The Chosen One (11 page)

I can’t stop myself. “What are
you
staring at?”

Then I slip into the Carole’s Fabric Store before Dragon Girl can answer. The door lets out a tinkling sound. My mothers have moved ahead of us. Laura drags me along. For a moment, I can’t see, that’s how angry I am. I squeeze my eyes shut, then open them again. There is so much fabric in here, so many colors, that I am reminded of the dragon on the girl’s arm. Lots of colors there, too.

The whole world is different than we are,
I think. The whole wide world.

And I’m horrified. Embarrassed. I feel everyone’s eyes on us. Even here in the coolness of the store, people notice. They are
watching
. I see it. I hurry to where our mothers are, near bolts of flannel. I hear people whispering.

“Polygamists,” someone says, “you can tell by their clothes.”

If I hadn’t found the Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels, if I hadn’t found words, if I hadn’t found out that I love Joshua, would I feel this way today? So much has changed in me because of a few things. How can that be?

“Oh, Kyra,” Laura says. Her cheeks are stained red. Tears have filled her eyes. She stands behind Mother Claire, then takes Mariah, who reaches for me when I get near. Outside, a car horn goes off again and again. This place is crazy!

“Did you see that girl?” I say. My back is straight with anger.

Laura says nothing, just looks at the tile floor.

“She was outside.”

My sister kisses the baby’s face.

I look through the huge glass window. There she is. Dragon Girl, cigarette still in hand, works to unlock her car door. The beeping continues.

“Her,” I say, pointing.

Laura looks, then shakes her head. Tears run down her face. She turns her back to me.

Now I am really mad. Make my sister cry? My Laura cry. There’s a part of me that wants to run out to Dragon Girl. Grab her by her black hair. Throw her on the ground and punch her face in.

But what about everyone else? Would I have to smack the cashier who shakes her head after looking at us? Or pinch the woman with her three small children after she hurries them all past? And what about the woman cutting large swaths of material, the way she keeps staring, not even bothering to look away when I meet her eyes. I’d have to beat up this whole town for hurting Laura, embarrassing my mothers.

I hug Laura’s neck, kiss her face.

“We’ll ignore them all,” I say. “Like Mother Claire said.”

Laura nods.

My mothers are getting fabric for new nightgowns for all the girls and pajamas for the boys, cotton for shirts and dresses, and last of all, a simple white fabric with a white eyelet coverlet that will make my wedding dress a little less plain.

During all this shopping, Laura, Mariah, and I wander the store. We look at the DMC threads and talk about maybe getting a pattern for cross-stitching. We look at the fabric paints and the scrapbooking paper. Near the dried flowers I think, only for a moment, what’s going on with Joshua?

Has he gone to the Prophet?

The material that they’re picking out right now, is it for my marriage to Uncle Hyrum. Or to Joshua?

“You know what?” Laura says near the patterns. She isn’t embarrassed anymore. “I don’t think I could wear anything in here.”

Mother Sarah has found a pattern for my dress. Long sleeved, to the floor, high on the neck, the eyelet material covering it all. (Joshua? Is it going well?)

“I know what you mean,” I say. I hold Mariah now. She slaps at the models in the McCall’s pattern book.

“Can you believe this?” Laura points to a purple satin dress. The back is bare, and the front plunges low. I’m surprised I can’t see the model’s belly button.

“Or this?” I say, tapping a picture of a girl in a short skirt. Mariah grabs my hand and I kiss her face. “How do girls wear stuff like this?”

Laura shrugs. Then she draws her hands into claws, and in a deep voice says, “It’s Satan.”

I laugh. Mariah laughs, too, like she understands what we’re talking about.

In the van on the way to Applebee’s, I wonder if this, the stores and people milling about and tattoos, is really all influenced by Satan and his Dark Angels.
Can it be
, I wonder, a new thought, a scary thought,
that everyone in the world is wrong, and just The Chosen Ones are right?
There are so few of us and billions of them.

_________

ONCE
, two years after Prophet Childs took over and closed us into our community, people started peering in.

“They are Satan,” Prophet Childs told us.

Television crews came, men and women to interview him. He said he would talk to no one unless God instructed him to do so. God never did tell the Prophet to talk to them.

Lots of people stopped by to watch when the fence went up. Families in cars and old couples and the reporters. They all stared as the men and boys dug holes and mixed concrete and set the chain-link fence at the front of our property. Week after week they came, begging for interviews. They were met with the God Squad, guns on their hips, black suits, no matter the weather.

“When you see them, with their all-seeing eyes, with those cameras, you run,” Prophet Childs told us during meetings. “They are Satan, here to try and steal you from us. To take babies from their mothers’ breasts. To teach you the ways of the world. To lead you all to hell.”

I cried when Prophet Childs warned us.

“Father, they want to take us from you.” And Father would hold me, pet my face, pull Laura onto his lap, kiss our cheeks. “They can’t take you away,” he said. “I’m here.”

I had seen the men and women, coming close to the fence, filming. So I ran.

“Laura!” I screamed for her. Grabbed at her, grabbed at Emily to bring her along, and ran away from the cameras. For a while we couldn’t go outside without the eyes of the world, all those cameras, watching. I quit walking, quit going to my tree.

And I dreamed. Of Satan, with black horns on his head and eyes red as fire.

“Mother,” I cried out more than once in the night.

“What, Kyra?”

“Satan’s in my room. In the closet.”

“He’s not,” she’d say, and turn on the light to show me.

Another night. “He’s under my bed.”

Another. “I saw him at the window.”

“I’m here,” Mother said every time. “I’m here. You’re safe. No one’s taking you away from me.”

“
WE HAVE TO HURRY
,” Mother Claire says when we sit down for lunch in Applebee’s. “We have to get you home in time for your meeting with Brother Hyrum.”

“Please,” I say, my voice sounding sharp. “Don’t remind me.”

“Watch your tone,” she says.

Laura lets out a sigh.

I am sure Mother Claire’s words have ruined my appetite until the waitress sets a plate of chicken and shrimp in front of me. This food is so delicious I can hardly stand it.

“No wonder you wanted to come here,” I say to Mother Victoria and she smiles so big I can see her back teeth.

The five of us, plus Mariah in a high chair, sit at a round table. It’s the first time, I realize, that I’ve seen our mothers all sitting at the same time, not including church services.

“You’re laughing and smiling,” Laura says to them.

They look at us, then at each other, and they grin.

“I don’t want to marry Uncle Hyrum,” I say. I blurt this out right as a waitress passes with a pitcher of water.

Mother Sarah, her belly hidden by the table, says, “Not now, Kyra.”

Mother Victoria holds her finger to her lips.

“We do what God says,” Mother Claire says. And I know
she
does because she let my uncle discipline her baby.

“I don’t want to,” I say.

Laura is quiet, looking at her broccoli and noodles. She’s chosen something Asian to eat.

“If I can’t tell you three, who do I tell? Father can’t change it.” My voice grows quiet and I say what disgusts me. “I don’t want to have my uncle’s babies. I don’t even want him touching me.”

“Kyra!” Laura says, her voice shocked.

“We don’t speak of that,” Mother says. Her face turns pink. “That is sacred. Never meant for anyone but a husband and his wife.”

Panic rises in my chest. I grip my fork. “I don’t want to,” I say. “I don’t care if we don’t talk about it. Father was young when you married him, Mother Claire. And still young when you married him, Mother.”

Mother Claire looks away, over my head.

“And Uncle Hyrum is Father’s oldest brother. He’s . . . he’s . . .”

“Horrible,” Laura says. “It’s not fair.”

I hear laughter from another table. Do they know now? I don’t care if they do.

“You’ll learn,” Mother Claire says.

“I won’t,” I say. Then I look all my mothers right in their eyes. “I won’t do it.”

The happy feeling at the table is gone.

“You’ll do as you’re told,” Mother Victoria says. But her voice isn’t strong like Mother Claire’s would be if she’d said this.

I shake my head.

I will
not
do it, I think.

Ever.

__________

THREE WEEKS AFTER
my first kiss with Joshua, the Prophet spoke of marriage during a special meeting for preteens and teens.

“Woman,” he said, “woman is made for man.”

I couldn’t help myself. I looked right at Joshua, my face flaming. He glanced at me, a small smile on his lips, then turned back to the Prophet.

“This is from God,” Prophet Childs said. “This is prophecy. Girls, you are to be a subservient partner to your husband. You and your sister wives will raise a mighty generation of your own children unto the Lord.”

I looked at Laura. She had tears in her eyes. She’s so devoted. So good.

The room was hot. My tights felt like they were strangling my waist. I must have put them on crooked.

“There are men here just for you,” Prophet Childs said.

I closed my eyes so I wouldn’t look at Joshua. Opened them again.

“And here’s the best thing.” Prophet Childs smiled. He smiled and his whole face lit up. His eyes shone in the bright lights of the room.

“Brother Arnold. Brother Bennion. Brothers Hunter, Marshall, and Cox. All these good men, and several others, can give a life to you young girls who are nearing the age for marriage. A life that will exalt you here on earth”—Prophet Childs pointed at the wooden floor—“and in the life to come.” He pointed at the ceiling.

“Boys, they are your example to follow. Like Jesus.”

The Prophet took in a breath. “Girls, you
will
obey. God has thus spoken.”

BY THE TIME
we get home I just have enough time to shower. “Come talk to me,” I say to Laura.

She sits on the toilet while I undress behind the shower curtain and throw my clothes over.

“I don’t know how I’m going to do it,” I say.

“I wish I could go with you,” she says. “Stay with you.”

“Marry him, too?” I say through the hot water. It’s almost funny to be able to tease her like this.

“Never,” she says. “I hope that never happens to me.”

I peer out behind the curtain. “Me, too.” And I mean it. “Me, too.”

Sometimes, two or three sisters will marry the same husband, one after the other. Brother Nelson, one of the God Squad, married all five of Brother Hennessy’s daughters. When Brother Hennessy said something about it, he was told to leave the Compound and to never come back. He had to leave. Without any of his family. They all stayed behind.

_________

“
HOW OLD ARE YOU NOW
, Kyra?” Uncle Hyrum asks. His thin hands work at a napkin he holds at the table.

“Thirteen,” I say. Mother Claire braided my hair so tight for this meeting, this
date
, that I feel tears threatening to leak from my eyes. My knees are weak and I’m sitting. What would happen if I stood right now?

Uncle Hyrum nods. “That’s good,” he says.

Aunt Melissa places a plate in front of him. The food is piled high. The room fills with the smell of baked chicken. But Aunt Melissa sure doesn’t look like she cares. Her mouth is thin, like someone took a red pen and made a line where her lips should be.

She goes back to the kitchen and brings out my plate. She sets it before me.

“Thank you,” I say, but she doesn’t answer.

There’s a chicken leg and a chicken wing on the flowered plate. The pile of mashed potatoes is the size of a fifty-cent piece. The ear of corn is missing so many kernels I know it should go to the pigs and not me.

I try to catch Aunt Melissa’s stare. I want to say to her, “I don’t want to do this any more than you want me to,” but I can’t.

She goes to the kitchen and comes back again with a platter full of bread.

“I have the place where we’ll stay,” Uncle Hyrum says as Aunt Melissa fills the table with food. Uncle Hyrum’s house is huge and roomy. And he has a piano, too.

He reaches for my hand, but I move away. Still he grabs me, his grip tight. I make a fist. My stomach clenches.

“We’ll be wed in just a few weeks.”

I want to say, “Joshua’s going to change this. He’s going to make it right.” I want to scream, “I’ll never marry you.” I want to stand up and run fast as I can away from here, from him. Instead, I stare at the bones in his hand. Black hair grows from the knuckles. Does Father have black hair like that?

I keep my mouth shut. Maybe my mouth is the same almost-line that Aunt Melissa’s is. Maybe we are all-the-sudden twins.

“Soon, Kyra,” Uncle Hyrum says, “you’ll be a part of this eternal family. And we’ll live together in glory forever.”

Aunt Melissa puts out a pitcher of milk. Then she stands back, staring off over the top of my head. She’s old and her face is wrinkled. I used to think she was nice. Before tonight, I mean.

“Let us pray,” Uncle Hyrum says. It’s just the three of us in the room.

Joshua
, I think.
Joshua
.

_________

AFTER DINNER
, Uncle Hyrum says he’ll walk me home.