Chapter 5
Chapter Five
The name they’d given her was Sarah. But in this place, she was not the wife of a patriarch. She wasn’t anything. Every single thing she had was to be earned. Even the white shift they’d given her to wear, and the slippers on her feet.
Sarah tugged the gray wool blanket from her bed tighter around her shoulders as she made her way across the courtyard. All the buildings were rundown now, the shutters and blinds broken. Drafty windows. Doors that didn’t quite shut.
Even the trees were barren, though it was late spring. As if the world around her didn’t quite wish to let go of winter.
There were no stars in the sky, just collections of satellites that companies and countries had launched into the sky.
She’d given up all claim on the great evil that was modern technology in coming here, signing the contract each Sister was required to sign, and giving up all her worldly possessions.
Even her name.
Sometimes she didn’t even recall who she’d been before she was born again as Sarah.
Sister Imani came from a country she wasn’t allowed to mention, but Sarah often saw the past in her eyes. Grief for what she’d left behind.
It was there now, as she approached Sarah. “Sister.”
Sarah inclined her head. “Sister. We should hurry to the meeting room or we’ll be late.”
Imani bowed her head in return. The Mother had prohibited them from touching each other in any way. As a result, a head nod had come to mean so many different things.
I’m with you.
We’ll go together.
Imani was wrapped similarly, in her blanket, but her feet were bare.
Sarah hurried down the path to the sanctuary, their meeting room. Two men flanked the front doors, each breath from their mouths creating a white cloud in front of their faces. They wore heavy overcoats, thick pants, and boots, but had fingerless gloves. Rifles slung over a shoulder.
Dark eyes peered out from under the edge of a low wool cap as they passed.
Sarah said nothing, holding the door for Imani, who kept her dark gaze fixed on the ground between her feet as they entered.
A wave of oppressive heat hit Sarah. She shifted the blanket from her shoulders and hung it on the hook by the door. She slid off her shoes, then headed to the floor, where she knelt with the others.
Sweat beaded at the small of her back, but this was the way of the world. Heat. Cold. Grief. Love. Pain. Ecstasy.
If she withstood even this, she would move to the next level. Eventually rising through their hierarchy to the top.
The door to the side of the stage opened, and the Mother, Eve, strode in. Long hair that was definitely a wig hung loose down her back, and she wore a dress not so dissimilar to what the Sisters wore.
“Tonight, we will again partake as a group in the blessed ceremony.” She spread her arms wide, standing in front of them all.
Her daughters. “Once again, we seek revelation from the Great Mother inside all of us. We seek to shed this mortal flesh and commune with the divine as one. As spirit. Together, we will descend to that which calls to us all.”
Two of the Sisters retrieved the trays from a sideboard under the window. Each tray was filled with metal cups of a dark-red liquid.
At first, Sarah had thought it might be blood. She still wasn’t entirely convinced otherwise. The wine burned her throat, and no matter how many times she had drunk from the cup, she hadn’t become accustomed to the way it made her feel. But, despite that, she had received some great revelations.
The wine had allowed her to see the truth about some aspects of her past. Memories she would carry always, no matter how she changed. Those marks on her soul would remain part of her forever.
“As we join together,” the Mother continued, “let us draw from the well. Let us become one as we journey beyond and seek the deep within all of us.”
Sarah adjusted the pressure on her knees and held the cup with both hands. She sipped slowly at first, then found herself encouraged by the others to take in mouthfuls. To drink until the cup was dry.
The Mother read aloud.
“So he carried me away in spirit into the wilderness; and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet-colored beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet color, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: and upon her forehead was a name written. Mystery. Babylon the Great. The Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth.”
The fog swam around Sarah, rotating her consciousness until it swirled. Until creatures rose from the floor to claw at her, devouring her to shreds with hot, whiplike gashes that seemed to separate her skin from her bones.
Until there was nothing left of Sarah but a single heartbeat.
And then it stopped, and only silence remained.
Only a ragged inhale. Exhale.
And then nothing.
Just black.