The Blood We Spill: Suspense with a Dash of Humor (The Letty Whittaker 12 Step Mysteries) (24 page)

“Why the difference?”

“Father believes women need more purifying.”

Said with a straight face yet. She waited to see
if I would complain, but I held back. I wasn’t here to strike a blow for
feminism, after all.

“You said it’s a fast?” I asked.

“Water only,” Cozbi said. “And no adornment, of
course.”

I had already been stripped of jewelry and makeup,
so that didn’t matter.

“During your period of contemplation, you’ll be
taken to a small cabin where you are to reflect and meditate on your sins.
Later, you’ll take The Vow before the Seven and then again before the entire
church.”

“When do I get my new name?”

She finally smiled. “We’re going to have a feast
day for you. You’ll be named then.”

Even though I was sure the Elect interpreted
“feast” far differently than I might, I brightened up.

“Letty, you have to be certain about this.”
Cozbi’s face resumed its expressionless nature. “This isn’t a game. The Vow can
never
be broken. It would be the one unforgivable sin. When you—”

“I thought the only unforgivable sin was denying
the Holy Spirit” I said. “I remember reading that in the Bible. Somewhere.”

She hesitated. “By breaking The Vow, you will be
breaking with the Holy Spirit. We’re here because we are working every day to
be purified for the Lord’s return. To break The Vow means to separate from God.
The punishment means being cast out from the Elect. The book of Revelation tells
us you will be vomited from His mouth.”

“Huh. Yeah, that wouldn’t be good,” I said.

Her eyes narrowed briefly, but she nodded as
though signaling the end of the conversation. I was glad, because by now I had
to pee like a racehorse. I wouldn’t put it past Father to disregard indoor
plumbing in his subordinates little cabins, so I asked.

“Of course,” Cozbi said. “It’s the door on the
left.”

I walked over and opened it. Not the bathroom.
Instead, I opened the door to a small closet—a few dresses hung limply on wire
hangers and a pair of men’s pants were folded on a shelf above the hanging
clothes. I barely noticed them, however, because hanging on the back of the
door was a brown leather cat-o’-nine-tails. It swayed slightly as I gawked at
it, the knotted lashes making a slithery sound as they swung against the wood.
I turned to Cozbi, dumbfounded.

She stared back impassively.

I shut the door. “Cozbi, I’m so sorry. I thought
you said left. I didn’t mean—”

“I said right. But don’t worry about it.” She
turned away. “It’s not mine.”    

I
had until the
next day to back out. I was planning on using the evening to track down Eli and
Beth and fill them in on the newly developed craziness. Polygamy? Ick. That
whip? Ick infinity.

Unfortunately, Father called another mandatory
gathering for the Elect at the Philadelphia Temple. All I wanted to do was lay
down and take a nap. On the other hand, if I could see and talk to Maggie, we
might be able to ditch this whole plan and bug out. Totally worth it.

The first person I saw upon entering the temple
was Justus sitting next to Maliah. This time, when our eyes caught, his shifted
away. I grabbed a seat next to Jala. I thought I’d given myself plenty of time
to look around for Maggie, but I’d barely gotten settled before the show
started.

There was the usual candle lighting and
positioning of the Seven, but this time the ceremony seemed rushed and
unfocused. Even Father strode in without the usual trumpet blast. Because of
the disorientation, it took me a minute before I realized the Seven were only
six.

Casper was missing.

Irritation—and I didn’t think it was because his
supplicants were caught off guard—emanated off Father in nearly visible
concentric waves. Silence laced with fear fell over the crowd. People ducked their
heads to try to avoid eye contact with their golden-clad leader.

There were a few exceptions. Baara, as usual,
appeared oblivious to the undercurrents. She sat up straight, looking excited.
When Father’s roaming eye landed on her, she giggled and waved. Father’s jaw
stiffened and he looked away. Rachel, seated beside Baara, reached over and
laid a gentle, quelling hand on her shoulder. Baara drew away from her but
subsided.

“A false witness shall not be unpunished, and he
who breathes forth lies will not escape!” Father’s voice boomed across the
congregation, causing more than a few, myself included, to jump. The rush of
adrenaline made my heart thrash against my chest, and I broke out in a sweat.
At this rate, I would be all set for menopause or a heart transplant, whichever
came first.

Jala, seated next to me, whispered, “Proverbs
19:16.”

In front of us, Father raged on in a strident,
Hitleresque screech, making no attempt at the sophisticated voice modulation
which he had used to such great effect in previous messages. “Whoever slanders
his neighbor secretly, I will destroy. Whoever has a haughty look and an
arrogant heart, I will not endure.”

Jala whispered something about Psalms, but I
didn’t catch the chapter or verse.

“Spreading untruths about the Elect is as sinful
as betraying this church,” Father continued. Spittle flecked his lips. He
banged his fist on the podium so hard I expected to hear the crack of either
wood or bone. “It’s betrayal. How could it be otherwise? Hear me now. It will
not be tolerated. It will not! Ask yourselves who, or what, are you placing
your trust in? Those of the world?” He pointed outward, his hand shaking so
hard in anger it looked palsied. “The world that has already betrayed you? The
world that soils your very soul? And what will you do then, when the End is
upon us? When your dalliance with the outside has made you unacceptable to The
Way? Will you repent then?”

Sobs broke out from a few people. I checked Baara,
but instead of looking troubled, she had a beatific look on her face as she
gazed up at Father.

“It will be too late.” Father thundered, forcing
my attention back to center. His hands gripped the podium so hard that his
knuckles gleamed starkly white against the oak. He paused, visibly trying to
rein himself back in. He took a deep breath. The effort took far longer than a
mere count of ten. Finally, in a quieter voice, he said. “It will surely be too
late. You will be lost.”

Father took another deep breath and flexed his
fingers. His eyes scanned over the crowd as though seeing us for the first
time. Something—hopefully, sanity—seemed to seep back into his face. Whatever
it was, it didn’t bring peace to his expression. Maybe he was finally
registering the abject fear in most of his flock’s faces. A very few—Rachel and
Jala among them—looked disturbed, almost angry. Next to me, Jala’s hands were
clenched in her lap.

Whether he saw them or not, I couldn’t tell, but a
wary glint crept into Father’s eyes. He seemed to take a mental step back from
whatever precipice he had been heading toward. He cleared his throat.

Then, he said, “‘Blessed is the man whom the
Father corrects, so do not despise the discipline of the Almighty.’ And I
should add ‘woman’ as well.” His chuckle floundered and died in the thick air.
He cleared his throat again. “We must embrace discipline. Without it,
sinfulness will creep back into your hearts and into your actions. As it
already has for some of you. As your leader, I must be ever vigilant. Always
ready to do battle with the Enemy who would worm his way into our mission,
taking your souls as his trophies. This is a battle for your very souls.”

Though his voice had risen again, he kept it
modulated and controlled. The congregation seemed to relax a bit, ready to
settle in for a normal, “you’re all going to hell if you don’t listen to me”
sermon.

“It is a battle I will win,” Father said softly.
His eyes seemed to settle on Baara. Or was it Rachel. Baara gazed raptly up at
him.

Then a switch seemed to flip: his lips thinned,
his face swelled again as blood began an ominous creep back up his neck as he
stared at her. I saw Rachel place a protective arm around Baara’s shoulders,
although Baara seemed remarkably unaffected by the scrutiny.

“This is why,” Father continued, “if I
discover—and I will—who is at the heart of this evil, this betrayal…” He
finally wrenched his gaze away, and it swept the crowd like a prison tower
searchlight. “You will be sliced out of this community like a cancer and driven
from my presence. You will be cast aside like the serpent you are.”

A gasp ran through the congregation. Baara yelped
as though pinched.

“I will protect this church. At all costs.” Then
he stepped back from the podium, shooting a baleful eye across the room.
Without looking away from us, he signaled to Moses, standing just behind him.
Taken by surprise, Moses sprang forward, almost stumbling in his haste. Father
whispered something to him, then spun on his heel and stomped out, slamming the
side door behind him.

Moses moved awkwardly to the podium, then
apparently thought better of assuming Father’s place and stood to the side of
it. When he cleared his throat, his Adam’s apple leaped as wildly as a frog
trying to escape from a paper bag. Baara’s giggle danced around the room,
causing Moses to flush.

“Uh, Father has, uh, one more announcement. As it
is not part of his—” A blank expression wiped his face clean of any appearance
of intelligence. More giggles from Baara. Moses obviously hadn’t been prepared
to stand before the church, and his terror led me to believe this was an
unprecedented assignment. He twitched back to life and continued where he had
left off. “Not part of the important message he just gave us. The one about
forbidding gossip. This is separate. Uh, Father would like you all to pray for
one of our members who has left the shelter of the Elect in order to act as a
missionary in these, uh, troubled times.”

Well, that certainly had a “Pay no attention to
the man behind the curtain” ring to it.

Moses, obviously at a loss for how to wind things
up, nodded blankly several times, shifting from Pez dispenser to bobblehead.
Eli moved forward and whispered in his ear.

“Oh,” Moses said, turning back to us. “Priella.
She’s the one to pray for.”

Heaving a sigh of relief, Moses stepped abruptly
back into formation, colliding with Dathan, who almost knocked over one of the
standing candle holders. Eli was able to grab it before it set off a game of
flaming, falling dominoes.

Chapter Twenty-Two

I
waited just
outside the temple door for my friends. People parted in streams like a river
around a rock. No sign of Maggie or Beth. Maybe Beth had waylaid the elusive
Maggie and was even now convincing her to get the hell out of Dodge. I could
only hope.

Cozbi and Baara came out together, though each
seemed wrapped up in her own thoughts. Rachel was right behind them. She
reached forward and tapped Cozbi’s shoulder. I had lost track of Jala in the
crowd, but she caught up just in time to hear Rachel say to Cozbi, “When is
this going to stop?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Cozbi
said, despite the fact her frozen face and darting eyes said she knew exactly
what Rachel meant.

“Look,” Rachel said. “Your husband is the highest-ranking
man in the church. Couldn’t you talk to—”

“I said I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Cozbi’s shrill voice cut across the yard. She started to walk away.

Rachel grabbed her sleeve. “Yes, you do. Do you
really believe Priella is on mission work? Really? Does that make any sense?
She was being shunned and that was never lifted. They would
never
trust
her to represent us. What are they trying to hide?”

Cozbi yanked her arm away and turned on Rachel.
“Are you crazy? How dare you—”

“Cozbi,” Rachel pleaded. “Don’t do this. You of
all people know what goes on in this place. Can you really tell me you believe
Priella is on some mission trip?”

In a tight, cold voice, Cozbi said, “I believe
what Father tells me to believe and nothing else.” She turned her back, and
Rachel and the rest of us and walked away.

“Oh, dear,” Jala said.

“Cozbi,” Rachel called to the woman’s retreating
back. “Cozbi, listen to me!”

Baara let out a shriek, scaring me half to death.
She had her hands fisted over her ears. “Stop it! Just… shut up.”

“Baara, it’s okay,” Rachel started.

“Don’t talk to me, you… you serpent! I don’t want
to listen to your poison.” Baara took off in a run, heading for the barn.

Rachel made as if to go after her.

“Rachel, wait,” I said. “She’s too upset. Let me
go.”

She looked as if she might argue, but, face
fallen, she agreed to let me go. Jala caught up to us and patted Rachel’s
shoulder.

“Come on, honey. Let’s get you a cup of nice, hot
tea. I’ve got some honey set aside for just such emergencies.”

I
did not want
to go into the barn. I hated barns. Especially dark, creepy ones. Still, I went
in.

I found Baara standing with her head buried in the
dusty neck of a jumbo-sized, brownish horse. The beast stood patiently with its
head hung over the cutout window, but despite that, it didn’t look all that
interested in providing comfort. Mostly it was grinding hay between big yellow
teeth, turning aside every now and then to tug another mouthful from the sheaf
that had been tossed into the stall.

A pang of longing for my Siggy almost blindsided
me. I missed the little guy. And cats, now they know how to comfort. Even if
Siggy acted like he was totally ignoring me, I knew, deep in my heart… Oh, who
was I kidding? We take comfort wherever we can get it.