Cold Ennaline

by RJ Astruc

  Ray stops running and catches my arm. “Why would you say that?”

  “I….” I come to a stumbling halt. “Look, like you said, you’re Piedmonts. You’re from an important family. I’m an orphan. I’m a bad match. There are better girls out there. Maybe even twin girls.”

  “Ennaline,” he says, and his face isn’t annoyed or upset, just concerned for me. “Oh, Ennaline. What’s really wrong? Is it something we did?”

  “No. It’s not that. It’s….”

  It’s what? I don’t know what to say. How can I explain to him that I don’t think I’ll ever be ready for marriage? To anyone. The things I hear other girls talk about—their crushes, their desires—seem alien to me. I can’t even imagine what it would feel like to experience the urges and impulses they seem to be suffering from every day.

  But I’m rescued from having to say anything by our physical education teacher.

  “Ray, Ennaline, keep running,” he shouts.

  So we run. I try to keep as far ahead of Ray as I can, until he gives up chasing me.

  I REMEMBER the exact moment when I realized I was cold in a way other people were not. I was eleven years old. I was in the school yard at recess, sitting with a group of other girls from my class. At that point in our development we hadn’t yet segregated ourselves along the lines of faith full and faith less. We were watching a group of boys chase the ball around the solitary basketball court.

  “Roland’s so gorgeous,” said one of my friends, a faith full girl called Linda. “Ugghhh, I want to be his girlfriend so bad.”

  “Ray is way cuter,” said Shelley, one of the faith less. “I’m going to invite them to my birthday party. They can go to birthday parties, right, if they’re faith full?”

  I shrugged. “Yeah, I think so.”

  “We’ll play spin the bottle,” said Shelley. “You got to promise that if I land on one of them, you’ve got to dare me to kiss them. Or dare them to kiss me. Because it’s my birthday.”

  “Yuck. Why would you want that?”

  Immediately all the girls swiveled to look at me.

  “Um, because they’re hot?” said Cindy.

  “Because they’re super kissable?” said Linda.

  “Seriously, Enna, you’re so weird,” Shelley said.

  I couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to kiss someone else willingly. I understood people had to do it when they were married—an obligation, I thought, a duty to the god. But given the expressions of my friends, I was smart enough not to say as much out loud. Instead I shrugged.

  “Geez, Enna, you actually live with them,” Shelley said. “I can’t believe you haven’t, like, tried anything with them. I know you’re faith full but… damn!”

  “Just not my thing,” I said nervously, and Cindy coughed the word lesbian into her hand.

  “Not that either,” I said.

  “You’re so weird,” said Shelley again. “The twins are seriously gorgeous.”

  “I’ve lived with them for most of my life,” I said, thinking fast. “I don’t see it. I’m too used to them. They’re like my brothers.”

  I’d said the right thing. The girls all started nodding, as if that explained my strange, strange reaction. I was still confused, but relieved I’d managed to cover up my mistake. Even at eleven I knew how quickly you could go from the in-group to the out-group by saying the wrong thing. I figured I’d work out why people wanted to kiss each other later, when I had time to explore the question on my own.

  But things didn’t work out like that. I spent days, weeks, months, thinking hard about how I felt about other people. I loved the twins, I really did—I loved them so much, I didn’t think I could live without them—but I didn’t want to kiss them. My feelings for them were there in my head, strong and almost passionate. But when it came to the point where my body was meant to react, to follow the lead of my thoughts, there was nothing.

  I was cold.

  Cold Ennaline.

  I DON’T wait for the twins after school and walk back to the temple alone. My head feels muddled, and I need to talk to Father Nerve. I’m sure he’ll be able to give me guidance. I don’t want to tell him about my coldness, it’s too embarrassing, but I can at least ask him what he thinks about our matchmaking. At the end of the day, no matter what’s wrong with me, I am a devotee of the god. Whatever the god wants from me, I will do.

  Father Nerve’s temple wasn’t always a temple. Before he came to the faith, the temple was two giant barns that lay in the middle of his property. In the winter he used them to store hay bales; in summer they stood empty. It took all the local faith a full two months to transform the barns into a temple, converting the high ceilings into a split level, and adding internal walls to create the dorms, library, and kitchens.

  From the outside, it now looks like a modern Christian church, with a high-domed roof and stained glass in its front window. All around it lay fields of yellow canola. I’ve always felt that Father Nerve’s temple-barn is the perfect place to pray to the god—our god, after all, is the god of farmers.

  I walk through the canola to the temple’s great wooden doors. After knocking and receiving no reply, I enter, stepping into the main chapel.

  Light streams through stained glass to illuminate the pews below in green and gold. As I walk down the aisle I see only a few people kneeling and praying. It’s not uncommon for the chapel to be practically deserted at this time. Most of the faith full are farmers and landowners, and they come to service at the end of the day, when their work is finished.

  There is no sign of Father Nerve at the chapel altar, but its base is the head of a giant pig, recently bled. An offering to the god. The pig’s soft pink face looks untroubled, despite its present predicament. I’ve heard that pigs are smart animals, almost as smart as people. Perhaps the pig knows that to be given to the god is a great honor.

  I keep looking for Father Nerve and eventually find him in the library among the leather–bound, old books he collects. He is sitting on a wicker chair, reading from a large folder. At first he doesn’t notice me, and I have to cough twice before he raises his head.

  “Ennaline.”

  “Father Nerve.” I bow my head.

  “It’s good you are here. You should have a look at these.” Father Nerve beckons me over. “I went to see Father Andine today. He is seeing holes in his parish, too. Holes even wider than ours. One or two of them have broken the surface.”

  My selfish questions about matchmaking and the twins are immediately pushed to the back of my mind. Father Nerve’s folder is filled with photographs. He turns one around to face me. It’s a picture of a grazing pasture. Along the center of the earth there is a great tear, as if an earthquake has ripped it open. I notice the grasses at the edge of the hole have grown higher and thicker than the rest in the pasture. I can’t tell if this is because the animals don’t dare to graze near it, or something else.

  “Father Andine sent me the photograph yesterday. I went there today.” Father Nerve shakes his head. “It was like the Evans’s house. There were dead animals, burned from the inside out. There were strange meaty lumps growing on the stalks of corn. I could feel the evil there. And yet….”

  “Father?”

  “The grass is growing thicker where the evil escaped. What does that mean?”

  It’s not often I see Father Nerve confused. “Did you speak to the Bishop?” I venture.

  “Not yet. I spoke only to his companion, who told me to prepare. Prepare what, I said. He said he wasn’t sure, but that the god was waking.”

  Since I was a small child, I’ve heard faith full people say that the god is waking. He is almost awake, he is preparing to rise, he is nearly here…. I don’t want to doubt Father Nerve or the Bishop, but it’s hard not to. I bite my lip, holding back my reservations.

  “I’ve been reading all the books I can,” says Father Nerve. When he says books, he means books of our faith. “There are eyewitness accounts, you know, from the last
time the god woke. They mention the holes, some visible, some breaking the earth. They talk about the overgrowth—they call it the greening.”

  “So it’s normal?” I ask. “Well, normal for the god?”

  Father Nerve shakes himself. “Yes,” he says, sounding more sure of himself. “Yes, it must be normal. The god is announcing himself to us. He is telling us to prepare. We’ll have to—”

  He doesn’t get to finish; we are interrupted by the twins, who come bustling into the library, swinging their bags by the straps. They’ve brought a friend with them, a kid I don’t know, an athletic, handsome kid with brown hair. He’s older than the twins, maybe seventeen, and is dressed in smart, foreign-looking clothes.

  “Theo,” says Ro—which is apparently an introduction.

  “From the neighborhood,” Ray explains.

  “Hi,” says Theo.

  It’s not unusual for the twins to bring faith less kids to the temple, but it seems strange to me that they’ve brought Theo into the library. The library isn’t off-limits, but at the same time we aren’t really advertising its existence to the public, either.

  “You’ve got some lovely old books, here,” says Theo airily, his hands on his hips as he looks up and down the shelves. “The twins said you wouldn’t mind if I had a look. I love antiques.”

  Father Nerve doesn’t know how to react to this. There’s something subtly insulting about calling our books of faith “antiques.” He gets to his feet, closing his folder with a snap. I know that no matter what happens with Theo, the twins are going to get a good telling off before the night is over.

  “I’ll leave you all alone,” I say quickly and squeeze out of the room before Father Nerve can get started.

  3

  IN THE end I don’t talk to Father Nerve about matchmaking. It seems selfish to talk about myself and my future when there’s a possibility (however small) that the god is waking. So, a few days later, I decide to swallow my pride and book an appointment with the school counselor, Mrs. Fane.

  I don’t really know what to expect when talking to a counselor. We faith full don’t have confession like Catholics. We try not to talk about our feelings—it’s important to show restraint, to be in control. We are here to serve the god, not to gossip. Nevertheless, I’m really happy that Mrs. Fane agrees to see me the following day.

  Mrs. Fane’s office is tiny, more of a cupboard than an office, really. On the walls are fading old posters about the dangers of smoking, peer pressure, and drugs. Mrs. Fane herself is a fading, middle-aged woman with curly hair. She came from New York originally—how she wound up out here in the middle of faith full country is anyone’s guess—and you can still hear it in her voice.

  “Ennaline Whitehall, isn’t it?” she says as I sit down.

  “Yes.”

  “Can I get you anything before we start?”

  I shake my head.

  “Are you… is there anyone else who should be here with you? Anything I should know about… well, about…?” She looks and sounds incredibly nervous. “I’m sorry, but I’m a little at a loss about the conventions here. I don’t want to insult you or offend you. It’s the first time a faith full student has come to talk to me.”

  Great. “You can treat me like any other student,” I suggest.

  Mrs. Fane nods. “Very well, then, Ennaline. Why don’t you start by telling me why you’ve come to see me today?”

  “I feel cold,” I blurt out.

  Mrs. Fane frowns. “It’s summer, Ennaline,” she says.

  “No, I don’t mean… like that. I mean I don’t feel anything for the twins. I love them. I’m probably going to be married to one or both of them. But I don’t want to do anything with them.”

  “And by anything you mean… something physical, right? Like kissing? Being intimate?”

  I nod. “And the rest.”

  “Ennaline, you’re fourteen. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”

  “They aren’t trying to get me to do anything. But I know that if I marry one of them I’ll have to, and I don’t… I don’t have that feeling in me. Everyone else seems to, everyone wants to date, everyone wants to have a boyfriend, but me.”

  “There’s no shame in being a late bloomer.”

  I’m starting to get frustrated. “When am I supposed to get those feelings, then?” I ask. “Everyone else got them when they were in grade school. How late of a bloomer am I?”

  “It’s okay, Ennaline. This is a safe place. You don’t have to raise your voice.” Mrs. Fane leans back in her chair. “Forgive me, I’m still struggling to understand. You don’t feel any sexual desire for any boys?”

  “No,” I say, twitching at the terms she’s used, but glad we’ve finally found a common understanding. “I feel nothing. I feel… love, friendship, happiness, anger, all that stuff. But nothing… sexual.” It’s difficult to get that last word out. I don’t think I’ve ever said it aloud before.

  “What about girls?”

  “Not girls, either.” I can say this with certainty. I have looked at pictures of women undressed, and even stolen looks at girls in the showers at school. I feel… I feel something there, sometimes, but not much. Nothing that would qualify as desire. Mainly it’s curiosity.

  “Are you scared of sex?”

  “No. Maybe. A little. But I’m scared of a lot of things. I’m scared of exams and I’m scared of playing hockey with the older girls and I’m scared of the god, to be honest. But I still want to do those things. Exams not so much, but you get what I mean. I can get over being scared. I could have sex, if I had to, if it was what the god wanted from me. But I don’t want to.”

  “Does it disgust you?”

  “A bit. But mainly it seems sort of useless and pathetic. I don’t understand it.”

  “Has anything ever happened to you that might make you less interested in sex?” Mrs. Fane frowns—I can tell she’s trying to work out how to phrase the question. “A traumatic event?” she tries.

  “No,” I say. “Nothing like that.”

  “Okay. I think I understand you now.”

  “What should I do about it, then?”

  “What do you want to do about it?”

  “Well, I don’t really know. Is it a medical problem? Or is it just me? Is it just the way I am?”

  “A lack of sexual desire can be medical, yes. And it can be linked to mental health problems. If you like, I can organize a doctor’s appointment for you. But it doesn’t sound as if you have any other troubles, do you?”

  Briefly I think about the awakening god. “Not really.”

  “All right, then. What I’d like you to do, Ennaline, is try not to worry about it.” She must see the disbelief written on my face, because she goes on quickly, “I know, I know, it’s hard. But I don’t know why you aren’t feeling these desires. Maybe you’ll feel them later, maybe you won’t. But it’s not a bad thing. It’s not going to stop you being happy right now. So focus on that, okay?”

  “What about the twins?”

  “Why don’t you talk to them about it? See how they feel?”

  “Ugghhh,” I say, feeling my face go red. Even the thought is embarrassing. I’ve never even breathed the word sex in the twins’ presence.

  “They’re nice young men,” says Mrs. Fane. “And they’re from your faith full world, aren’t they? They aren’t going to tell stories behind your back. Perhaps they’ll be more understanding than you think.” She smiles. “I’m not telling you to tell them. I’m just suggesting it as an option. You do what you think is best.”

  “Okay.”

  “Is there anything you’d like to talk about?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You know, you can always come back to me if you’d like. If anything changes.”

  “Okay.” I find I’m feeling slightly better about things. I manage a smile.

  “I hope I did okay,” she says, rising to open the office door for me. “Like I said, you’re the firs
t faith full student who’s come to me.”

  “You did very well,” I say. “Thanks, Mrs. Fane.”

  I leave. In the hallway outside I see the twins talking animatedly to their new friend Theo, who seems to go to our school now. I pass them by, waving, and then double back, peering around a corner to look at them. There’s something suspicious about Theo, but I can’t put my finger on it.

  THAT EVENING we have a large service for the god. The twins and I stand outside the church in our formal robes, greeting the faith full as they arrive. A tall, very good-looking older man is one of the last people to arrive.

  “Roland, Regis,” he says to the twins.

  “Father,” say the twins in unison.

  From the way they say father I realize they don’t mean a Father of the faith but their actual father. This is Father Piedmont. I’ve never met him before, and I can immediately see the twins in him. The features are all there: the dark eyes, the thick hair, the well-formed mouth, and sharp chin. Father Piedmont has a reputation among the faith full for being both severe and dedicated. He’s very close to the Bishop.

  “Has Father Nerve been teaching you well?” Father Piedmont asks.

  “Oh, he’s very good,” says Ray nervously.

  “He’s brilliant,” says Ro. “We’ve done lots of miracles.”

  Father Piedmont’s gaze finally settles on me. “Is this Ennaline? The one you’ve told me about?”

  “Yes, this is her,” says Ro.

  “A Whitehall,” says Father Piedmont, rubbing his chin. “I knew a Whitehall once. You’ve no family in the faith, have you?”

  “No, Father. My grandmother died when I was eight, and Father Nerve took me in. I’m a child of the faith full community.” I smile, to show I’m grateful. I truly am. I’ve no idea where I would be without the faith and Father Nerve.

  “The boys tell me you’re a devoted follower of the god,” says Father Piedmont. “Have you been betrothed, yet? You must be fifteen, sixteen?”

  “I’m fourteen, and no, I haven’t.”

  “Same age as the twins.”