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belowground. “It is what makes us human, what separates us from them.”
    I look into her face, try to find a way to make this end. Her cheeks are red from the crisp air and her own fervor. There are lines at the corners of her eyes like relics, as if she once knew how to smile long ago.
    My shoulders slump. I am kneeling before Sister Tabitha. I drop my head to my chest, despondent. There is nothing I can do.
    She places both her hands on my head. “It is important for you to know this, Mary,” she tells me. “You must understand the importance of this choice you are making to become one of us. The Sisterhood is not something to be entered into lightly.”
    I keep my eyes on the ground, staring at the dully colored fall leaves as I nod. My body shakes and I cannot control my jerking muscles. The Unconsecrated claw desperately at the fence all around me. They can smell me here.
    “I must hear you say it, Mary.” Her hands slip through my hair and all I can think about is my mother and the choice she made.
    “I choose to join the Sisterhood,” I tell her, desperate to get out of the clearing.
    “Good,” Sister Tabitha says as she slides her hands from my head to a spot under my chin. Her grip is firm and almost painful. She tugs at me so that I am looking into her eyes, which are the dark gray green of the sky during a summer thunderstorm. “The next and only time you open your mouth to speak,” she says to me, “will be to praise our Lord.”
    It takes a moment for me to understand her words—that I am safe—and then I frantically nod, the sound of the Unconsecrated crawling under my skin. She steps aside and helps me back down the stairs. Mute, I follow her down the tunnel to the cavernous room, and as we climb the stairs back up into the Cathedral I wonder at the coldness I have seen in Sister Tabitha's eyes. How her gaze seemed to sear into my soul, the chill even now seeping through me where I had only ever known the warmth of the Sisterhood.
    We return to the Sanctuary of the Cathedral and the Sisters lead me down the hallway to the same room I occupied only this morning, the room with the view of the Forest and the Unconsecrated. There is now a desk under the window and a wardrobe in the corner with two black tunics hanging inside. A fire has been lit in the small stone hearth to keep the chill of impending winter away, but I cannot feel its warmth.
    Before leaving, Sister Tabitha thrusts the Scripture into my hands. “When you have read it five times, you may begin to earn your privileges,” she says.
    And then I am left alone again to contemplate my choices.

    The Scripture is a book more than a hand's width thick, its binding worn and cracked and its pages see-through thin with crowded letters. I read at the table under the window when there is sun and when there is no sun I stare into the fire and remember my mother. I try to reconcile what I read in the Scripture with what I know about our life here and finally realize that there is no answer.
    My world feels so small now, the four walls of my room the only place I am allowed unsupervised. I miss standing on the hill, wind slipping past me, and staring at the horizon wondering what, if anything, is past the Forest. Some nights, as sleep pushes in around me, my mind wanders along the fence line, to the gate guarding the forbidden path. But even in my dreams I do not step through it.
    Weeks pass. As winter settles around us and the days get shorter I spend less time reading and more time thinking. I stare out my window at the stars at night and wonder if the Unconsecrated feel the change in temperature. I wonder if my mother is cold in the Forest.

    Midwinter my studies are interrupted one snowy afternoon when shouts and screams echo down the hallway outside my door. I run to the window and look out, wondering if the Unconsecrated have finally breached the fences and are swarming the village. But everything in my line of sight is calm and the siren