by James Snyder
“Oh, Father—” Becky said.
Mrs. Cardswell said, “Father, why don’t we talk about this after Bible.”
“There’s nothing to talk about,” Mr. Cardswell said. “And, Mother, I want you to stay out of this. I’ve already told Rebecca how it will be, and there’s nothing more to discuss.”
Now Connelly saw the tears in Becky’s eyes. Then she saw her lay down her Bible on the table beside her and say in one of Mrs. Cardswell’s whispers, “You’re suffocating us, Daddy. Don’t you know that? Can you understand that? You’re suffocating this family and each person in it, just as you’ve suffocated yourself.”
“Don’t you dare talk to me in that manner,” Mr. Cardswell told her.
“But it’s true, Daddy. Why can’t you see that?” She looked around at the others. “Tell him. Tell him what you feel. Tell him what he’s doing to you. To us. Mother?”
Mrs. Cardswell lowered her head, her face, as far as she could; pushing her chin deeply into her gray and pink Sunday dress.
“You should go to your room, Rebecca,” said Mr. Cardswell.
“I’m going,” Becky said, getting up. She picked up her Bible and held it against herself. “What you need to understand is that there are things in life besides what you want and what Jesus wants.”
“I’ll not have you—” Mr. Cardswell began.
“I’m sorry, Daddy,” Becky interrupted him, speaking over him. “I’m sorry for you, and I’m sorry for us. And I’m going to my school.”
When she was gone, Mr. Cardswell looked a little lost or like someone might have slapped him. He began reading Scripture to them again, but soon stopped, and told them all quietly that Family Bible was over.
*
The following Sunday, when everyone was preparing for morning church, Mr. Cardswell came and told her not to bother dressing.
“Your caseworker’s coming,” he told her. “There’s something she wants to talk with you about.”
As they were all leaving, Connelly sat there in the front room, watching them go out without saying anything. Becky was the last to go and stopped to hug her. “I love you, baby,” she said. “I’ll always love you.”
“What’s happening, Becky? What’s going on?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t. He’s not talking to me either. But I don’t trust him.”
Outside, Mr. Cardswell was beeping the horn.
They hugged again. “Oh—please be careful,” Becky told her and ran out.
She sat there for maybe half an hour when she heard the car pull into the driveway outside. She sat there, waiting for her caseworker to knock at the door, when suddenly the door opened, and Mr. Cardswell came back inside, shutting the door behind him.
He stood there, watching her. He finally said, “I wanted the opportunity to talk with you, Connelly, without the interference of others. Fortunately, I had to run an errand for the church, so I was able to leave, unattended as it were.”
He stood there a moment. Then he stepped once, twice, toward her and stopped. He almost seemed ready to smile, but not quite. He said quietly, “What kind of thoughts do you have? I mean, when you’re alone. When you’re by yourself in the most secret places. Just you. No one else looking. Or listening. Or watching. What are your thoughts? Knowing you as I do, I can only imagine them impure and…unrestrained.”
She didn’t say anything. Somehow she felt he didn’t expect her or even want her to say something. She swallowed.
He walked across the floor, to the chair opposite the sofa, turned, and sat down. He carefully smoothed out the leg of his blue church pants.
“What I wanted to tell you is this.” He looked at her, blinking once, his face seeming to harden like a mask. “No matter what you thought your life has been like to this point, it’s nothing compared to what’s in store for you next. By that, Connelly Pierce, I mean all the pain and hurt and sorrow you’ve felt so far is nothing to what you’re going to feel now. God’s told me that. Yes, He has. He told me that taking your parents from you, taking your brother from you—that’s just the beginning. And He’s not going to stop until He’s taken everything from you like Job. Everything. Until you’re entirely alone in the wilderness of His kingdom. Naked and alone and exposed to all the evil that’s due sinners such as yourself. And, in the end, you will only spend your days of damnation burning in those liquid, eternal fires, with all the other sinners. Do you understand me? God wanted me to tell you that, privately, just for your benefit.” He stopped now and, in fact, did offer her a little smile. “So what do you think of that, child? Don’t you feel special? A message from His Almighty, just for you. You should feel special. What I mean is, you are special, Connelly. You—”
When she saw him lunge toward her, she rolled away on the sofa, trying to get to her feet. Trying to get away. She was half standing when she felt him grab her from behind and throw her back down where she had just been sitting. His hands gripped her arms now, his fingers squeezing her hard, as he pushed her into the soft cushion, and she cried out.
“Shut up, damn you!” he screamed at her, his red face just above hers. “Shut up, you filthy little—”
Next, she was gagging, as he pushed his face against hers, pushing his big tongue inside her mouth. She was gagging, unable to breathe, with his tongue filling up her mouth. At last, he withdrew his tongue from her mouth and began to bite her—little bites—on her lips and face, as he made little noises, little moaning noise, like a baby would make, being fed. Then she felt him licking her. The same horrible tongue that had just been inside her was now licking her, like it was licking an ice cream cone. Licking the side of her face, her neck. She lay there, still, her eyes closed, as he licked her face a little more, and then stopped.
Finally, she opened her eyes and looked into his eyes, and she thought at that moment the devil was there, upon her. The look in his face, looking down into hers. The red eyes. The devil, she thought, and didn’t move at all. Not a muscle.
Now he slowly rose off of her, standing and straightening his suit. Then he turned away and went out the front door, shutting it softly behind. After a moment she heard the car engine start and the car back out of the driveway and drive away.
*
After that, she sat there perfectly still for almost an hour, before she heard the different-sounding car drive up in the driveway. Someone walked up the sidewalk to the front door and rang the bell. She went there and it was a man she had never seen before.
“Connelly Pierce?” he said.
She nodded.
He looked at his wristwatch. “Have you packed yet?”
She stared at him and then said, “I’ll do it now.”
“Hurry,” he said. “We’ve got to drive all the way back to the city, and I still don’t have a shelter lined up for you.”
For some reason, she wasn’t surprised. As she threw her things quickly into her knapsack, she told herself that. It was Sunday and she was leaving the only home she knew, with a man she had never seen before, and, after today, most likely wouldn’t see again. And she remembered how Yolanda once told her it was usually better to be in a bad place you did know, than to be going someplace else you didn’t.
“That’s experience talking, little biscuit,” Yolanda had said. “Sometimes experience all you got.”
When she was finished she went out and got into the car and the man drove them away.
By nightfall they were driving back across the Bay Bridge, going back into San Francisco, the city looming both dark and bright-lighted before her.
Then she remembered the time she drove across that same bridge at night with her parents and Eric; and her father was in one of his silly moods again, making up silly song lyrics and singing them to their mother in his silly voice.
He sang:
“We love you more than a mountain,
We love you more than the…sea.
Your love fills us like a fountain,
Your love puts us at peace…�
�
“That’s horrible, Michael,” she remembered her mother said, laughing. “That’s really bad, even for you.”
“C’mon, kids,” her father had urged them then. “Let’s sing it one more time for good old mom!”
And they were all laughing then, singing together and laughing: “We love you more than a mountain…”
But she didn’t know anything now. She was sitting in the back of the caseworker’s car, with everything being left behind, and the dark city looming before her. And she was turning nine in less than a month, and had absolutely nowhere to go, and now she didn’t know a thing. Not a thing.
END OF BOOK ONE
NEXT: INTO THE ABYSS
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Works by James Snyder
American Warrior
Desolation Run
The Beautiful-Ugly Trilogy
Book One: The Beautiful-Ugly
Book Two: Into the Abyss
Book Three: Where All the Rivers Run
About the Author
Berlin Diaries
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Forever Lost
Chapter 2: Drop-house
Chapter 3: Saying Good Bye
Chapter 4: Pilgrims Mercy
Chapter 5: The School
Chapter 6: The Special
Chapter 7: The Interview
Chapter 8: Churn
Chapter 9: A Special Day
Chapter 10: Fostering Out
Chapter 11: Her New Family
Chapter 12: Learning to Pray
Chapter 13: The Choice
Chapter 14: Losing the Faith
Chapter 15: The Way It All Ended