Many of the words that Darius speaks during the opening go unheard by me. I can hear only the shaky breathing of the woman beside me, feel only the sadness of my father’s spirit around me. I wonder, can she feel it, too? Does she regret what she’s done? Marrying her husband’s brother one day after his death? No matter. It cannot now be undone.
Although I know after ten minutes that we are nearing the point where I am to announce my selection, I have forgotten exactly when I should do so. Darius continues speaking, reading sometimes from his script and ignoring it others.
“Gathered before us, the ten Verges of the twelfth era of Southshaw wait to see which will be selected by the Semper-son to serve as the thirteenth First Wife. Throughout the night, Semper-son has prayed for guidance so that our Lord may help him be righteous in his thoughts and his selection.”
I look down at the ten girls and their families, each sequestered in their own box before the stage. Each box has a single small gate leading to a golden carpet that runs the length of the stage. Only one person—the girl I select—will go through the gate, walk the length of the golden carpet, climb the steps before me, and take her place at my side. Some part of my mind marvels that the golden carpet is over two hundred years old and has only had twelve sets of footsteps on it—each of the twelve First Wives. Including my mother.
Darius turns and faces me. He reaches out both his hands to me, his arms extended in a full reach. “Did the Lord guide you? Are you ready, Semper-son?”
I don’t remember this portion of the script. But I was perhaps not paying as close attention as I should have when Chiliss was preparing me.
“Yes,” I say, as steady as I can. But it comes out as more of an undernourished squeak. My voice has been unused for so long, and I am so unsteady… but I take a deep breath and step forward.
An urgent hiss from behind me spits, “Stop, you fool. Now is not the time.” Baddock. “Get back in your place, boy.”
I pause and then step back to my spot, looking again at Darius. His intense stare is full of threat as he glares at me. He slowly pivots to face the crowd again, lowering his hands to his side and softening his expression once more.
“The selection of the Wife is not a thing taken lightly. The ten neighborhoods of Southshaw put forth these ten women as the best the nation has to offer. Semper-son and the First Wife have come to know them, and their families. The Lord has guided Semper-son through prayer and revelation, and of course there is love, that greatest emotion that brings us all together and binds us as one people.”
Love? Darius mocks the ceremony. Love was never a part of any of the discussions. Wealth, knowledge, prestige, respect—these are what Darius has used to select Sausage-ee for me.
I look down at the girls, now all standing in their boxes, their mothers sitting behind. They all look at Darius, and Suzee Lummon fidgets with the inlay on her dress. Her bright pink face glows with perspiration in the hot morning, in stark contrast to her white dress. Love plays no part in this. Had I prayed on the selection last night, had I paid attention to my own feelings, I would never in ten thousand tries come up with Suzee Lummon as the answer.
“Now, Semper-son. Now, we await your selection.”
I look at him, puzzled. I am supposed to say some words, something that Chiliss taught me to say.
A hiss behind me. “Step forward, boy. Two steps. Then say, ‘I will now, and always and forever, take Suzee Lummon as my Wife.’ Say it now, boy. And don’t foul it up.”
I take two steps forward. I clear my throat, try to swallow the dryness away so that my voice will be clear when I speak. I look out over the hundreds of people who have so patiently and tirelessly sweated through this horrible morning. They have come for this moment. Only twelve times this has been done in all the years since the War, the Evacuation, the Arrival. I am to be the thirteenth Semper. The girl I choose will be the thirteenth First Wife.
Faces sweating, some red as fresh beets, gaze up at me. Many I know as friends. More still I have seen but do not know well. Names come to me and fade away as my gaze roams over the hundreds. They must be able to trust me, Darius had said. Without trust, there is no leadership. Without leadership, there is no Southshaw.
I keep looking over the crowd. Baddock behind me hisses something to urge me on, but I ignore it. I’m looking for someone. Who am I looking for? What person am I seeking that I cannot find? Suddenly I see the tall man, my father’s storyteller friend, amid a group of eastern craftsmen and their families. His face is stone, impassive and unreadable. Perhaps he has not forgiven me for my failure yesterday. Perhaps he thinks I should select no one. But that would not work. I have no power here. If I fail to select, the Law says my mother must select for me.
“I will now, and always and forever,” I say clearly and am startled by the ringing echo from the far walls. What is it I’m supposed to say?
The tall man is not the one I’m seeking. There is no change in my lost feeling when I meet his eyes, no sense of completeness that will let me continue. Frustrated and unsure, I keep scanning the faces.
Until I realize that the one face I want to see is one I will never see again. If Lupay were here, she would be quickly dragged off and slaughtered, burned and buried. These people, my friends and my countrymen, would do that. They would not think twice. They would simply follow what they have been taught to do since birth. Yet I still wish I could see her dark eyes and bronze skin standing out defiant and beautiful one more time.
I take a deep breath and look back at my mother. She continues to stare down at her own feet, seemingly ignoring the whole proceeding. I want to stop here, want to force her to choose for me. How could she really want me to marry that stupid lump of a girl? I should force her to be the one to choose, force her to make this announcement for me.
I turn back to the crowd and look again, this time not for the face that isn’t there but at the people that are. Some of the anger and pain of Darius’ announcement earlier has been replaced by expectation. The people wait for me and my choice. I’m surprised by an eagerness that is rippling through the crowd, a subtle shift. Already they think of my mother as yesterday’s weather. They look to me with hope.
I pull myself to a tall, erect straightness. The morning air inflates me; the sun’s hot light fills me. I feel the presence of something noble hovering around me. The Lord? My father? It matters not. I start over.
“I will now, and always and forever, take Freda Tailor as my Wife.”
CHAPTER 12
A cheer erupts from the crowd, hats are thrown into the air, a group near the back breaks into a folk song but is drowned out by the cheering and applause. I am stunned by the reaction, so much so that I forget what to do next. By reflex I look to the tall, quiet man in the back, and he nods at me with a thin smile.
I track my gaze down to the ten Verges at the foot of the stage. Three sit looking sad but unsurprised. Four have collapsed into their mothers’ comforting embraces. One—Kitta—is standing and cheering, clapping, smiling in the most radiant and gorgeous way. For a moment I want to shout that I take it back, that I want the stunning Kitta for my wedding, not that other one.
Suzee Lummon and her mother and father are also standing, but they confuse me. The Lummon box and the Tailor box are the last two at the far end of the stage. Lummon and his wife stand outside their box, on the golden carpet. They are shouting and waving their arms. I cannot hear them over the din, but the ox of a father is blocking Freda’s path to the stage, and he’s towering over her and shouting so violently into her face that I can see flecks of spittle flying from his mouth even from this far away. Freda just stands still, looking him in the eye, uncowed and unmoving.
Suzee’s doughy mother waves her arms at the stage and screams red-faced with shrill, incomprehensible syllables at Darius. She’s so wild her eyes look like they’re rolling around in their sockets. Suzee, hanging on her mother’s arm, sinks to her knees on the golden carpet and sobs great jiggling convu
lsions.
The ruckus lasts only a moment before two of Baddock’s Scouts appear from the side of the stage. They step up behind Freda and then stand on either side of her. I glance at Darius. Would he really have his thugs take Freda away? Would he be so arrogant to think that he could get away with it here, with the crowd cheering and starting to chant Freda’s name? Those in the crowd closest to the Tailor box are starting to push their way around, threatening to flow onto the golden carpet and get into the mix as well.
Instead, the two Scouts push in front of Freda and press the oafish Lummon back into his box. They grab Suzee and her mother and escort them firmly but gently off the carpet, back to their pew. The Scouts say some words to them, lost in the furor of the crowd. The audience relents and returns to their spots, and when the Scouts finally retreat, Freda starts her long, slow walk.
I have beaten Darius, then. He knows he has no power to overrule my selection. I may have hell to pay later, in private, but who cares? He stands in his spot on the stage, smiling and clapping his approval of my selection. I know inside he must be seething and plotting his revenge against me, but up here in front of all of Southshaw there’s nothing he can do.
Freda takes her time strolling in a leisurely and unconcerned manner along the length of the carpet. She senses the same thing I do, that the crowd needs to savor this moment, that it may be decades before another moment like this one. She seems to understand and respect the history that precedes her on the carpet, on this stage. Yet she is not afraid of it. She does not look at me as she walks. As she passes Kitta, she gives the slightest nod and smile in her direction but does not pause.
I turn to my mother, expecting to see anger and betrayal in her face. Instead, she’s pale as the ghost-men, her expression filled with terror. She looks as ashen as my father did when I saw him yesterday. She stares at me, wide-eyed, and puts her trembling fingers to her dry, cracked lips. “Oh, Dane. What have you done?”
I want to ask her what she means, but a roar from the crowd takes my attention, and I see that Freda has reached the top of the stairs and is coming to my side. I have completely forgotten what to do when she arrives. So I just watch her approach. I remember her yesterday, graceful and quietly powerful. But when did she become beautiful?
She comes up to me and stands directly in front of me accompanied by another raucous cheer. She has an amused look in her eyes, tinged with curiosity and satisfaction. Also respect. She stands before me, and I look at her smooth skin and the graceful curve of her slender face and long neck, her delicate eyelashes, her thin but pretty lips.
“Good choice,” she says softly, and I think maybe she’s making fun of me.
“I think so,” I reply, and I smile at her because for some reason I just can’t stop myself from smiling right now. When I smile, the crowd raises another cheer.
“You’ve forgotten that you’re supposed to take my hand, haven’t you?” Freda’s grin is playful and light, and at this moment I feel deep in my heart that I can trust her. I reach out my hand, and when she takes it the crowd approves boisterously once more. It seems everything we do is greeted by their unbridled happiness. Holding my hand, she leads herself to my side, and together we wave and smile at the crowd for what seems a very long time. At some point Baddock escorts my mother back to Darius’ side, and the two of them retreat into the background.
With gentle nudges and tugs, Freda guides me down the steps and across the square through our adoring fellow Southshawans who continue cheering and clapping and smiling. Somehow we come around to the front of the church and stand facing the large, dark doors which stand closed. I have no sense of how long it took, probably just minutes. I can’t remember any of the people we passed, though many of them I am certain I know well. The time is a blur, and I am grateful for the warm, soft, gentle touch of Freda’s slender fingers wrapped in mine.
We stand there together, facing the doors and feeling the morning breeze billow our sleeves, for a few minutes more. I glance at Freda, but only for a moment and only from the corner of my eye. She stares straight ahead but releases the slightest grin when I look at her.
Yesterday in the interview with my mother she held her poise with a stately, quiet grace. Today, she looks like a fairy tale princess, the kind that my mother used to tell stories about to the little girls. Her brown hair still has the unruly ends at her shoulders, but her beaded, frilled white dress gives it a coquettish look, young and pretty. The dress melts over her shoulders and down her body like white honey, again creating the illusion of curves even Kitta might envy. It flows over her hips and drapes all the way to the floor, barely tickling the ground as she stands in the breeze. On her arms, it cups itself to her elbows and leaves her pale forearms exposed, smooth and unblemished. Unscarred.
Freda waits patiently long enough, then gives my hand the slightest squeeze with her seamstress fingers. Her whisper comes to me like a summer wind, with only the barest movement of her lips. “You are supposed to knock.” When I glance to her again, she smiles with the warmth of that summer breeze. “The doors don’t open themselves.”
Oh. Yes.
I approach and knock.
The heavy doors swing inward, and Freda and I walk out of the glorious, bright, fresh morning into the dim, stagnant, ancient air of the church. Candles have been lit and although all the shutters are flung wide, the room still clings tight to its darkness.
We take our places together before the altar and kneel in front of the Bomb. It towers over us and commands silence in the room, until Darius and Judith come in from the back and step around it. Darius faces Freda and my mother faces me. I look from one to the other and back. Darius speaks to the small gathering in the chapel as if he’s still addressing the entire assembly in the square. His voice barks out strong and clear and echoes off the close walls.
Judith stares directly past me, her skin ashen and her eyes unfocused on the distance. I wish I could understand what she is feeling. If she feels anything. Is it sadness for the loss of her husband? Pride in the ascension of her son? Anger that I chose Freda instead of the bubble-headed sausage girl?
When time comes for her lines in the ceremony, she delivers them cleanly with the professionalism she has always exhibited as First Wife. But she delivers them without the grief of a new widow, without the hope of a mother, without Darius’ flair. She delivers her lines like a falling rock delivers itself down a mountainside. With a sense of inevitability.
Freda and I kneel before them nearly the entire ceremony. Scheduled to last an hour, it seems rushed as Darius speeds through each phase, until finally he bids us stand and face each other. We repeat vows read from the book of Laws, to honor and cherish each other and to lead the people of Southshaw to a future of peace, prosperity, and salvation.
“You are now, and always and forever, bound together before God, your kinsmen, and your country. Please, Semper-son.” Darius passes his hand before me, palm up in a gesture that seems friendly and kind, directing me toward Freda. “Kiss your new bride.”
Although I knew this was coming, I had put it out of my mind all morning. I know nearly a hundred people wait and watch from the gloom of the chapel as Freda and I lean together. I try to look into her eyes, but instead I stare straight at her lips, thin and only slightly less pale than her skin in this murky place.
As we come together and our lips touch, I realize I’ve forgotten to breathe for several seconds. That must be the reason my heart has stopped thumping and sort of buzzes along like the beating of hummingbird wings. That must be why I hold her hands tighter to steady myself, why I close my eyes. Warmth glows from her cheeks, and the butterfly brush of her delicate eyelashes tickles. It lasts only a second, and we lean away from each other again.
I try to swallow with a dry mouth and open my eyes to look into hers, but she has already turned away from me to face Darius again. This part of the ceremony is, apparently, over. But it’s the only part that I wish hadn’t been rushed. In fact, I’m th
inking I’d rather like to do it again.
“Let us share our happiness for them with them now,” Darius yaps into the chapel, and the room crackles with polite applause.
Like Freda, I turn to face Darius, annoyed that he wants to end this so quickly. He moves through the final steps of consecration so quickly that I’m not sure he got them all in. My mother looks over my shoulder into the depths of the room. I don’t remember her looking so old and tired. Her shoulders sag beneath her heavy robe, and creases mark the edges of her eyes. I want to feel bad for disobeying her. I want to feel sorry for her. But I don’t. Suzee Lummon is not standing next to me. Suzee Lummon’s lips will never need to be any closer to mine than they are now. No, I don’t feel bad about anything I’ve done.
Darius finishes the ceremony, and I lift Freda’s hand to follow him out the back into the courtyard. But he does not exit as I expect. Instead, he scans all the faces in the room behind me, his expression grim.
“We here have born witness to this union, and this is good. It is as it should be,” he intones, his voice flat and formal. “But we, my friends, have a problem.” He pauses, and I can feel the attention of every person focused on him like rabbits on a coyote.
“Our Captain of the Home Guard, Baddock, reported to me this morning troubling news.”
Captain of the Home Guard? Baddock leads the Southshaw Scouts. We have no group called the Home Guard. I look to my mother for some signal, some clarification, but she continues to stare, blankly, into nothingness. It’s as if she has not even heard. On my left, though, I can feel that Freda has tensed, in much the same way my mother did in her interview yesterday.
“There has been an attack in the north.”
A gasp rises behind me, and my whole body goes cold. Darius can’t have gone through all of this just to destroy everything now. Could he? Would he dare to tell the congregation Baddock’s version of Lupay’s escape? Is he so angry that I disobeyed him that he would preside over my wedding, only to slice me in half now? No, he wouldn’t do that. Unless he also wanted to bring Freda down, too.
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