The Chosen One (3 page)

Prophet Childs went to their trailer. Sister Janie wasn’t but thirteen. A first wife to her husband just six years older. She cried for a long time when they said the unwhole shouldn’t live. She cried, hanging on to that baby as long as she could. But at last Prophet Childs had her talked out of that tiny thing.

They did away with him.

Not sure how, but I know they did. I listened in on Mother Victoria telling Mother Sarah and Mother Claire. She whispered the whole story to my mothers while I stood in the dark of the living room, quiet in the night so they might not notice me.

“They killed that unfit baby,” Mother Victoria said. Her voice was full of something. Sorrow? I waited in the dark, not moving, my skin cold prickles from her words. “Thank God, thank God, the revelation came
after
Emily was born.
This
prophet’s father was nothing like
he
is.”

“That’s right,” Mother Sarah said.

And Mother Claire said, her voice low, too, “This is a new Prophet. A new leader. A new time. He’s not a thing like his father. Things were hard before. They’re harder now.” There was silence and then, “God is mysterious.”

Prophet Childs became prophet when his father died seven years back. The mantle was handed down to him. The line of authority going through the blood. That’s what Father says. There was a big funeral when Prophet Childs’s father passed.

But not even a tiny burial gathering for those two babies of Sister Janie’s.

I’ve seen her since, great big with child again, out in the cemetery, kneeling over those two small graves that Brother Abbott dug while she stood by, alone, and watched.

NOW PROPHET CHILDS
looks around the room at us. Mother Victoria wraps her arms about Emily, who says, “The Prophet. The Prophet. See him?” and lets out a laugh full of joy.

“Quiet the girl, Sister Victoria,” Uncle Hyrum says. His eyebrows meet right over his nose with his unhappiness.

“Hush now, Emily,” Mother Victoria says. She looks nervous, the way she glances at Uncle Hyrum and then at Brother Fields and Brother Stephens and last of all at the Prophet.

“Duck, duck, duck,” Emily says.

“Shhh, shhh,” Mother Victoria whispers. “Shhh for now, my sweet girl.”

Emily goes quiet. But she looks me right in the eyes and grins full on. She gives me a thumbs-up sign, and if I weren’t so worried about everything, I would laugh.

“Brother Carlson,” Prophet Childs says to Father, at last.

Father nods, hands clasped. His face is still pink, but there’s worry near his mouth.

“I have joyous news.”

Laura, sitting so still beside me, takes in a breath of air. Now she grabs my hand and squeezes.

“I’ve been in the belly of the Temple for some time. Thinking, praying”—he points his finger toward the lightbulb—“and talking with God. It has been revealed to me that your oldest daughter, Sister Kyra, is to wed Apostle Hyrum Carlson. She will be his seventh wife in the Lord.”

The room goes dead quiet. Not one sound. I think,
Father hasn’t been called after all
. And then Prophet Childs’s words sink in, sink in, sink in.

Me? What?
Me
to be married? I think I have no blood. I think I have lost the ability to breathe.

“Is this not a joyous occasion?” Prophet Childs says, and Brother Stephen lets out a “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.”

Uncle Hyrum looks right at me.

I feel my face burn.

“The ceremony is in four Sundays, after ser vices,” the Prophet says.

It’s at that moment I find my tongue. Before my mothers, before my father. Laura’s hand is squeezing me tight and I smell body odor. I think it’s me.

“What?” I say.

“In a light bright as the sun the revelation came,” Prophet Childs says. He stares over our heads like he’s seeing things all over again. “The two of you at the stone altar, wearing the ceremonial dress, Brother Hyrum standing, you kneeling at his feet. I saw it all. I saw it all. You have been saved for him.”

Uncle Hyrum nods. “I will treat you well, Sister Kyra,” he says. “We will raise children unto the Lord.”

“I can’t do that,” I say, sick just-like-that to my stomach. I stand, Laura holding my hand so tight my fingers have gone purple. When I look into her face, I see her eyes have filled with tears. I glance at Mother Sarah. She sits up straight in her chair.

Father says, “Prophet Childs, I think there must be a misunderstanding. This man is my brother.”

I shake free of Laura. Step over my brothers and sisters whose faces are pale and seem like floating balloons.

“Duck, duck, duck,” Emily says.

Mariah lets out a bit of a cry. Does she feel what I feel? I turn and she reaches for me. But it’s like I look at a photograph, one that changes. I see her face collapse when I back away. See her little mouth open wide. Hear her start to cry.

Brother Fields reaches for me as I try to run, grabs the sleeve of my dress, but I slap his hand away and run out into the darkness. Mariah’s voice follows me.

“Wait,” someone calls. Mother Claire? Then, “Hush, baby. You hush now.”

How can this be? Is it for my sins? I have punished us all for my thoughts? For the books? And Joshua?

Just like that I’ll be marrying my father’s brother.

Just like that I’ll be marrying my own uncle.

MOTHER CLAIRE MARRIED FATHER
when she was fourteen and he was seventeen.

Mother Victoria married Father when she was thirteen and he was nineteen.

Mother Sarah married Father when she was thirteen and he was twenty-one.

And now me. Me. Marrying my uncle who must be sixty, at least.

Saved for him?

OUTSIDE THE SKY
has gone all dark except for the half-moon. All is quiet except Mariah’s wailing—a piercing cry that causes my heart to skip a beat. I almost turn back. The air is crisp, cool, though heat still rises from the desert. My uncle! I run from my family. At first, I start toward my tree. Then I think better of it.

“I don’t need a tree,” I say into the dark. “I don’t.”

So I turn around. I head back, past my trailer, past where my family meets with the Prophet and his Apostles and the old man I’m supposed to marry. My own
uncle
.

I trip on a line of bricks that Mother Victoria set up to surround a small flower garden and fall right into her petunias with an “Oof.” The sweet smell makes me sick and I think I might puke. My hands and knees hurt from the fall, and my shinbone feels like a gouge of meat has been scooped out against a brick. For a moment I hesitate. I want to cry. To howl like Mariah, who is really worked up now. But I can hear the rumble of voices from the trailer one over. Can hear one of the men say, “She’ll learn her place,” and another say, “God’s will.”

I push to my feet, and hurry away, right to the biggest sin of my life. I go to Joshua’s place.

THE FIRST TIME
I really noticed Joshua Johnson was seven months ago at school (Did the books make me notice? Did my disobedience make me see him?) when I was coming out of quilting bee and headed for home.

“Hey, Kyra,” he said as we passed in the hall and he nodded at me like maybe he knew something I didn’t.

Oh my goodness, oh my goodness! My heart thumped. His eyes were so blue. Blue like the daytime sky. And he was using his eyes to look at me. Me!

Of course he’s using his eyes
, I thought and looked at the floor then back at Joshua. “Hey to you, too,” I said.

He grinned and I felt my face redden. I hurried out the door and toward home.

Joshua. Joshua Johnson. Blue-eyed Joshua Johnson.

“Oh my gosh,” I said just as Laura came running up next to me.

“Where are you off to so fast?” she asked. “And ‘oh my gosh’ what?”

I swallowed at my jittery feelings, then leaned close to my sister. Her strawberry blond hair was pulled back into long braids. Her eyes, squinty whether she’s in bright light or not, looked hard at me.

“You’re embarrassed,” she said.

Touching my face, I nodded.

“Why?”

“Because,” I said, “Joshua Johnson said hello to me.” Laura stopped on the sidewalk that leads from the Fellowship Hall to where we all live. I could see the freckles sprinkled across her nose. “So?”

“So,” I said, then I let the words rush out of my mouth. “He is so cute. So
cute
.”

Laura stared at me a moment, then started toward home again. “You know you shouldn’t even let that thought in your mind.”

I said nothing at first, bothered by my sister. She was right. I knew that. But still. “I can look, can’t I?”

Laura didn’t even glance my way. Just marched toward home. “No,” she said. “No, you can’t look and you know it.”

Again I was quiet, then I said, “You’re right, Laura.”

She grinned at me, her squinty eyes growing sparkly. “Good then,” she said.

But I thought about him anyway. All the way home.

THE LIGHTS ARE ON STILL
at the Johnson trailer and so I wait. I wait until all the lights have switched off. I hide near their chicken coop, the smells so thick I could have hurled them at someone.

I hear when the Prophet and Uncle Hyrum walk past.

Hear someone slam a door shut and a coyote cry out and get an answer from someone’s dog.

I hear Mother Sarah, and then Father, call me in.

But I don’t move. I wait in the dark, the soft cluck of chickens near, to make sure everyone at the Johnson home is sleeping. Then, in the light of that moon that has turned the color of cream, I tap on his bedroom window.

ONE AFTERNOON
, when the sun sat in the sky like a crown on the mountains, I asked Mother if I could go play the piano.

“Just at the Fellowship Hall,” I said.

“Of course,” she said.

I tucked a fat book of Beethoven under my arm and started away. If I hurried, there would be plenty of time to play. I breathed deep the desert air, happy for the golden light that ended the day. Happy for a moment to fall into my music. I hummed the beginning of a concerto. In my head I could see the notes of a cadenza that was giving me fits. A few minutes of that to start, I decided. Then a jump to the end, maybe fifteen minutes’ practice there. That would get my piece . . .

“Hey, Kyra.”

I started at the voice. “Aaah!” Then, “What?” And finally, “Sheesh almighty.”

Joshua Johnson walked up beside me.

“Oh!” I said, and touched the front of my dress.

“Oh,” he said.

My face colored.

“That’s rude to mimic me like that,” I said. I marched forward over the sidewalk, embarrassed. The smell of the desert kicked up from a slight breeze that blew in from the west.

Joshua laughed. “I’m sorry, Kyra,” he said, hurrying beside me.

I refused to look at him. Instead, I kept my eyes forward and headed across the parking lot around the Temple, feeling a little angry but more horrified and even more pleased that Joshua had surprised me.

“Where you going?” he asked.

With my head, I gestured at the Fellowship Hall.

“Why? There’s no Youth Meeting tonight.”

I stopped, planted one hand on my hip the way Mother Claire does when she’s especially unhappy, and said, flapping the book at him, “To practice piano, if you must know.”
Oh, you are so so so cute
, I thought.
So
cute
! Ahhh!

Joshua nodded, then shaded his eyes against the setting sun. “Can I come along and listen?”

My heart thumped. He was so pretty to look at, with his brown hair all golden in the setting sun, I didn’t know what to do. The only boys I’d been around were my own brothers. And now here was Joshua Johnson.

“What do I care?” I said. But I did care. I did. There was Joshua with those warm-looking eyes of his and that cute face and
Look how tall he is
, I thought,
way taller than me, and he looks so good in that plaid shirt and those blue jeans
.

Don’t look at those blue jeans
.

You looked at his blue jeans
.

I reached for the Fellowship Hall door, but Joshua caught it first and opened it for me. He motioned for me to go ahead.

I did with a flounce, but my foot caught on nothing and I stumbled forward.

Just get to the piano without falling and breaking a bone
, I thought.
Just make it to the piano
.

I could hear some boys playing basketball in the gym, could hear the squeak of their tennis shoes on the floor and the echoey pounding of the ball.

“You look pretty today, Kyra,” Joshua said. He opened another door for me and we stood in the near darkness of the Assembly Room.

I looked toward the piano.
Just make it there
, I thought.
He is so cute. So cute
.

“Want me to catch the lights?” he said.

“If you’d like,” I said. I sat down at the piano, my legs shaking so I wasn’t sure I could work the pedals.

The fluorescent lights overhead flickered on and a low buzz filled the room.

Joshua pulled a seat up near the piano bench.

I flipped open Beethoven. Why, I was so nervous my eyes couldn’t make out even one note at first. My fingers trembled and for a moment I wasn’t sure if I could even feel them. It was like I was numb. I ran through scales once.

“That was good, Kyra,” Joshua said. And then he grinned.

A little laugh slipped from me. “I’m just warming up.”

“Play something,” he said.

At first my fingers
wouldn’t
work. Then, as I played Beethoven, I almost forgot Joshua was sitting right there.

Almost.

Oh, all right. I snuck quick peeks at him the whole time we were together.

And every time, he was looking right back at me.

“You’re good,” he said when I’d finished my practice. He nodded toward the piano.

“I know it,” I said. I wasn’t being stuck up. That’s a sin, to
think
you’re better at something than another person. But the fact is, I
know
I’m better than any of The Chosen Ones so I wasn’t being a braggart.