Promise Me(4)
He leaned casually against an ash tree. His grin didn’t hide the coldness in his eyes.
“Good morning, Uncle,” I said formally, rejecting the Bishop title, wanting him to remember this morning that we were blood.
Aston Talbot grunted. “You’ll be wanting to get home, girl. You females are big on preparations for a day like this.”
I clenched my fists. If this was where I needed to make my stand then so be it. “No,” I said firmly. “There won’t be a wedding today, Bishop.”
His eyes narrowed yet he seemed unsurprised by my words. “Get on with you,” he said dismissively. “I thought you were one who wouldn’t let that schooling go to your head. The church has made a significant investment in you, young woman.” He took a menacing step toward me. “Now you will go back to your mother’s house and await the day God has ordained.”
“No,” I said again. “I’m sorry, Uncle. I know it will cause some difficulty but I am not changing my mind. There will be no wedding today.”
I didn’t even have time to step backwards before he reached me and grabbed both my arms in a painful grip. I winced and tried to break free but he only bruised me further. I hated him as he chuckled, the garlicky scent of his perspiration rolling of his thick flesh in waves.
“There will be a wedding today, Promise,” he warned, only snickering when I forcefully swept my head from side to side. “Oh yes,” he said. “There will be. Whether the bride is you or your sister is a question for you to decide.”
I stopped struggling. A cold dread the likes of which I had never known coursed through me.
“Jenny?” I whispered.
Aston Talbot ran his greasy hand through my long red hair. I had not braided it this morning. “Winston Allred has noticed for years how she resembles you strongly. But since you were always meant to return I thought it best to keep to the original arrangement.” My uncle gazed at me critically and coldly as if I were a farm animal. “He’s partial to your pretty face and your coloring, the same looks as your mother. The children you are to bear will add nicely to the pool of daughters.”
Spitting on my uncle was the boldest thing I had ever done. He grabbed me by the hair and I fought the urge to cry out. The gray eyes of the Bishop were bottomless pools of evil. His breath was fetid as he hissed at me. “I would whip you like a dog if it weren’t disrespectful to your husband to be burdened with a marked bride on his joyous night.”
He released me so suddenly I staggered backwards. “Your choice, Promise,” he finally said before walking away and leaving me with no real choice at all.
My resolved disappeared. I trudged back to my mother’s house, knowing that the day would proceed. Knowing that my refusal would sacrifice my sister.
Chapter Two
The friends I’d made at Hale had known that I came from a polygamous community. Some of them did as well, although none were as strict and tyrannical as the Faithful. Others were disdainful, calling our way of life cruelly paternalistic and backwards. I’d never spoken of my planned marriage. My father had made it clear enough that I was not to talk to outsiders of such things, smoothly telling me the damned wouldn’t understand.
We were the true Faithful. The rest of them who claimed to follow the word had adapted it to suit their own needs and evolve with a modern time. They would suffer on the Day of Judgment.
Or so I’d always been told.
But after spending time in Salt Lake City I realized something; the world wasn’t wrapped up one correct way of thinking. It was complex. It was diverse. And moreover, the things I’d been taught may not be right. It meant people deserved to be judged on their merit. It meant I was under no celestial orders to marry Winston Allred.
Still, I realized how badly I was needed in Jericho Valley. Alba Thayne was unlikely to live more than a few additional years. Since the hospitals of the common, the nonbelievers, were not places the Faithful were willing to go, the tiredly breeding women of Jericho Valley would be endangered with no one to care for them.
And there was something else. Those who have fallen out of favor with the Faithful elders were banished. If I had failed to return and perform my duty, I would never have seen my sister again. Such was the fate of three of my own brothers. They were run off before they were even men. Gideon for watching an internet video and kissing a daughter of Emory Thayne. Thomas for listening to unapproved music and refusing to cut his hair. Daniel for a verbal altercation with our uncle, Aston Talbot. Sometimes I would look at my younger brothers and feel a welling sadness as I realized more than half of them would likely be excommunicated, dead to their families, thrown into a world they didn’t know.