Agnes at the End of the World Page 5

  “Agnes,” she cried as her weary-looking sister lifted the covers and crawled into bed. “You won’t let it happen, will you?”

  The sisters clutched each other, shivering like they’d just come in from the rain.

  “I tried to buy time.” Agnes’s teeth chattered. “I had to lie to Father. I hated it.”

  “Who cares a fig about lying to Father?” Beth whispered intently. “As long as you stay. If you leave—Agnes, it will kill the kids.”

  Agnes stiffened. “Don’t say that!”

  “It will. And I couldn’t bear it.”

  They were silent, listening to the sleeping children’s breaths, like wavelets breaking on the lakeshore.

  Beth pulled back enough to see her sister’s face. Shock had shattered her firm, familiar features. In her eyes was a look of stunned disbelief.

  Agnes hadn’t truly believed she could be married, either.

  Beth felt like she was falling—tumbling from the red edge of the canyon—and not even Cory could catch her.

  If I don’t do something, I’m going to lose her.

  Red Creek girls had a way of disappearing into marriage. Once acquired like furniture, they rarely ventured beyond their homes. Married, Agnes would stop attending Sunday school, and then she’d be too busy with her domestic duties to socialize. Beth would glimpse her in church, maybe, or on the road to church.

  She’d be a ghost.

  “You can’t marry,” Beth said decisively. “I won’t let you.”

  “It’s God’s will. The Prophet saw it in a dream.”

  She shook her head forcefully. “Agnes, why would God destroy Mother like He did and then also take you? Why would He persecute our family? If He’s righteous, then why?”

  Agnes looked incredulous. “Don’t you remember the Book of Habakkuk?”

  Beth didn’t. Nor did she think it was fair for Agnes to belt her with theology.

  “The vision awaits its appointed time,” her sister quoted. “But the righteous shall live by His faith.”

  Beth ground her teeth. “What. Does. That. Even. Mean!”

  “It means that faith is meaningless when life is easy. Beth, God doesn’t owe us any answers. He never did.”

  The sisters locked pinky fingers beneath the covers—their secret sign since they were small. Beth sighed. She regretted messing around with Cory that afternoon, when she might’ve been with the one she loved a thousand times more.

  “Agnes, what if—” She paused, gathering thoughts she’d never quite admitted even to herself. “What if your marrying isn’t God’s will?”

  She’d never courted rebellion so plainly. It scared her, made her long to retreat into the shell of her old thoughtless indifference. It was so much easier to simply accept the way things were, and so very painful to start asking why.

  Agnes peered at her. Beth’s face burned under her sister’s scrutiny, and her tongue went dry. She sensed Agnes’s beloved faith raised before her like an iron shield.

  She forced herself to press on. “Can’t you see there’s something wrong with this place? Look what it did to Mother. Look what it’s doing to you.”

  “That’s blasphemy,” Agnes warned. “You’re risking your soul.”

  “Enough with the souls! I’m sick to death of hearing about them. I’m sick to death of—of—oh, let me show you!”

  Ablaze, she dug beneath the mattress for her diary. This was her moment. Her chance to convince Agnes of what she’d guessed, though never dared speak—Red Creek wasn’t as holy as it pretended to be.

  If you find some money you can check into a motel, her mother had said. One with a little pool. Stay until you find a job.

  Such a vague dream! Find money—how? And a job—what could she do? Her mother’s words were so much vapor, and she couldn’t abandon her family for a puff of air.

  Now the truth streaked like a comet, bright and clear. Maybe she wasn’t strong enough to run alone, but—

  They could run together.

  She and Agnes.

  They could run and take the kids.

  She brandished her diary, hymnal thick with a cross on the cover. In fact, it was a hymnal—but a misprint, and all the pages inside were blank. She’d found it in church years ago and taken it home. Inside, she’d made a list. An inventory so shocking, she’d almost torn it out.

  She flipped quickly through the pages. She was flushed, sweating beneath her nightgown.

  “There.” She jabbed the page. “Read that. Then tell me it isn’t horribly unfair.”

  “Beth—”

  “Just do it.”

  Agnes squinted.

  THE LAWS ACCORDING TO RED CREEK

  BOYS

  1. Wear starched collars, long pants, closed-toed shoes.

  2. Attend sermons three times a week.

  3. Marry according to the Prophet’s revelation.

  4. Don’t watch television, listen to the radio, read Outsider newspapers, or listen to secular music.

  GIRLS

  1. Don’t leave Red Creek unattended by a man.

  2. Cover every inch of skin.

  3. Don’t paint your face or adorn yourself with jewelry.

  4. Don’t talk to boys who aren’t your brothers.

  5. Don’t cut your hair. Hair must be worn in a braid.

  6. Don’t wear red.

  7. Don’t drive a vehicle.

  8. Don’t meet the eyes of a patriarch.

  9. Don’t question your father, mothers, or the Prophet.

  10. Don’t entertain jealousy towards sisters or sister-wives.

  11. Don’t seek to ease the pain of menstrual cramps.

  12. Don’t love your own children more than any others.

  13. Don’t tempt men with flirtatious looks.

  14. Don’t prevent the birth of children with Outsider medicine.

  15. Don’t keep money or buy goods without permission.

  16. Don’t steal attention from your husband or father.

  17. Don’t watch television, listen to the radio, read Outsider newspapers, or listen to secular music.

  18. Never speak to Outsiders.

  19. Never, ever complain.

  “See?” Beth crowed, triumphant. “Red Creek hates us. It hates us and it’s wrong.”

  Beth hung on her sister’s silence, desperate to find the smallest crack in her obedience. The slightest window.

  “The Prophet says women are weaker,” Agnes said. “He says the Laws exist to protect us from ourselves.”

  Beth snorted. “But what do you think? You don’t believe it, Agnes.”

  For a moment, she feared Agnes wouldn’t answer.

  “I think faith asks more of women,” she said at last. “I don’t always like it. Sometimes I feel life crushing me. But the Prophet has always protected us. Why would I doubt him now, only because my path is hard?”

  Beth could’ve screamed.

  “Agnes, you’re already in rebellion! If the Laws are so sacred, why do you break them? Why do you sneak out at night? Where do you go?”

  A complicated flicker of emotions played across her sister’s face, and Beth allowed herself to hope. Agnes wasn’t lost, as her mother claimed. Nor was she the brute animal Red Creek wished her to be. Underneath it all, she watched. She saw.

  “Oh, Beth,” Agnes moaned. “I have to tell you everything, because soon it will be your cross to bear. If I tell you where I go, will you swear to stay faithful? To try?”

  Beth’s heart thundered in her ears. She sensed a filament stretched between them, a fragile line of trust. Her sister would reveal her secret—then Beth would marshal all her love and ask her to run.

  Pinky fingers clasped. “Tell me,” she begged. “Please don’t shut me out.”

  A scream rent the air, waking the kids and churning the trailer into panic.

  Ezekiel was having a night terror.

  No, she thought when Agnes shot out of bed. Not now, Ezekiel. Not now.

  Jealousy cramped i
n her belly as she sank back against her pillow.

  “Ezekiel,” Agnes whispered. “You don’t have to worry. Everything’s just as it should be. The Prophet is in his watchtower. Nothing is wrong.”

  The passion that had swept Beth moments ago cooled like the embers of a dying fire, leaving only the bitter scent of despair behind. Listening, she realized how futile it would be to try to convince her faithful sister to run. Agnes might see more than she told, but she still belonged to Red Creek, body and soul.

  Everything’s just as it should be. Like a lion claims its prey, the Prophet’s Laws had claimed her.

  A tear slipped down the side of Beth’s nose.

  Agnes would be married. And Beth wasn’t brave enough to run alone. She’d never see the Outside. Never dress in flattering Outsider fashions or style her hair as she liked. She had no destiny. No adventure would light her dull, toilsome life.

  I still have Cory. That’s something.

  Her sister came back to bed, whispering her name.

  But Beth, feeling worse than she’d ever felt—surely worse than anyone had ever felt—feigned sleep.

  “Another time, then,” Agnes said.

  She spoke as if the filament between them hadn’t already snapped.

  As if the time left to them could do any good.

  8

  AGNES

  Treat not with Outsiders, for God hath set them in a slippery place.

  —PROPHET JEREMIAH ROLLINS

  Matthew Jameson agreed to wait six weeks to marry Agnes.

  “He prayed on it, and God wants to help our family.” Father warned, “Whatever happens, don’t waste this gift of time.”

  By mid-August, Agnes knew, she must have her affairs in order. But time flew, and though she prayed constantly, God never revealed what to do about Ezekiel. Worse, her only backup plan—Beth, who she now suspected was in full-fledged rebellion—was giving her the coldest of cold shoulders, icing her out at the worst possible time.

  Agnes’s patience for her sister dried up like a riverbed in summer. How dare Beth let her bad attitude get in the way of providing for the kids? Couldn’t she see that Sam, the twins, and Ezekiel needed her more? Needed them both?

  Beth will come around. She must.

  And, she told herself, a tinge frantically, there was still time for a miracle.

  God could cure Ezekiel. And when He finally did, she wouldn’t have to keep secrets anymore or lie to Father. She could finally be free of this stifling, suffocating mask.

  She could finally be free.

  Two weeks before the wedding date, Agnes snuck out of the house to meet the Outsider’s son. If Beth heard her creep out of bed, she kept her peace. But Agnes believed her sister slept. Beth’s rib cage lifted rhythmically beneath the sheet.

  Agnes had planned to take Father’s gun, but in the end, she felt too cowed to break into his shed and brought only the empty cooler and a flashlight with her across the meadow.

  The moon was swathed in smoke-black clouds, and she struggled not to trip making her way downhill. She stole looks over her shoulder, half expecting to see Father following. If he found out she was meeting a boy so soon before her marriage, he’d kill her.

  Agnes waited a long time among the gravestones. Stars were trapped behind clouds, and she couldn’t count a single one.

  Maybe the Outsider won’t come.

  If he didn’t, was it a sign?

  She spotted a shadow making its way uphill. A boy with a cooler in hand.

  A rush of nerves, and her hands balled into fists. She could still run away, even scream.

  But because of Ezekiel, she knew she wouldn’t.

  The boy raised his arm, a tentative greeting. He took great strides, drawing close enough that she could see him clearly.

  The Outsider was big. Broad across the chest and surprisingly tall. She fought the instinct to run. His skin wasn’t as dark as Matilda’s but still duskier than anyone’s in Red Creek. He wore Outsider clothing—jeans and a T-shirt—and gooseflesh covered his bare arms. A heavy-looking backpack hung from his shoulder. He took in the stones, the meadow, and the silver trailer up above through the lenses of thin-framed glasses.

  An Outsider boy, here, in the flesh…

  She held out her hand for the new cooler, hoping he would make their transaction fast and painless.

  “You’re Agnes, right?” He spoke just like Outsider teenagers at Walmart, in that casual, easy rhythm. “I’m Danny. My mom’s told me a lot about you.”

  Then nothing. Waiting for her to speak.

  Well, she wouldn’t. Talking to an Outsider boy was a much graver sin than talking to his mother, and what’s more, she didn’t want to.

  As he looked her over—the prairie dress, her braided hair—a flush crept up her neck. She longed to crawl back into bed and pretend this was nothing but a bad dream.

  “I told her it wasn’t safe to meet outdoors. What with—” He glanced behind him at the forest, shouldering his backpack and shuddering. “It’s crawling with them, you know.”

  She followed his eyes to the cluster of trees at the base of the hill and barely kept herself from asking, Crawling with what?

  He read the question on her face and looked alarmed.

  “You’ve seen the Nest in there, haven’t you? You should burn it. I mean, it’s big as a house. Scary. And you know Nests attract the really dangerous ones.”

  Agnes stared, trying to shape his words into sense. Was he talking about a bird’s nest? They had hawks in Red Creek, but their nests weren’t that large. And why would they burn one?

  Big as a house—scary—

  Nonsense. It must be.

  The boy cleared his throat. An arc of freckles made a starry bridge over his nose. His glasses gave him a permanently skeptical look.

  For all his size, the Outsider boy struck her as gentle. He clearly didn’t spend his days like Red Creek boys did, working in the fields. He did something else. Was something else.

  “The thing is, my mom says I have to make sure you know about the Virus. But it’d be pretty extreme if you didn’t. Everyone knows.”

  A memory jostled loose.

  Tommy King said there’s sickness among the Outsiders, Ezekiel had said.

  The boy waited for her to answer, and as the pause lengthened, she couldn’t think of a way to dodge his question without being insulting.

  “Your mother said something about sickness among the Outsiders,” she murmured.

  “Among the—” He stopped. “Oh. We’re the Outsiders. Well, I hate to break it to you, but the Outside isn’t that far away. And the Virus is everywhere. It’s infected hundreds of thousands of animals and people. These last few weeks have been… a nightmare.”

  The boy fidgeted while Agnes stood mute, thinking he was wrong. The Outside was far. For all it had to do with her, it was a million miles away.

  “Oh my God, you really don’t know a thing about it, do you?” He adjusted his glasses. “My mom said you don’t go to school. But what about computers? Do you have those?”

  “No.”

  “Newspapers? Smartphones?”

  She shook her head, and Danny let out a long, low whistle that made her dart a glance at her shoes.

  “Wow. I really didn’t believe my mom about this place. I mean, I believed her, but… wow.”

  He stared at Agnes like she was some kind of exotic bird. “You’ve really never used a smartphone?”

  Annoyance flared. “They’re against the Laws.”

  He pointed to the cooler. “This is against the Laws, too, though, right?”

  She flinched. “Can I have my brother’s medicine now?”

  “One last thing.” God, he was tenacious. “My mom says that if your people aren’t taking precautions, you need to keep your brothers and sisters indoors. Or something might get them.”

  Keep the kids indoors? Just that night they’d been running across the meadow, happily playing the Apocalypse Game. It was perfectly s
afe.

  Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean, Something might get them?”

  “Infected creatures are really aggressive.” He stole another look at the trees. “They’ll come right out of the forest if they see something they can catch. Look, my mom wants you to call her. She gave me a phone to give you. There’s a charger in the cooler.” He ran a hand through his hair. “People are saying it’s the end of the world.”

  The words were like a dagger thrust between her ribs. She knew by his tone he was only using an expression. But in Red Creek, the end of the world was a threat all too real.

  She tipped her chin. “I don’t believe you.”

  He shifted. “Okay. But please take the phone. You might need help someday.”

  He extended a black device, the likes of which she’d never seen. Their phone back home was a chunky thing, with a coiled wire plugged into the wall. Nothing like this sleek, metallic slice of peril.

  The wind whistled, and Agnes shivered.

  Sickness, a Virus, creatures coming out of the woods. The idea that the Prophet couldn’t protect God’s chosen… ludicrous.

  When the Rapture came, the Prophet would scream it from the watchtower. When the Rapture came, God would warn His people and spare them from the flames.

  “I can’t touch that.” Bolstered by faith, Agnes met his eyes unflinchingly. “For one thing, I think you’re lying. Or deluded. Or both.”

  She could hardly believe her boldness. Even Beth would be impressed.

  His eyes hardened. “My mom would tell you the same thing if she were here. Is she a deluded liar, too?”

  “Thank you for the medicine,” she said stiffly.

  “Agnes, wait.” His manner softened, became apologetic. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “Why do you care?” she asked, honestly curious. “What am I to you?”

  He blinked. “I feel like I know you. My mom’s told me what you do for your brother. How hard it must be for you.”

  How hard.

  Slowly but surely, something unfurled from a mysterious place in her chest. Gratitude. Her family, as much as she loved them, treated her like she’d never tire, never break. Like she was made of stone instead of flesh. It shocked her, this feeling that someone understood the shape of her life.