Page 8 of Liar Byrd
Jeremiah’s words echo in my mind as I walk through the compound in a daze.
“The wedding will be this afternoon.”
There was no asking me, just a declaration of what will be, and there is no fighting or arguing with a man like Jeremiah. His words are as slippery as the blood drying on my thighs; he always knows what to say to get exactly what he wants.
Wedding.
“Byrdie, I need your help with the bread this morning,” Chandra calls across to me.
I ignore her.
“Byrdie?Byrdie?”
“Find someone else to help with the bread,” Roman, the acolyte behind me on my left, calls back. “Jeremiah has another task for Byrdie today.”
I feel her watching me, then I hear the scuff of her sandals as she turns away.
I walk past my and Mom’s cabin, and only realize it when I startle as a hand grabs my arm, pulls me back, and turns me around.
Pushing the door open, I walk inside feeling lost and broken. I want to crawl into my mom’s arms, have her hold me, and cry out my pain. But I can’t do that.
She did this to me.
My face feels tight. I don’t know how much I cried last night and early this morning. If I slept at all, I’m sure I cried my way through it.
The rest of me feels…
Dirty.
I want to peel off the skin covering my bones to get rid of the filth.
Mom is sitting at our tiny dining table with a plate in front of her. Someone must have come by to help her to bed and then to have breakfast.
She beams at me from over her plate of oatmeal. “Isn't Jeremiah the best?”
She’s blind to the dried tears on my cheeks. Blind to everything but what Jeremiah wants her to see. I walk past her, into my room, and I close the door behind me, softly instead of slamming it like I want to.
Door slamming will get back to Jeremiah, and I have no patience to sit through a two-hour sermon on the virtue of controlling one's anger.
I crawl into worn cotton sheets. They smell of heat and wildflowers from drying on the laundry lines outside. I pull the sheets over my head, craving a blistering hot shower to scrub myself clean. More than that, I want to hide.
Ten minutes.
That’s all the time the acolytes give me before they bang on my door.
“Jeremiah has sent women to help you prepare for the wedding.”
My eyes are dry. I don’t have time to cry, and I can’t escape my fate.
I get up.
Seren is cheerful as she helps me bathe in the communal women’s bathroom. She’s not the only one. Everyone is so happy for me, laughing and sharing stories about the kind words Jeremiah whispered into their ears on their wedding day.
Inside, I’m dying.
I go through the motions, nodding when someone asks me a question with a smile and shaking my head if I think their expression calls for it.
I brush my teeth, apply lotion to my body, and when I do it too slowly for the women Jeremiah sent to help me, they take over. They're so excited for me that they don’t seem to notice I’m silent.
