Abigail didn’t miss that Tabitha almost called the girl Luna. That had been her name before the elders thought it too worldly and changed it.
“Then you don’t believe she was a demon? Sent here by the devil?”
“Of course not. She was brought here by my father. He is not the devil.” Tabitha picked back up her quilt and turned away, signaling she would speak of it no more. “Let it go, Abigail.”
She shouldn’t press the issue, but Abigail couldn’t help it. Tabitha was the only one she could speak to. She was the only other one who cared. “What if they are not dead. What if they told us that for, as they say, our own good? What if—”
“Stop, Abigail.” Tabitha’s voice raised a few decibels, and then she covered her mouth. “Please,” she whispered. “I can take no more.”
At the sound of Tabitha’s interjection, Sister Rhoda turned her head toward the girls. “Is there a problem over here?” she asked, heading in their direction.
“No, Sister Rhoda,” the girls chimed in chorus.
“Good. More work, less talk, or I will have to separate you.”
“Yes, Sister Rhoda,” they responded.
As Sister Rhoda turned to leave, Tabitha wrinkled her face. “Is she not meaner than a bull since Brother Thomas passed away?”
“Even before,” Abigail whispered back. “Ever since God closed up her womb without allowing her to bear children. Some say she is being punished for a vile sin.”
“Who said that?” Tabitha whispered back.
Sister Rhoda swiveled back in their direction and stared in warning. The two girls picked up their needles and continued their work. No need angering the woman. Besides, the conversation was over.
But before Abigail could pierce her needle back through her quilt, the industrial-sized double doors flew open letting in a whirl of blinding light.
“Abigail.” The boom of her father’s voice rang out and echoed through the building.
Every eye turned to stare.
Chapter 2 ― Luna
After narrowly escaping the confines of The Chosen, Jonathan was struggling. He’d not figured out how to deal with the strange ways of the English, the untimely death of his friend, Jacob, and being away from the only people he’d ever known.
After several arguments, Luna agreed to give him some time to figure things out on his own. She had some adjustments of her own to deal with. After being held against her will for half a year by a man who told her that her mother was dead, Luna had come home to find out that not only was her mother not dead, but the father she’d wished for all her life, but had never known, was there to greet her. And she had three siblings.
So, to give Jonathan time, she’d agreed to spend the summer in San Diego to get to know her father as well as her younger brother and sisters.
Meanwhile, Jonathan was still in Arizona trying to figure out the meaning of life, and what he wanted to do with his newfound freedom. It was like he was a convict being released after a lifetime prison sentence. Only, it was worse than a prison sentence. Prisoners at least had electricity and running water. To The Chosen, such luxuries were a sin. They lived off the land. The simplest life imaginable.
She got it. It must have been quite an adjustment to go from an outhouse to an indoor toilet, using electric lights instead of kerosene lanterns, eating a variety of foods, all of which were not grown in your own backyard. The differences were endless. Luna figured Jonathan was going through even more difficulty than she had when she’d spent months living in his community.
Still, amid his frustration, he took it out on her more than once. For example, things she found normal, he found painfully irritating. Turning on a light before entering a room. Televisions, radios, cell phones, car alarms ... the noise got to him on a level Luna could not comprehend. It made him moody and irritable.
So, when her father had asked her to come for a visit, she jumped at the chance. And Jonathan agreed they’d needed a break from each other while he got used to a life full of noise and strangeness. While he figured all of that out, Luna had gotten to know her father and her three siblings. Something that was all new to her. Not quite as strange as what Jonathan was going through, but different all the same.
But now, she missed him.
“The kids enjoy having you here,” Blake said. “They were so excited when you said you would come.”
Although she enjoyed getting to know him, she wasn’t ready to just up and start calling him Dad as if he hadn’t been missing her entire life. She got it. He’d apologized a million times, but still, she wasn’t ready to take the next step in referring to him as Dad, seeing how they just met.
Maybe someday.
“They are sweet kids,” she answered, her thoughts elsewhere.
“What’s going on with you?” he took a sip of his coffee. “You seem miles away. I know this is all new to you. A father and three siblings.”
But that wasn’t what was bothering her. Well, at least not as much as the issue that had weighed more heavily on her heart than all the other issues she’d dealt with since she’d been back to the normal world.
“No, it’s not that. It’s just so many other things.”
“Hold that thought.” He rolled his wheelchair expertly to the counter, grabbed a bag of bagels, then cream cheese from the fridge, and headed back to the table. “It’s never good to talk about stress-related topics on an empty stomach.”
Luna smiled. Her stomach growled in agreement.
“See,” he said.
Luna grabbed a bagel and spread a thick layer of cream cheese on it as she decided what she wanted to say.
“There’s just so many things crowding my brain all
