Page 11 of The Thirteenth Child
I gasped as understanding dawned on me. “No. You can’t!”
Mama’s nostrils flared. “I shouldn’t have to,” she corrected me bitterly. “But you’re still here, taking up space and money that we can’t affordnotto give you. So now, one of my children—one of myrealchildren,” she snuck in, her snide addition as sharp as a dagger, “will be torn from their home. One of my children will be gone, forced to worship a god I hate. A god I should have given you to long ago.”
“You can’t,” I repeated, feeling small and stupid and unable to come up with a better argument. “You just can’t.”
Mama grabbed the collar of my dress and yanked me closer. Her spittle wet my lips, and I cringed from the sudden force of her fury. “You’d be surprised just what I can do for a handful of coins. Never forget that, little Hazel. Never!”
“I do believe we’re done here,” Sister Ines said, speaking as loudly as her twin voices would carry. “Here’s your silver.” She handed Papaa small purse of yellow and green twill.
He weighed it in the palm of his hand, hefting it up and down as if that was all it took to count it, then nodded. “Which one?” he dared to ask, and every muscle within me tensed.
The sister sighed, as if her selection had already disappointed her. “The boy,” she said, and nodded to the two men standing at the temple’s entrance.
They stepped forward and hoisted Bertie from the end of the line as he kicked and squirmed.
“No!” I shrieked, and tumbled toward them, but the men were too big and too efficient, and by the time I’d raced across the courtyard, Bertie had already been taken inside. Before the door slammed shut, I saw the younger girl, the novice, clamp a set of bronze shackles around his skinny wrists, and he screamed.
Chapter 4
The Twelfth Birthday
“Another year, another year,” mymother sang off-key as she picked her way through the barn. Her gait was unsteady; I could tell she was already in her cups, even at this early hour. “Another year…and you’re still here.”
The irony of her words, a cruel mimicry of the usually cheerful birthday song, was not lost on me. My middle ached as I remembered the last time anyone had wished me a happy birthday.
Bertie.
It had been four years—four years to the day,I reminded myself—since we’d seen him.
All novices—especially those conscripted away from their homes most unwillingly—were sent off to their god’s monastery for their first few years of service. We’d heard that Bertie had been forced to take a vow of silence for an entire twelve months, to better prepare his mind and spirit for his new life of devotion, but as no contact with the outside world was allowed, we never knew if that was the truth or only rumor.
“Where are you?” Mama mumbled, prowling through the stalls. I could smell her even before she rounded the corner, the stink of rye heavy on her breath and clothes. It even seemed to waft from her pores these days.
I poked my head out from the stall I occupied. I’d been up since before dawn, milking the cows, milking the goats, mucking out their soiled stalls and laying fresh hay from the bales I’d hauled down from the loft myself.
Since Bertie had been taken away—taken away screaming and crying, his face full of tears and snots andstop thinking of that, Hazel—five of my other siblings had left home too: Genevieve, Armand, Emmeline, Josephine, and Didier, gone in quick succession.
Genevieve, the oldest and loveliest of all us girls, had had her pick of marriage proposals. She’d taken up the butcher’s son’s offer and occasionally sent us a side of pork fat with a note saying she’d visit soon. She never did.
Armand left the day he turned seventeen, lying about his age so he might enlist in the army.
Emmeline and Josephine followed, finding a pair of twin brothers two towns over. They were cobblers and made the most beautiful court heels for my sisters to wear at their double wedding.
And Didier…Didier disappeared one day, without warning or note, and though the surrounding woods were searched, not a trace of him was ever found.
Though in his twenty-fourth year, Remy was still at home, often taking over on days when Papa had made himself too sick on spirits to shoot his bow and arrows. Remy was a dedicated hunter, often going out as the sun rose and not returning until nightfall, but all the earnestness in the world could not make up for his poor eyesight and terrible aim.
Though Papa bemoaned it, Mama still sent my remaining siblings to the schoolhouse in Rouxbouillet. Not because she believed they would do anything with their educations, but because it was free, and how many things in the world could you say that about?
Free or not, school was off-limits for me.
Mama claimed it was because we never knew when my godfather might finally return, but I knew she needed help with all the chores she didn’t care to take on and Papa was too drunk to do.
I didn’t mind much. The barn was quiet and the animals werekind.
Since that day with Bertie, the relationships I’d once enjoyed with my brothers and sisters had soured, growing strained and sometimes downright hostile. I alone—not Papa, or his debts—was blamed for Bertie’s conscription. I was the one regarded with wary suspicion, as if they were fearful of what proximity to me might bring next.
Their turning stung, but it also made what I knew was coming that much easier.
