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Love is an act of loyalty. —THE HOLY SCRIPTURES
Most Bethelans avoided the Outskirts, for fear of the sinners who dwelled there in shame and squalor.
the Dark Mother.
“The woods,” said Martha, and she seemed to spit the words. “In these parts, they worship them.
Even the sinner has a place in this world. And even the heretic can exalt the Father in his or her own way.”
“Leave her to her sins.”
He faltered for a moment, as if embarrassed to be caught in the midst of his ministry.
“Immanuelle will remain where she belongs, with me.”
Someone among us, maybe even someone sitting in the pews tonight, brought this curse upon us.”
“The Prophet is certain that someone convened with the forces of the dark to wake this once-dormant evil.”
The plague must have been the work of someone else.
Her period blood
For it is in the fires of purging that the souls of men find faith.
Esther—Ezra’s mother—is the only one who’s truly good to me.”
She bled.
What if her monthly bleed was the blood sacrifice Apostle Isaac spoke of? What if she had spawned all this evil?
What if the journal was bait?
she’d assumed their motive had been some sort of kinship or affinity toward Miriam. But what if that wasn’t it?
Opened a door that she didn’t know how to close, and now all of Bethel was suffering for her sin and naivete.
She had done this.
witchcraft. To inform the Church was to damn herself—she
What if she could end the plague the same way she started it: with her blood?
with no small measure of satisfaction, she realized she’d caught him off guard.
“Why should I when the men of the Church are clearly no more informed than I am?”
“I’ve made you stomach my sin, so now you want me to shoulder yours?”
Prophets were merely men and men were fallible creatures, prone to the passions of the flesh, tempted to violence, even, when their anger spilled over.
a prophet was nothing more than a vessel of the Father, and the Father was not always the benevolent god of light.
feeding of the Mother.
“All I’m saying is that if I was an all-powerful god who could do as I pleased, I would have found another way to end the war.” He looked back at Immanuelle. “Wouldn’t you?”
“Spoken like a true believer,” said Ezra, but he made it sound like an insult.
“It isn’t a question of belief.” “Then what is it?” He took his time to think over his answer. At last, he said, “It’s a question of who’s being creative with the truth.”
“People don’t disappear in the woods. They escape. That’s why they never return: because they don’t want to.”
But it isn’t an easy thing to turn your back on a home, and that’s what I found in you.
I think the sins you’re hiding could send you to the pyre if you’re not careful.”
“You’re a fool if you think I’m the one in danger.”
She supposed a small, weak part of herself wanted to impress him . . . and she hated herself for it.
“It’s said that a curse can only come from the mouth of a woman. From the mouth of a witch.”
She thought of young girls married off to men old enough to be their grandfathers.
“A punishment.”
When the forest is hungry, feed it. —FROM THE UNHOLY FOUR: A COMPENDIUM
She was from the Darkwood,
But they weren’t in Bethel anymore, and the Darkwood was lawless.
The Witch Killer, David Ford.
The taint of the blood plague was finally over. Many declared it a miracle—Ezra’s first.
Judith was taken from the confinement ward and sent to contrition.”
“But if her whoring had anything to do with it, I assume she’ll be held for some time.”
“He came to me one night, before my cutting, while I was doing penance.”
“A few weeks before my first blood.” “So you were barely thirteen?”
“We all sin.” “But he’s the Prophet—” “He’s just a man, Immanuelle. Men make mistakes.”
“Baring your broken heart. Sharing in the shame of my sin like it’s your burden too.”
“Anything. Whatever you want.”
