Sister Wife (6 page)

We sit in silence again. Jon reaches to pick up an odd-shaped stone lying on the beach, and his hand accidentally brushes my arm. A tremor rushes right through me.

“It's an arrowhead!” he exclaims.

“A what?” I ask, trying to settle my heart again.

“An arrowhead. The First Nations people chiseled them from stone and attached them to the ends of their arrows.”

“Oh.” I have no comment to make about arrowheads.

“Maybe it's up to us to change things,” he says, still examining the stone.

“Change things?” I ask. “Like what?”

He regards me. “You can refuse to be assigned to a husband.”

“If I did that I'd be banished from Unity. I'd be an apostate. Then what would become of me?”

“You could move to Springdale, finish high school and get work. Maybe even have a career.”

I study his face, amazed. “Think of the shame I'd bring on my family! And who would I live with?”

Jon just shrugs. “We have choices, even if they're not easy ones.”

“Maybe you do,” I tell him. “But I don't know anyone who would take me in. And besides, I love my parents, all of them, and my brothers and sisters, even though they drive me crazy. I'd miss them.”

“So,” he says, “you question your faith, but you're not prepared to do anything about it.” He pushes the arrowhead into my hands.

I don't answer.

“Then I guess you will have to settle for being a plural wife,” he tells me.

It's almost completely dark now, but Jon's face is close enough to mine that I can see him gazing intently at me. I look away. His words hurt, like he's criticizing me. Some small part of me knows he's right, but it's too hard to think about it. “I better go,” I say, but I don't move.

Now I feel his hand on my chin and he turns my face to look at him. “Just think about it, Celeste. You came here tonight. That's a start.” Then, before I know it, his lips are on mine. For the briefest of seconds I stay put, savoring the wave of heat that surges through me, but then I push him away, jump to my feet and start running down the beach toward the road.

“Celeste!” I hear Jon call out, but he doesn't try to catch me. I keep running.

Chapter Six

T
he evening is just beginning to darken. My chores are done and I have nothing else to do, so I decide to take a walk. I haven't been able to find Celeste anywhere, and Nanette has been ignoring me ever since I stopped to talk to the boys at the Nielsson farm the other night. As I pull on my shoes, I consider walking in that direction again. It's not that I'm looking for trouble, but chatting with the boys would make the evening a little less dull.

It's at times like this that I miss TV and videos. I never had a computer, but I liked going to the library and mucking about on one of theirs. I had a Hotmail account for a while, but I didn't have anyone to write to, so I quit checking it. Celeste loves hearing about all the things you can discover with a computer and the Internet. It's strange to think she's never used one or watched a TV. It's even stranger to think that if I stay here, I may never use either of them again.

The beam of headlights swinging into the long driveway startles me. Peering into the twilight, I recognize the car as a police cruiser, and at that same moment I hear the patter of running footsteps. Spinning about, I catch a glimpse of a small figure flying through the garden and racing toward the house. My old instincts kick in, and I melt back into the doorway, my heart racing. A panicky voice shouts from the back step. “Taviana! Hide, now!”

Celeste's dad, Kelvin, materializes from behind a bedroom door, buttoning up his shirt. His eyes are wide, frightened. He's always so totally in control that it alarms me even more to see him like this. He grabs my arm and pulls me toward the stairs that lead to the basement. I stumble down behind him and watch as he unlatches a deadbolt and yanks open the door that leads under the house into a cold storage area where vegetables and jars of preserves are kept over the winter. Goosebumps bubble up on my arms when I'm hit by the cool dank air. I peer in and see that the dirt floor is mostly bare, the food being used up by this time of year. There's a single unlit lightbulb hanging from the ceiling, and the crawl space is about four feet high. I can't see the back wall, but the tunnel-shaped room appears to go a long way under the house.

Before Kelvin even says anything, I shake my head, hard, and back away. I know he wants me to go in there but there's no way.

“Go as far back as you can,” he whispers, pushing me forward. He's so anxious he doesn't even realize that I'm resisting, or if he does, he doesn't care. I duck and reach
to pull the chain dangling from the lightbulb, but he bats my hand away. “Leave it!” he orders, and then, with a final push, I'm in the room, the door closes and I hear the latch slide into place. My world goes black, and the cold seeps under my skin.

Reaching out to where the door should be, I feel for a handle, but there is nothing on this side. I shove it with my shoulder, but it doesn't budge. A shudder runs through me, my mouth opens to scream, but then I hear the clatter of heels on the floor above my head. Male voices are raised in anger, but I can't make out the words.

I clamp my mouth shut and swallow the panic. Hunching over, I try to do as he said, but my head keeps cracking on the low ceiling. Getting down on my hands and knees, I attempt to crawl, but my stupid dress makes that impossible. I tuck the hem into my apron and creep forward on my hands and knees, like an animal. Deeper and deeper I go into the darkness. When my head smacks against the far wall, I sit down and rest my back against it, drawing my knees up to my chest. I circle them tight with my arms and drop my head. Something tickles my cheek and I swat at it. Was it a spider? I shudder again.

A wave of claustrophobic panic threatens to undo me, but I clench my jaw, knowing that something serious is happening upstairs and I have to remain calm. In my old life, when I was first living on the streets, an experienced girl taught me a technique for making the time with customers go by faster. I learned to detach my mind from my body, and I'd travel to faraway, exotic places. I imagined
hot sand between my toes on a white sand beach in Mexico, the burning heat of the sun scorching my skin, or the cold slap of wind as I cycled through the foothills in Nepal. My adventures were endless, and each day I searched the Internet for more and more places to travel to in my mind. Maybe it will work here too. I hunker down, letting my mind drift.

The down quilt covering me is thick but weightless. I sink back into the fluffy pillows and gaze out the window at the snowcapped mountain peaks of the Swiss Alps. I stroke the Saint Bernard dog who is lounging on the bed beside me, panting happily. I press my forehead to his and scratch him behind the ears, not even minding his doggy breath. If he were a cat he'd be purring. I am safe, warm and loved. There is food to eat and family to hang with...

A sudden stomp on the floor over my head snaps me back to the present. The angry voices are still at it in the room over my head. I try to find my way back to that imaginary bed in the cozy room, but I've begun to shiver and I find I'm no longer able to detach. What is going on upstairs?

I squeeze my knees even tighter to my chest. I thought the police had given up on me. We first got to know one another when I was just a little girl, living with my mom. Social workers used to arrive on a regular basis, sometimes to take me to foster care and sometimes to check on our living conditions. I realize now that even though she was into drugs and hadn't a clue about how to bring up a kid, Mom loved me like crazy, so she raised hell at the sight of them. I was all she had and she didn't want to lose me.
She'd push me behind her and throw pots and pans at the social workers, swearing her head off. They began bringing police protection with them. By the time I was twelve, I no longer waited for the social workers to rescue me from her. I'd begun running away from home, and the situation reversed. The police began returning me to her.

There's only so many ways for a thirteen-year-old girl on her own to survive, and it seems there's nothing you can't get used to after a time. That's when the police started dragging me to group homes, and then juvie jail, but the situation never changed. As soon as I was released, I was right back on the streets. It was the only thing I knew how to do. I couldn't make it in school. I was too different from the other kids, and they never failed to remind me of that.

Everything changed when I met Jacob. At first I thought he was just another customer, but he only wanted to take me out for lunch once a week when he came to town to pick up a load of fertilizer. After a time I grew to trust him. He began telling me about Unity, and it sounded like a nice place with everyone working together for the common good. Despite that, I don't think I would have agreed to come with him if it weren't for the close call...

My shivering turns to shudders and I squeeze my eyes tight. I've been able to forget this horror, until now...

He was going to murder me. In sickening detail he described how he was going to do it...carving my naked body with his hunting knife...slowly getting deeper...nicking my organs. The pain would be severe, but not so severe that I'd pass out and escape the torture. He said that I would pay for my sins as the
others had done before me, starting with his mother. There was nothing I could do, my hands were tied behind my back. I had to listen to him, my stomach a huge cramp as his car hurtled down the highway
.

And then the doe was there...in the center of the highway... her eyes large in the car headlights. It was as if time stood still for a moment, the deer looking directly at me, telling me she was there to protect me. He slammed on the brakes, swerved to miss her, lost control and hit a tree instead. It knocked us both out cold, and when I awoke I was in the emergency room of the hospital. The man had disappeared as soon as he came to, and I snuck out before social services got involved
.

I saw Jacob the next day and he asked about the bruises on my face. I told him about the doe, and he looked at me with awe and said I must be one of the chosen ones. That God put that doe there to save me.

I wouldn't have bought into it but I couldn't get the eyes of that doe out of my mind. She really did appear to be sending me a message, and in the state I was in, I was willing to believe it was a message from God. So when Jacob once again invited me to come here, I gladly agreed. I knew I couldn't do that work again anyway, and I had nothing to lose. I convinced myself that I would be happy living here, even if it was so old-fashioned. Maybe God truly was looking out for me, and putting Jacob in my life was His way to keep me safe. No more cold nights on the streets. No more arrests. And for the most part I have been content.

Heavy footsteps bang down the stairs. I curl up as small as I can and squeeze my eyes shut. I hear the latch being
unfastened and the door creaks open. Holding my breath, I will myself to be invisible.

I don't dare open my eyes, but even with them shut, I know the beam of a flashlight is exploring the crawl space. Am I far enough back? A throat clears and feet shuffle on the floor. Have they discovered me? Just when I think I can't hold my breath another second, the light blinks off, throwing me back into pitch-blackness, and the door is yanked shut. My breath escapes in a whoosh.

The feet clomp up the stairs and I don't hear any more voices. It feels like forever until I hear the sound of car tires scraping along the gravel driveway again. A moment later a single set of footsteps descends the stairs and the door opens.

“Taviana, you can come out.”

My arms and legs have cramped up, but I struggle toward the light. My knee traps my dress under me and I hear it rip. Kelvin offers me a hand when I reach the door. Blinking in the bright light, I stiffly follow him back up the stairs and into the kitchen, where his wives and some of the older children have congregated. Nanette is there but, just like everyone else, she avoids making eye contact with me. All their faces are serious and no one is talking. Even Celeste's mom, Irene, is here, which is surprising as she's on complete bed rest now. It's Irene who gives me a mug of herbal tea and a sympathetic look. I accept the tea gratefully. I'm cold, right down to my core.

“I guess you know that we just had a visit from the police, Taviana,” Kelvin says to me. He lowers himself into
a chair at the head of the large table and motions for me to take one.

I nod and carry on rubbing my arms with my hands. I feel a shawl being draped over my shoulders and turn to see Irene stepping away.

“They accused us of keeping you here against your will,” he tells me.

“That's not true,” I say. “I could leave anytime I want.”

He nods. “And I appreciate all the help you've given my wives, especially now, with Irene's condition being what it is.”

Irene and I make eye contact, and she smiles warmly again. I do my best to smile back.

“The trouble is,” Kelvin continues, “our small community needs to keep a very low profile in the greater world. The laws of this country conflict with the laws of our faith, but because we keep to ourselves and don't cause any trouble, we are left alone.”

I had wondered how they got away with the plural wife thing.

“We are also protected by laws that entitle us to religious freedom, to practice our faith.”

There's a banging at the front door and we all jump in unison. Deborah makes eye contact with Kelvin, and he nods. She leaves the kitchen. I can feel the increased tension in the room as we wait to see who's there. A moment later, Jacob and the Prophet enter the room, followed by Deborah.

Jacob's eyes meet mine, and I see the concern in them. “Are you okay?” he asks.