She waited until the warm milk arrived, carried in by a silent Aunt. “Thank you, Aunt Silhouette,” she said. The other one nodded and glided out. Aunt Estée patted my arm, then left, closing the door behind her.
I had only a sip of the milk: I didn’t trust it. Would the Aunts give me drugs before kidnapping me and delivering me back into Paula’s hands? I didn’t think Aunt Estée would do that, though Aunt Silhouette looked as if she might. The Aunts were on the side of the Wives, or that’s what the girls had said at school.
I paced around the small room; then I lay down on the narrow bed. But I was too overwrought to go to sleep, so I got up again. There was a picture on the wall: Aunt Lydia, smiling an inscrutable smile. On the opposite wall was a picture of Baby Nicole. They were the same familiar pictures that had been in the classrooms at the Vidala School, and I found them oddly comforting.
On the desk there was a book.
I’d thought and done so many forbidden things that day that I was ready to do one more. I went over to the desk and stared down at the book. What was inside it that made it so dangerous to girls like me? So flammable? So ruinous?
39
I reached out my hand. I picked up the book.
I opened the front cover. No flames shot out.
There were many white pages inside, with a lot of marks on them. They looked like small insects, black broken insects arranged in lines, like ants. I seemed to know that the marks contained sounds and meaning, but I couldn’t remember how.
“It’s really hard at first,” said a voice behind me.
I hadn’t heard the door open. I startled and turned. “Becka!” I said. I’d last seen her at Aunt Lise’s flower-arranging class with blood spurting out of her cut wrist. Her face had been very pale then, and resolved, and forlorn. She looked much better now. She was wearing a brown dress, loose on top, belted at the waist; her hair was parted in the middle and pulled back.
“My name isn’t Becka anymore,” she said. “I’m Aunt Immortelle now; I’m a Supplicant. But you can call me Becka when we’re alone.”
“So you didn’t get married after all,” I said. “Aunt Lydia told me you have a higher calling.”
“Yes,” she said. “I won’t have to marry any man, ever. But what about you? I heard you’re going to marry someone highly important.”
“I’m supposed to,” I said. I started to cry. “But I can’t. I just can’t!” I wiped my nose on my sleeve.
“I know,” she said. “I told them I’d rather die. You must have said the same thing.” I nodded. “Did you say you had a calling? To be an Aunt?” I nodded again. “Do you really have one?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Neither do I,” said Becka. “But I passed the six-month trial period. After nine years—when I’m old enough—I can apply for Pearl Girls missionary work, and once I’ve done that I’ll be a full Aunt. Then maybe I’ll get a real calling. I’m praying for one.”
I’d finished crying. “What do I have to do? To pass the trial?”
“At first you have to wash dishes and scrub floors and clean toilets and help with the laundry and cooking, just like Marthas,” said Becka. “And you have to start learning how to read. Reading’s way harder than cleaning toilets. But I can read some now.”
I handed her the book. “Show me!” I said. “Is this book evil? Is it full of forbidden things, the way Aunt Vidala said?”
“This?” said Becka. She smiled. “Not this one. It’s only the Ardua Hall Rule Book, with the history, the vows, and the hymns. Plus the weekly schedule for the laundry.”
“Go on! Read it!” I wanted to see if she could really translate the black insect marks into words. Though how would I know they were the right words, since I couldn’t read them myself?
She opened the book. “Here it is, on the first page. ‘Ardua Hall. Theory and Practice, Protocols and Procedures, Per Ardua Cum Estrus.’?” She showed me. “See this? It’s an A.”
“What’s an A?”
She sighed. “We can’t do this today because I have to go to the Hildegard Library, I’m on night duty, but I promise I’ll help you later if they let you stay. We can ask Aunt Lydia if you can live here, with me. There are two bedrooms empty.”
“Do you think she’ll allow it?”
“I’m not sure,” said Becka, lowering her voice. “But don’t ever say anything bad about her, even if you think you’re in a safe place such as here. She has ways of knowing about it.” She whispered, “She is truly the scariest one, of all the Aunts!”
“Scarier than Aunt Vidala?” I whispered back.
“Aunt Vidala wants you to make mistakes,” said Becka. “But Aunt Lydia…it’s hard to describe. You get the feeling she wants you to be better than you are.”