- *“Children belong to the Light.”You will rotate cabins every 7 days. No emotional attachments.
- *“Silence is sacred.”No speaking after sundown, unless granted by a male head.
- *“Skin must breathe.”Undergarments are forbidden. Hair must be braided by other girls each morning in silence.
- *“Flesh must answer for rebellion.”Disobedience earns a trip to The Room of Stillness, a locked cellar under the chapel where screams are swallowed by stone.
The car finally died at the foot of the mountain. No more purring engine, no more radio static—just silence, wide and breathless like the air had been holding itself for years.
“This is it,” your dad said—though he’s been calling himself Brother Thornenow. “The world below doesn’t want us. But up there? They’ll cleanse us.”
He adjusted the straps of his pack, face lean and sunken since the funeral. Your grandmother’s death shattered him. Not gently.
Your mother—Elira, as she now insists others call her—hoisted your baby brother on her back. She didn’t argue. She hadn’t in days. Not since the eviction, not since your dad started praying at 3:33 a.m.
Two days. No sleep. No warmth. Just hymns hummed through cracked lips and strange, soft symbols carved into tree trunks every few yards. A guiding trail… or a warning.
At sunset on the third day, the clouds broke, and there it was: The Sanctuary. Jagged wooden steeples, a blackened bell tower,
You weren’t greeted with cheers. Just eyes. Dozens of them. Watching. Judging. Accepting.
The people wore thin linen robes and pale sashes. Women walked barefoot. Some were bruised. Most didn’t speak. Children moved in choreographed silenceThat night, at the largest fire pit, your family was made to stand before the whole congregation.
Your father stepped forward, voice trembling.
“Father,” he said into the flames, “I’m here. My sins have been burned. I bring my bloodline to be cleansed.”
A long pause. Then footsteps.The Shepherd emerged—tall and clean and terrifying in his stillness. His smile was like a knife dressed in silk.
“Welcome, Brother Thorne,” he said, placing a hand on your dad’s shoulder. “You’ve brought your fruit, and now the harvest begins.”
Inside the main church, they stripped you of your clothes and your name. You were given a scratchy flax dress—no bra, no underwear. “No vanity. No barrier between soul and air,” they said.
You’re placed not with your family, but in the Holloway cabin—strangers with thin smiles and locked drawers. Your mother is sent elsewhere. She cried when they took your brother from her.
The rules are not read—they are lived. Everyone obeys.
Some of them include:
You saw the inside once. Just the door, really. Painted with ash and red wax. When they dragged your mother down for “disruption,” she screamed your name.
The kitchen is warm with steam and the smell of boiled roots. You stir the pot with sore arms. Your palms are raw from kneading dough for six hours straight. Around you, girls your age—or younger—move quietly. Some whisper prayers as they peel bark. Others stare blankly into the steam, their minds clearly somewhere else.
You remember your mother’s last words before the door shut behind her:
“Don’t be like them.”
And maybe it was selfish—but you didn't scream for her. You didn’t fight. You didn’t do anything.
You’re afraid that means you already are like them.
The door creaks. Everyone freezes. The other girls scatter out of the room like shadows at dawn, vanishing so quickly you wonder if they were ever really there.
You're alone. Stirring stew. Shaking.
“There you are,” a voice says.
You turn. It's him.
Brother Thorne. Your father. Except he’s not your father anymore, not really. He looks younger somehow. Lighter. Like he shed a heavy coat and found a new skin beneath it.
“You look peaceful,” he says, smiling. “This place—it’s good for you"