Annabeth was taken aback. “It isn’t for us to question,” she protested. “If the diviner said this message came from God, then we must believe him.”
“But he’s so old!” Hannah exclaimed. “How can God want me to marry an old man?”
“With age, comes wisdom.” Annabeth forced herself to smile reassuringly. “The diviner is a very wise man. He can guide you into the kingdom. Don’t you want that? When Judgment Day comes, he can insure that you’ll be welcome among the Blessed.”
“I don’t care about Judgment Day!” she girl cried. “I care about today and maybe a little bit about tomorrow. None of this feels right to me!”
Annabeth grew nervous at the outburst and tried to quell it. “Feelings can’t be trusted. Would you set your impulses in opposition to the wisdom of the diviner and the will of God himself?”
Hannah looked uncertain. She remained silent.
The older woman pressed the point. “The diviner has been placed above us to correct our behavior, so we don’t stray from the path. We must be pleasing in the sight of God, or He will cast us out of His kingdom. That would be terrible. Separated for all eternity from our families.”
“I’ve already been separated from mine,” Hannah said bitterly. “What more can He do to me?”
“You mustn’t say such things!” Annabeth’s eyes grew wide with alarm. “It’s blasphemous. You’ll go to hell.”
“It feels like I’m already there,” the girl replied in a small voice.
Annabeth was too appalled by the comment to speak. The two sat quietly for several moments.
“I was told I shouldn’t talk to you anymore,” Hannah finally offered.
“Who told you that?” The older woman felt a chill of dread run down her spine.
“The diviner.”
Panic nearly made Annabeth faint dead away. She had been seen leaving the sewing room with the girl. What if somebody reported her to Father Abraham? What if he blamed her for speaking to Hannah? It hadn’t been her idea. She hadn’t known at the time that it was forbidden.
Hannah broke into her thoughts. “He said one of the reasons for taking me away from Daniel was because my sister-wives were a bad influence. That you were spreading lies about the scion. Father Abraham said that I was young and impressionable, and you had confused my thinking.” She peered earnestly at the older woman. “No matter what he says, I know what didn’t happen on my wedding night. You said it was the same for you too.”
Annabeth jumped up and began to pace anxiously around the room. She clenched her hands into tight little balls. “I believe I was in error. Satan confounded me. He still confounds me. Sometimes I can hear his voice inside my head.” She cast a terrified look toward the girl. “He’s gotten into our minds and persuaded us to believe all sorts of things that aren’t true.”
The girl regarded her doubtfully. “How can you be so sure it was Satan?”
“The diviner told me.” Annabeth nodded vigorously. “Oh yes. He knew, and he showed me what was happening to me. I have to pray all the time now because I get strange ideas.”
“What sort of ideas?”
Annabeth laughed. Her voice held a note of hysteria. “Horrible things. Images that float through my head even though I don’t want them there. I see myself picking up a knife and stabbing the diviner right through the heart. Other times I see myself swallowing poison. But if I really did those things I would be damned, and I would never see my little girl again in heaven.” She dropped to the floor and began sobbing into her hands, rocking back and forth on her knees.
Hannah leaped off the bed and circled her arms around the weeping woman. “I don’t think that’s so crazy. Sometimes I get strange ideas too.”
Annabeth stopped crying and gawked at her in surprise. “You do?”
The girl nodded solemnly. “Sometimes I imagine I’m running away. And I run and I run until I find my mother again. And then she takes me into her arms just like she did when I was little. And I feel safe and I know I’m where I’m supposed to be.” Hannah paused. “Those ideas make me happy when I think them.” She gazed at Annabeth earnestly. “Whatever is in your mind is yours to keep. Nobody else can know what you’re thinking unless you tell them. I guess maybe that’s the only place where anybody can really be free.”
Annabeth gazed back at the girl with mixed feelings of fear and admiration. “I wish I was brave enough to want to be free,” she said. Then she frowned as another thought struck her. “But my ideas are never happy. Just awful things. That’s how I know they come from the devil and I can’t trust myself any more.”
“But you trust the diviner?” Hannah asked uncertainly.
“Oh yes! He knows what’s best for us.”
“He wasn’t there! He didn’t see how it was. But I was there and so were you. What makes the diviner right and us wrong?”
For one mad second, Annabeth felt an impulse to rebel surging up inside her. She saw herself telling the diviner exactly what he could do with his opinion about the state of her marriage. Then, just as quickly, the feeling passed. The devil was playing tricks with her mind again. She knew that disobedience was the first sin. Adam and Eve were cast out of paradise because of it. Lucifer was sent to the pit for disobedience and pride. Annabeth had no right to assume she knew more than the diviner. She looked at Hannah and shook her head. “Satan has the power to make us believe anything. Even something that seems very real to us. We have to be always on our guard.” Hastily terminating the conversation, she stood up. The girl followed her lead.
Annabeth opened the door. She tried to give her visitor some final reassurance. Placing her hand on the girl’s arm, she advised, “You
