Page 14 of The Preachers' Promise
My head is so heavy, my chin dips to my chest as they lift me from the bed between them and deposit me into the chair. A belt is clipped around my waist, and straps are lifted from the handles and fastened around my wrists. Because of my half-drugged state, it takes me a moment to understand what’s happening, but when I do, I let out a yell and kick out at them.
I’m trapped, and panic hits me full force, spiking adrenaline, which overrides the remaining sedatives in my system.
“Now, now,” the older woman says, trying to grab one of my feet. “There’s no need for all of this. We’re trying to help you.”
“Get off me!” I cry.
I wish I was wearing shoes, so my kicks made more of an impact.
Mom bites her thumb nail anxiously. “Is this all really necessary?”
The older woman shoots her a look. “From your daughter’s behavior, clearly it is.”
I sense I might have an ally in the form of my mom. “Please, Mom, don’t let them take me away again. I’ll stay here. I’ll be good, I promise.”
Tears stream down her cheeks, and she glances at my father, her face anguished. Whatever she sees etched on his features has her shoulders slumping. “I’m sorry, Ophelia. This is for the best. You can come home when you’re better.”
“I’m better now,” I lie.
“No, you’re not. You haven’t been well for a long time. We’d hoped sending you away to college would help, but it’s only made you worse.” My father’s words are stern, and I know he loves me, but he’s being so ruthless with me right now that it hurts my heart.
A part of me wants to tell them everything, but I know I can’t. It won’t help my case if I start talking about orgies in the woods, and masked men, and black candles.
The two staff members from the facility try to strap my ankles to the footrests of the wheelchair, but I don’t give in willingly. I kick out, and my bare foot catches the woman in the jaw. I take a moment’s satisfaction from it until I see the look in her eyes. I think I’ve just stored up a whole heap of trouble for myself.
“If you don’t behave yourself, we’ll have to sedate you again.”
She speaks from between gritted teeth, and I have the feeling if my parents weren’t here, she’d have delivered me a slap as punishment for kicking her. But the last thing I want is to be sedated—I barely feel like I’m properly awake from the last dose they gave me. I don’t know how I’m going to get out of this, but the one thing I’m certain of is that I need to be awake for it to happen.
They strap my ankles into the chair, so I’m completely helpless now. Silent tears roll down my cheeks, and I let my chin hit my chest, my head hanging, unable to even look at my parents. How could they do this to me? After everything I’ve been through, this feels like the biggest betrayal.
Shame settles over me like a heavy fog. What will the Preachers think of me when they discover I’ve been sent to a facility? Maybe they’ll believe it’s for the best. After all, they were the ones who found me after I took all those pills to try to silence the Prophet’s voice. Perhaps I should have been committed then.
The woman gets behind to push me. I’m so slight, she won’t have any trouble maneuvering the wheelchair.
She moves me out into the hall, and my mom’s voice chases me from behind. “I’ll pack your suitcase with some of your things.”
“She won’t need much,” the man replies. “All our patients wear the same thing.”
Great. So, they’re going to provide me with some kind of uniform. As if it’s not bad enough that I’m going to be held against my will, I’ll also be dressed like a prisoner.
All the fight drains out of me in that moment. I don’t scream or plead or cry, I just sit there, numb, as I’m wheeled out of my house, toward the back of a white van. There’s already a ramp positioned at the rear doors, which are standing open. The insidelooks like an ambulance with a padded bed in the middle, and equipment on either side of the walls.
“I’m not sick,” I murmur to myself. “I’m not sick.”
Except I am, aren’t I? Mentally well people don’t hear the voices of people who aren’t there. I tussle between the belief that what I’m experiencing is real and knowing it can’t be. For years, I spent hours every day sitting through sermons whereheinstilled in me—and everyone else in the commune—that he was all-seeing, and all-knowing. He could read every thought that went on in my head and feel every emotion in my heart. Now he’s haunting me, though I know he can’t be, not really.
I’m damaged. Broken.
For the briefest of moments, I’d thought my Preachers had put me back together again, but how can I have any kind of a future if I lose my mind the moment we’re apart? I can’t ask them to have that kind of responsibility. They’ve done nothing to deserve being lumbered with someone like me. They’re young and gorgeous and have their whole lives ahead of them. They can each meet some mentally stable women and go on to have families of their own.
They don’t need me.
The chair bumps and jolts as it goes up the ramp, then the doors slam shut. I don’t bother trying to look for my parents. I’ve always loved them, but right now I hate what they’re doing to me. They’ve given up on me, in a way I felt they never did when I was missing.
How ironic that it’s only when I’m back that they stop fighting for me.
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