“Lilith,” she began, her voice startling her as it boomed through the speakers, “was a fallen woman who cavorted with demons. She bore children by them who were half-human, half-demon, and they were called ‘Lilim.’” Gabi raised her eyes, straining to take in the vast crowd. Somewhere out there were more people like her. If she spoke loud enough and with enough conviction, maybe she could reach them. “That’s not the Word, and I am not a Messenger,” Gabi continued, her voice deepening with conviction. “I didn’t receive that information from the Holy Spirit. I just read it in a book. This one here.” She raised the volume in her hand high, as did her projected image on the screen behind her. “It’s called the Holy Bible. Some people think God wrote it, or wrote it through people acting as channels for what God wanted to say. Other people think it’s a collection of stories that try to teach us how to live right. For others, it’s nothing at all. To tell you the truth, I don’t really know what this book is to me. I’m still trying to figure that out.”
Gabi paused, waiting for the sky to open and blood to rain from the heavens, but nothing happened. The crowd shifted and murmured, but there were no curses pitched at her head, no rocks hurled to split her skull.
She could feel the complexity of the crowd. There were those saddened for her and her lack of faith, others who were angry, and still others whose hearts lifted at her words because the Bible didn’t feel like their story any more than it did hers. Gabi lowered the book to the podium. She was here for all of them. Hell, she was all of them. “What I do know is this. I am not a mistake or a sinner because of my doubts, my beliefs, or who I am, and neither are any of you. Whether you believe in the Christian God, some other, or none at all has nothing to do with whether or not any of us deserve to be alive.
“There’s another story I’d like to mention,” Gabi said. “It’s the one about Adam and Eve. You’ve heard from General Walker and Officer Ingles about how the council manipulated human DNA to try to create cannibals to fight the FCC. They explained how the council played God and how they lost because humans are more than their genes.” Gabi reached up and tugged the flowered scarf from her neck. She raised her chin and turned her head side to side so that the crowd and cameras could see the pulsing slits behind each ear through which she inhaled at least half of her oxygen. There’d been rumors circulating, of course, and she hadn’t made any attempt to hide herself away since returning to Alder, but there were thousands of people in the temple complex who had never laid eyes on her before. The restless crowd grew still.
“The rumor about me having gill slits in my neck and an extra organ in my nose that lets me sense things most people can’t is true,” she said, trying to meet the eyes of as many people as she could. “The rest of the rumors, about this being a punishment from God or me being a freak or a demon are false. I’m just like you. You all had these features too, when you were still in your mothers’ bellies. You had them because they were useful once. I have them because my mother was a scientist who acted no differently than the people who treated Marcus, except she did it to try to make peace instead of war.”
Gabi dropped her stinging eyes, overwhelmed by a surge of longing for the mother she never knew. Weariness overtook her. She didn’t want to be special, with everyone looking at her and hanging on her words because of who her father was and how she looked. She just wanted to make up for all the time she’d lost feeling like a mistake, and she wanted to start now. When Gabi spoke again, her voice was soft and tremulous.
“I’m not up here to try to convince anyone that the story of Adam and Eve is a lie. I just wanted to say that there’s so much we don’t know. I’m living proof of that. None of us knows the whole story. That’s why we need each other. If we each only have a piece of the truth, how will we ever find out what the whole picture looks like unless we stick together? That’s all I wanted to say, I guess. Thanks for listening.”
Gabi searched the crowd for some indication that her fellows had understood her. That they weren’t just waiting for her to finish so they could get out of the punishing sun and begin making plans for the vague future that lay ahead. There was no reassurance to be found. Even her allies in the front row had bowed their heads, each lost in their own thoughts. Gabi could hear nothing but the air whistling through her gills for an eternity of agonized heartbeats. Time stretched like heated rubber, and Gabi wondered if she had failed. Had she not said what the FCC hoped she would? The crowd looked slain by the immensity of their uncertainty, and she opened her mouth to say something, anything, to fill the eerie silence.
But then, she heard something louder than words, in a cadence that matched the filling and emptying of her lungs. Not a soul in the plaza stirred or spoke, but every fellow seemed to be breathing as a single, amorphous organism. For a few minutes of grace, before whatever was to come for all of them came, no one broke that intimate harmony. No one argued or fought or proclaimed. They simply witnessed, as one.
More from Julie Aitcheson
The greatest trial Roy Watkins faces isn’t deciding whether she’s gay or straight, male or female, West Virginia country mouse or prep school artistic prodigy. It isn’t even leaving behind her childhood sweetheart Oscar to attend uppity Winchester Academy in the hunt country of Virginia, or acclimating to a circle of friends that now includes privileged Imogen, her sharp but self-conscious sidekick Bugsy, and the tortured Hadley. No, the hardest thing for Roy to face is the world’s expectations about who and what she should be.
As Roy’s journey of self-discovery forces her to cross one hurdle after another, her identity closes in fast. Sooner than she could have ever predicted, she’ll have to decide what that means for her, the people she’s coming to care about, and the life that lies ahead.
JULIE AITCHESON began her pursuit of writing as a screenwriter, then realized that a little exposition never hurt anyone and switched to books. She’s had articles published in Echo Quarterly, Communities Magazine (formerly Talking Leaves Magazine), Isabella, and All Things Girl. She received a full fellowship to the 2013 Stowe Story Labs and won second place in the 2014 San Miguel Writers’ Conference nonfiction writing competition.
Julie lives wherever her bohemian heart takes her—and wherever she can hit the hiking trails when her muse decides to take a personal day. She has worked extensively with young adults as an experiential educator, both across the United States and in India. After spearheading an initiative to assist at-risk youth in becoming trained for green jobs, Julie threw herself into writing stories for young adults that do justice to their intelligence and complex emotional lives. She is the author of Harmony Ink Press title Being Roy, and credits her Catholic upbringing, fascination with religion and spirituality of all stripes, and her environmental education degree for the inspiration to write First Girl.
Julie continues to seek out unique life experiences to provide grist for the mill of her imagination, including her work as a medical actress at a simulation laboratory. There she indulged her love of the dramatic arts and her passion for health and education while amassing enough writing material to sink a barge.
Email: [email protected]
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By Julie Aitchenson
Being Roy
First Girl
Published by HARMONY INK PRESS
www.harmonyinkpress.com
Published by
HARMONY INK PRESS
5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
First Girl<
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© 2018 Julie Aitcheson.
Cover Art
© 2018 Aaron Anderson.
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Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Harmony Ink Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or [email protected].
ISBN: 978-1-64080-189-9
Digital ISBN: 978-1-64080-190-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2017911505
Published April 2018
v. 1.0
Printed in the United States of America
First Girl Page 30