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Only the wealthy had the luxury of minding things; the rest simply ducked their heads, bit their tongues, and did what needed to be done.
“Isn’t it strange how reading a book is a sin, but locking a girl in the stocks and leaving her to the dogs is another day of the Good Father’s work?”
This was to be the end of them, the end of what they’d shared in girlhood.
“You have me. Always.”
“People do foolish, reckless things when they’re desperate to find ways to escape themselves.” He sighed and hung his head. “As ugly as it is, sometimes the truth is nothing more than that.”
This was the great shame of Bethel: complacency and complicity that were responsible for the deaths of generations of girls. It was the sickness that placed the pride of men before the innocents they were sworn to protect. It was a structure that exploited the weakest among them for the benefit of those born to power.
“Good people don’t bow their heads and bite their tongues while other good people suffer. Good people are not complicit.”
True evil, Immanuelle realized now, wore the skin of good men. It uttered prayers, not curses. It feigned mercy where there was only malice. It studied Scriptures only to spit out lies.
Immanuelle stared at him—this man who’d used his lies to make himself a martyr. He thought he was the one who made the true sacrifice, but he couldn’t be more wrong. It was not the Prophet who bore Bethel, bound to his back like a millstone. It was all of the innocent girls and women—like Miriam and Leah—who suffered and died at the hands of men who exploited them. They were Bethel’s sacrifice. They were the bones upon which the Church was built.
