“That and never again asking questions,” I muttered to myself, chewing on the latest blade of grass I’d plucked. There wasn’t much else to do while watching our small herd of goats chewing up all the grass they could reach, a chore I was given much too often those days. I had grown to be a big girl rather than a little one, but I had made the mistake of being too good with the goats the first time I’d watched them when my brothers had been busy with something else. I hadn’t thought anyone had noticed, but my father’s attention was never very far from the things I did.
“For some reason known only to God, they mind you better than they do anybody else,” my father had said after that first time, frowning down at me the way he usually did. “Since you don’t get on with people, I suppose you gotta get on with some creature of His. But the next time you go out there, you take sewing or some such with you. No sense in wasting time you can put to use doing more of your share.”
I knew better than to point out my brothers never took anything extra to do when they minded the goat herd, not when my father had made it his duty to listen to every word I said and teach me when I said something wrong. My father taught me by beating my back into welts that didn’t fade for days and days, but part of what I learned early for myself was not to care about that. I continued to do the things I considered important, to believe as I wanted to believe, two things all the beatings in the world couldn’t change. Pember had gone on terrorizing everyone in the community after our fight, but he had never again tried it with me.
“And you also learned how much better it is to be by yourself,” I muttered around the blade of grass, watching the herd and nudging them back when they began to drift too far. I had my sewing folded up in the sack beside me where I sat, and if the herd drifted too far away I’d have to move me and the sack after them.
“The one good thing about her is how little time she wastes talking to the other girls,” my mother had once observed to my father, her tone more grudging than in any way approving. “She’ll soon be having the boys coming by to look her over, and they’ll like that. Girls who chatter end up marrying the last of all.”
At the time I hadn’t given any indication that I’d heard what my mother had said, but I’d taken a brief moment to wonder if she had really forgotten the reason I deliberately refused to be friendly with any of the girls my age. One of the beatings I’d had had been the result of thinking I had a friend, someone I could talk to without worrying about what I said.
“Honestly, Banni, I don’t understand why they all act the way they do,” Dinella had said that time we were washing clothes together in the stream, her words referring to the grown-ups usually around us. “Mr. Skeel told my papa I would be really pretty when I grew up, so my papa ought to start teaching me the right way now, before that happened. After he left
I heard my papa talking to my mama, and found out that I was going to be given all that extra praying my older sisters do all the time. I don’t know why I have to say all those silly things, or why my papa and mama listened to Mr. Skeel. They all listen to Mr. Skeel, but I don’t understand why.”
“They’re too afraid not to listen,” I’d said in answer, paying more attention to the washing than to the conversation. “It’s like being lost in the community root cellar when you’re very little, finding yourself alone in the dark and not knowing which way to go to get out. If you hear somebody’s voice calling out to say they know the way out, you follow the voice without stopping to wonder if they really do know the way. You’re so scared you don’t want to believe the one calling out is just as lost as you are, because if he is you might never find your way out. You keep following the voice and following the voice, and as long as it doesn’t start sounding as scared and lost as you feel, you never stop to ask if it’s telling the truth. If you ever did that you’d notice you’d been following the voice without getting out for a very long time, and then all your hope would be gone.”
“Oh, Banni, that’s so silly!” Dinella had exclaimed, kneeling back away from the stream with a dripping shirt in her hand. “My papa doesn’t get lost in the root cellar any more than any of the other grown-ups, and Mr. Skeel never goes down there except when he chooses what his portion is to be. That doesn’t have anything to do with why I have to do all that extra praying, and doesn’t tell me how I can get out of it. Don’t you have any ideas?”
“Well, you can simply tell them your last prayers were answered by God, and He said you don’t have to pray anymore,” I’d answered with a small laugh, sighing only on the inside. Dinella had been fun to talk to, but she’d never understood anything I said and had always had a problem that needed solving by someone other than her. I’d helped her out when I could, which was more often than not, but that had only made her ask more and more in the way of help.
I hadn’t noticed that she hadn’t said anything more after that about her latest problem, which had clearly been a mistake on my part. If I’d had less to do I might have wondered why she didn’t keep on asking, but my mother had decided not long before that I should be responsible for more chores than I’d been doing. Because of that I had very little time to think my own thoughts, and therefore stole every moment I could. By the time I realized I should have paid more attention to my very good friend, it was far too late.
It was the night of the following day that I found out how badly I’d done, every detail told me by my father. I’d not only encouraged Dinella to lie, I’d encouraged her to lie about God, and on top of that I’d said some awful things about the grown-ups in the community. Mr. Skeel might be trying to guide us into the light, but that didn’t mean we were all lost in the dark. Only damned souls were lost in the dark, and I had to be taught that there were no damned souls in the community— at least until I’d been born. I was taught that in my father’s usual way, which at least gave me some undisturbed time to think once he was done.
The first thing that became very clear very quickly was the fact that Dinella had listened to my joking comment, hadn’t been bright enough to realize I was joking, and had used the excuse to get out of the praying she’d been complaining about. Once caught in the lie she’d probably lost no time blaming the whole thing on me, and had added as much of the rest of what I’d said as she could remember in order to take everyone’s attention away from her. Mr. Skeel always taught us to forgive those who wronged us, but after spending a night locked beneath the stairs I was more in the mood to act the way he did: He never forgot a wrong done him, and never forgave it until he saw it well punished.
After I was let out I was eager to see how punished Dinella had been, but it was a good thing I hadn’t been counting on the sight to make things better for me. It turned out Dinella had hardly been punished at all, and as soon as she saw me she began complaining about her latest problem that needed solving. It took me a minute to understand that she had no intention of apologizing for what she’d caused to be done to me, and fully expected me to take up right where we’d left off in my doing her thinking for her. For a very short time I pretended I wasn’t angry at all, and then just before community prayer meeting made sure she “accidentally” fell into a mud puddle in her meeting clothes. That time she didn’t get out of being punished by being able to find someone else to blame, and after that I was simply too busy with my chores to have time to talk to her. I was also too busy to find anyone else to be a friend, which did make life a good deal easier.
I sighed aloud and shook my head, then got to my feet to urge the goats back toward the stockade. Both the goats and I would have been happier not going back at all, but that would have left us with nowhere to go once it got dark. I brushed at my skirts, thinking about how much easier it would have been if I could have done as everyone else in the community did, but I knew far better than to even wish for such a thing. There was something within me that refused to allow the following of others to the detriment of my own beliefs, and the passing years had done nothing to change that outlook. If only there had been one other who thought as I did, one person who—