last words like he was proving a point.

  “Sarah’s daughter is not here.”

  I flinched. Robert seemed to use my mother’s name with a familiarity I found confusing.


  No one moved for several minutes—not me in the chair nor Robert by the door. I was about to faint from holding my breath.

  Finally, Robert stepped back. He moved to the window and peaked out. He walked to the front room and, I assumed, did the same. A moment later he returned to the kitchen and sat at the table.

  “He’s gone for now.”

  “Did you know my mother?” I blurted.

  His gaze sharpened in the dim light. “Yes, I knew your mother. What do you know about her?”

  “Nothing!” I forced the desperation out of my voice and tried to calm my nerves. “No one talks about her. She died when I was born and I never got to know her. Charles and Edna don’t say anything. I don’t even know where she is buried.”

  Slowly, his features started to change, like they were rearranging themselves. His cheekbones became less pronounced, his eyes sagged, his lips downturned. It was like someone had set his aging on high speed.

  “I buried her deep in the forest.” Sorrow oozed from him, making the air heavier than the crushing weight of an avalanche.

  “You buried her?” I leaned forward. “Where is her grave? What happened? How did she die?” Questions flew out of my mouth.

  He cleared his throat. “She was very young when she married Charles.”

  “Sixteen. Like me.”

  “Like you.” He ran his palm back and forth over the tip of the candle’s flame.

  “Was she from this mountain? All I know is they say she was not a direct descendant. It seems this red hair is a sore point for Charles and Edna.” I pulled at a curl of my now-black hair.

  “No. She belonged to a similar church in Tennessee, and her family was one of the few the church allowed in as converts. Sarah’s parents came from Ireland before Sarah was born, but by the time she was born, they were members, which is how she was able to marry Charles.”

  “How did they meet if she lived in another state?”

  He released a heavy sigh causing the candle’s flame to flicker. “There are churches like this one all over the South. Believe it or not, there is a network of them. Hundreds of them, all stemming from one main church in rural Tennessee where marriages are arranged. They would’ve paired her with Charles, probably to help her family further integrate.”

  “Would they have decided about my marriage to Josiah?”

  “If this Josiah was who you were to marry, then the main church would have wanted it that way. Even Edna wouldn’t balk against the main church.”

  “She was probably happy with the thought of getting rid of me.”

  “Maybe.” Robert rubbed his eyes. “You’d think without telephones and Internet and such that they wouldn’t be such a tightknit group. But the leaders of each individual church meet, making daily trips to various touch-down points, and information becomes disseminated, moving both ways—from smaller churches to the main church and vice versa.”

  “So that must be where Charles goes during the days.”

  “There are a few churches close by but others that are a day’s trip so he would be gone several hours at a time.”

  “It never did make sense that he would let me go to the library. They have always been so angry over me being in the public school.”

  “There are some on this mountain who like to talk. Charles and Edna did not want you spending time on the mountain without them and their watchful eye to keep track of who you talked to.”

  “People who like to talk? About what?” I thought about my early morning meetings with Nate. I was so sure that they would never find out. Had they been watching this whole time? Had I been played the fool?

  If so, at what cost?

  “Not everyone likes the church’s practices but most are too frightened to do anything about it. It is not as easy to walk away as one would think it should be in these modern times. That doesn’t mean they don’t talk behind closed doors.”

  “But Edna was there in the afternoons.”

  “Yes, but Edna was busy running the church. She couldn’t be everywhere at once—by your side as well as doing whatever the church needed done. It was better to put you in a library that no one ever visits.”

  “What does this have to do with my mother?”

  “Sarah had trouble as soon as she left her home and moved to the mountain.”

  “Trouble like what?”

  Robert turned toward the window. The torch flames still undulated against the darkness outside, casting their crimson shadows along the inside of the cabin. “She should have known what to expect coming from the church already. But nothing could prepare her for Charles and Edna. And, of course, she had no choice but to marry. As you know, choice is obsolete within this church.”

  I knew a thing or two about having no choice.

  Minute by minute, Robert seemed to deflate, to draw inward, to render himself vulnerable and insignificant.

  “She started talking to people. Started making waves. She couldn’t seem to understand she was supposed to be seen and not heard.”

  I felt a small swell of pride over my mother’s strength even though I had no right to.

  “I was one person she confided in about her troubles, and eventually, well, I fell in love with her,” he said. “And she with me.”

  “What?” The word burst from my mouth.

  “The church’s clutches were deep, though, and they would never let her go. She belonged to the church and to Charles. End of story. It didn’t matter what she wanted.” He looked down at the table. “And she’d wanted me.”

  Robert had loved my mother? And she had loved him?

  “I couldn’t help her,” he whispered. “I tried but I couldn’t.”

  His eyes closed, his moist lashes reflected in the faint light. He was walking the shadowed halls of the past, and as much as I wanted answers, I didn’t want to travel back in time with him. He exuded a stifling pain that I didn’t think I could handle right now.

  When he started talking again, I almost stopped him. But then, I couldn’t.

  “I had just turned eighteen and was still living at home when she moved in.”

  He put his palm back over the flame and held it there, unflinching. “At the wedding, I could tell she was unhappy…scared…confused. Within a week, she was already starting to wither away. Charles and Edna treated her like a slave. She wasn’t allowed to go anywhere, have friends. Even interaction with the congregants was forbidden after a couple of people made complaints about the church, and Edna figured out they’d been talking to Sarah. I had just gotten a job in the coal mines but started to skip work to spend time with her whenever Charles and Edna were gone. I just couldn’t stand by and watch this beautiful woman slowly die. I wanted to add something to her lonely life.” He released a soft laugh. “Eventually, I started skipping work day after day to be with her. We became…friends…then more.”

  He pulled his palm away from the flame and stared at it. “That hair. That blood-red hair. It was like she was on fire and when the sunlight hit it, she was…lit up. She had eyes as clear as a cloudless summer day, almost translucent.” He coughed. “When we were together, which was never often enough, she glowed.”

  I leaned forward.

  “It had gotten unbearable to be in that house, and we started to talk about escape, even made plans. Charles is a cold man. Edna is an evil woman. Together they are a wicked, wrathful pair. I’m sure this is nothing new to you.”

  No, it wasn’t.

  “At first I don’t think they had a clue. Our plans progressed. I bought a house in town and it was almost ready for us to move into. I was going to hide her there for a while, let things settle, and then she’d ask for a divorce. If things blew up, we’d just leave and never return. Who cared? As long as we were together and away from the mountain, we would make it work. If we had only left at the first opportunity, we would’ve been fine. But we didn’t. Something happened. Something that ended up costing Sarah her life.”

  “What?” I whispered.

 
“I’ll get you some water.” He didn’t wait for an answer and poured water from a gallon jug into a mason jar.

  I took a long sip. “What do you mean it cost her her life?”

  “She found out she was pregnant.”

  “With me?”

  Unable to temper the shaking in his voice, he whispered, “Yes, with you.”

  “Oh my God. Are you my father?” I blurted.

  After several moments, he sighed. “No. I am not.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “She was sick a lot, too sick to leave. When she started feeling better, we started making plans again. But then…they found out.”

  “Found out?”

  “About us and our plan. I still don’t know how. But they did. She was almost full-term in her pregnancy, and we had to hurry in case the baby came early. We didn’t make it, though. The night before we were going to leave, they started the worst punishing the church had ever seen. When I heard what was happening—my friend raced off the mountain to tell me—I hightailed it up here. But it was too late. The punishing had started and ended by the time I got there. Sarah was dead. You were crying in Edna’s arms.”

  TIME PASSED SLOWLY toward 4:00 a.m.

  Tick Tock

  Tick Tock

  Tick Tock

  Silence had long since descended between Robert and me, like a heavy theater curtain. I fell asleep in fits and spurts, still in the chair by the refrigerator. After sharing so much of his past, Robert deflated like a balloon and left the room without another word, leaving me to wait for answers to any lingering questions.

  Tick Tock

  Tick Tock

  My muscles screamed when I finally stood. I stretched, long and deep, urging my blood to get moving again.

  What did I do now? Just walk out the door?

  On silent feet, I moved across the kitchen floor, keeping away from the window just in case. I peeked through the doorway into the front room, trying to keep as quiet as possible in case Robert was asleep, but there was no need. He was standing at the window.