Page 106 of Kiwi Sin

As for me? The paper was in front of me, but I wasn’t looking. I’d say I didn’t care, but I cared. I cared about my two sisters who were still in Mount Zion, with their husbands and their kids. I cared about Oriana’s little sister, Dove, whom I knew she longed to see again. I cared about everybody who wanted to leave and was scared to, as scared as I’d been myself, because they didn’t know any other way to live.

They could all leave easily now, you’re thinking. The community was going to be open! You don’t know, though, how being told you’ll go to Hell for disobedience every day of your life can shape you, let alone hearing that torment described fully, almost lovingly, until you can feel the flames melting your skin and hear your own anguished screams. You don’t know how it feels to know that the people you’ve left behind, the people you’ve loved most, aren’t permitted to speak your name again, because you’re damned for eternity. To be dead to your own mother and father? How do you think that feels?

Valor said, “You’re surprised. I was surprised as well. I’d never have seen this coming, but the Prophet’s wisdom is beyond ours.”

Rap rap.A knock at the door. Not a soft one. An insistent one.

Dad looked up, startled, and everybody froze. I stood and said, “I’ll get it.”

I wasn’t wondering how I’d fallen so far. I was wondering how I’d ever thought any of this was all right.

It wasn’t all right anymore.

45

ALL THE WAY ACROSS

Gabriel

It was Gray out there, of course. With Daisy, and Oriana and Priya, too. How had they got here this fast? Gray must have driven like lightning. Or Daisy had, because she was out in front, her eyes like burning coals in her taut face. No makeup, her hair mussed, and dressed in shorts and a T-shirt and, I was pretty sure, no bra. She’d been asleep, maybe, after a night shift.

“What?” she asked. “What’s happened?”

“Come in,” I said. “You’ll see.”

When we appeared, Dad stood up fast and said, “This is a family meeting.”

“You’re always telling us that we’re family,” Daisy said, without a bit of deference. “Time to prove it. What’s going on?”

Dad turned on me, then. “You did this.”

“I did,” I said. “They have a right to know, too.”

Dad told Mum, “Leave us, please.” She stood up, and the rest of the women did the same. Glory’s mouth opened to say something, and Mum said, “It’s not our place.”

Uriel said, “It is—” until Dad stared him down, and Uriel told Glory, “I’ll tell you later.”

The women left. All but Daisy and her sisters, that is.

I didn’t ask Valor to recap what he’d said. He wouldn’t have done it. I just picked up my piece of paper withMount Zion Opening Planfrom the table and passed it to Daisy.

Dad told me, “Sit down.”

“Thanks,” I said, “but I’ll stand.”

Daisy had taken in the contents of the paper within about thirty seconds. She passed it to Gray, but she didn’t address Dad. She told her sisters, “The Prophet’s opening Mount Zion up to Outside. Paying wages, too. Paying women?” she asked Valor. “Or just men? Since I assume you’re the messenger boy here.”

“Or the right hand of the Prophet,” Valor said. “And I didn’t ask you to speak to me.”

Gray looked like he wanted to hit him. I knew how he felt. Daisy said, “No? And yet I’m speaking to you anyway.”

“This is my home,” Dad said. He’d learnt that “private property” thing, apparently.

“It is,” Gray said. “Gabriel invited us, but you’re right that it wasn’t his invitation to give. Are you asking us to leave?”

“If you’re asking them,” I told Dad, “you’re asking me, too.”

Everybody sat, frozen, and then there was a scrape of a chair, loud in the silence, and Uriel stood and said, “And me.”