First Girl

by Julie Aitcheson

  At the first touch of salt, the girl yelped in pain and would have jerked away if Ruth hadn’t gripped her hand while Ginny pressed her salty finger back into the wound. Afterward Ruth daubed water from the bowl between the girl’s eyebrows in blessing and asked Ginny to escort her to the bathroom where she would take a hot shower, scrubbing with more salt, before donning her cotton shift and returning to the circle.

  The confessed sins all sounded pretty similar. There was some lustful thinking, some speaking of untruths, some unsupervised flirting and illicit handholding. Nobody was judged for having sins to confess. In fact, the more things a girl admitted to, the more pleased Ruth looked, and the more she praised the camper’s commitment to true purity. Gabi kept it pretty general—keeping secrets was definitely on the list. The salt burned all the way up her arm, but it was over as soon as she stepped under the wonderfully hot spray of the shower. Gabi could have stayed in there forever. Too soon Christina thrust a towel and white shift into Gabi’s stall and cleared her throat.

  Marnie was the last to be called as the watery gray light of dawn began to reach its tentacles across the floorboards. Ruth waited until the last girl emerged from the bathroom, rosy from her shower and scrub, before opening Marnie’s ritual with the blessing. “Now repeat after me, Marian,” Ruth instructed. “As Jesus drove the corrupt moneylenders from the temple, so I cast out all impurities in accordance with the Will.” Even from a distance, Gabi could see Marnie’s eyes flare as she pulled her shoulders back and repeated the sentence through gritted teeth. Ruth continued. “In my weakness and impurity I am unworthy to serve God….” She waited for Marnie to repeat the phrase, but Marnie’s jaw locked tight and she was glaring darts at Ruth. “Go ahead, Marian,” Ruth urged. “In my weakness and impurity, I am unworthy to serve God.”

  Marnie remained mute. Silence yawned. Ruth sighed and laid a sympathetic hand on Marnie’s knee. “Oh, Marian, I know it’s hard. Sometimes the sin worms its way so far into your heart that you mistake it for truth. That is the skill of the serpent.”

  “I haven’t sinned,” Marnie seethed, each word a hammered nail. Ruth’s expression remained placid as she removed her hand from Marnie’s knee and looked around the room.

  “Marian is struggling, my sisters. Can you see what a hold the serpent has on her heart?” Murmurs of assent from the counselors and nods from the grave girls. Gabi shifted where she sat. Marnie had saved her in the beginning of the ritual when Gabi was caught unprepared for Ruth’s question. She owed her one, but what could she do without risking her own chance to be a Witness? “The sin is deep and must be purged, but we cannot purify that which we cannot name. Can I get an amen?” Ruth prompted.

  “Amen!” Ginny whooped, sparking a round of similarly enthusiastic amens from everyone except Gabi, who remained fixed on Marnie’s defiant profile.

  “When one of our fellows is in need, we respond, do we not? The very core of Unitas demands we serve not only him and the Word but each other. Who will raise this sister up? Who has born witness to her sin and will confess it on her behalf? Who will purify their own sin of concealment and return hand in hand with her to the protection of the Lord?” Ruth’s voice boomed as she raked them with her unsparing gaze. “We must do for Marian what she cannot do for herself.”

  Natalie raised her hand in the air, smirking. “Sister Ruth? Marian skips out on services. She shows up with the foster group sometimes, but she doesn’t sing or bow her head for the blessing, and she never stays. My family sits a few rows from them, and I’ve seen her sneak out. And—” Here, Natalie bit her lip and dipped her head, the picture of injured modesty. “She looks at girls.” The rest of her clique tittered, and there were reactions ranging from shock to outright confusion from the rest of the group. Ruth arched a perfect eyebrow, an invitation for Natalie to continue. “I mean, she looks at me, anyway. It makes me uncomfortable, the way she stares. Like she’s having impure thoughts. I didn’t say anything before because I didn’t really understand how I could be tainted by her sin, but I really get it now.” Ruth’s neck arched in an approving nod, and she held her hand out to Natalie, who rose and approached the center of the circle. Natalie dipped the barest tip of her finger into the salt and touched it lightly to the nick in her palm with a delicate shudder. Ruth knelt and set down the salt, wet her fingertips in the bowl of water, daubed between Natalie’s brows, and hugged the smug girl before sending her back to her seat. Gabi cringed. Watching Marnie get bullied in the name of “purity” made her whole body ache with memories of the blows she had suffered at Bradley’s hands. If Gabi didn’t do something to help Marnie, she was no better than a bully herself.

  “Thank you, Sister Natalie,” Ruth said. “You have shown that you are truly ready to become an adult in the eyes of the temple and a vessel for the Word. Marian, I encourage you to thank your sister for her sacrifice on your behalf.” Marnie continued to glare. “I see,” Ruth murmured and nodded at Ginny and Christina, who rose to pull Marnie to her feet. “For your own good, further purification will be necessary. When the spirit is sullied, it cannot serve.”

  “Wait!” All eyes swiveled toward Gabi as she stood, pins and needles pricking the soles of her feet from sitting so long. “I left services too. I snuck out.” Natalie glared at Gabi, furious at being upstaged. The others looked scandalized by the confession from Brother Lowell’s own daughter, but she could tell by the way Ruth stayed fixed on Marnie that it hadn’t accomplished what she’d hoped. Ruth had already locked on her target and was determined to make an example of Marnie.

  “Thank you, Gabriela. In confessing your sins, you are redeemed,” Ruth said, waving a dismissive hand. “You may approach the center for your final purification, before we escort Sister Marian to the redemption bath.”

  Gabi had no idea what was going to happen to Marnie in the “redemption bath,” but she knew it wasn’t a soothing soak. If Gabi couldn’t stop it from happening, at least she could make sure Marnie didn’t have to go through it alone.

  “I’m not done,” Gabi blurted. She moved toward Ruth. “I left services because I went to meet a boy.”

  Ruth finally turned her sweet smile and frigid eyes in Gabi’s direction. “Oh? And what boy was this?”

  “I won’t say.” And with that, Gabi could feel any slender chance of being recruited as a Witness slip from her grasp. Even if she managed to get strong enough and studied nonstop for the exam, no recruiter would look twice at her now. Witnesses had to be pure. Above reproach. Marnie stared at her, mouth agape. Gabi was astonished herself. Why had she just blown her only chance at getting out of Alder for someone who was barely civil to her? But there was no time to wallow as Ruth instructed Christina and Ginny to escort Gabi and Marnie to the bathroom and dismissed the rest of the campers to breakfast.

  After Ruth joined them in the communal bathroom, she nodded to Ginny, who walked over to a door Gabi had previously assumed was a utility closet. Ginny clicked the lock open to reveal it was actually a room as big as the main bathroom, with an old-fashioned claw-foot tub at its center. Beside the tub was a table holding an array of scalpels, cotton swabs, antiseptic wipes, bandages, and ointment. On the floor by the table was a bulging burlap sack of salt, a shiny metal scoop buried in white crystals just visible at the top. Ribbons of steam rose from the tub, which was filled with water. Everything was in perfect readiness. They, or at least one of them, had been expected.

  The five girls formed a circle around the tub, Gabi’s hair corkscrewing in the steam. She expected Ruth to go off on another sermon as they stared into the depths of the tub, but the head counselor only looked at Ginny and nodded.

  “So,” Ginny began, “I totally understand how you two must be feeling right now. Trust me, I have been there. It took me a long time to be able to confess my sin. I didn’t want to believe I had fallen so far and caused my brother’s death. At first I wanted to protect the boy I was seeing, but then I realized that by keeping my sin to myself, I wasn’t only dam
ning my own soul, but his as well. If I had come to that sooner, maybe my brother wouldn’t have… maybe he would still—” She blinked back tears and took a shaky breath. “That’s how I ended up in this room. I was so weak that it took coming to this moment to realize that the only way to be redeemed was through the truth.”

  “What Ginny means,” Ruth interjected, “is that you don’t have to suffer as Christ did. That is why God sent his only begotten son—to suffer for us. But by holding on to your sin, you place yourself on the cross. In your refusal to be purified through truth, you choose to be purified through suffering. Is that still your choice?”

  Gabi knew she couldn’t speak first. She had to follow Marnie’s lead or risk being abruptly absolved, leaving Marnie to face the trial alone. Still, Gabi was desperate to know what that trial would be, exactly. The scalpels on the tray were a reminder of the scene at the Care Center, suggesting that a relaxing spa treatment was not what Ruth had in mind.

  Marnie kept her eyes on the water, as though daring it to do her harm. “I have not sinned,” she growled.

  “Gabriela?” Ruth prompted. “Do you wish to make your confession?” Ruth’s sweetness and sisterly camaraderie from earlier had faded as the salt ritual progressed, until she stood before them now with all the warmth and humanity of a sledgehammer.

  “No,” Gabi stated quietly. “I don’t.”

  Ruth nodded at Ginny, who gave Marnie and Gabi a long, mournful look before retrieving the tray from the table.

  “Remove your shifts,” Ruth ordered, “and give them to Christina.” Christina stepped toward them, sweeping her thick braid over one shoulder and holding out a hand for the garments. Marnie’s eyes held a question for Gabi: What in the hell are you doing here? Gabi tried to fill her own with reassurance and hide the panic trying to weaken her legs. She bent down and pulled the shift over her head after a brief wrestling match when her snarl of sodden hair wrapped around one of the shoulder straps. Gabi felt strangely unselfconscious of her nudity, even in front of such shining examples of female perfection as Ruth and Ginny. She knew she looked more like an undernourished twelve-year-old boy than a young woman, but she had never felt better or stronger, despite the wobble in her knees. Maybe nobody else could tell how much she had changed, but she could, and she was proud of it. Ruth and Ginny kept their eyes on Gabi’s face as Christina accepted her shift and draped it over her arm.

  Marnie’s mouth twitched as though she’d just remembered a delicious secret, then she yanked down on her own shift, causing the straps to rip away and the garment to fall to the floor. Her body was pale like Gabi’s but carved and bound in thick cords of muscle. How someone with such a demanding smoking habit could cultivate that level of physical fitness Gabi didn’t know, but Marnie’s oversized clothing had been hiding the physique of a warrior. The sleek bulk of her drew Gabi’s eyes like a magnet, and she couldn’t help wondering what it would feel like to mold her hands to those powerful contours. From the solid trunks of her legs to the notched seam where her pectorals met over her sternum on an otherwise flat chest, Marnie was like a spring-loaded weapon. But that was not what caused Ruth and Ginny to gape or Christina to clap a hand over her mouth to muffle a scream. There, high on the left side of Marnie’s rib cage and about a hand’s breadth down from one mauve nipple, was a raised scar in the shape of a five-pointed star within a circle. A pentagram.

  Ruth raised her hands over her head, closing her eyes so that her lashes fell like sooty brooms across the tops of her cheeks. “I heard a voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, ‘Go your ways and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth. And the first angel went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.’” Gabi recognized the passage from Revelation 16:1–2. It was one of many referring to “The Mark of the Beast” read during services when news came of violent raids in the outer branches. The Mark of the Beast was a sign of initiation, indicating that the person bearing it had been accepted by the Tribes.

  All the Returned bore the marks. Gram used to grumble over how poorly healed the scars were, and prone to infection, but Marnie wasn’t a Returned. Gabi guessed Marnie’s mark had something to do with her parents’ work with the Tribes. But why did that scar look so familiar? Why did the sight of that small, branded patch of skin send her stomach straight into her throat? The answer danced within reach, but there was simply too much sensory input coming at her to sort it out.

  Ruth’s eyes blazed at Marnie with manic intensity. “You are being given a second chance, Marian. An offering of divine pardon. Your presence here is a testament to God’s grace. We are honored and humbled to serve as his handmaidens, to guide our wayward sisters back to the light.” Christina was practically prancing with glee, while Ginny busied herself organizing the tray of implements. Marnie looked bored, though her whole body radiated disgust. “We’ll start with Sister Lowell,” Ruth said, all business again as she lifted a scalpel from the tray and turned to Gabi. The room was lit by a few large tapers like the ones used in the temple, and the flames smeared the scalpel blade with buttery gold.

  The scalpel. The scar. The words pinged around Gabi’s head, trying to find the right blanks to settle into, but Ruth was grabbing her uncut hand and carving a slash into its palm. Tears stung Gabi’s eyes, but she didn’t cry out. She sensed an unspoken pact with Marnie that neither of them would give Ruth the satisfaction.

  Her wound leaked blood onto the tiled floor where it bloomed into tiny roses, which Ruth was careful to avoid as she knelt and made similar cuts on the tops of Gabi’s feet. These were followed by a cut made at the concavity below Gabi’s sternum, where her ribs spread apart. The pain was an entity, growing larger with each slash, but she would not let it take over. The cuts were longer and deeper than the ones made during the purification ceremony. They bled more and hurt exponentially worse, even without the salt, though Ruth was careful not to make any incisions that might require stitches. She knew exactly what she was doing.

  Pain streaked up Gabi’s arms and legs, radiating from her center as blood flowed down her belly, rolling off her feet and fingertips onto the alabaster tile. Ruth applied one final cut, about three finger widths below the edge of Gabi’s left collarbone. It was smaller and shallower than the rest, perhaps a concession to the delicacy of the skin there, but it felt like a stab wound many times its depth. Gabi swayed on her feet as the room spun. Ruth stepped back with a pleased expression.

  “In refusing to purify yourself through truth, you have chosen to purify through suffering. God’s ultimate gift to us was that of his only son, who suffered and died for our sins. By clinging to your sins, you reject that gift and take the suffering upon yourself. These marks represent the places where nails were driven through Christ’s body on the cross. This one,” Ruth said, gesturing to the bloody dash above the slight rise of Gabi’s left breast, “represents the wound to God’s heart, which you have inflicted with your sinful actions.”

  Gabi stared in wonder at the runnels of blood trailing over her body like capillaries. The floor around her feet was spattered with liquid rubies, and she felt herself being lured toward them in slow motion. Christina scooped salt crystals from the large sack and dumped them into the steaming water, looking up at Ruth between scoops. With every nod from Ruth, she added another heaping scoop to the tub.

  “Fuck,” Marnie whispered as Ruth urged Gabi toward the step stool and guided her into the water. Gabi’s right foot and then her left exploded with agony as the salt water saturated her wounds. She flinched and cried out, backing reflexively into Ruth, who formed an implacable barrier behind her. Gabi sank into the tub under the pressure of Ruth’s hand on her shoulder. After the first few seconds, when licks of fire erupted on her torso, hands, and feet, the locus of the inferno became impossible to find. It blinded and deafened her, so that whatever passage of doctrine Ruth was recitin
g in her ear became no more than static. This wasn’t purification. This was torture, plain and simple, and through it all she could smell Ruth’s feverish delight.

  Gabi could have gone away through the escape hatch in the corner of her mind, but Marnie’s presence stopped her. Marnie didn’t have a hatch and would suffer every second of the excruciating trial in full consciousness, so Gabi stayed, in mind and body, until her cuts were leached of blood and she felt Ginny and Christina lift her under her arms to pull her free of the tub. Once Gabi was swaddled in a robe and braced to Ginny’s side, Ginny grabbed some ointment and bandages from the tray and hustled her from the room toward the showers. But not before Gabi saw Ruth set to work on Marnie with the scalpel. An instant was all she needed to see that there were many more cuts than Gabi had received, and more blood.

  As the door leading to the showers swung shut behind Gabi, the unanchored words returned to haunt her. The scar. The scalpel. In a flash of insight, Gabi remembered where she had seen Marnie’s scar before. Tableau after gruesome tableau rushed in, featuring Gearhart and Yancy toiling over their victims, both of whom bore the same raised scar as Marnie. Every horrid image Gabi had shut out of her mind in order to focus on becoming a Witness roared back. Each rich morsel of food she had consumed since arriving at the lodge turned to a tide of vomit rising in her throat. Before Ginny could thrust her into one of the shower stalls, Gabi doubled over, arms wrapped over her blood-streaked belly, and emptied her stomach all over the bathroom floor.

  Chapter ELEVEN

  THE BANDAGES on Gabi’s ointment-smeared wounds kept catching on her T-shirt and threatened to peel off her hands and feet as she moved, but the attendant who helped clean and dress the wounds had instructed her to keep them covered for the rest of the weekend. The bandages themselves were bright red, and Gabi had no doubt that the choice of color was intentional. A quick survey of her peers’ expressions when she entered the main hall confirmed they all knew about her and Marnie’s “extra purification.”