“So,” Ginny began, “I totally understand how you two must be feeling right now. Trust me, I have been there. It took me a long time to be able to confess my sin. I didn’t want to believe I had fallen so far and caused my brother’s death. At first I wanted to protect the boy I was seeing, but then I realized that by keeping my sin to myself, I wasn’t only damning my own soul, but his as well. If I had come to that sooner, maybe my brother wouldn’t have… maybe he would still—” She blinked back tears and took a shaky breath. “That’s how I ended up in this room. I was so weak that it took coming to this moment to realize that the only way to be redeemed was through the truth.”
“What Ginny means,” Ruth interjected, “is that you don’t have to suffer as Christ did. That is why God sent his only begotten son—to suffer for us. But by holding on to your sin, you place yourself on the cross. In your refusal to be purified through truth, you choose to be purified through suffering. Is that still your choice?”
Gabi knew she couldn’t speak first. She had to follow Marnie’s lead or risk being abruptly absolved, leaving Marnie to face the trial alone. Still, Gabi was desperate to know what that trial would be, exactly. The scalpels on the tray were a reminder of the scene at the Care Center, suggesting that a relaxing spa treatment was not what Ruth had in mind.
Marnie kept her eyes on the water, as though daring it to do her harm. “I have not sinned,” she growled.
“Gabriela?” Ruth prompted. “Do you wish to make your confession?” Ruth’s sweetness and sisterly camaraderie from earlier had faded as the salt ritual progressed, until she stood before them now with all the warmth and humanity of a sledgehammer.
“No,” Gabi stated quietly. “I don’t.”
Ruth nodded at Ginny, who gave Marnie and Gabi a long, mournful look before retrieving the tray from the table.
“Remove your shifts,” Ruth ordered, “and give them to Christina.” Christina stepped toward them, sweeping her thick braid over one shoulder and holding out a hand for the garments. Marnie’s eyes held a question for Gabi: What in the hell are you doing here? Gabi tried to fill her own with reassurance and hide the panic trying to weaken her legs. She bent down and pulled the shift over her head after a brief wrestling match when her snarl of sodden hair wrapped around one of the shoulder straps. Gabi felt strangely unselfconscious of her nudity, even in front of such shining examples of female perfection as Ruth and Ginny. She knew she looked more like an undernourished twelve-year-old boy than a young woman, but she had never felt better or stronger, despite the wobble in her knees. Maybe nobody else could tell how much she had changed, but she could, and she was proud of it. Ruth and Ginny kept their eyes on Gabi’s face as Christina accepted her shift and draped it over her arm.
Marnie’s mouth twitched as though she’d just remembered a delicious secret, then she yanked down on her own shift, causing the straps to rip away and the garment to fall to the floor. Her body was pale like Gabi’s but carved and bound in thick cords of muscle. How someone with such a demanding smoking habit could cultivate that level of physical fitness Gabi didn’t know, but Marnie’s oversized clothing had been hiding the physique of a warrior. The sleek bulk of her drew Gabi’s eyes like a magnet, and she couldn’t help wondering what it would feel like to mold her hands to those powerful contours. From the solid trunks of her legs to the notched seam where her pectorals met over her sternum on an otherwise flat chest, Marnie was like a spring-loaded weapon. But that was not what caused Ruth and Ginny to gape or Christina to clap a hand over her mouth to muffle a scream. There, high on the left side of Marnie’s rib cage and about a hand’s breadth down from one mauve nipple, was a raised scar in the shape of a five-pointed star within a circle. A pentagram.
Ruth raised her hands over her head, closing her eyes so that her lashes fell like sooty brooms across the tops of her cheeks. “I heard a voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, ‘Go your ways and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth. And the first angel went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.’” Gabi recognized the passage from Revelation 16:1–2. It was one of many referring to “The Mark of the Beast” read during services when news came of violent raids in the outer branches. The Mark of the Beast was a sign of initiation, indicating that the person bearing it had been accepted by the Tribes.
All the Returned bore the marks. Gram used to grumble over how poorly healed the scars were, and prone to infection, but Marnie wasn’t a Returned. Gabi guessed Marnie’s mark had something to do with her parents’ work with the Tribes. But why did that scar look so familiar? Why did the sight of that small, branded patch of skin send her stomach straight into her throat? The answer danced within reach, but there was simply too much sensory input coming at her to sort it out.
Ruth’s eyes blazed at Marnie with manic intensity. “You are being given a second chance, Marian. An offering of divine pardon. Your presence here is a testament to God’s grace. We are honored and humbled to serve as his handmaidens, to guide our wayward sisters back to
