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tenderness
definitely affected Beth. She wanted to throw herself into his arms, hide away
from the world there. "I've got an idea," he said, "but yeah, it
would be good to hear it from you."
    She swallowed hard.
"Okay." She couldn't look at him as she talked. It was much easier to
stare into the darkness and let the words spill out. The sense that she shouldn't
bad-mouth the Church was just so hard to shake off—if she didn't look at him,
she could at least pretend she was just ... talking to herself. Thinking out loud.
    She could do this. She could.

Chapter Six
     
    Beth's parents had joined the
Church of the Serpentine Cross six months before Beth was born. Her father had
left a year later. She didn't remember him, but her mother always described him
in such virulent terms that Beth couldn't help but think that was a good thing.
The Church had arranged a marriage for her mother with a good man, Samuel, and
they'd had four children together. That was Beth's family. It wasn't an overly
affectionate family, but there was a quiet love between them all.
    But that wasn't where the family
ended. There was the Family, the Church itself. The little
community that followed Abram and his teachings. Abram, a wild, bony
figure who'd always reminded young Beth of a scarecrow. Abram,
who plucked writhing snakes from wicker baskets every Sunday and shook them
over his head while he talked of sin and transgression, of God and punishment. Abram, who came round the run-down houses of his congregation to whisper of the
evils of the outside world, the sanctuary of the Church. You are safe here , he'd tell Beth and her sisters. Safe
from wicked men and the corruption of the modern world. God will
scourge them from the earth, but you will be safe.
    He was mesmerizing, with his snakes
and his visions of a doomed world. Terrifying. His
wife, Mary, was forever pregnant, a wan, gaunt figure silently pumping out
babies. Sometimes her thin face or neck would display ugly bruises, but
whenever Beth asked her mother why, she would be shushed and told to mind her
business. Good girls held their tongues. Good girls obeyed.
    Life in the Church was one of
constant work. Work to maintain their little house, which leaked in the winter,
where the hot water was never quite hot enough, and where the stairs creaked
dangerously when you ran up them. Work to watch over her younger sisters. Work
to memorize the right parts of the Bible and Abram's teachings. There was a
school for the children, but Beth had no idea if what she was learning was true
or not. They were expected to take everything on faith, and faith was something
she struggled with.
    She wasn't sure she could have
faith in a God who apparently wanted so many of His children dead. She wasn't
sure she could trust a God who would pick Abram as His voice. Where was the
compassion and forgiveness in what Abram taught? Where was the kindness in a
God who told his prophets to take venomous snakes to their breasts?
    When Beth was fifteen, Abram told
her mother and Sam that she was ready for marriage. In a rare act of defiance,
Beth's mother insisted she was too young, and still
needed at home. Her siblings ranged in age from two to ten, and Beth's mother
couldn't care for them all alone. Sam, of course, did little to help, because
raising children was women's work. Abram dropped the matter, but afterwards
Beth was always aware of him watching her, and she felt there was something
poisonous in his eyes.
    When she was twenty, Mary died. It
wasn't really a surprise to the community. She'd had thirteen children, and
each one seemed to leave her more and more frail. Abram made a show of
mourning, but it rang false to Beth. She watched him every Sunday, sweeping his
gaze over the women of the Church and she wondered who he'd pick as his new
bride.
    A few weeks before Beth’s
twenty-second birthday, Abram came over for dinner. This was a huge event,
verging on terrifying, and Beth’s mother bewailed the state of