“Did you just say no to me?”
Daddy holds his fork halfway to his mouth, bloody red juices dripping off his steak and splashing onto the plate. I stare at the droplets instead of meeting his eyes.
“Look at me!” he bellows, slamming his other fist down onto the table. Everyone gasps, jumping away as water glasses topple over and spill onto laps and cutlery falls to the floor. It takes a powerful man to make a table of this size tremble. A table that fits all his children—all eighteen of them and counting.
Curling my lip, I bring my eyes to his.
Daddy likes to embarrass me in front of my siblings, but he hasn’t realized that I don’t get embarrassed in front of them. They all look at him with the same disdain—they’re all just sheep. Too scared and brainwashed to speak out against him.
I’m sure some of them truly believe God speaks to Daddy. I just see a wolf in grandma’s clothing.
Mommy used to read me Red Riding Hood at night, and when I had asked if Daddy was the big bad wolf in her story, she ran out of the room in tears. The next day, she burned the book and said that book was made by the Devil and she should’ve never read it to me.
“Did you. Say. No. To. Me?” he asks, enunciating each word through bared teeth. There’s meat stuck in his teeth, and the sight makes my stomach curl with revulsion. I want to see his meat stuck in another animal’s teeth. What I would give to see a lion rip his body to pieces and feast on his black heart.
“Is that what you heard me say?” I challenge quietly.
Daddy said that I’m to gather all of the girls tonight and bring them to him for his nightly ritual. Where he feeds them God’s nectar. I said no and called him unholy.
His face grows red, and his nearly black eyes bulge from his head. He’s an ugly man. Thinning brown hair that shows his scalp in several areas. A squared jaw and a hooked nose. He’s Romanian, and still speaks with an accent. He uses his accent like a weapon, along with his charm and charisma. That’s how he gets all of his followers. That’s how he brainwashes them.
“Put your hand on the table.”
“No,” I whisper.
He laughs. It’s an evil laugh that shows me his patience is wearing thin.
“If you don’t, I will punish your mother. She’s not doing a particularly good job of raising you.”
My mask cracks for just a moment. My lip trembles from the threat, and I have to bite it sharply to stop the tremors. He caught it, though. Daddy knows she’s my weakness. He knows how much I love her.
Slowly, I rest my hand on the table, keeping it far away from him.
“Bring it here.”
I grit my teeth as tears burn my eyes. I won’t let them escape—that would only spur him on.
“Did the Lord say that I need to be punished?” I ask, stalling.
“Yes, he did, Sibel. He sees everything you do. All the naughty things you do when you don’t think I can see you. And how you continue to disrespect God’s only disciple. How do you think that makes Him feel?”
I don’t answer. If I tell Daddy that I don’t believe God speaks to him, he will kill me. That is the foundation the Saintly Baptist Church is made on. God speaks to Daddy, and he relays His message to his faithful believers. They worship Daddy, they don’t worship God.
For whatever reason, they believe his lies. Even though I’ve only ever seen Daddy do evil things. Unholy things.
“Bring your hand here, Sibel,” he orders again when I don’t answer.
I take a deep breath and slam my hand on the table in front of him, defiance set in my jawline. He stares at me, not making a move for a solid thirty seconds. And then as quick as a whip, he raises his fork and stabs into the top of my hand.
A yelp escapes, and I squeeze my eyes shut against the pain.
“Jesus had his hands nailed to the cross. I’m only showing you a morsel of the pain he felt when he died on the cross, for people like you. For your sins. You spit in his face every time you disobey me and the word of God. Remember that, Sibel.”
He retracts the fork, and blood spurts from the four tiny wounds in my hand. If he didn’t completely fuck up my hand for life, it will leave a barely noticeable scar. Funny how something so painful will heal and disappear like it didn’t nearly bring me to my knees.
That’s what God wants, doesn’t He? Me on my knees, praying for strength and perseverance.
I shake like a leaf, trying to hold in my tears. I want to run to my room and cry. Curl up in a ball and try to breathe through the pain.
But Daddy would never let me run and hide. He’d rather I be forced to show weakness in front of my siblings. He’d rather I embarrass myself.
My wet glare meets all the dim eyes staring at me. None of them make a move to help me. Defend me. Soothe me. They just stare on like lifeless zombies, desensitized to the punishments Daddy’s constantly doling out to me. They’re used to my defiance. And they’re used to leaving me to stand alone.
I meet Daddy’s glare, his lip curling. I didn’t give a big enough reaction. I’m not hurting enough for his satisfaction. And that makes the bleeding wounds in my hand feel a little bit less painful, and a little bit more like consummation.
So, I take another deep breath, pick up my spoon with my left hand and scoop a mouthful of mashed potatoes in my mouth.
He stares at me, his face smoothing into impassivity. But I see the glimmer in his eye. The evil thoughts he’s having of murdering me in cold blood.
He’s not God’s disciple. He’s Lucifer’s little bitch.
***
“Where are you, Mommy?” I ask, my voice floating around an empty room.
She’s been missing since yesterday, soon after dinner. Daddy called a meeting for all of his mistresses, and she hasn’t come back yet.
The anxiety started when I saw some of the other women make their way back to their rooms, dried tear streaks on their cheeks. When Mommy didn’t return with them, fear bloomed in the pit of my stomach and has only grown larger as the hours pass by.
I’m curled up in a ball, my stomach aching from the concern for Mommy.
This is all my fault.
If I had just listened to Daddy, Mommy wouldn’t be wherever she is. Probably in pain. Alone. Scared for her life. I nearly choke on the next thought.
Dead.
What if he killed her?
Would Daddy really do something like that—murder an innocent woman in cold blood?
Yes. That little voice in my head whispers, deepening my ever-growing terror.
I didn’t want to lead those young girls to what would certainly traumatize them. They’re new to the Church. Their parents joined, and were all too happy to pleasure Daddy. Do things to him that I’ve never read about in the Bible.
I didn’t want to see those girls, not much younger than me, end up as mothers. Just like Mommy did with me and my siblings. I was Mommy’s first born. She had let it slip before that she was only eleven years old.
At the time, I didn’t understand the gravity of that information. The second it left her mouth, her eyes widened, and her face paled to a sickly gray color. She snapped at me to never repeat that to anyone outside of the Church—not that I’m even allowed to leave the Church. She pinched my hand until I promised her, pure terror shining in her eyes.
Mommy gave birth to two more children before her body gave out and she was no longer able to bear children. Daddy said she has completed God’s mission, and now her life’s purpose is to help raise the children.
Daddy hasn’t been happy with how I’ve been raised for several years. Probably because I’m unhappy. The more I see, the more I want to run from this rotten place, where decay is soaked into the walls.
Flowers can’t survive in a place like this. I’ve already seen so many wilt beneath Daddy’s iron fist.
A sob wracks my throat. I slap a hand over my mouth to keep the sound in. No one can hear me cry. I keep my hand glued to my face as I rock back and forth, pinching my eyes shut as I try to keep the black thoughts from growing. The tears leak through anyways, but I don’t make another sound.
She’s okay. She’s okay. She has to be okay.
“Come back to me, Mommy,” I whisper into the pool of tears in my hand. “I can’t do this without you.”
