TWO

PENITENCE

SUNLIGHT BOUNCING OFF concrete, glinting on razor wire and steel, bathing her face in warmth. Cool wind buffeting her skin and stirring her hair, vivid blue of sky piercing her eyes. Sounds of cars whizzing past, a snatch of song from a radio, the tweeting of birds, the chirping of locusts, the crunch of two pairs of feet on gravel. The sensory input was dizzying, overwhelming. Hannah stumbled, and the guard walking beside her took hold of her upper arm to steady her. As he did so, his fingers brushed against the outside curve of her breast. Intentionally? She gave him a sidelong glance, but his wide brown face was impassive, and his eyes were staring straight ahead.

They approached a large, windowless building six stories tall: the prison. As they passed beneath its shadow, Hannah felt a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. Only the most violent felons were kept behind bars—first-degree murderers, serial rapists, abortionists and other offenders deemed incorrigible by the state. Most of them served life sentences. Once they went in, they almost never came out.

As they neared the gate, it began to move, sliding into the wall with a mechanical groan.

“You’re free to go,” the guard told Hannah. She paused on the threshold. “What’s the matter, pajarita, you afraid to leave the nest?”

Giving no indication that she’d heard him, she squared her shoulders and stepped through the opening, into the world.

She stood in a short driveway leading to a parking lot. She walked to the edge of the drive and scanned the lot, one hand shielding her eyes against the morning sun. There was no movement, no sign of her parents’ blue sedan. She fixed her eyes on the entrance, willing the car to appear, telling herself her father was just running late.

“Hey, gal.” The voice, a man’s, came from behind her. She turned and saw a small booth she hadn’t noticed to one side of the gate. A guard was leaning against the doorjamb with his arms folded over his chest. “Guess your friend ain’t coming,” he said.

“It’s my father,” Hannah said. “And he’ll be here.”

“If I had a dollar for every time I heard that, I’d be rich as an A-rab.” The guard was tall and skinny, with a smug, pimpled face and a protuberant Adam’s apple that bobbed convulsively when he swallowed. He looked like he was about sixteen, though Hannah knew he had to be at least twenty-one to work at a state prison.

She heard the sound of a vehicle. She spun and saw a car pulling into the lot, but it was silver, not blue. Her shoulders slumped. The car stopped, backed up and exited.

“Looks like somebody taken a wrong turn,” said the guard. Hannah glanced back at him, wondering if the irony was intended, then decided he was too stupid for that. “What you gonna do if your daddy don’t show, huh? Where you gonna go?”

“He’ll be here,” Hannah said, a little too emphatically.

“You could bunk with me for a while, if you ain’t got nowhere else to go. I got a real nice place. Plenty of room for two.” His mouth twisted in a half-smile. Hannah felt her skin prickle with aversion as his eyes slithered down her body and back up again. How many other women had he propositioned like this, and how many had been desperate enough to take him up on it? Deliberately, she turned her back on him.

“I’m just trying to be friendly,” said the guard. “I think you’ll find the world ain’t such a friendly place for a Chrome.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Hannah saw him go back into the booth. She sat down on the curb to wait. She was chilly in her thin summer blouse and skirt, but she didn’t care. The fresh air was divine. She breathed it in and lifted her face to the sun. From its position, it had to be close to noon. Why was her father so late?

She’d been waiting for perhaps twenty minutes when a yellow van pulled into the lot and headed toward the gate, stopping right in front of her. A sign painted on the door read: CRAWFORD TAXI SERVICE, WE’LL GITCHA THERE. The passenger-side window rolled down, and the driver, a middle-aged man with a greasy gray ponytail, leaned over and said, “You need a taxi?”

She stood up. “Maybe.” In Crawford, she could get something to eat and find a netlet to call her father. “How far’s town?”

“Fifteen minutes, give or take.”

“What’s the fare?”

“Well, let’s see now,” said the driver. “I reckon three hundred ought to just about cover it. Tip included.” “That’s outrageous!”

He shrugged. “Ain’t many cabs’ll even pick up a Chrome.”

“See what I’m talking ’bout, gal?” drawled the guard from behind her. “It’s a tough ole world out there for a Red.” He was standing in front of the booth now, grinning, and Hannah realized that he must have called the cab. He and his buddy the driver had no doubt played out this scenario many times, splitting their despicable proceeds after the fact.

“Well?” said the driver. “I ain’t got all day.”

How much money did she have left? There couldn’t be much; almost all her savings had gone to pay for the abortion. Her checking account had had maybe a thousand dollars in it when she was arrested, but there would have been automatic deductions for her bills. The three hundred dollars she’d gotten from the state of Texas could very well be all she had to her name.

“I’ll walk,” she said.

“Suit yourself.” He rolled up the window and pulled away.

“Changed your mind yet?” the guard said. He sauntered over to her. She tensed, but he merely handed her a scrap of paper. On it was scrawled a name, Billy Sikes, and a phone number. “That’s my number,” he said. “If I was you I’d hang on to it. You might decide you could use a friend one of these days.”

Hannah crumpled it in her fist and let it fall to the ground. “I’ve got enough friends.” She turned and started walking toward the road.

She was halfway to the entrance when a familiar blue sedan pulled in. She broke into a run. It stopped a few feet in front of her, and she saw her father behind the wheel, alone. She’d known better than to expect her mother or Becca, but still, their absence cut deep. For some time, neither he nor Hannah moved. They gazed at each other through the glass of the windshield, worlds apart. Her mouth was dry with fear. What if he couldn’t stand the sight of her? What if he was so repulsed he drove away and left her here? She’d lost so much already, she didn’t think she could bear to live without her father’s love. For the first time since she’d entered the Chrome ward, she prayed. Not to God, but to His Son, who knew what it was to be trapped, alone, inside mortal flesh; who’d once known the terror of being forsaken. Please, Jesus. Please don’t take my father from me.

The driver’s door swung open, and John Payne got out, keeping the door between himself and Hannah. She approached him slowly, carefully, like a bird she was afraid of startling into flight. When she was still a few feet away, she stopped, uncertain. Her father stared at her without speaking. Tears were streaming down his face.

“Daddy?”

His chest heaved and he let out a choked sob. The sound lacerated her. Only once, at her grandmother’s funeral, had Hannah ever seen her father cry. Her own eyes welled as he moved from behind the car door and held his arms out to her. She walked into them, felt them enfold her. She had never been more grateful for anything in her life than for this tenderness, this simple human warmth. She thought of the last few times she’d been touched: by the guard earlier, by the medic who’d strapped her down and injected her with the virus, by the bailiff in the courtroom, by the horrid police doctor. To be touched with love was a kind of miracle.

“My beautiful Hannah,” her father said, stroking her hair. “Oh, my sweet, beautiful girl.”

HE’D BROUGHT A cooler of food: turkey sandwiches, potato chips, an apple, a thermos of coffee. Plain fare, but after thirty days of nutribars, it tasted ambrosial. He was silent while she ate, his eyes fixed on the road. They were heading north on 1–35, toward Dallas. Toward home. A tendril of hope unfurled in her mind. Maybe her mother had forgiven her, at least enough to let her move back in.

As if he were following her thoughts, her father said, “I can’t take you home. You know that, don’t you?”

The tendril turned brown, crumbled to powder. “I do now.”

“If you would just talk to us, Hannah. Just tell us—”

She cut him off. “I can’t. I won’t.” It came out shrill and defiant. In a milder tone, she said, “Telling you wouldn’t help anything anyway.”

Her father’s grip tightened on the steering wheel, turning the knuckles white. “It would help me track the bastard down, so I could beat the living daylights out of him.”

“Adjusting. You are out of your lane,” said the pleasant voice of the computer. The steering wheel jerked slightly to the left under her father’s hand, and he made a frustrated sound.

Hannah looked down at the half-eaten sandwich in her lap, her appetite gone. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” she said. The apology was rote to her ear, a dying echo that had traveled too far from its original source, its meaning all but lost from overrepetition. She had said those words so many times—to him, to Becca, to her mother, to the ghost of her child, to God—knowing they weren’t enough and never would be; knowing she’d feel compelled to keep saying them over and over again even so. Her life had become an apologetic conjugation: I was sorry, I am sorry, I will be sorry, with no hope of a future perfect, an I will have been sorry.

Her father let out a long breath, and his body relaxed a little. “I know.”

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

“There’s a place in Richardson run by the Church of the Risen Lord. It’s called the Straight Path Center.” Hannah shook her head; she hadn’t heard of either. “It’s a kind of halfway house for women like you. If it works out, you can stay there for up to six months. That’ll give us time to find you a job and a safe place to live.”

The “us” reassured her, and the fact that the center was in Richardson, just south of Plano. “When you say ‘women like me’ …”

“Nonviolent Reds, as well as Yellows and Oranges. They don’t accept Blues, Greens, or Purples. I wouldn’t send you there if they did.”

“Have you seen the place?”

“No, but I spoke with the director, Reverend Henley, and he seems like a sincere and compassionate man. I know he’s helped many women find a path back to God.”

Back to God. The words kindled a bright flare of longing within her, doused almost instantly by despair. She’d prayed to Him every day in the jail, before and during her trial, kneeling on the hard floor of the cell until her knees throbbed, begging for His forgiveness and mercy. But He’d remained silent, absent as He’d never been before. With every day that passed Hannah felt more desolate, like an abandoned house falling into ruin, cold wind whistling through the chinks. Finally, the day she was sentenced and taken to the Chrome ward, she acknowledged the inescapable truth: there would be no forgiveness or mercy for her, no going back to Him. How could there be, after what she’d done?

“But understand,” her father continued, “this isn’t vacation Bible school. They’ve got strict rules there. You break them and you’re out. And then God help you, Hannah. We can’t afford to get you a place of your own, even if your mother would let me pay for it.”

“I know, Daddy. I wouldn’t expect you to.” They had no family money, and his salary was modest. It occurred to her now that without her income to supplement his, her parents would have to live much more frugally—one more thing for which she could reproach herself. “But who’s paying for this center?”

“The ICs are sponsoring you. Reverend Dale himself appealed to the council.”

Shame scalded her, and she saw it reflected in her father’s face. Hannah, and by extension, the Payne family, was a charity case now. She remembered how she used to feel when she worked in the soup kitchen, putting trays of food into the hands of its ragged supplicants, people who stank of poverty and desperation, whose eyes avoided hers. How she’d pitied them, those poor people. How generous, how virtuous she’d felt helping them. Them—people totally unlike herself and her family, people who had fallen to a place she would never, ever go.

“He’s also the reason you got in,” her father said. “The center has a long waiting list.” When Hannah didn’t reply, he said, “We’re lucky Reverend Dale has taken such an interest in your case.”

She imagined how it must have felt for Aidan to make those calls. Had he pitied her? Felt benevolent? Thought of her as one of them?

“Yes,” she said woodenly. “We’re very lucky.”

WHEN THEY MERGED onto Central the expressway was jammed as usual, and Hannah and her father proceeded the ten miles to Richardson at a crawl. He turned on the sat radio and navved to a news station. Hannah listened with half an ear. The Senate had passed the Freedom From Information Act eighty-eight to twelve. Right-wing militants had assassinated President Napoleón Cifuentes of Brazil, toppling the last democratic government in South America. Continued flooding in Indonesia had displaced more than two hundred thousand additional people in October. Syria, Lebanon and Jordan had withdrawn from the United Nations, citing anti-Islamic bias. The quarterback of the Miami Dolphins had been suspended for using nano-enhancers. Hannah tuned it out. What did any of it have to do with her now?

A family of three pulled up alongside them, pacing them. When the young boy in the backseat saw Hannah, his eyes went wide. She put her hand over the side of her face, but she could feel him staring at her with a child’s unselfconscious directness. Finally, she turned and made a scary face at him, baring her teeth. His eyes and mouth went wide, and he said something to his parents. Their heads whipped around. They glared at her, and she felt a stab of remorse. Of course the boy was staring; she was a freak. How many times had she herself stared with morbid fascination at a Chrome, knowing it was impolite but unable to help herself? Though they were a common sight in the city, especially Yellows, they still drew the eye irresistibly. Hannah wondered how they endured it. How she would endure it.

Her father took the Belt Line exit, and they drove past the shopping mall where she and Becca used to go witnessing with the church youth group, past the Eisemann Center, where they’d seen The Nutcracker and Swan Lake, past the stadium where they’d gone to high school football games. These sights from her old life now seemed as quaint and unreal as models in a diorama.

They were stopped at a traffic light when out of nowhere, something thudded against Hannah’s window. She started and cried out. A face was smashed against the glass. It pulled back, and she saw that it belonged to a young teenaged boy. A girl his age with rainbow-dyed hair and a ring through her lip stood behind him. The two of them were laughing, jeering at Hannah’s fright.

“Hey, leave her alone!” Her father flung open his car door and got out, and the kids ran off down the street. “Punks! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!” he called out after them. The boy shot him the finger. There was a loud honk from the car behind them, and Hannah jumped again—the light had turned green.

Her father got back in the car and drove on. His jaw was tight-clenched. He glanced at her. “You all right?”

“Yes, Daddy,” she lied. Her heart was still racing. Was this how it was going to be from now on? Would she ever know a day without mockery or fear?

Her father pulled over in front of a nondescript four-story building on a commercial street. “This is it,” he said. It looked like a medical park or an office building. A discreet sign above the door read, THE STRAIGHT PATH CENTER. A potted rosebush flanked the entrance. There were still a few late-fall blooms offering their fragile beauty to all those who passed by. They were red roses, once Hannah’s favorite. Now, their vivid color seemed to taunt her.

She turned to her father, expecting him to shut off the engine, but he sat unmoving, looking straight ahead, his fingers still wrapped around the steering wheel.

“Aren’t you coming in with me?” she asked.

“I can’t. You have to enter alone, of your own free will, bringing nothing but yourself. It’s one of the rules.”

“I see.” Her voice was tight and high-pitched. She swallowed, tried to sound less afraid. “How often can you visit?”

Her father shook his head, and the hollow feeling inside of her expanded. “Visitors aren’t permitted, and neither are calls. Letters are the only communication they allow from the outside world.”

Another prison then. Six more months without seeing him, without seeing Becca, without even hearing their voices—how would she bear it?

He turned to her, his face stricken. “I don’t like it any more than you do, but for right now this is the best option we have. It’s the only way I know to keep you safe until I can figure out some sort of living situation for you. I’ll come for you as soon as I can.”

“Does Mama know about this? Does she know you’re here with me?”

“Of course. She’s the one who found this place. It was her idea to send you here.”

“To get me out of her sight,” Hannah said bitterly.

“To help you, Hannah. She’s angry right now, but she still loves you.”

Hannah remembered her mother’s face as she’d left the visiting room at the jail. How disgusted she’d looked, as if she’d smelled something foul. “Yeah, she loves me so much she’s disowned me.”

“She cried for days after they sentenced you. Wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t leave the house.”

Hannah was unmoved. “It must be mortifying for her, having a convicted felon for a daughter. What would the neighbors say?”

Her father grabbed hold of her wrist. “You listen to me. It wasn’t shame kept your mother at home, it was grief. Grief, Hannah.” His fingers ground against her bones, but she didn’t try to pull away. The pain was welcome; it kept the numbness at bay. “You can’t imagine how hard this has been for her. For all of us.”

Hard is loving a man you can never have, Hannah thought. Hard is asking someone to kill your child and then holding still while they do it. But she couldn’t say those things to her father; she’d wounded him enough already. Instead, she asked after Becca.

With a sigh, he let go of her wrist. “She sends her love. She misses you.” He paused, then said, “She’s pregnant. It’s twins, a boy and a girl.”

“Oh! How wonderful!” And for a moment, it was, and Hannah was flooded with pure joy, just as Becca must have been when her hopes were confirmed. Hannah could picture her hugging herself, bursting with the wonder of it. She would have wanted to call their mother but waited until Cole got home from work so she could tell him first, her face glowing with shy pride. They would have gone together to the Paynes’ house and shared the news, which would have been received with openmouthed delight by their father and a knowing smile by their mother, who would have suspected for some time. Hannah could see it all, could see her sister’s hand cupped over her swelling belly, and later, around the baby’s tender, downy head. Becca was made for motherhood. She’d dreamed of it ever since they were little girls, whispering their fantasies to each other in the dark. She wanted to have seven children, just like in The Sound of Music. And her first daughter, she’d promised, would be named Hannah.

The memory was a cudgel, wielded with cruel indifference to the present. Hannah would have no namesake now. She wouldn’t be a part of her niece’s and nephew’s lives, wouldn’t be invited to their baptism, would never read stories to them or push them on a swing. “Aunt Hannah” would be words of disgrace to Becca’s children, if they said them at all. Children who would have grown up alongside her own.

“She’s due in April,” her father said. “She and Cole are over the moon about it.”

Hannah sifted through her emotions, searching for something unsullied to offer her sister, something she could wholly mean. She could find only one thing. “Give her my love,” she said.

“I will. She sends you hers, and she said to tell you she’ll write to you. When you write back, mail the letters to me, and I’ll see that she gets them.” He reached out and touched Hannah’s cheek. “I know you’re scared, but I’ll figure out a plan, I promise. In the meantime, you’ll be safe here and cared for. And maybe they can help you find some grace. I pray that they can, Hannah. I’ll pray for you every day.”

Her love for him rose up into her throat, forming a thick ball. “Thank you for everything you’ve done, Daddy. If it weren’t for you—”

“You’re my daughter,” he said, before she could finish the thought. “That will never change.”

She leaned over, hugged him hard, told him she loved him and then got out of the car. She walked past the rosebush to the entrance. There was an engraved brass plaque to the right of the door. It read:

AND I WILL BRING THE BLIND BY A WAY THEY
KNEW NOT; I WILL LEAD THEM IN PATHS THAT
THEY HAVE NOT KNOWN: I WILL MAKE DARKNESS
LIGHT BEFORE THEM, AND CROOKED THINGS
STRAIGHT. THESE THINGS I WILL DO UNTO THEM,
AND NOT FORSAKE THEM. —ISAIAH 42:16

She reread the last four words of the verse, whispering them aloud. Not a prison, she told herself, a sanctuary.

She could feel her father watching her from the idling car. She lifted a hand in farewell but didn’t turn around. She drew herself up tall and tried the door. It was locked, but then a few seconds later she heard a click. She pulled the door open and stepped across the threshold.

MARY MAGDALENE HERSELF greeted Hannah. Three times larger than life, clad only in her long, rippling red hair, Mary gazed adoringly heavenward. One pale, plump arm was laid across her breasts, which peeked out, rosy-tipped, on either side. Hannah couldn’t help but stare at them. She knew this painting—it hung in one of the chapels at Ignited Word—but in that version, she was certain, the Magdalene’s hair covered her nakedness completely. The sight of so much lush pink flesh, so tenderly and sensually revealed, and in this of all places, was confusing, unsettling.

“That’s Mary Magdalene,” said a reedy voice, the vowels dipping in a thick twang.

Startled, Hannah dropped her eyes from the painting to the face of a young woman standing to her left. She was tall and rawboned, clad in a faded prairie-style dress that covered her from neck to feet. Her hair was done up in a bun and capped by a pleated white bonnet with long, trailing ties. She wore a small silver cross and held a straw broom in her hands. If it hadn’t been for her lemon yellow skin, she could have walked straight out of the nineteenth century. Hannah stared at her in dismay. Clearly these people were extreme fundamentalists. Had her parents known that, when they’d decided to send her here? Had Aidan?

“She was a outcast, like us,” the girl said. “Then Jesus made the demons inside of her cut and run. He sent ’em straight back to hell, just like that.” She snapped her fingers. Her bony wrists stuck out several inches from the sleeves of her dress.

“I know who she is.” Hannah wondered what the girl’s crime was. Nothing too serious, or she wouldn’t be a Yellow. Drug possession? Petty theft?

The girl cocked her head. “Oh yeah? You’re so smart, tell me why she’s nekked.”

Hannah shrugged. “We’re all naked before God.”

“True,” the girl said. “But wrong.” She was plain-featured, with a weak chin and an unfortunate overbite. The kind of girl you’d dismiss, if it weren’t for her eyes. They were a rich amber, and there was a mutinous spark in them that animated her face and made Hannah like her in spite of her churlishness.

“Why then?” Hannah asked, wishing she could let the girl’s sleeves out for her. She was just a kid; seventeen, eighteen at the most.

“You’ll find out.” The girl gave her a sly smile and resumed her sweeping.

Hannah paced. Her eyes keep returning to the Magdalene, as they were plainly meant to; the painting and a simple wooden bench were the only objects in the otherwise austere room. The walls were white, the floors terra-cotta tile. Long horizontal windows near the ceiling let in thin shafts of light. There were three doors: the one she’d come in and two others, one near the girl and another directly beneath the painting. The latter was tall and narrow, made of dark, intricately carved wood rubbed to a high sheen. It looked old and foreign, like it belonged in some crumbling European castle. Hannah went over to it to examine it more closely.

“You can’t go in there yet,” the girl said.

“I wasn’t going to open it. I just want to look at it.” The carvings on the main panel, of a shepherd tending his flock, were very fine. Beneath were some words in Latin. Hannah ran her fingers lightly over the letters.

“It’s from Luke,” the girl said. “It says you gotta try to go in through the narrow door—”

“ ‘Because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to,’“ Hannah finished. “I know the passage.”

The girl’s face lit with hostility. “You don’t know nothing. You think you do but you don’t. Talk to me in three months, then we’ll see what all you know.” She bent and angrily brushed the collected debris into the dustpan, then went to the side door and pulled it open.

“Is that how long you’ve been here?” Hannah said, before she could leave. “Three months?”

“That’s right,” the girl said, stiff-backed and sullen.

“I’m Hannah. What’s your name?”

“Eve.” She said it warily, like she was waiting to be mocked.

“Is that your real name, or did they give it to you here?”

“It’s mine.”

“It’s a lovely name,” said Hannah.

Something flickered in the girl’s eyes. “That’s the only thing they let you keep here.” She left, closing the door behind her.

A FEW MINUTES later, the door opened again and a couple entered the room, holding hands. The man was of medium height, trim and vigorous, with a head that was a little too large for his body. His clothes were plain: white button-down shirt, dark gray trousers, black suspenders. He was in his mid-forties, Hannah judged, handsome in an aging Ken-doll way, with a square jaw, a full head of dark blond hair and crinkles at the corners of his eyes. The woman resembled him strongly enough that they could be brother and sister, though she was considerably younger and more petite. She too was blonde and exuded robust good health and wholesomeness. A scattering of freckles across her pink cheeks added to the effect. Her attire was similar to Eve’s, but the fabric was a rich blue and of much better quality. Both she and the man wore crosses like Eve’s, only larger. Hannah felt reassured by their attractiveness and by their expressions, which were serious but not unfriendly. They came to stand before her, and the man spoke.

“I’m Reverend Ponder Henley, the director of the Straight Path Center, and this is Mrs. Henley.” His round brown eyes had a surprised, slightly vacant look to them. Hers were a twinkling blue that matched her dress.

“How do you do,” Hannah said, stifling an absurd impulse to curtsy. “I’m Hannah Payne.”

“Why are you here, Hannah?” Mrs. Henley asked. Her voice was sweet and girlish and her tone mild, but Hannah knew the question was a test. She searched their faces, trying to discern what they wanted to hear. “To repent my sins,” maybe, or, “To learn how to follow a straighter, godlier path.”

In the end, though, she shrugged and said, “I have nowhere else to go.”

Reverend and Mrs. Henley exchanged quick glances, their mouths stretching wide in approving smiles that revealed two sets of white, even teeth. Mrs. Henley’s cheeks were adorably dimpled.

“That is the right answer, Hannah,” said Reverend Henley. “Do you know why?” She shook her head, and he said, “Because it is the truthful answer. Without truth, there can be no salvation.”

“Do you want to be saved, Hannah?” asked Mrs. Henley.

“Yes.”

“And do you believe you can be saved?” asked Reverend Henley.

Again, Hannah considered lying. What if faith in God’s forgiveness was required? What if they decided not to let her stay? She shook her head a second time. Their smiles broadened further.

“That is both the right and the wrong answer,” said Reverend Henley. “Right because you spoke honestly, but wrong because you can be saved. You’re just too blind to see it now, but you will be saved, Hannah, if you walk the straight path. You’ve already taken the first steps toward salvation.”

Maybe they can help you find some grace. Was it possible, Hannah wondered, that God was not lost to her after all? That the Henleys could shepherd her to a place where He would forgive her? Their serene, unblinking confidence said it was.

” ‘I will bring the blind by a way they did not know … and not forsake them’“ said Reverend Henley. “That is God’s promise to us in Isaiah. And that is our promise to you, Hannah, on two conditions, that you obey our rules and that you never, ever lie to us. Will you swear to that?”

Hannah opened her mouth to say yes, but before she could speak, Mrs. Henley held up an admonishing forefinger and said, “Do not make this vow lightly, Hannah. ‘He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house.’”

They waited, watching her with solemn faces. She tried to imagine a question they could ask her that she would want to lie about. Only one came to mind—“Was Aidan Dale the father of your child?”—and that, they would never think to ask. She had nothing else to hide, nothing else she cared enough about to want to hide.

“I swear it,” she said.

The Henleys stepped close to her. Ponder Henley took her left hand and Mrs. Henley her right, forming a circle. Hannah’s palms were damp, but theirs were warm and dry. She was several inches taller than the reverend and towered over Mrs. Henley, and she felt ungainly and red next to them. They bowed their heads. “Blessed Jesus,” prayed Reverend Henley, “You have shown this walker the path to salvation. Guide her steps, Lord, and help her keep to the path when Satan tempts her to stray from it. Light her way, Lord, and open her eyes to Your will and her soul to true repentance. Amen.”

The Henleys let go of Hannah’s hands, leaving her feeling oddly bereft. Mrs. Henley took a cross identical to Eve’s from her pocket and told Hannah to put it on.

“You must never take it off, even to sleep, until you’re ready to leave us,” said Reverend Henley. “The cross is the key that will allow you to enter the center and your assigned areas. You won’t find much else in the way of technology here. We have no netlets, no servbots or smartrooms, nothing to come between us and God.”

“Did you bring your NIC?” asked Mrs. Henley. Hannah nodded. “Give it to me. I’ll keep it safe for you.”

When she hesitated, Reverend Henley said, “No one is forced to stay here, Hannah. You’re free to go at any time. All you have to do is ask, and we’ll give you back your card. But once you leave and reenter the world, there’s no returning, do you understand?”

“What about my renewal?” Hannah would have to leave the center for that, at the end of January. Renewals were mandatory every four months, and the consequences for tardiness were severe. If she didn’t get her injection by her due date, the half-life of the virus would begin to deteriorate and the chroming gradually to fade until her skin color reverted to normal. Unfortunately, by that time she’d be too fragged out to care.

Fragmentation was the government’s way of making sure Chromes stayed chromed. Melachroming, despite the best efforts of scientists, was impermanent; the compound that caused the skin mutation started to wear off after four months. So to guarantee that Chromes showed up for their renewals, the scientists had piggybacked a second compound onto the first, this one designed to remain dormant for four months before activating and beginning the fragmentation process. That was all Hannah, or anyone else other than the geneticists employed by the Federal Chroming Agency, knew; the exact science behind fragmentation was a closely guarded secret. But like every other American over the age of twelve, she’d been well-schooled in its effects.

It started with faint whispers, sporadic and indistinct. As your brain slipped further into fragmentation, they grew louder, giving way to full-blown auditory hallucinations. You became convinced that the world and everyone in it were malevolent. You didn’t even notice that your skin was returning to normal, because the paranoia consumed you to the point where you disconnected from your physical self, forgetting to bathe, to brush your hair or change your clothes, to eat or drink. Your speech became nonsensical, as scrambled and incoherent as your thoughts. Eventually, the voices turned on you, and you mutilated or killed yourself. Only a renewal shot could stop the process.

Hundreds of Chromes had tried to beat it, to hold out long enough to get to the other side of it. None had succeeded. There was no other side.

“Of course, we’ll take you when you’re due,” Mrs. Henley said. “We take all the girls. There’s a Chrome center in Garland.” She held out her hand for the card. Hannah pulled it from the pocket of her skirt and gave it to her.

“Thank you. And now,” Mrs. Henley said, her blue eyes sparkling, “we’ll leave you to get undressed.”

“What?”

“You must set foot upon the path with nothing but yourself,” Reverend Henley said. “Leave all your clothes on the bench, and when you’re ready, go through the narrow door.” He reached out and placed his hand on the crown of Hannah’s head. “Be not afraid, for the Lord is with you.”

The Henleys exited through the side door. When they were gone, Hannah lifted her eyes to Mary Magdalene’s luminous face. She removed her blouse and skirt, her bra and panties, folding them and placing them on the bench one at a time, shivering in the cool air of the room. She felt numb and hollow, empty of everything except for a tiny spark of hope. She cupped her hands around it in her mind and followed Mary’s gaze upward, beyond the bounds of the painting. If this is what You ask of me, if this is the path back to You, I will take it.

She slipped off her shoes and walked to the door, the tiles cold against the soles of her bare feet. There was no handle. She laid her palm against the wood and pushed, but it resisted her puny effort. She leaned her whole body against the door, pushing with all her strength. It swung inward with a groan, and she stumbled, falling in and down.

” ‘NAKED CAME I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither’ “ The women spoke in unison, their eyes fixed on Hannah.

There were about seventy of them, standing on what looked like a choir riser. They were grouped by color: Reds on the bottom rows, Oranges in the middle and Yellows, who outnumbered the others, on top. The effect was surreal, like a box of crayons missing the cool part of the spectrum. Half the Reds were holding dolls, and one of this group, Hannah was startled to see, was not a Chrome. The girl’s white skin stood out starkly from that of the others.

Mrs. Henley stood in front of the riser, facing Hannah. To her relief, Reverend Henley wasn’t in the room.

“What is this woman?” Mrs. Henley said, pointing at Hannah.

“A sinner,” the women replied.

“How will she be saved?”

“By walking the straight path.”

“Who will walk with her?”

“We will.”

“Who will walk before her?”

“I will,” said a lone voice from the front row. A Red about ten years older than Hannah stepped off the riser and approached her, holding out a folded brown dress. “Put this on.” Hannah took it gratefully and pulled it over her head, fastening the buttons running up the bodice with clumsy fingers.

When Hannah was finished, Mrs. Henley said, “What does the path demand of us?”

“Penitence. Atonement. Truth. And humility,” the women answered.

A door to Hannah’s left was flung open and Reverend Henley strode into the room, pink-cheeked and ebullient. “Where does the path lead us?” he called out.

“To salvation.”

He looked at Hannah, spreading his hands wide in benediction. “ ‘My soul shall be joyful in my God; for He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness’ “ He turned and addressed the women. “Walkers, let us pray.”

Hannah bowed her head along with the others, but she didn’t hear his words or the women’s rote responses. Her mind was fogged by weariness, her attention focused solely on keeping herself upright. The prayer continued for endless minutes. At last, Reverend Henley said amen and released them. Row by row, the women filed silently out of the room. Only Eve gave Hannah a parting glance. Whether it was one of sympathy or spite, she was too far away to tell.

The woman who’d given Hannah the dress stayed behind, along with the Henleys. “Hannah, this is Bridget,” Reverend Henley said. “Go with her, and she’ll show you the path.” He gestured at the door. Bridget turned obediently and walked toward it, but Hannah hung back, reluctant to leave the couple.

Mrs. Henley gave her a reassuring smile. “Go on, now.”

Hannah obeyed, following Bridget from the room, toward salvation.

UNSPEAKING, BRIDGET LED Hannah up two flights of stairs and down a featureless corridor to a set of swinging double doors. They entered a long room lit on one side by more of the high, slitted windows. Inscribed just beneath them, running in a continuous loop around all four walls, were the words PENITENCE, ATONEMENT, TRUTH AND HUMILITY. Only now did Hannah get the acronym. They’re missing Obedience, but I guess PATHO Wouldn’t be as catchy.

“This is the Red dormitory,” Bridget said, enunciating each word crisply. The room was lined with sixteen neatly made twin beds, each flanked by a small nightstand and a white, hospital-style curtain suspended from a track in the ceiling. A towel and a long white nightgown hung on pegs beside every bed except one. She conducted Hannah to it. “You will sleep here. You will make your bed every morning. You will draw the curtain while changing your clothes. At all other times, you will leave it open.” Bridget pulled open the single drawer of the nightstand, revealing a comb, a box of hairpins, a nail file, a toothbrush and toothpaste. “You will store your personal items here.”

“How long have you been here?” Hannah asked.

Bridget glanced with evident distaste at Hannah’s fingernails, which were long and ragged from her imprisonment. “You will keep yourself neatly groomed.”

Embarrassed but determined not to show it—why did the woman have to be so rude?—Hannah studied her with equal frankness. Noting the wrinkles across her forehead and the furrows bracketing her mouth, Hannah upped her initial estimate of Bridget’s age by a decade. She was forty-five if she was a day.

With the ramrod carriage of a soldier, Bridget marched to the other end of the room and opened the doors to a large closet. Inside were communal supplies: stacks of white sheets and towels; long-sleeved white nightgowns and dresses in muted shades of brown, blue and gray, grouped by size; drawers containing white cotton underwear, brassieres and thick black tights; baskets of bonnets and sanitary napkins; and on the floor, a row of identical black flats, proceeding from small to large. “You will change your underthings daily and your dress every two days,” Bridget said. “You will change your nightgown, bonnet, towel and sheets every Saturday.”

Hannah followed her through a doorway into a large bathroom with multiple shower units, sinks and toilet stalls. A young woman was kneeling on the floor scrubbing the tile. She made a face when she saw Bridget and then quickly looked down to hide it. The scowl and the red skin notwithstanding, the girl was stunning, with Afrasian features: dark, almond-shaped eyes with uncreased lids, full lips, a flattened nose with rounded nostrils, a long, graceful neck. Hannah felt her beauty as a sweet pang in her heart, an inner Oh! of wonder. Beauty, whether of people or things, had always moved her in this way, and despite many stern lectures by her parents on the sinfulness of caring about temporal matters like a person’s looks, a stubborn part of her had always refused to believe it was wrong. Wasn’t beauty created by God, and so was her love of it not a love of Him?

“Good afternoon, Walker,” Bridget said, in a considerably more civil tone than she’d used with Hannah. She even gave the girl something resembling a smile.

“Good afternoon,” the girl replied, with a matching half-smile Hannah could tell was forced.

Bridget turned back to Hannah. “You will shower daily, before breakfast, for no more than three minutes. You will brush your teeth twice a day. You will wash your hands after using the toilet.”

“I usually do,” Hannah said tartly.

Bridget went on as if she hadn’t spoken. “You will keep your hair pinned up and decently covered except when sleeping.”

Fed up with the condescending litany, Hannah said, “Or what?”

“One step off the path and you’ll be warned. Two and you’ll be cast out.” She strode from the room. Hannah heard a muttered humph and glanced down. The girl on the floor mouthed the word “bitch.” For the first time in months, Hannah smiled.

Bridget was waiting by Hannah’s bed with more instructions. “Worship is at six thirty in the morning and seven o’clock in the evening in the chapel. Mealtimes are at six, noon and six. If you arrive after the blessing has been said, you will not be served. You will spend weekday mornings in enlightenment and the afternoons doing useful work. You will have two hours of reflection time after evening worship. The lights go off at ten.”

“What about weekends?”

“Saturday mornings you will devote to independent Bible study. The afternoons you may spend as you wish. Sundays are purely for worship.” Bridget glanced up at a clock on the wall. “It’s five thirty now. Get dressed, and I’ll take you to supper.”

Hannah looked longingly at the bed. “I’m not hungry,” she said. “And I’m so tired.”

“Meals and services may not be skipped unless you’re ill.”

“I am feeling a little unwell.”

” ‘He that worketh deceit shall not dwell within my house’ “ Bridget said.

Hannah had never hit anyone in her life nor wanted to, but at that moment her hand was twitching with the urge to slap the woman’s smug red face.

“I’ll be back to get you in twenty minutes,” Bridget said. “Be ready, Walker.”

When she was gone, Hannah took what she needed from the closet, drew the curtain around her bed and got dressed. The garments were strange and constricting and the fabric coarse, but she felt a little better once she had on underwear and shoes, a little less vulnerable.

She went to the bathroom to wash her face and hands and pin up her hair. The other girl was now on her feet, cleaning the large mirror behind the sinks. She gave Hannah a swift, friendly assessment. “Don’t let Fridget get to you,” she said. “she’s just surged because her time’s almost up, and they’re booting her out of here in a month. Nut job actually likes it here.” The girl’s voice was low and mellifluous, with a roundness that suggested the Deep South. “I’m Kayla, by the way.”

Relieved that everyone wasn’t as unpleasant as Bridget, Hannah introduced herself. “Where are you from?” she asked Kayla.

“Savannah. We moved to Dallas when I was eight, but I’ve managed to hang on to the accent.”

“How long have you been at the center?”

“Twenty-five days, and I mean to tell you it’s been the longest three and a half weeks of my whole life. I’m out of here any day now, as soon as my boyfriend comes to fetch me. He’s looking for a place for us.”

The innocently spoken words were cruel reminders that Aidan wouldn’t be coming for Hannah. “So he doesn’t mind … whatever you did?” she blurted out. She looked away then, mortified by her own rudeness. “I’m sorry. It’s none of my business.”

“No need to apologize,” Kayla said, with a dismissive wave. “Anyway, it’s no secret. I shot my stepfather.” Her tone and expression were as remorseless as if she were talking about a mosquito she’d swatted. “My mama’s not speaking to me, so I can’t go home.”

Alarmed, Hannah took a small, involuntary step back. If the center didn’t admit violent Reds, then why had Kayla been allowed in here? And were there more like her?

“Don’t worry,” Kayla said drily, “I don’t shoot scared little apples like you.”

“Apples?”

“You know, red on the outside, white on the inside.” She grinned. “I just made that up.”

There was something about the girl, not innocence exactly— clearly Kayla was no innocent—but an openness and absence of guile that quieted Hannah’s unease. “Mine isn’t speaking to me either,” she said.

“Yeah? What’d you do?”

Hannah pictured her mother at the jail, distraught and bewildered. I betrayed every value she ever taught me. I committed adultery with a man of God. I murdered her unborn grandchild.

“Hey,” Kayla said, “whatever it is, you don’t have to tell me.”

The unexpected compassion brought a lump to Hannah’s throat, and that stiffened her spine a bit. When had she become so pathetic, so grateful for any little scrap of kindness tossed her way?

She forced herself to look Kayla in the eye. “I had an abortion.”

Hannah waited for the inevitable recoil—the reaction she herself would have had if someone had confessed that to her six months ago—but Kayla nodded matter-of-factly. “Sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.”

Hannah hesitated, then asked, “Is that how you felt about killing your stepfather? Like you had to do it?”

“Oh, I didn’t kill him.” She sounded regretful.

“So how come you’re a Red instead of a Green?”

“My stepfather’s rich and white. It’s a winning combination.” Hannah’s brows drew together, and Kayla said, “Oh come on, don’t tell me you buy all this crap about our so-called ‘post-racial society.’ Chromes may be the new niggers, but believe me, the old ones still get screwed good and regular.”

At a loss, Hannah said nothing. Of course, she knew there was still racism—she wasn’t that naive—but it wasn’t a subject she’d ever given much thought to. Growing up, she’d almost never heard anyone make disparaging remarks about African Americans or people of any other ethnicity, and when someone had, her parents had been quick to denounce such statements as ignorant and unchristian. People of all races worshipped at Ignited Word, and the Paynes—and the church—were proud of that fact. Yes, Hannah reflected now, but how many nonwhite members did they actually have? And how many black, Hispanic or Asian families had ever been invited to her house for supper? The answers were troubling: relatively few, and none.

“Anyway, his fancy lawyer convinced the jury it was attempted murder,” Kayla said. “Like I was after his fucking money, the lying cocksucker. I wish he was dead.”

“Why? What did he do to you?”

Kayla’s red hand rubbed the towel against the mirror in furious circles. “Son of a bitch was messing with my little sister. She’s just thirteen.”

Hannah shook her head, her mind shrinking away as it always did from the incomprehensible but irrefutable fact that people did this to children, that they did it and somehow went on living with themselves. She’d met abused children at the shelter, kids as young as six who’d been molested by a parent, relative, family friend, priest, stranger. She’d looked into their eyes and known that no amount of kindness or love that she or anyone else gave them would ever completely heal them. These encounters had left her feeling heartsick, but they’d enraged Aidan. He didn’t allow Blues to attend his services, even with an assigned chaperone (though all other Chromes were welcome, provided they sat in their designated area). Hannah had asked him once whether he thought God forgave child molesters. He was silent for a long time. “The Bible tells us He does, if they truly repent,” he said finally. “But I don’t believe even our Savior’s blood is powerful enough to wash away that sin.” It was the only time she’d ever heard Aidan blaspheme.

“I was aiming for his balls,” Kayla said, “but I ended up shooting him in the gut. I should have used a knife is what I should have done.”

“My cousin’s a nurse,” Hannah said, “She says stomach wounds are the most agonizing kind there are. It takes a long time to heal, and some people never do. They’re literally poisoned by their own waste.”

Kayla’s hand went still and her lips quirked at the corners. “Is that a fact.”

“Yep. It’s supposed to be one of the worst deaths there is.”

Her new friend smiled, a bright, fierce slash of teeth. “That’s mighty good to know.”

Hannah suddenly remembered the time. “I’d better get ready. Bridget will be back soon.” She gathered her long hair, twisted it into a bun and tried to pin it up, but it was too heavy, and it defied her efforts, tumbling down her back.

Kayla moved behind Hannah. “Here, let me help you.” With perfect ease, she took hold of Hannah’s hair and started braiding it. “Most of the women here are all right, but you watch yourself around Fridget, hear? She not just a bitch, she’s a snitch. You put one foot wrong, and she’ll neg on you to the Henleys. She thinks if she’s a good little rat, they’ll let her stay past her six months, but it’s not gonna happen. My uncle, he’s the one who got me in here, he said they hardly ever make exceptions.”

“They did for you,” Hannah said. “Letting you come in the first place.”

“Yeah, well, Uncle Walt’s a big-time preacher in Savannah. He pulled some strings.”

Kayla’s hands were deft, and Hannah’s hair was soon tamed and bound into a bun. “You’re good at that,” she said.

“I used to work at a salon. It’s how I put myself through Baylor. Where’d you go?”

“College wasn’t an option for me,” Hannah said. There’d been no money for it, but even if she’d been able to get a scholarship, her parents would have opposed her going. They’d taught her that her highest purpose as a woman, the purpose for which she’d been created, was to get married, be a helpmeet to her husband and raise a family. She had grown up believing that, but sometimes she couldn’t help thinking wistfully about what it would be like to have four years to do nothing but learn. One day the summer before her senior year of high school, she’d told her mother she was going to the mall and instead taken the train into Dallas. She’d gotten off at Mockingbird Station and walked the few blocks to the university, moving slowly in the 105-degree heat, taking shallow breaths through her mouth. The campus was mostly deserted, as she’d known it would be; like most universities in the hotter parts of the country, SMU had long ago closed its doors during the summer months. The cost of air-conditioning was prohibitive, and without it, the heat was too intense and the air quality too poor to hold classes.

Majestic oaks lined the empty walkways. Grateful for their shade, Hannah meandered through the campus, imagining the sidewalks thronged with students and herself among them. She saw a man emerge from a large building whose entrance was dwarfed by tall white columns. She mounted the stairs and went inside, stepping into quiet, and cool air that smelled deliciously of books: the library. Of course, it would have to be climate controlled year-round to protect the books from the heat and damp. She went through the scanner and past the security guard, then through a large set of double doors leading to the main reading room. Enormous as it was, it was crowded; most of the seats at the long wooden tables were filled. At least half of the people were elderly, seeking shelter from the heat. And oh, the books! Row upon row of them, more than she’d ever seen in one place.

“Hey there,” said a young man behind the circulation desk. He was good-looking in an unkempt way, with artfully tousled hair and long sideburns—doubtless a student here. “Don’t you have your student ID tab?”

Its absence must have set off an alert. Hannah looked down at her blouse and then pretended to search her purse, not wanting him to know she didn’t belong here, in this beautiful, peaceful, book-filled space. “I guess I left it at home,” she said.

Apologetically, he said, “I’m not supposed to let you in without one, unless you’re over sixty-five. Which you’re obviously not.” He gave her an appreciative, lopsided grin. Flirting with her. “Though for you I believe I could make an exception.”

Hannah looked back at him, this boy whom she might have dated if she’d gone to school here, and then she looked around the room at all the books, all the thousands and thousands of books containing so many answers to so many questions. Here, in this place, asking “Why?” would not be improper or sinful. Here, she couldn—

Her port buzzed: a message from her mother reminding her she had sewing circle at four. She pictured herself and the other women bent over their needles, chatting about a new gingerbread recipe they’d tried, a vid they’d seen the night before, the best place to find bargains on baby clothes, and mentally compared the image to the one in front of her: the students bent silently over their books, their lips moving as they memorized formulas and orders of mammals and the names of ancient kings, their minds grappling with philosophy, literature, quantum physics, international law. They were inhabitants of another country, one in which she was a foreigner and always would be.

“Thank you,” she said, “but I don’t belong here.” She walked out of the room, out of the building, off the campus and back to the station, never once turning her head to look behind her.

“I was going to get my masters in education,” Kayla said, bringing Hannah back to the present. “Had a scholarship to UT starting in September, and then this happened.” She gestured at her red face.

“You lost a lot,” Hannah said.

“Yeah. What about you?”

“I’m just a seamstress. Well, I used to be.”

“And you still are,” Kayla insisted. “Just because you’re a Red doesn’t mean that’s all you are.” She took Hannah’s bonnet and set it on her head with a little flourish. “Ooh, girl, you’re looking fine now. All you need is a scrub brush in your hand and you’ll be almost as sexy as me.”

Hannah tried to return Kayla’s smile, but her own lips were frozen. She stared at her reflection, stricken. An alien stared back at her.

“Come on,” Kayla said. “Buck up, now. You’ll make it through this.”

“What if I can’t?”

Kayla locked eyes with her. “You have to, or they win.”

They heard footsteps approaching. “Here comes Fridget,” Kayla said. “Remember what I told you.”

Bridget appeared in the doorway. She surveyed Hannah with a cool, critical eye and finally gave her a grudging nod. “Follow me.”

“I’m right behind you,” Kayla murmured.

THEY ENCOUNTERED OTHER women along the way, emerging in color-coordinated groups from doorways and stairwells. Hannah heard a few low-voiced exchanges, but for the most part the women proceeded in silence. A cluster of the Reds with dolls stepped into the hallway. The pasty-faced girl was with them.

“Why isn’t she a Chrome?” Hannah asked Bridget.

“She’s with child.”

“Ah.” Because the virus mutated all skin cells in the body, including a fetus’s, pregnant women were exempt from melachroming until after their babies were born. “And what are the dolls for?”

“You’ll find out soon enough,” Bridget said.

In the dining hall, Hannah attracted more than a few curious glances. The mortification she felt was acute—not an hour ago, these women had seen her naked—and she walked with her head bent and her shoulders slightly hunched, not meeting anyone’s eyes. There were six long tables, each with twelve seats. Three of the tables were already full. Bridget took a seat at a fourth that was half full. Hannah sat down beside her, and Kayla seated herself on Hannah’s other side.

“You will sit at the first available place,” Bridget said. “You will not sit at an empty table unless all occupied tables are completely full. You will not save a seat for anyone.”

Observing the other women enter the room, however, Hannah could see that the seating process was not nearly as arbitrary as Bridget would have had it be. There was subtle maneuvering taking place: the exchange of sidelong glances and small jerks of the head; deliberate pauses as women waited for a friend to catch up or avoided sitting next to someone they disliked. Hannah watched Eve stop to fiddle with her shoe until the group of Yellows she was with had passed her and then seat herself at the next table. Scant though it was, Hannah felt heartened by this evidence of rebellion and camaraderie.

A set of swinging doors opened, and chromed women emerged carrying pitchers of water and bowls and platters of food. “You will serve at table every fourth day and perform other assigned tasks in the afternoons,” Bridget said. She pointed to a corkboard on the wall. “The work schedule for the week is posted every Monday morning.”

“Are the assignments permanent, or do we rotate?”

“That depends. Do you have any useful skills?” Bridget’s expression was skeptical.

“Yes, I’m a professional seamstress.”

“How apt,” Bridget said, with an unpleasant little smile. Before Hannah could ask what she meant, Bridget said, “Mrs. Henley will invite you to her parlor for tea on Saturday. You will inform her of your abilities at that time. You will refrain from exaggerating your skills.”

“You will kiss my sweet red ass,” Kayla said, under her breath.

Hannah’s lips twitched in amusement. Bridget leaned forward, looking around Hannah at Kayla. “Were you saying something, Walker?”

“I was, Walker,” Kayla replied, her face a picture of earnest piety. “I was asking Jesus to watch over us all as we travel the path.”

Hannah clasped her hands before her and bowed her head. “Yes, Lord, please shepherd and watch over us, especially Walker Bridget, who will soon be leaving us and reentering the outside world.”

“Amen,” said Kayla. She was echoed by a soft chorus of other voices.

Hannah looked up to find Bridget regarding her suspiciously and several of the other women smirking. Bridget’s eyes scoured the table. The pregnant girl, who was sitting at the far end with her doll in her lap, was slow to cover her smile with her hand, and Bridget fixed her with a murderous stare. The girl was saved—for the moment, at least—by the entrance of the Henleys. The room fell silent as they walked to the last two places at the last table. Reverend Henley held the chair for his wife, settling her comfortably before launching into a lengthy, meandering prayer of thanksgiving. Finally, he finished and took his seat, and the women began helping themselves to the food. A muted buzz of conversation arose. Hannah was relieved to hear it; she’d been afraid meals would be eaten in silence.

The food was plain and just as plainly economical—a tofu macaroni casserole and frozen green beans—but there were homemade rolls and real butter to go with them. The familiar yeasty smell was heavenly, and Hannah found that she was hungry after all. “You will not take more than your fair portion,” Bridget said, and when the platter came round to Hannah, she saw why: there was barely enough for all twelve of them, and only if everyone was careful to take modest helpings. She served herself and passed the platter to Kayla. When it reached the pregnant girl, she took twice as much as the rest of them. Hannah noticed a few resentful expressions, but no one objected.

“Pregnant women get double portions,” Kayla said in a low voice. “Nobody likes to sit at Megan’s table.”

Kayla introduced Hannah to the women nearest them, but after the initial hellos, she didn’t say much. She listened to the others speak quietly among themselves, mostly of news from home, which she gathered was a kind of currency here, with letters from husbands and boyfriends conferring the most status. To her surprise, Bridget not only joined in the conversation but was actually pleasant to everyone except Hannah and Megan. The other women were cordial in return, but as with Kayla earlier, Hannah could sense their wariness and dislike.

As she ate, she noticed an Orange at the other end of the table looking at her surreptitiously. Her face reminded Hannah of characters in an old 2-D vid she used to love when she was a child; silly, waddling creatures with tangerine skin and olive green hair. Becca had been scared of them, but they’d made Hannah laugh. They had a funny name—what was it? And why did the woman keep looking at her?

“I seen you on the news vids,” the Orange said finally, in response to Hannah’s questioning stare. The table fell silent, and she felt eleven pairs of eyes on her. “You must a loved him a whole lot, not to have told.”

Pain, keen and unexpected, bloomed in her, and she knew it must be visible to the others.

“You must have snorted a whole lot of kite, not to have gotten off with a misdemeanor conviction,” Kayla said to the woman. “Kite or amp. Which was it, Walker?”

Stung, the woman looked down at her plate, but not before Hannah saw the hunger in her eyes, the sick, helpless yearning of an addict for the thing she knew would destroy her.

“It’s all right,” Hannah told Kayla. Addressing the woman, she said, “Yes, I loved him. I couldn’t help but love him.”

The woman looked up, and Hannah remembered the name of the creatures from the vid: Oompa Loompas. Preposterous, capering objects of ridicule, barely recognizable as human beings.

THE EVENING SERVICE was long and the sermon dull— Reverend Henley, Hannah was beginning to see, was not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and he liked to hear himself talk— but she found comfort in the fellowship, and when it came time to pray, she did so earnestly, thanking God for this place of refuge and asking His help in keeping to the path. Though she didn’t feel His answering presence within her, it was good to be in communication with Him again, after a month of shamed silence.

Afterward, Bridget showed Hannah the rest of the center: the reading room with its shelves of Christian books and printed periodicals; the laundry room and cleaning supply closet; the kitchen; the sewing room (“Most likely you will work here— if you are as good as you say”); the closed doorways to Mrs. Henley’s parlor and Reverend Henley’s study (“You will not disturb the reverend while he’s working or seek to have a private meeting with him for any reason; if you have a problem, you will go to Mrs. Henley”). Hannah trailed after her guide wearily, buoying herself with the thought of the bed waiting at the end of the tour.

Bridget opened the door to a windowless room containing ten straight-backed wooden chairs arranged in a circle. One entire wall was a vidscreen. So, some technology was allowed. “This is your place of enlightenment,” Bridget said. “You will come here tomorrow, immediately after the morning service.”

“You won’t be with me?”

“No. My place is elsewhere.” The brief cheer Hannah felt at this news was dashed when Bridget added, “I’ll come for you afterward and accompany you to lunch.”

“Where’s your place?”

“Upstairs, with others like myself.”

Again, that contemptuous tone. It rankled Hannah, breaking through her fatigue. “Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Being my guide or whatever.”

“Pathfinder,” Bridget corrected. “It’s my duty, as the Red who has been here the longest.”

“I think you enjoy it,” Hannah said. “Being the authority, telling people what to do. I bet you volunteered.”

The other woman’s nostrils flared. “You are mistaken,” Bridget said, spitting out the words, “if you think that I would want to spend a single minute with one of you.”

The day’s indignities, large and small, coalesced in Hannah’s breast, forming a hot ball of fury. As Bridget started to turn away, Hannah grabbed her hand, holding it up at eye level with her own: red on red. “I don’t see any difference between us,” she said. “We’re both killers, aren’t we? Who’d you kill, Bridget?”

Bridget yanked her hand out of Hannah’s, drawing it back as though she were going to strike her. Hannah stood unmoving, marking the naked emotions that chased across Bridget’s face and seeing, as manifestly as if the other woman had confided in her, the terrible pain beneath her outrage. Suddenly Hannah felt sorry for her, this bristling, anguished, middle-aged woman. She recalled how frightened she herself had been just a few hours ago, in the safety of her father’s car, when the boy had taunted her, and she thought of how much more so she’d be when she had to go into the world as a Chrome.

But just as she was about to apologize, Bridget seemed to collect herself, lowering her hand to her side and her mask of chilly indifference back in place. “You have just stepped off the path, Walker. How unfortunate.”

“What are you talking about?” Hannah asked.

“You will not intentionally lay hands on another walker. It’s one of the rules.”

“You didn’t tell me that.”

Bridget’s eyebrows shot up in mock consternation. “Oh, I’m certain I did. I’m afraid I’ll have to report you to Mrs. Henley.”

Which would not be a good way to begin here. “Look,” Hannah said, in a conciliatory tone, “I’m sorry I snapped at you. It’s been a rough day.”

“You think this is rough? This is nothing compared to what it’s like out there, on your own. Nothing.” Bridget’s voice broke on the word. Abruptly, she turned away from Hannah and started walking down the hall.

“What happened to you?” Hannah called softly after her.

Without stopping or turning around, Bridget said, “You’ll find out what rough really is, when they kick you out of here.” She went down the stairs that led to the dormitory. Hannah stood looking after her, knowing she had no choice but to follow.

EXHAUSTION TRUMPED THE strangeness of her surroundings, and Hannah slept deeply that first night, waking when the lights went on at five thirty. Dazed, she blinked against their glare. For a few awful seconds, she thought she was back in the Chrome ward, but then she heard movement on either side of her, the squeak of bedsprings and the little sighs and groans of other women pulled reluctantly from sleep, and memory returned. She knew she should get up, but her limbs were heavy. The hiss of running water and the soft drone of the women’s voices were pleasant, soothing. Her eyes were just starting to flutter closed again when she felt the bed shake.

“Wake up,” someone said in a loud whisper. Hannah opened her eyes and saw Kayla standing at the foot of the bed. “Fridget’s watching. Come on.” She turned and headed for the bathroom.

Hannah forced herself to a vertical position, got out of bed and collected her meager toiletries.

The bathroom was crowded. The women’s red faces were thrown into vivid relief by the white of the walls and their nightgowns. A couple of women acknowledged her with little dips of their heads, and Megan gave her a shy smile, but most of them ignored her, intent on their own toilettes. Hannah brushed her teeth and coiled her braid into a bun, pinning it up as best she could. There was a line for the toilets and then for the showers. By the time it was her turn, the water was tepid, and she had to rush to finish in time for breakfast. Still, it felt good to be clean, to have washed away the residue of the Chrome ward.

Hannah dressed and made her bed. Bridget was waiting for her by the door. She was about to follow her from the room when she heard a loud cough from behind her. She turned and saw Kayla looking at her with a wrinkled brow, patting the top of her head. Hannah was momentarily baffled, but then she remembered: You will keep your hair decently covered except when sleeping. She fetched her bonnet from the peg and put it on, taking some satisfaction in Bridget’s moue of disappointment.

They proceeded to the dining hall, with Kayla close behind them. Hannah hadn’t had a chance to speak with her new friend since the afternoon before, and she was hoping they’d sit next to one another again. But when they got there, Bridget moved quickly to take the last two seats at the open table, forcing Kayla to sit elsewhere.

Once everyone was assembled, Mrs. Henley entered alone and said a considerably less long-winded grace than her husband’s. Breakfast was scant: a small bowl of oatmeal, a glass of milk and an apple. Afterward, still hungry, Hannah went with Bridget to consult the work schedule. They found their names under kitchen service for tomorrow’s lunch and Friday’s breakfast. Bridget also had chapel service all week. Hannah scanned the roster, which also included bathroom service, laundry service, floor service and sewing service, but her own name was missing.

“I don’t seem to be on here,” she said.

“You’ll have other work to do in the afternoons this week.”

There was also, Hannah saw, a heading called Zilpah, with one name listed beneath it. She wanted to ask what it meant but swallowed the question. To show ignorance was to show weakness. She would not bare her throat to Bridget.

“Hannah?” called a sweet, lilting voice. Mrs. Henley was beckoning her over to her table.

Bridget smirked. “It seems she wants a word with you.”

Bitch. Bracing herself for a reprimand, Hannah went to Mrs. Henley.

“Good morning, Walker,” she said, with a dimpled smile. “How are you settling in?”

“Fine, thank you.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” Mrs. Henley’s cheeks were a little flushed, as though she’d just come from the bath. Wisps of blond hair peeked out from the edges of her bonnet. “It’s my custom to invite every new walker for tea in my parlor. Did Bridget show you where my parlor is?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Come on Saturday, at three o’clock. We’ll have some chamomile and a nice cozy chat.” Hearing dismissal, Hannah turned to go.

“One more thing,” Mrs. Henley added. “Walker Bridget told me you stepped off the path last night.”

Hannah turned back. “Yes, ma’am. But I didn’t mean to.

“So you touched her by accident?”

“No, ma’am.”

Little corrugations appeared in Mrs. Henley’s brow. “I don’t understand. Either it was deliberate or it wasn’t.”

“I didn’t know it was against the rules,” Hannah said. “Bridget didn’t tell me until afterward.”

“That’s odd, because she told me she did.”

“She didn’t.”

“Well, then you’re not to blame. If Bridget lied about telling you the no-touching rule, it would be she who stepped off the path, not you.” Mrs. Henley’s tone was sympathetic. Hannah relaxed a little. “Of course, Bridget’s already strayed once. This would be her second misstep, which would mean we’d have to cast her out. Poor thing, she’s had such a difficult time.” Mrs. Henley leaned forward, lowering her voice confidingly. “She had the scourge, you know. She wanted children badly, but the superbiotics came too late for her. After the cure was found, her husband left her for a younger woman who was fertile.”

Hannah said nothing, stunned and unnerved that Mrs. Henley would divulge such intimate secrets about another walker. What would she reveal to Bridget or the others about Hannah?

“And after going through all that,” Mrs. Henley continued, “to end up killing another woman’s baby …”

“On purpose?”

“No, it was an accident. But she did bring it on herself.”

So that’s why Bridget hates Megan and me, Hannah thought. Because we meant to do it.

“So, are you sure she didn’t mention the rule?” Mrs. Henley’s mouth parted, revealing her pink tongue and the white tips of her incisors.

Hannah told herself that Bridget had it coming; that if she stayed, she’d just make Hannah’s life miserable; that she was due to leave in a month anyway. And then Hannah remembered the phrase Bridget had used—"out there, on your own"—and the terror in her eyes when she’d said it. At least Hannah had her father to help her. When she left here, she wouldn’t be alone in the world.

“It’s possible I forgot,” she said, with downcast eyes. “I was so exhausted last night.”

Mrs. Henley was all kindness. “Of course you were. It must have been a long day. But tiredness and forgetfulness aren’t excuses for disobedience. I’m sure Moses was tired when he came down from Mount Sinai, but he didn’t forget one of God’s commandments, did he?”

“No, ma’am.”

Mrs. Henley shook her head sadly. “And on your first day too. Just a few hours after you gave us your solemn word that you’d obey our rules.”

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Henley.”

“I’m very disappointed in you, Hannah, and I know Reverend Henley will be too. He takes these things so hard.”

Looking into Mrs. Henley’s sorrowful blue eyes, Hannah felt that she was guilty, if not of breaking the rule she was accused of, then of a weakness of purpose, an essential failure of spirit. She’d let down so many people: her family and friends, her employers, Aidan. And now, the Henleys, who’d been kind enough to take her in and offer her this chance at redemption. A chance she was proving unworthy of.

“And of course, your parents and Secretary Dale will have to be told,” Mrs. Henley said.

Hannah felt an upwelling of panic. They mustn’t know, she mustn’t shame them any more than she already had. She found herself babbling, pleading, “I’m sorry, Mrs. Henley, please don’t tell them, I’ll do better, I promise, I’ll—”

Mrs. Henley stopped her, saying, “It’s good that you’re sorry, Hannah. Penitence is the first thing the path demands of us. I want you to reflect and pray on what you’ve done, and we’ll speak more about it on Saturday, when we have our chat.” Hannah wanted to say more, but Mrs. Henley held up one small, pale hand.

“Go now, and begin your enlightenment.”

HANNAH STOPPED JUST outside the dining hall and sagged against the wall, giving her heart time to slow its wild thudding. Her thoughts were scattered, bewildered. What in the world had just happened to her? Who was that groveling creature? Reason returned as she calmed down, and with it, anger. Mrs. Henley had enjoyed their encounter; Hannah was sure of it. The woman had played her like a harp, and Hannah had obligingly sounded every note she wanted to hear. Reverend Henley might be a kind man, genuinely interested in helping others find a path to God, but his wife was something else.

The quietness of the hallway made Hannah aware that she was late for enlightenment. She walked hurriedly to the room Bridget had shown her the night before. The door was open, and she paused at the threshold. Eight women, all Reds except for Megan, all holding dolls, sat in the circle of chairs, along with a tall, angular man in his forties with a glossy, shaven head and an air of authority—the enlightener, presumably. A stool, conspicuously empty, was in the center of the circle. When she saw it, Hannah felt a ripple of disquiet, which intensified as she took in the bizarre scene before her. One woman was rocking her doll in her arms, crooning to it; another was bouncing hers on her knee; a third was holding hers facedown on her shoulder and patting its back as though burping it.

Hannah gripped the door jamb. Dear God. Help me.

“Come in, Walker,” the enlightener said in a stern, commanding voice, “and close the door.” Fighting the urge to flee, Hannah obeyed him.

The enlightener pointed to the stool. “Be seated.” Somehow, her legs carried her to it. It swiveled as she sat down. Sketching an arc in the air with his finger, he said, “Look upon them, Walker. For to look upon them is to look upon your own sin.”

Hannah revolved in a slow, clockwise circle, her eyes drawn to the dolls. They were all life-sized—infant-sized—but otherwise they were varied. Some were crude, with buttons for eyes, yarn for hair and hideous, cross-stitched red mouths, while others were better crafted. Two were brown; the rest were a pale apricot.

The only sound in the room was the eerie, high-pitched crooning of the woman rocking the doll. She began to sing to it, touching various parts of it: “Here is my HEAD, and here is my NOSE. Here are my FINGERS and here are my TOES. Here is my TUMMY and here is my KNEE. Thank you, God, for making ME. Here is my—” The woman broke off her song abruptly and jiggled the doll, saying, “Shh, shh. Don’t cry, baby, please don’t cry. Mama’s here.”

Hannah swiveled so she didn’t have to watch, but the mad baby talk continued, on and on. The enlightener ignored it, his attention fixed on Hannah, his eyes ablaze with some emotion she couldn’t name. Whatever it was, it made her skin crawl. She turned to the woman sitting to his right, who was considerably older than the rest of them—almost too old to get pregnant. The woman looked at her with weary compassion.

“Sonia, why don’t you begin,” the enlightener said to her. He leaned forward in his chair, steepling his fingers.

The older woman held up her doll, showing it to Hannah and the others. “This is my son, Octavio,” she said, with a Spanish accent. “He would have been my eighth child, but I murdered him, against God’s commandment and the wishes of my husband.” She turned the doll toward herself and addressed it. “Forgive me, Octavio, for taking your precious life.”

The woman next to her spoke. “This here’s my little boy, Matthew. I murdered him ‘cause I didn’t trust in the Lord to provide for him after his daddy left us. Forgive me, Matthew, for taking your precious life.”

“This is my baby girl, Aisha. Her father raped me, but it wasn’t her fault. She was innocent, and I murdered her. Forgive me, Aisha.”

Megan held up her crude doll. “This is my unborn baby, John Wyatt or Gemma Dawn, depending on if it’s a boy or a girl. I tried to kill it, but God stopped the pill from working.” Her tone was sullen. No penitence there, Hannah thought.

“Him or her, Megan, not it,” the enlightener said reprovingly.

“I tried to kill him,” Megan said, “but God saved him. I’m sorry, baby.” She addressed this last to her slightly rounded stomach.

The wretched circuit continued, with Hannah as its fulcrum, until all the women except the mad one—who seemed completely unaware of what was happening around her—had confessed and apologized. Finally, the enlightener turned to Hannah.

“And you, Walker? Why are you here?”

She replied without equivocation. “I killed my unborn child.”

“Why did you do it?”

“Because I was afraid,” she said. And not, Hannah realized suddenly, just for Aidan, but also for herself. He wouldn’t have left his wife for her; he’d made that clear. And the thought of bearing and raising a child alone had terrified her. The truth, buried for months, hit Hannah hard: she’d acted as much out of selfishness as out of love.

“Afraid? Of what? The shame of being an unwed mother?” The enlightener stood and approached her, looming over her. His face was an angry, mottled pink. “Where was your fear of God’s wrath, woman? It was Him you transgressed against. When you defiled your body with fornication and then abortion, you defiled God. When you stole the life of your innocent child, you stole what was God’s.” He was almost shouting now, sprinkling Hannah’s upturned face with little flecks of spittle. “Every time a woman’s weakness leads her to defy God’s commandments, Satan laughs. He was laughing when Eve took the forbidden fruit from the tree. He was laughing during the Great Scourge, when the fornication of women spread the foul pestilence that made their wombs barren. He was laughing when they begged God for children but could not conceive, oh yes, he was drinking their tears of despair like wine. Could you hear him laughing, Walker, when you spread your legs for the man who impregnated you, and when you spread them again for the butcher who scraped your precious child from your womb? Could you feel God’s wrath raining down on you?” He thrust his hand up toward the ceiling, fingers spread wide, and held it there for several seconds before lowering it to his side. His voice softened. “But God is merciful. He sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to redeem your sins and offer you a path to salvation, through penitence, atonement, truth and humility. Do you humbly repent your sin against God, Hannah Payne? Are you ready to atone with all your soul for the murder of your child?”

Hannah bowed her head. “I’m ready.” She felt her arms break out in goosebumps as she said the words—the same ones she’d said to Raphael just before he performed the abortion.

“Go, then, to the sewing room, and make a doll in your child’s image. Shape it not just from cloth and thread, but from all the anguish and repentance in your soul. With each stitch, imagine the precious life that you have extinguished: the eyes that will never see the wonder of God’s creation, the mouth that will never suckle your breast or sing God’s praises, the hands that will never clasp your finger or wear a wedding ring. Take as much time as you need, and when you’ve finished, rejoin us here in the circle.”

Hannah stood and went to the door. As she was about to leave, the enlightener said, “Don’t forget to give the baby a name.”

SHE SPENT FOUR days making it, working on it every morning and afternoon as well as during her two nightly hours of free time. There was a sewing machine, but she didn’t use it. She wanted the doll to come wholly from her hands. She worked in a state of rapt concentration, bordering on trance. The doll was a prayer, pulled stitch by stitch from her soul, and she sewed it slowly and painstakingly. By the time she stumbled to bed each night, her fingers were so cramped she could barely button her nightgown.

In the mornings she was alone in the sewing room, but after lunch she was joined by two Yellows, who spent the afternoons making dresses and bonnets, stitching quilts and mending used clothes for the poor. The women spoke quietly to each other, leaving Hannah to herself. Mrs. Henley stopped by occasionally to check their work and add new garments to the to-do pile. Hannah she mostly ignored; at least, until the third day.

“You certainly are taking your time with that,” Mrs. Henley said, peering down at Hannah’s doll. “How much longer will you need?”

“I’m hoping to finish by tomorrow afternoon,” Hannah said, then added, “The enlightener said to take as much time as necessary.”

Mrs. Henley’s blue eyes narrowed. “You’re not trying to avoid enlightenment, are you? Because that would be a very serious step off the path.”

“No, ma’am.”

“Let me see.” Mrs. Henley held out a peremptory hand.

With a strange reluctance, Hannah handed the other woman the doll. She studied it in silence. “Well, Hannah,” she said finally, “this is exceptionally fine work. You must be very proud of it.”

Recognizing the trap, Hannah bent her head. “No, ma’am. I just want to make it as good as I can. To … do justice to the baby.”

Mrs. Henley handed the doll back. “Take care, Walker, that you don’t enjoy your penance too much.”

Hannah finished late Friday afternoon, just before supper. She examined the doll one last time, scrutinizing it for flaws, but could find none. It was a perfect offering. She left the sewing room, carrying the doll before her with her head held high, meeting the astonished eyes of every woman she passed on the way. A collective murmur of wonderment arose when she entered the dining hall, rippling across the room in her wake, dropping into a profound silence when she sat down. The doll was so lavishly and exquisitely wrought—the eyes with their impossibly delicate lashes so lambent, the pink rosebud of the mouth so tender, the fingers and toes with their tiny half-moon nails so plump and sweet—that it seemed merely asleep rather than inert. But it wasn’t just the object she held that commanded the attention of every woman in the room, it was Hannah herself. Her creation had transformed her, dispelling her despair. She felt vibrant again, alive as she hadn’t since her arrest, and she could see it reflected in their eyes.

The women were so riveted that when the Henleys made their usual majestic entrance, no one except Hannah noticed. Ponder Henley had the flummoxed look of a leading man who’d come onstage to discover the entire audience facing the other way. Mrs. Henley, however, was unmistakably irked, especially when she discerned the focus of the women’s attention. The look she flashed Hannah was venomous.

Hannah lifted her chin and calmly returned Mrs. Henley’s gaze. She would not be cowed by her again.

Later, after the evening service, Hannah sought out Kayla. They went to the sewing room, which Hannah knew would be empty this time of night. When the door closed behind them, Kayla gestured at Hannah’s doll and said, “Just a seamstress, huh? Like Jesus was just a carpenter.”

Hannah shrugged, a little abashed. Her defiance had drained away, leaving only fatigue and anxiety about her meeting with Mrs. Henley tomorrow.

“I thought the Mrs. was going to have a hissy fit,” Kayla went on. “And did you see Fridget’s face? Looked like she’d swallowed a gallon of sour milk.”

Hannah made an unpleasant face of her own, and Kayla said, “How’s it going with her, anyway?”

“Not well. We had an argument the other night, and I lost my temper. Afterward she told Mrs. Henley I’d touched her on purpose.”

“Did you?”

“All I did was grab hold of her hand. I didn’t know it was against the rules.”

“Let me guess, she didn’t tell you.”

“No. Why’s it forbidden, anyway?”

“They say it’s to keep us focused on the spiritual as opposed to the physical, but I think they do it to make us feel as much like pariahs as possible. That, and they’re probably afraid of winding up with a center full of baby dykes.”

Hannah stared at Kayla. Surely she didn’t mean …

“You know, budding lesbians.”

Flustered, Hannah said, “I’m sure no one here would do anything like that.”

“You say that now, but talk to me in five weeks. Sometimes I miss TJ so bad, even Fridget starts to look sexy.” Hannah’s unease must have shown, because Kayla laughed and said, “Relax, you’re not my type.”

Hannah changed the subject. “Mrs. Henley told me Bridget killed a child. Do you know how it happened?

“Drunk driving. She hit a pregnant woman who was crossing the street. The woman survived, but she was paralyzed from the waist down, and she lost the baby. It was all over the vids.”

“Mercy. How could you live with that every day?” The response was reflexive. As soon as Hannah had said it she thought, But I live with it, somehow.

“Oh, Fridget manages just fine,” Kayla said. “We’re in enlightenment together, you know. She acts all humble and sorry, but that’s all it is, an act. The woman’s an iceberg.”

But Hannah knew that Kayla was wrong, that it was the iceberg that was the act, a barricade Bridget had built against the horrific truth of what she’d done. Because if she let herself fully acknowledge it, it would destroy her. This wasn’t intuition on Hannah’s part, but something surer than that, something she knew in her bones, just as she’d known that Mrs. Henley had taken pleasure in her distress. She’d always been a fairly good judge of character, but never to this extent. Where was this newfound insight of hers coming from? Hannah shook her head as a second, more unsettling question occurred to her: What did it mean that she, unlike Bridget, could live with what she’d done? Perhaps Bridget was actually a better person than she was.

“Anyway,” Kayla said, “you should be rid of her in a few days. Usually they turn you loose after a week, though not always. It’s up to the Mrs.”

“Why her and not Reverend Henley?”

A snort of laughter. “He may have the title of director, but make no mistake, she’s the ruler of this roost. Man hardly ever comes out of his study except to eat and preach. Just holes up in there all day long, working on his interminable sermons. I think Mrs. Henley likes having him out of the way.”

“I’m supposed to have tea with her tomorrow. I wanted to ask you about that.”

Kayla stiffened, and her eyes slid away from Hannah’s. “What about it?”

“What should I expect? What did she talk to you about?”

“We’re not supposed to discuss it.”

“I won’t say anything, I promise,” Hannah said.

“Look, I can’t. If she found out …”

“How would she find out? I’m certainly not going to tell her.”

“I can’t, Hannah,” Kayla said curtly. “I’m sorry. We’d better get back.”

They walked to the dormitory in awkward silence. When they passed the door to Mrs. Henley’s parlor, Hannah sensed rather than saw Kayla flinch.

HANNAH WAS RESTLESS AND unable to concentrate during Bible study the next morning. After lunch, she went to the reading room and browsed through the material there to pass the time until three o’clock. In addition to titles like Darwin the Deceiver and A Crown to Her Husband: 365 Devotions for the Virtuous Wife, she found an old book of Aidan’s, A Life of Purpose, A Life in Christ, published when he was still a junior pastor at Ignited Word. The photo on the back was of him on the day he graduated from seminary, his face alight with happiness and hope. Hannah stared at it, seared by the image, thinking of the few times she’d seen him look like that. Most all of them, he’d been among the children at the shelter. Only once had he ever been so wholly joyous and abandoned with her.

He’d asked her to meet him on a Saturday at one of their usual hotels, but at the unprecedented hour of seven in the morning. It was late October. A rare cool front had come through the night before, and the temperature had dropped to the mid-seventies. Hannah rode her bike to the hotel. When she arrived, she found Aidan waiting for her in his car.

“Get in,” he said, surprising her; they’d never gone anywhere together, just the two of them.

“Where are we going?”

“It’s a secret.”

They headed downtown and then took I–20 east. Aidan held her hand and stroked the back of it with his thumb, and after half an hour, Hannah began to drowse off. Her last thought before she surrendered to sleep was how delicious it felt, and how paradoxically liberating, to give herself over so completely to his will.

She woke sometime later, when the road changed from asphalt to rutted dirt, and found herself in the middle of a forest of towering pines. The sharp, heady scent of them filled the car. She inhaled deeply, thinking that she’d never smelled air so wondrously fresh in all her life. “Where are we?”

“In the enchanted forest,” Aidan said. “You forgot to drop your bread crumbs, so you’re doomed to wander here until a prince comes along and breaks the spell with a kiss.”

Surprised by his mood—Aidan was many things, but whimsical had never been one of them—Hannah said, “What if I don’t want him to break it? Will he wander here with me forever?”

“Yes, but then he could never kiss you. You’d be stuck with a frustrated grouch for all eternity.”

She smiled. “And the poor prince would be stuck with a foul-tempered shrew.”

They pulled up in front of a rustic wooden cabin. Beyond it, through the trees, Hannah could see a tantalizing shimmer of blue. “And that,” Aidan said, “is the magic lake. They say if you dive into it at the exact instant the setting sun touches the horizon, you’ll be granted your heart’s desire.”

He’d brought everything they needed: a cooler of food, swim-suits, sunscreen, inner tubes. Hannah wasn’t a practiced swimmer— they’d closed all the pools when she was a child because of the drought, and she’d been to the beach only a handful of times since— but it came back to her quickly. They spent the day like teenagers, splashing around, lazing on the porch, feeding each other pickles and orange slices, laughing, kissing. Aidan stroked her hair and face, but his caresses never strayed lower, and when Hannah’s hand started to slip under the waistband of his bathing trunks, he took hold of it and shook his head. “Let’s not,” he said.

She didn’t question him. She didn’t ask what time they would have to leave, or whose cabin it was, or what excuse Aidan had given his wife to explain his absence. She lived with him in the fugitive joy of each moment. As the sun got low in the sky, he took hold of her hand and led her to the dock. The sun was a molten red orb, like a great burning heart. They stood and watched it sink until it was almost touching the horizon.

“Now!” Aidan cried, and started to run. Hannah ran beside him, bare feet pounding the boards of the dock, and hurtled her body off the end of it into the air. They hung suspended together above the water for an eyeblink before their hands separated and they plunged in. She came up before he did. Breathless, she treaded water, waiting for him to appear. Just when she was beginning to worry, he erupted from the lake right in front of her, making her shriek. He laughed, his own face incandescent with happiness, and she glimpsed what he must have looked like as a little boy. His beauty and innocence snatched her heart and squeezed it like an implacable fist.

Thirteen months ago, she thought now. A lifetime ago. She shoved the book back into its place on the shelf.

AT PRECISELY THREE o’clock, she rapped on Mrs. Henley’s door.

“Come in,” Mrs. Henley called. Hannah opened the door and stepped into the parlor. It was an intimate, feminine space, decorated in cheerful shades of yellow and blue. Unlike every other room Hannah had seen at the center, the parlor had two eye-level windows, covered by embroidered white curtains sheer enough to let light in but too opaque to see through. She longed to reach out her hand and part them, to get a glimpse of the world beyond these walls.

“Do you like my new curtains?” Mrs. Henley asked. “I made them myself.” She was sitting in a comfortable armchair facing away from the windows. On a table in front of her was a tray with a teapot, two china cups and a plate of cookies.

“They’re lovely.”

“Thank you. That’s quite a compliment, coming from a seamstress of your talents.” Mrs. Henley’s forehead crinkled. “But where is your beautiful doll? You know you’re supposed to carry it with you at all times.”

A spike of alarm shot through Hannah; in her distracted state, she’d left the doll in the reading room. “I forgot it. I can go back and fetch it if you like.”

Mrs. Henley considered her for a moment, and then her face relaxed. “Well,” she said, “I suppose we can overlook it this once.”

Hannah’s breath left her with an audible whoosh, and Mrs. Henley smiled. “Goodness, where are my manners!” She gestured at the sofa opposite her. “Please, sit down. Would you like a cup of tea?”

“Yes, thank you.”

The wall opposite Hannah was covered with a large collection of mostly amateurish art. In addition to needlepointed, stitched, carved, painted and quilted versions of the ubiquitous PENITENCE, ATONEMENT, TRUTH AND HUMILITY, there were several sketches of Jesus, watercolors of Bible scenes, wreaths made out of twigs and dried roses, carved wooden crosses and other homespun efforts.

“Aren’t they sweet?” Mrs. Henley said. “They’re all gifts the girls have given me and Reverend Henley over the years. It never fails to humble us, to know we’ve touched a walker’s life so deeply.”

She poured the tea. Hannah’s hand trembled as she took her cup, and it made a little rattling noise against the saucer. “There’s no need to be nervous, Hannah,” Mrs. Henley said. “This is just an informal chat, so we can get to know one another better. Would you like a cookie? I baked them this morning.”

Hannah took one. Her mouth was so dry she choked on it and started coughing. She washed it down with tea.

When she’d recovered, Mrs. Henley asked, “So, were you a professional seamstress?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“What kind of work did you do?”

“Bridal clothes, mostly. I sewed for a salon in Plano.”

“Ah, pity. I don’t suppose they’ll want you back now. After all, what bride would want her wedding dress handled by …” Mrs. Henley stopped, as if suddenly aware she’d been impolitic, then said, with artificial brightness, “Well, perhaps you can get work at a factory or some other place where they won’t care.”

“Yes, perhaps I can.” Hannah gave the other woman a bland, polite half-smile and stilled her mind, marshaling her defenses.

Mrs. Henley set her teacup down and leaned forward, crossing her legs at the ankles. Here we go, Hannah thought.

“When was it you had the abortion?”

“June.”

“And how far along were you?

“Three months.”

“So, that would mean you got pregnant sometime in March. Were you able to pinpoint the exact … occasion when it occurred?”

Hannah closed her eyes, remembering: the hotel in Grand Prairie. They hadn’t been together in six weeks, and they’d been frantic, desperate.

“Hannah? You haven’t answered my question.”

“Yes.”

“Did he know you were going to have an abortion?”

“No.”

“Did he even know you were pregnant?”

“No.”

“That’s quite a violation of his paternal rights. You’re lucky he didn’t file charges against you.”

Hannah nodded, not trusting herself to speak. She could feel her pulse quickening, becoming erratic.

“Of course,” Mrs. Henley said, “if he had, his identity would have been made public. And if you’d had the baby, you would have been compelled to name him.” She squinted a little, studying Hannah’s face like a particularly intriguing museum exhibit. “I understand you also refused to name the abortionist.”

“I never knew his name,” Hannah said.

With a little wave of her hand, Mrs. Henley said, “Well, I won’t ask you to reveal that, nor will I ask the name of the baby’s father. Their identities are none of my concern. But I will need to know the details of your transgression, as unpleasant as it might be for you to recount them and for me to hear them. Let’s begin with the moment you got undressed and lay down on the table—was it a table?”

Hannah stared at her, uncomprehending.

“Truth is the third thing the path demands of us,” Mrs. Henley said, in a voice like honey poured thinly over granite. “As the reverend and I told you when you came to us, truth is not optional here, and a lie of omission is still a lie. So I ask you again, was it a table?”

“Yes.”

“Show me how it was, how you were positioned. You can use the sofa or the floor, whichever you prefer.”

Rooted by horror, Hannah could neither move nor look away. Mrs. Henley’s avid eyes were locked on hers, siphoning her shame, and she saw that there was no bottom in their blue depths, no terminus, just limitless, insatiable hunger.

“I was prepared to forgive your first step off the path with Bridget,” Mrs. Henley said, “since you were new here and unused to our ways. But if you can’t be truthful with me, Hannah, I’ll be forced to conclude that this is a pattern of defiance and deceitfulness.”

Hannah closed her eyes. Where else could she go? There was nowhere. Slowly, mechanically, she lay down on her back and brought her knees up.

“The exact position, Hannah,” Mrs. Henley said, in an exasperated tone.

Hannah parted her legs, and it all came flooding back: the hot room, the feel of cold metal entering her, the pain. She heard herself whimper—then, now.

“Look at me, Hannah.” She turned her head. Mrs. Henley leaned forward, cocking her own head sideways. “How did you feel as you lay there, waiting for the abortionist to begin?”

“I wanted to die,” Hannah said. Falling, falling into that hungry blue.

THE INTERROGATION WENT on and on: “How long did it take?” “Was there a great deal of pain?” “Did you see the aborted fetus afterward?” “How did your parents react?” “What was it like to wake up in the Chrome ward and see yourself for the first time?” “Did you imagine people you knew sitting at home watching you?” And over and over again, the question, “How did that make you feel?” After ten minutes, Hannah felt close to the end of her reserves; after an hour, she felt scraped as raw as she had after the abortion. The room was stuffy and warm, and she could smell the sharp odor of her own body. Mrs. Henley’s complexion was rosy and there was a slight sheen on her upper lip, but apart from that she seemed perfectly comfortable. In her element, Hannah thought, like a rattlesnake basking on a rock in the sun.

Finally, Mrs. Henley said, “You can sit up now, Hannah.”

Hannah righted herself, feeling a little dizzy.

“Would you like some more chamomile, dear?”

“No, thank you.” She would rather have drunk arsenic.

“I have to say, one thing that surprised me was the degree of interest Secretary Dale showed in your case. Do you know, he personally called Reverend Henley to speak with him about you? And of course, there was his appeal at your trial. So eloquent, so … impassioned.” Mrs. Henley took a sip of tea, her blue eyes dancing merrily over the rim of the cup.

Striving to keep her voice even, Hannah said, “Yes, we’re all very thankful, my family and I, for his kindness. But that’s the kind of pastor Reverend Dale is. He feels personally responsible for every member of his congregation.”

Mrs. Henley’s pale eyebrows formed two incredulous arches. “Surely not to the extent of calling in from Washington DC every time one of his former flock goes astray?”

“I really can’t say.” Hannah felt sweat dripping down her torso under her dress and hoped it wasn’t visible.

“Of course, you were also his employee, weren’t you. Did you see Reverend Dale often?”

Just then, a side door opened and Ponder Henley came in. He had a notepad in his hand, and his eyes were lit with boyish eagerness. He didn’t seem to see Hannah; his attention was all for his wife, who quickly hid her irritation at being interrupted behind a delighted smile.

“You were right,” he exclaimed. “Those passages from Leviticus make all the difference. Listen to this—”

“I have company, Ponder. Hannah’s come for tea.”

Reverend Henley looked startled and then crestfallen to find his wife occupied. “Oh! Well, don’t let me interrupt you. I know how you girls enjoy your little chats.”

“It’s true, we do,” Mrs. Henley agreed. “But of course your sermon is much more important, and you know how I love hearing you practice.” Reverend Henley practically glowed under his wife’s adoring gaze. “Hannah and I can continue our talk another time. Just let me see her out, and I’ll be right there.”

As the door shut behind him, Mrs. Henley glanced at the wooden clock on the wall. “Good heavens, it’s already four thirty.” She looked back at Hannah, and her nose wrinkled ever so slightly. “I bet you’d like to shower and change your dress before supper. You go right ahead, and if Bridget or anyone else questions you, tell them I gave you special permission.”

Hannah got unsteadily to her feet, and Mrs. Henley escorted her to the door. “I’m so glad we had this talk, Hannah. I must ask that you keep it strictly between us. I’d be very dismayed if I found out you’d been discussing it with any of the other walkers.”

“I won’t,” Hannah said, understanding now Kayla’s reticence and discomfiture. Who would want to share such humiliation with anyone?

On the way back to the dormitory, she passed several other women in the hallway. When they caught sight of her face, they looked at her with pity, giving her a wide berth.

HANNAH SPENT THE WEEKEND brooding about her talk with Mrs. Henley. Her shame eventually gave way to indignation and then full-fledged anger, both at the woman’s cruelty and at her own paralysis and complicity in the face of it. Why hadn’t she lied, as she had with the police interrogators? Why hadn’t she walked out of the room, out of the center? Could the outside world possibly be any worse than this?

Hannah wondered too how much her mother had known about this place when she proposed sending her here. Had her mother been aware of the Henleys’ methods of enlightenment? And what about Aidan, had he known? Hannah told herself he couldn’t possibly have, but doubt festered in her mind.

Monday at breakfast, Bridget informed Hannah that she was no longer her pathfinder. “There’s a new walker coming on Wednesday, and Mrs. Henley has asked me to show her the path. As of today, you’re on your own.”

“I’m crushed,” Hannah said. “After all the good times we’ve had.”

Kayla, sitting across from them, choked on her oatmeal.

After breakfast, the two of them joined the other women clustered in front of the work roster. Kayla was pleased; she’d been allotted chapel service—easy duty. Hannah expected to see her own name under sewing service but discovered instead that she’d be taking over her friend’s job cleaning the bathrooms.

“Tough luck,” Kayla said. “Still, Bathroom Slave’s not so bad. At least you get to be alone. Beats the hell out of Laundry Wench— being stuck in a sauna with three other cranky, stinky women.”

Bridget’s name was written under the mysterious Zilpah heading. Hannah pointed to it and asked, “What’s that?”

“Personal lackey to Mrs. Henley. I’ve never done it—she only assigns it to her pets—but from what I’ve heard it’s mostly writing letters, tidying the parlor and the study and chauffeuring her around town.”

“They get to leave the center?”

“Yeah, and you should hear them lording it over the rest of us.” Kayla humphed. “As far as I’m concerned, they’re welcome to it. The farther I stay away from that woman, the better.”

“You and me both,” Hannah said, with more feeling than she’d intended.

“You all right, after Saturday?” Kayla asked. “You looked kinda … wrung out. Everybody does, though,” she added quickly.

“I’m fine.” The words were rote and, from the look on Kayla’s face, unconvincing. Hannah wondered if she’d ever be able to mean them again.

When she walked into enlightenment a few minutes later, she was relieved to see that the stool was gone, and there were now ten chairs in the circle. The enlightener’s eyes widened a fraction when he caught sight of her doll, but he said nothing. When everyone was seated, he turned to the woman on his left.

“Monica, why don’t you begin,” he said.

“This is my daughter, Shiloh. Her father threatened to leave me if I didn’t have the abortion, but I should’ve cared more about her than him. Forgive me, Shiloh, for taking your precious life.”

“This is my little boy, Christopher. I was afraid my parents would kick me out if they found out I was pregnant. Forgive me, Christopher, for taking your precious life.”

“This is my daughter, Aisha …”

“This is my sweet Octavio …”

At last, it was Hannah’s turn. She didn’t hesitate. She’d known what she would have named her child since soon after she discovered she was pregnant. Her child and Aidan’s, begun from a tiny mote of matter and nurtured within the sea of her womb. Hidden, wondrous, unknowable. Unwelcome.

“This is my daughter, Pearl,” she said.

WEDNESDAY AFTERNOON, HANNAH took her place on the choir riser with the others to “welcome” the new walker. A current of unmistakable excitement pulsed through the room as they awaited her arrival. They were a pack, scenting prey, and Hannah was one of them. But when the woman—a middle-aged Red with graying hair and sagging breasts—opened the narrow door and stepped inside, starting in fright at the sound of their voices, cowering and covering herself at the sight of them, Hannah’s excitement evaporated, and compunction and pity took its place.

Later, she realized that their reaction owed more to boredom than to prurience or cruelty. The days at the center passed with intolerable slowness, running together like the colors in a jar of used paintbrushes, merging into a uniform, leaden gray. Sermons, meals, enlightenment, work, repeat. She and every other woman here were starved for variation.

She lived for Saturday afternoons, when her time was her own, and for letters from her father and Becca, bittersweet as they were to read. They arrived already opened, presumably by Mrs. Henley. Her father’s were awkward, relentlessly chipper briefings on the weather, local news and the family:

Dear Hannah,

I hope you’re doing well and making some friends there. We’re all fine, bracing for an ice storm tomorrow, though it’s 65° and sunny today. Typical Texas weather in other words!

Reverend Maynard is settling in as head pastor, but he’s got some mighty big shoes to fill. Attendance has fallen off quite a bit since Reverend Dale left. As much as we miss him, we’re all proud of the job he’s doing in Washington. I guess we were lucky to have had him to ourselves for as long as we did. He and Alyssa are coming home for Thanksgiving, and the rumor is he’s going to lead the Wednesday night service. I’m hoping he’ll put in a good word Upstairs for the Boys while he’s at it. They’re playing the Giants on Thanksgiving Day, and they’ll need every prayer they can get to win. Walton sprained his wrist two weeks ago, and the offense has been paralyzed without him. It’ll be a miracle if we make the playoffs this year.

Becca’s finally over the worst of her morning sickness, and she’s starting to show. I’m building cribs for the babies and your mother’s knitting up a storm—you should see all the pink and blue yarn scattered all over the house.

With the holidays coming I’ve had to put in a lot of extra hours at the store, so I haven’t had much time to look for a job or an apartment for you. But I’ll get on it right after New Year’s, I promise. In the meantime know that my thoughts and prayers are with you. I miss you. We all do.

Love,
Dad  

Becca managed better. She wrote humorously of her pregnancy, her day-to-day life, people they knew from church. Every once in a while, when she spoke of Cole, Hannah detected an undertone of disquiet in her words:

Dear Hannah,

How I wish you were here! I’ve had to let the waistlines of all my skirts out AGAIN, and you know how much I love sewing. My fingers look like pincushions.

Now that I’m starting to show, Cole’s getting more protective than ever. I swear, he hardly lets me leave the house except to go to church! He’s joined this new Christian men’s group, and they have meetings a couple of nights a week. He won’t tell me the name of it or where they meet—all I know is it’s not part of Ignited Word— but he says It’s similar to the Promise Keepers.

I hope you’re doing okay and have made some friends there. I know they keep you busy but please write more often if you can. I miss you so much. Mama’s still mad, but I’ll keep working on her.

Off now in search of cheesecake. And olives. Last week it was BLC sandwiches (bacon, lettuce & maraschino cherries).

All my love,
Becca

Hannah worried about her sister and father but was powerless to help them. No doubt they felt the same. It didn’t escape her that although they both expressed hope that she was well, neither of them ever actually asked how she was. Perhaps, she thought, they couldn’t bear to hear the answer. She kept her replies short and light, sparing them the truth: that she felt increasingly as though she’d wandered into hell.

Enlightenment was the worst, and she came to dread it more with every passing day. She never knew what to expect: a lecture from a visiting doctor on the gory specifics of the procedure, complete with jars of fetuses in formaldehyde; an “ideation session” where they had to imagine alternate futures for their aborted children; a holovid showing bloody, half-aborted babies trying to crawl out of their mothers’ wombs. But the worst were the survivors who came in person: a teenaged girl whose arm had been ripped off when her mother tried to abort her at twenty-six weeks; a man who’d suffered from cerebral palsy and crippling depression all his life, only to learn in his forties that his twin brother had been aborted, and that his own brain had been perforated during the procedure. These sessions left Hannah feeling so scalded and depressed that even Kayla couldn’t reach her. The hope she’d felt when she first arrived at the center gradually slipped away, and she found herself struggling to maintain her faith. Her conversations with God began to take on a doubtful, then an accusatory note. How could He approve of what the Henleys were doing here? Could this really be the path to Him?

What little sanity Hannah retained she owed to Kayla, whose spirits were less wilted by the grim climate of the center. She joked about everything: the food, their clothing, their red skin, Bridget and especially the Henleys, whom she’d nicknamed Moral and Harpy. Kayla made up bawdy limericks about them, saving them up for when Hannah was feeling low and delivering them in an atrocious Irish accent:

There once was a reverend called Moral.
With his wife he had only one quarrel.
Though he’d nightly beseech her,
His pleas could not reach her;
This Harpy refused to go oral.

Hannah was unused to such obscenities, but once her initial discomfiture wore off, she found herself laughing every bit as hard as Kayla. Where the Henleys were concerned, the nastier the better.

But toward the end of Hannah’s first month at the center, Kayla’s mood darkened, and she turned restless and short-tempered. Hannah asked her several times what was the matter, but she wouldn’t say. Finally, she confessed that she hadn’t heard from her boyfriend in some time.

“The first month I was here, TJ sent me letters every few days. And now, nothing for two weeks. I’m worried something’s happened to him.”

“What did his last letter say?” Hannah asked.

“Just that he hadn’t found us an apartment yet, but he was looking hard.”

“I’m sure you’ll hear from him soon.”

But Kayla heard nothing, and she became more and more agitated. A week later, on a Monday, she took Hannah aside after breakfast.

“I’ve decided,” Kayla said. “If I haven’t heard from him by Friday, I’m leaving. This just isn’t like him. Something must be wrong.”

A wave of despair swelled and broke inside of Hannah. How could she endure it here, without a friend? “There could be other reasons he hasn’t written,” she said.

“Like what?”

Hating herself a little but unable to stop herself, Hannah said, “What if he’s just … changed his mind and doesn’t have the guts to tell you?”

“He wouldn’t do that,” Kayla said, with an emphatic shake of her head. “If he hasn’t written, it’s because he can’t.”

“What if you’re wrong? Where will you go?”

“I’m not wrong,” Kayla said. But she no longer sounded quite so certain.

There was no letter from TJ that day or the next. Hannah’s anxiety, both for her friend and for herself, was acute, and she slept poorly both nights. Wednesday crawled by. Reverend Henley was the featured guest at enlightenment that day, and for three stultifying hours he led a “discussion” of God’s view of abortion, during which not even the enlightener could get a word in edgewise. By suppertime Hannah felt glazed with fatigue. She and Kayla were at different tables, but they managed to sit next to each other during chapel. Kayla was so fidgety, she earned a glare from Reverend Henley, and Hannah knew she was impatient to get back to the dormitory and see whether TJ had written. They walked there together in silence. There was no letter waiting on Kayla’s night-stand. Her shoulders drooped.

“There’s still one more day,” Hannah said.

“No.” Kayla’s head came up, and she jerked it in the direction of the hallway. Her mouth was a flat, determined line. Hannah followed her to the sewing room and closed the door behind them.

“I’m not waiting till Friday,” Kayla said. “First thing tomorrow, I’m going.” Hannah couldn’t speak; it felt like there was a stone lodged in her throat.

Kayla took Hannah’s hand. “Look, why don’t you come with me? We could help each other.”

Hannah considered it; in fact, she’d been mulling it over all week. But how would she live? And what would she tell her father? He’d be so disappointed in her for squandering this gift of a sanctuary, this chance at redemption. And her mother, what would she think? For the first time Hannah acknowledged the hope she’d held on to, that if she spent six months in this place—if she proved how truly penitent she was—she’d be forgiven, not just by God, but also by her mother. Slender as that hope was, she knew that if she left now, it would vanish.

“I can’t,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“I understand. You’re just having too much fun here.” Kayla’s smile was strained and her eyes anxious.

“You’ll find him.”

“What if I Don’t? I don’t think I can make it on my own.”

“You have to, or they win, remember?”

Kayla nodded, and Hannah gave her a quick, hard hug.

“Here, before I forget.” Kayla pulled a piece of paper from her pocket. “This is my number.”

As Hannah took it, she thought of Billy Sikes and his hideous offer, and her eyes welled with tears. Who could have predicted, on that day six weeks ago, that she would have a real friend, someone who could look at her and see something besides a contemptible criminal?

“Don’t you start now, you’ll get me going too,” Kayla said. “You’ll have to memorize it before you leave or write it somewhere on yourself, because they won’t let you take anything with you. I want you to promise me you’ll call me as soon as you get out.”

“I will.” Hannah put the number in her pocket, and they hugged again, longer this time. The physical contact was almost unbearably sweet. Hannah’s parents had always been unsparing with hugs and kisses, and she and Becca had often crawled into one another’s beds for comfort. And then there’d been Aidan, whose touch had felt like a homecoming. How she missed it, missed all of them.

Kayla pulled away first. “You take care of yourself, hear? Don’t let this place get to you.”

The door opened suddenly, startling them, and Mrs. Henley stuck her head in. “Oh, here you are, Hannah,” she said, with unconvincing surprise. She fingered her cross, and Hannah suddenly apprehended that the walkers’ crosses must be transmitters. She wondered uneasily if they were also microphones and then decided not. If they were, she and Kayla would have been kicked out a long time ago.

“We just got a large donation of fabric,” Mrs. Henley said. “I’m moving you to sewing service beginning tomorrow. You’ll be making dresses for the center.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Reflection time is not for idle gossip,” Mrs. Henley said, with a reproving frown. “I’d suggest you both go and study your Bible.”

THAT NIGHT HANNAH dreamed of falling, lurching awake again and again. When she got up in the morning, groggy and late, Kayla was already gone, her bed left unmade in a last, small act of defiance. The sight of the empty bed suffused Hannah with despair. She washed up hurriedly, distracted. Her fingers were clumsy, and by the time she got her hair to stay up, she was the only one left in the bathroom. She arrived in the dining hall just as Mrs. Henley was finishing the prayer of thanksgiving. Wonderful. Now, not only would Hannah get no breakfast, but she’d also have to sit at the woman’s table.

“I have an announcement to make,” said Mrs. Henley, when Hannah was seated. “Walker Kayla willfully stepped off the path this morning, and Reverend Henley had to cast her out.”

The petty lie ignited a sudden, disproportionate fury in Hannah. She couldn’t, wouldn’t let the slur against her friend’s character stand. “That’s odd,” she said.

Mrs. Henley paused with her fork halfway to her mouth. “And why is that?”

Hannah looked away, pretending to be chagrined. “Oh, I must be mistaken.”

“About what?”

Hannah answered with a small shake of her head.

“About what are you mistaken, Walker?”

“Well, it’s just, I could have sworn I heard Kayla say last night that she was planning on leaving this morning.”

The table went still. Hannah’s eyes swept around it, saw ten dumbfounded faces and one livid one. Mrs. Henley set her fork down.

“Are you questioning my word?”

Her words were like rocks dropped into water. Within seconds, the silence that rippled out from them had encompassed the entire dining hall.

“Oh, no, ma’am,” Hannah said, wide-eyed. “I know that you of all people would never say something that wasn’t true. Obviously I misheard Walker Kayla.”

“Obviously you did,” said Mrs. Henley. “If I were you, I’d listen with more care in the future. Spreading false rumors is a grave step off the path.”

Hannah bowed her head, hiding a small, satisfied smile. “Yes, ma’am.”

She went to the morning service hungry and exhausted. The sermon was even duller than usual, and she nodded off, waking to the thunderous voice of Reverend Henley.

“Hannah Payne! Wake up!” He scowled down at her from the pulpit, his face crimson with outrage. “On your knees, Walker!” She slid to the floor. “You have followed Satan’s way instead of God’s, just as Jezebel did when she cut off the prophets of the Lord. You have disrespected me, and you have disrespected and insulted God in His very own house. You should be ashamed of yourself.”

At some point, Hannah stopped listening to his ranting. She was thinking about shame, her constant companion since the abortion. What had carrying all that guilt and self-loathing accomplished? Nothing, except to sap her confidence and enfeeble her. And she couldn’t afford to be weak, not if she wanted to survive. No more, she resolved. She was done with shame.

She remained kneeling until Reverend Henley finally ran out of steam, concluded the service and made a huffy exit from the chapel. As the women began to file out, Mrs. Henley came over to her.

“I don’t know what to think, Hannah,” she said. “First the business at breakfast, and now here you are falling asleep during services. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Reverend Henley thinks this is your first step off the path, but you and I know better, don’t we?”

“Yes, ma’am.” That’s it then. I’m out.

“I think we need to have another chat. Shall we say Saturday at three in my parlor?” Mrs. Henley’s eyes mined Hannah’s. Plucking, plucking. Dining on her fear.

Hannah made herself nod her head.

“Excellent!” Mrs. Henley said. “I’ll make us some lemon bars.”

WHEN HANNAH ENTERED the enlightenment room a few minutes later, the stool was back in the center of the circle, and poor, mad Anne-Marie was sitting on it, fixated as usual on her doll. Today she was pretending to feed it, making airplane approach sounds as she swooped an imaginary spoon toward its mouth. “That’s my good boy!” she exclaimed after each bite.

The enlightener stood and joined her in the center. “This is Walker Cafferty’s last day among us,” he announced. “Today she’ll be leaving and going out into the world.”

Hannah couldn’t help but feel relief. Looking around the room at the other women’s faces, she could tell she wasn’t the only one.

“Anne-Marie Cafferty,” the enlightener said, “for six months you have walked the path of penitence, atonement, truth and humility. You have been enlightened as to the evil of the sin you committed, and you have repented. Walkers, let us now pray in silence for this woman, that she may continue on the path and one day find salvation.”

Hannah hadn’t prayed in days, but she did so now: Please God, if You’re there, if You’re listening, look out for her.

“Mmm! Yummy carrots!” Anne-Marie said. “Just one more bite and Mama will give you some applesauce.”

“Like all walkers,” the enlightener said to Anne-Marie, “you must leave this place the same way you came in, with nothing but yourself.” Hannah’s head jerked up, in time to see Anne-Mari’s hand pause in mid-swoop.

The enlightener extended his hand. “Give me the doll.”

She ignored him, putting it facedown against her shoulder. “Burp for Mama now.”

“Give me the doll, Walker,” he repeated.

Anne-Marie’s face puckered. “No,” she said. “No, no, no. You’re scaring the baby. Don’t cry, sweetheart, Mama’s here, and she’s not going to let anything happen to you.”

The enlightener took hold of the doll’s arm and pulled. Anne-Marie’s expression turned feral. Wresting it away from him, she leapt up from her chair and ran for the door. He headed her off, grabbing the doll again. She fought him like a wild thing, pulling in the opposite direction.

“Nooooo!” she screamed. “You can’t have him!”

There was a tearing sound, and the doll’s legs came off in the enlightene’s hand. White wads of stuffing hung from the leg holes. Anne-Marie stared at it in horror, then crumpled to the floor and began to keen—strangled, guttural cries like the mewling of a dying animal. They were the most terrible sounds Hannah had ever heard. Helplessly, she started to cry. They were all crying now, all except the enlightener, who was looking down, grimly triumphant, at Anne-Marie.

He pointed an accusing finger at her. His eyes swept around the circle. “That is how God feels when you abort one of His beloved children.”

Graphic, murderous fantasies such as Hannah had never had in her life rioted in her head. She pictured him being tortured, dismembered like Anne-Marie’s doll by a frenzied mob of female Chromes; drowning in a giant vat of formaldehyde; being burned alive, crucified, stabbed, shot. Suddenly she was on her feet.

“What kind of monster are you, to treat her like that?” she cried. “Do you honestly think God would approve of what you just did, do you think He’s up in Heaven right now saying ‘Good job, way to torture that poor woman’?”

His long legs carried him across the room so swiftly Hannah didn’t even have time to flinch. He grabbed hold of her shoulders and shook her so hard her head snapped back. “Brazen harlot! How dare you speak to me that way?”

She looked into his eyes. “I hope you burn in your own idea of hell, you sick, sadistic son of a bitch.”

The back of his hand crashed into the side of her face, knocking her to the floor. Someone screamed. The room spun crazily. The enlightener was roaring at her, but it was just noise. What Hannah heard most distinctly was the loud, stubborn thumping of her own heart. It reminded her that she was alive, that she was herself. She got to all fours and rested there until the room steadied a little, then lurched to her feet and out the door.

The enlightener followed her into the corridor, shouting, “ ‘And I will make thy tongue cleave to the roof of thy mouth, that thou shalt be dumb’!”

Doors opened, and the pink male faces of other enlighteners peered out curiously. Hannah staggered down the hall, down the stairs toward Reverend Henley’s office, with the raving enlightener on her heels.

“ ‘The Lord shall smite thee with a consumption, and with a fever, and with an inflammation, and with an extreme burning, and with the sword, and with blasting, and with mildew’!”

Reverend Henley’s door flew open just before Hannah reached it, and he stepped into the hallway with Mrs. Henley just behind him. Their faces were almost comically shocked.

“What is going on here?” demanded Reverend Henley.

He looked in confusion from Hannah to the enlightener, who was vowing, “‘And they shall pursue thee until thou perish’!”

An odd calm descended on Hannah. “I’m leaving now,” she said quietly to the Henleys.

The reverend held his hand up for silence, and the enlightener sputtered to a stop. “What did you say, Walker?”

“I said I’m leaving.” Hannah pulled the cross from around her neck and held it out to him. “I’d like my NIC back now. And my clothes.”

Reverend Henley’s face filled with consternation. “If you deliberately step off the path, you’ll be consigning your soul to perdition.”

“This woman is already damned,” declared the enlightener. “She’s a witch who has willfully turned her face from God and embraced Satan.”

“’ Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,’” said Mrs. Henley. Her eyes were blades. They darted from Hannah to something behind her.

Hannah looked over her shoulder and saw that a large crowd had gathered in the hallway. The faces of the enlighteners looked pallid and sickly surrounded by the rainbow faces of the women.

Hannah turned back to Reverend Henley and said, in a carrying voice, “You promised I could leave whenever I wanted and that you would give me back my belongings. Are you going to keep your word?”

His face darkened. “How dare you question my integrity?” he said, snatching the cross from Hannah’s hand. “I cast you out! Go and wait in the foyer. Someone will bring you your things.”

But the malicious gleam in Mrs. Henley’s eyes said otherwise. Without her NIC, Hannah wouldn’t have access to her bank account, health insurance, medical records, anything. And if she were stopped by the police and didn’t have it on her person, they could add as much as a year to her sentence. “I’ll wait here,” she said, thankful for the watching crowd.

“Shameless whore! We should cast you out naked,” Mrs. Henley said.

“‘Yea, let thy nakedness be uncovered, let thy shame be seen’!” said the enlightener. His eyes dropped from Hannah’s face to her breasts.

Reverend Henley shook his head. “No, Bob.”

Bob? Hannah thought, with a kind of surreal incredulity. This monster’s name is Bob?

“And why not?” said the enlightener. “She deserves that and worse.”

“Because,” said Reverend Henley, “I gave my word.” To his wife, he said, “Fetch her belongings.”

For a moment Hannah thought Mrs. Henley might actually defy him, but finally she gave a stiff nod and went into her parlor. Hannah waited in the charged quiet of the hallway. A few minutes later Mrs. Henley reappeared, holding her clothes. Her NIC, she was relieved to see, was on top. She took the bundle, half expecting the Henleys to order her to strip and change right there.

“’ Cast out the scorner’!” Reverend Henley said, in a stern, ringing voice. “Go now, Hannah Payne, into the cruel and savage world, and reap the wages of your sins.”

As she turned to leave, the enlightener —Bob, she thought again, suppressing a hysterical urge to laugh—hissed, “Jezebel. Witch.” Some of the women echoed his words, jostling her aggressively as she walked through their ranks, but most moved silently out of her path. Eve was one of the latter. The admiration on the girl’s yellow face made Hannah stand taller.

And then the women were behind her, and she was opening the door to the foyer, and she was through it and blessedly alone. The air was refreshing after the oppressive closeness of the hallway, and for a moment Hannah merely leaned with her back against the door, drawing deep breaths into her lungs. Suddenly the high neck of her dress felt unbearable, a noose choking her. She stripped it off, and then the rest of it—the cheap, ugly underwear, the black shoes, the thick tights, the hated bonnet—letting everything fall to the floor in an untidy heap. She put on her own clothes. The formerly high-waisted skirt fell to her hips, and her blouse, which had been loose when she’d left the Chrome ward, now hung on her. Finally, she unpinned her hair. It cascaded across her shoulders and down her back, and she realized how much she’d missed the comfort of its weight, how exposed she’d felt without its protection. The thought made her lift her eyes to the painting of Mary Magdalene, her sister in sin, clad only in her own hair.

“Wish me luck,” Hannah whispered.

She stepped out into a cold, drizzly December day. The door closed behind her, and she heard the bolt click shut—a sound of exquisite finality. She lifted her face to the sky, relishing the bracing air and the feel of the rain misting her skin. I’m free, she thought, though she knew the notion was absurd; she was anything but. She was trapped in this hideous red body, forbidden to leave the state. Wherever she went, she’d be a target. Even so, she felt a rush of exhilaration. She wondered if Kayla had stood here this morning and felt this way, if she’d had this same irrational sense of liberation and possibility. The thought of her reassured Hannah. She’d walk to Becca’s—Cole would be at work for several hours still—and call Kayla from there. If she’d found TJ, the two of them would help her. If not, she and Kayla would figure out some sort of plan.

Hannah reached into the pocket of her dress for the scrap of paper with Kayla’s number on it. Only when her fingers found no pocket did she register that she wasn’t wearing the dress, that it was lying on the floor of the foyer. She hadn’t memorized the number; she hadn’t had time. She didn’t even know Kayla’s last name.

Hannah whirled and reached for the handle of the door, knowing before she pulled on it that it was locked against her.