I wish it was only the darkness that kept me company. I wished so hard.
Wished it was only the swooshing of my own blood being pumped through my veins that I heard.
Wished it was only my tears that dripped onto the floor.
Instead, there is a ruler, and my hands are covered in red marks.
A nameless woman stands before me, slapping the palm of my hand. At first, without a warning, without a word. Then came the questions, to which I had no answers.
Why did you slap her?
Why did you not repent?
Why do you not obey?
Why do you not follow rules?
I don’t know why I am the way I am. I just know that when I hit Emmy, I broke a little. I’ve been losing chips of myself here and there, but the moment she asked me why I wasn’t happy, it made me snap.
And now I pay the price.
Love your brothers and sisters.
Love your fellow believers.
Love everyone around you.
Love.
If you do not love, you get punished.
Even if you don’t mean it, show love, or you will feel pain instead. That’s the message they are giving me, and I have listened well.
For the past hours, all I’ve felt is the sharp pain of a ruler coming down on me, making me hold back the screeches I wish I could let out. But I know the more I hurt, the more they smile.
That’s what they do. These women are trained to belittle, subdue, and punish girls like me, girls who are forced to become part of the community just because some man wanted them.
I wonder if these women, these “sisters” who have made my life miserable, have husbands. If that’s how they learn this behavior.
Punish or get punished.
Maybe that’s how they keep the women in check.
Make them the ones dishing out the pain, then they know what happens if you try to defy the rules.
It’s working, though. Slap by slap, I’m enforced to believe that what I did was wrong. That I am truly sorry for hurting her. That I want this to stop, but I won’t say that out loud. I am a sinner. Sinners will be punished. Repent and you will be forgiven.
“I am sorry!” I yell out loud as she takes a break for a few seconds. “Please, forgive me …”
I feel defeated. Hurt. Wounded.
Betrayed by my own conscience … persuaded by my own guilt.
“Good.” The woman taps her own hand with the ruler, each snap a powerful reminder of what she can do if I don’t comply.
“You think about that.” The woman gathers her belongings and leaves me here in the dark, alone, crying.
I wasn’t even chained up. They didn’t need to.
I knew they were there, waiting behind that door, ready to pounce on me if I tried to flee. So I just accepted it and held up my hands when she asked.
I cooperated in my own punishment.
The bruises on my hand are so painful it makes me shiver. These are marks that won’t leave scars on the skin, but they will leave scars on the soul.
Suddenly, the door opens again. Is it that woman? Has she come for more?
When I look up, my jaw drops.
It’s him; the patriarch.
I push myself into a corner, shuddering. I can’t let my guard down. He goes to his knees in front of me. “Give me your hands.”
I reluctantly hold them out. He grabs both, and warmth instantly flows through me as though he’s siphoning energy through his fingers. It’s a figment of my imagination, and I know that, but it’s a powerful feeling that I find hard to ignore.
He slides a single finger across my palm, and I hiss in agony.
“Damn …” he mutters.
I didn’t know they were allowed to swear here. Maybe he has a free pass. He’s a patriarch, which means he must be powerful in some way. Powerful enough to bend the rules? Powerful enough to get me out of here?
“That elder’s wife really did a number on you, didn’t she?” he asks.
He reaches for my face, and I cower in place, but his hand on my skin feels so soothing compared to the rough beating I just had that I instantly melt in the palm of his hand.
He sighs and then gets up. Suddenly, he picks me up from the floor with both hands and carries me toward the door.
I’m stunned, completely frozen in his arms as he brings me back outside. My eyes squint as I get used to the daylight again.
The woman seems to appear out of nowhere. “Patriarch, what are you—”
“I never gave permission for this,” he growls, clutching me closer to his body, almost like a lion protecting its pride.
“I … I apologize, Patriarch,” the woman mutters under her breath, and she immediately bows. “It won’t happen again.”
“No, it won’t. I’ll make sure of it,” he says, still as valiant as before.
Then he walks off without saying another word to the woman. I wonder whether I’ll see her again. If I’ll have the chance to say how much I hate her and this place. I wonder if he’ll let me.
“Are you afraid of her?” he asks, still walking with me in his arms.
I don’t reply, but I do nod.
I don’t know what it is about him that makes me so silent, so compliant.
His face darkens. “Then I’ll see to it she doesn’t come anywhere near you again.”
Just like that, he can unravel someone’s hold over me. That’s the kind of power he wields. This whole community is under his rule. Just like me.
He carries me back to my hut. When Emmy opens the door, her mouth is wide open, and she stares at us for a full ten seconds before moving aside so he can enter.
“Welcome, Patriarch, welcome.” She bows. “This is … unexpected.”
“Leave us,” he commands.
All the girls immediately get up from their bunk beds and the chairs and rush out the door. Even April is whisked away. Where to, I have no clue, as the patriarch immediately closes the door behind him.
He carries me to the bunk bed and sets me down on the bottom one to the left. “Stay here.”
I do as I’m told as he walks over to the cabinet and produces a box filled with bandages, which he brings back.
He gently tugs my arm until I yield and give him my hand, which he holds so softly between his fingers. My eyes home in on the tattoo on his hand, the symbol of a house, which was also on the scarf I have at home. Why does he have that same symbol on his hand?
That tattoo is the sole reason I’m here. If I had never seen it online, I wouldn’t have gone after it. I wouldn’t have found him in that joint … and he wouldn’t have taken me.
Why is this tattoo so important?
I wish I could ask, but I can’t get the words off my tongue.
He wraps the bandage around my hand and tightens it with a piece of tape. Has he done this before? But he’s a patriarch, so other people do this for him, right? If I understand the rules, everyone’s at his beck and call.
When he’s finished, he mutters, “There.”
He sits down across from me on the other bunk bed, and for some reason, I can’t stop wondering if he’s ever sat down on one before.
“If that doesn’t heal in a couple of days, you tell one of your hut sisters, and they will alert an elder for me. Okay?”
I nod. He smiles.
It’s the first one I’ve seen in this community that’s actually genuine. But it also makes me want to cringe.
“You know you can talk to me, right? I don’t bite,” he says.
But he does. He most definitely does.
Noah
She’s so fearful of me. I understand why, but she doesn’t need to be.
I won’t hurt her. Not in the way the elder’s wife has.
I’m still mad at myself for letting things escalate the way they did. That elder’s wife never should’ve put a hand on her. But I didn’t give explicit instructions on what they could and couldn’t do while she was in her initiation, so I accept partial blame for this.
Still, that elder’s wife will never go near her again. I will make sure of it.
I don’t want my precious prize to get wounded. Or worse … be scarred for life.
She’s far too valuable to be treated like that. If only she knew.
It’s too soon to start something, but when I look into her eyes, I want nothing more than to bring her back with me to my temple. But I can’t. This has to be done the regular way. She has to walk this path before I can claim her … before she becomes mine.
A question lingers on her lips, and I tilt my head to watch. “Who are you?”
I’m surprised that’s the first thing she’d ask.
“A patriarch, but you already know that,” I muse.
I wish her fellow hut sisters hadn’t shouted it off the rooftops, but it must be hard to contain their enthusiasm when they see one of us.
“But my name is Noah,” I say.
“Noah,” she repeats, narrowing her eyes at me. My name rolling off her tongue has a particular feel to it, and it makes all the hairs on my body stand up in excitement.
“What do you really want from me?” she asks.
I lick my lips. “Your life.”
She visibly shudders, and I don’t think it’s from the cold.
She turns her head away from me, and I avert my eyes.
“Leave me alone.”
Such cold words from a woman desperate for warmth.
“Or let me go,” she adds.
“You know I can’t do that,” I say as I get up. “But I promise you, there will be no more pain from now on.”
“I don’t believe you,” she says, grabbing the blanket in front of her to wrap it around her body like a cocoon.
I shrug. “Suit yourself.”
My words won’t be able to convince her, but my actions will. In time, she’ll understand why she’s here, but for now, we’ll both have to deal with the situation. She hates me, and that’s fine. We have all the time in the world to make her fall for me, and I’m not in any rush.
But as I walk toward the door, I can’t help but leave a tiny present for her.
Something I know she cherishes … something that’ll make her heart burn with curiosity.
The embroidered scarf with the symbol on the front.
The scarf that she knows came from this community.
