Chapter Twenty-Three, Part Two

          Without noticing it, she had arrived at the cottage.  Silently, she walked through the front door.  For a moment, she had managed to convince herself that Benjamin was out.  That idea disappeared fast when he came storming into the room.

            “Where have you been?  The bell signaling the birth rang over an hour ago,” Benjamin said.

            She pushed past him, answering, “We had to bless the baby and find out the name and pray.”

            “Sandra stopped by.  You are required to attend a seminar tonight with a group of the new Level Fours,” Benjamin said.  Elizabeth walked into the bedroom and picked up her tote bag that she used to carry her Rose Bible and notebook, but she also threw in her journal and scarves.  “I am not your secretary, wife!”

            He stormed into the bedroom after her, grabbed her by the shoulders, and whipped her around to face him.  Elizabeth pushed against his chest and tried to twist out of his grip, but he just squeezed harder.

Chapter Twenty-Three, Part One

        Throughout the weeks that Elizabeth spent as a wife of the colony, she quickly learned how self-sufficient the community actually was.  Besides having its own school, there was a large garden from which they grew their own organic vegetables, they had a doctor that was a member of the church, and there was a midwife to help the wives through their pregnancies and natural births.  It was truly its own little town and it would be easy enough for someone to live at the colony and never again see the outside world.  There were only a couple of pregnant women in the colony when Elizabeth moved there, so she got to experience her first birth only four days after her talk with Morgan and Jacqueline in the park.

            It had started at six in the morning, just as Elizabeth was waking up and beginning to prepare Benjamin’s breakfast.  A loud and fairly obnoxious knock sounded at the front door.  Elizabeth hurried to answer it as Benjamin yelled, “Answer the door, woman!”

            She opened the door to find Mary and Caroline standing on the stoop, looking more excited than most women looked in the colony.

            “What…?” Elizabeth asked, looking suspiciously between the two women.

Chapter Twenty-Two, Part Two

           “What if we left?” Jacqueline whispered.

            “What?” the other two asked simultaneously, shocked.

            “What if we left the Children?” Jacqueline repeated.  “Maybe Aimee was right.  There’s something not right with this whole thing.  And I didn’t see it before.  But…I can’t keep seeing you like this, Elizabeth.”

            “We’ll go to Hell!” Elizabeth cried.  “And, besides, I can’t leave.  Benjamin may very well kill me!”

            “Look, I’m not leaving without you, Elizabeth.  You’re my sister.  I’m not leaving you behind for Benjamin to torment.  If and when you decide you’ve had enough, when you finally decide to become your old self again and fight back, then I’ll leave too.  But it has to be your choice,” Jacqueline said.

            “I can’t leave,” Elizabeth whispered.

Chapter Twenty-Two, Part One

            “WHAT are you doing?”

            The yell made Elizabeth jump to her feet and face her husband, eyes on the floor.  The list and pen were both still in her hands and the bag lay opened and half-packed on the bed.  She hadn’t heard him come home, but she hadn’t been doing anything wrong.  He had never once forbidden her to put clothes in a bag.

            “I’m…getting ready to go to Drighton.  I have to move in a little over two weeks,” Elizabeth explained in a whisper.

            “Excuse me?” Benjamin hissed, approaching her. 

            She felt him standing close and tried to keep her voice even.  “Drighton…the college I’m going to.  I have to move there in two weeks.”

            He grabbed the list out of her hand and pushed her so she was sitting on the bed again.  “Did I ever say you could go off to college?”

Chapter Twenty-One, Part Three

           Sometimes while Benjamin was away, Elizabeth would take her journal out of its hiding place wrapped in her old visitor’s scarf in the bottom of her drawer, and she would write.  Benjamin didn’t approve of her sharing all of her thoughts with a piece of paper.  It showed independent thinking, he said, and she was supposed to only be thinking about how to please him and bring a baby into the world.  For this reason, she hadn’t written for a while and felt the need to update her journal on the goings-on in her life in the colony.  She took a second look around the cottage, and looked out the front window, just to make sure her husband was not in fact around.  He was spending time with the other men of the colony at the church, doing whatever the men did.  He had told her that he wouldn’t be back until late and expected a hot dinner on the table upon his arrival, but in a rare moment of softness told her to enjoy her time with her friends.  And then the softness ended and he ordered her to not forget her purpose.

            Now she was waiting for Jacqueline and Morgan to show up.  She had spent time with Sandra and Aimee a couple days before, now she needed to catch up with her sister and best friend.  Finally satisfied that Benjamin was not coming back for a while, Elizabeth settled herself down on the floor of the bathroom and opened her journal.

Chapter Twenty-One, Part Two

          There was chaos at the front gate as the two wives approached.  The men who were on duty to keep it shut off to outsiders were actively arguing with whoever was on the other side.  Elizabeth pulled the gate open and stepped outside toward the noise.  Facing her were people she had not seen for three weeks, not since before she had gotten married to Benjamin.

            “Mom?  Dad?” she asked and then also passed a glance over all five of her outsider siblings.  “What are you all doing here?”

            They all stopped arguing with the men and looked at her in shock.  She knew they were staring at her black eye, but she didn’t shy away from them.  “What are you all doing here?” she repeated louder.

Chapter Twenty-One, Part One

       Dutifully following her new husband’s orders, Elizabeth quit her job at the bookstore two days after the wedding and gave herself over to being a full-time wife.  She would spend her days with the other colony wives in their own special seminars or Bible studies, cooking, and raising the colony children.  She had never realized before how many children there really were in the colony, mostly because she had never seen any of them before.  But there they were.  They were quieter than kids should be.  Every last one of them was more reserved than any child on the outside was.  None of them played with grand toys or challenged each other to games of tag.  Instead they read their Rose Bibles, or listened as their mothers read the Bible to them, and attended school with the other colony kids in the small school house.

            Following her duties as a Rose wife, she spent almost every night allowing Benjamin to force himself onto her in the harshest way he possibly could.  Elizabeth had come to terms with the fact that he wasn’t going to give up until she was pregnant with their first child.  And even after that, after their first child was born and he had met with Pastor Simon to determine what their family would look like, she knew that he wouldn’t give up until she had given birth to how ever many kids she was required to give birth to.  In her mind, the cycle was never going to end—that might very well be the case.