Chapter Seven - Evie #2
I lay there in the quiet, the dream and those memories of Eden still clinging to my skin, and let realization settle into me like a promise. Whatever He thought He had taken from me, from us, whatever He thought He had locked away or buried or bound in light, it hadn’t stayed gone, not entirely.
I could feel it, now. Something in me shifted, small but unmistakable. Like pieces scattered that were beginning to recognize one another and slowly coming together.
I drew a careful breath and let it out just as slowly, afraid of startling whatever had begun to stir. I was too afraid to reach for it or demand anything of it. I just acknowledged its presence, the way you acknowledge a sleeping animal by keeping still and letting it know you mean no harm.
The light hummed softly around my alcove, confident, complacent, convinced it had time. I closed my eyes and let it think that. Let Him believe I was still quiet, pliant, and confused. And I would give Him patience in exchange for underestimation.
I had just begun to drift again, hovering in that fragile space where thoughts loosen, and memories soften, when a sound slipped through the hush.
At first, I thought it was part of the dream still unraveling.
A trick of my mind, replaying something gentle to soothe me.
But then it came again. It was… singing, barely louder than breath.
I stilled, every muscle going alert as if someone had said my name in the dark. The sound drifted through the thin divide between alcoves, threaded through the glow like it belonged there, like the hall itself had decided to hum.
I turned my head toward the curtain, heart ticking slow and careful now.
The voice was light and clear, in a way that made it hard to tell how old it was.
It could’ve belonged to a girl or a young woman.
Or someone older whose voice had never learned how to harden.
There was no strain in it, no effort. Just a simple melody, lilting and unsure, as if she were singing to herself rather than for anyone else.
I couldn’t place the tune. Was it a hymn or a prayer? There were no sacred pauses, no words shaped to please Him. If anything, it felt unfinished, wandering, the kind of song you make up when you don’t expect to be heard.
It tightened something in my chest because it felt too gentle for this place. I listened, hardly daring to breathe, afraid that if I moved, the spell would break and the voice would vanish like everything else that didn’t belong here.
I wondered if she even knew she was singing. Or if it was something she’d done once, long ago, that her body remembered even after everything else had been taken.
Just for a moment, I wondered, was it a trick? Was He trying to soothe me into safety? But I dismissed that notion pretty quickly.
I climbed out of bed and stood close to the curtain. Then, I got brave and whispered, “Hello?”
Instantly, the singing stopped.
I said, “Oh no, please keep singing. It’s beautiful.”
There was nothing for a long moment, and then the song picked up again, quieter.
But only a moment later, the singing stopped, and I couldn’t help myself when I blurted out, “I’m Evie. What’s your name?”
I held my breath as I waited for an answer, but there was no reply. So after several long minutes, I tiptoed back to bed and climbed in and wondered if I’d imagined the whole thing. Maybe I had finally gone crazy in this forsaken place.
After several minutes, the silence was too much. I couldn’t just lie there, so I got up again and crossed the short distance to the wall we shared and pressed my ear against it, carefully, like I might hear the singing again.
Then I whispered, “Please.”
For a moment, there was nothing, and my heart thudded hard enough to hurt.
Then, softly, a voice answered back through the wall. “Evie…” she said finally. “It’s me. Mara.”
The world tilted.
“Mara?” I breathed. “You… you were just singing?”
“Yes.”
My breath hitched. “You live here?”
There was a long pause, so long I thought I’d pushed too far. Then she spoke, slower now, each word chosen like it might cost her something.
“Some of us serve,” she said. “Some of us tend.”
That word sounded wrong. Gentle on the surface, but hollow underneath. Tend. Like gardens or wounds. Like dolls laid out to be made ready.
“And some of us,” she added, even quieter, “are only… chosen.”
My stomach turned.
I rested my forehead against the wall and closed my eyes. “How long have you been here?”
Another pause. Shorter this time. Resigned.
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “This is all I remember.”
The truth of that settled heavy and cold in my chest. I stayed silent for a beat too long, a question forming even as I wished it wouldn’t.
When I spoke again, my voice barely made it past my lips. “Mara… are you safe? Has He… hurt you?”
The silence on the other side stretched. Then Mara answered softly, her voice full of the kind of quiet devotion that made my skin crawl.
“To serve Him is a blessing,” she said. “To be chosen by Him… to be kept among the Beloved…” Her voice dipped, reverent and fragile. “There is no greater honor.”
A cold, icy dread seeped through me, settling into my belly.
She continued before I could stop her, gentler now, as if trying to comfort me. “He only takes what is precious. What pleases Him. We are cared for here.” A pause. “We are loved. Praise be to The First Light. May He keep you.”
The nausea rolled through me, slow and deep, because I didn’t need anything else after that. I pulled my hand back from the wall and moved to the bed like I was wading through water. I sat on the edge, hands slack in my lap, staring at the floor as if it might offer answers it never had before.
The silence pressed in on me.
I thought of the sounds I’d heard so many times before, too many times.
The soft moans that slid down the corridor, the broken gasps that tried to pass for pleasure, the voices that praised Him between breaths like they were grateful for what was being taken from them.
I’d go still during those moments, to count my breathing, to tell myself it wasn’t happening to me.
But now—
I swallowed hard.
Had any of those sounds been Mara? Could I have stopped it? Would I—
The thought made my stomach lurch. I pictured her voice as it had been just moments ago, careful and kind and frightened in a way that never quite rose to the surface.
I tried, and failed, to reconcile that voice with the sounds that haunted the halls.
Tried to imagine her there, being bent and handled and praised for enduring it.