The Pledge (The Pledge 1)

“You know I will,” Aron assured me, and I knew he meant it. He slipped his hand around mine as we walked, reminding me that he was still my friend. That I could still count on him.

I leaned my head against his shoulder, once again comforted by his presence.

“How many times do I have to tell you? It was an accident. I didn’t realize she’d switched to Termani.” I was tired of explaining myself, but it didn’t matter how many times I’d repeated those words, my father still wasn’t satisfied.

He was too worried.

He paced the room, and even though he’d had an entire day to calm down since the incident at the restaurant the night before, his shoulders were still heavy with the burden of what I’d done. Of what I’d let slip.

“Charlaina, please, those aren’t the kinds of mistakes you can afford. All I’m saying is that you must be careful. Always careful.” His skin was flushed as he pressed his calloused palm against my cheek. Stress creased his forehead and wrinkled his brow. “I worry about you. I worry about all of us.”

“I know,” I answered, stubbornly refusing to indulge my parents’ love of Parshon. I much preferred to speak Englaise. All the time, Englaise. That way there was no room for misunderstandings, no room for errors. I wished that everyone felt as I did.

He sat down on the sofa in the small central living space of our house. It was cozy, and filled with years of memories. I knew every nook, every stone, every plank of wood, and every darkened crevice by heart.

This was the house I was born in, the house in which I’d been raised, and yet suddenly I felt unworthy of its refuge for betraying my father’s trust. I understood—maybe more than anyone—just what he’d sacrificed to keep us safe.

I still remembered that night, when I was only Angelina’s age. The night the man had banged on our door, demanding to speak to my father and refusing to go away without answers.

My father had pushed me into my bedroom, warning me to wait there until he told me it was safe. Or until my mother came home. And I’d tried to obey, tried to remain hidden beneath the bed—just as he’d insisted—but I’d been so afraid.

That night was still so vivid in my memory: the cold stone floor beneath my bare feet as I’d crept out from my hiding place, the doll I’d clutched against my chest, the words exploding from the other side of the heavy door.

“I heard what she did, Joseph. That man spoke to her in Termani, and she answered him. She understood what he said. She’s an abomination!” It wasn’t my father’s voice I’d heard raised in alarm and traced with outrage.

“You heard nothing. She’s a child. She was only playing.”

“She wasn’t, and you put us all at risk by keeping her here!”

I’d held my breath, leaning my forehead against the rough-hewn wood, the only barrier that separated me from my father.

And then my father’s voice, angry and firm. “You need to leave my home. You’ve no business here.”

The silence that followed was too long, and so heavy with meaning that even then I knew enough to be terrified of the hollow space. I’d stepped back, shivering in the still black air.

Then I remembered the other man speaking again, quietly, almost whisper-soft. “What she’s done is illegal. Either you turn her in, or I will.”

There was no pause when my father answered. “I can’t let you do that.”

I’d gripped my doll so tight as I stole backward, taking slow and steady steps without watching where I was going.

I slid as soundlessly as I could beneath the bed again, just like my daddy had instructed, curling myself tightly into a ball as tears slipped down my cheeks. I covered my ears as I tried to block out first the sounds, and then the crackling silence, that came from just outside my bedroom as I closed my eyes.

I cowered there in the darkness, terrified that the sounds that rattled the closed door would somehow find their way over to my side. But they never did, and the hush that followed stretched endlessly. When I grew weary, I lay my head down on the cold floor and waited.

Finally I heard the door’s creak, and my heart seized within the cavity of my chest. I was fully awake in the space of a breath. My eyes went wide, trying to absorb enough light from the darkness around me to see whose feet were shuffling toward my bed. The scraping sound of heavy boots against stone made my skin shiver.

I leaned up on my elbows, staring out. My throat felt choked by the thick lump that had formed there.

And then the weight of the mattress above me shifted heavily, and I heard a heavy sigh.

“You can come Bem"> can com out now.”

At the sound of my father’s voice, I scurried forward, scooting along on my stomach as quickly as I could. Before I was even out from beneath the bed, he was reaching for me, drawing me up. I crawled onto his warm lap, curling my knees and feet underneath me as I wrapped my scrawny arms around his waist. I breathed in the smell of him.

He held me for a long time before speaking again, probably because there were so many things we shouldn’t be saying, so many things that should remain unstated. But finally his voice rumbled up from his chest against my ear.

He spoke in Englaise now, the softer syllables of the language making his words seem less harsh than before, when he’d been speaking to the man in the other room. “You can’t do that anymore. You must be cautious.” Then he switched back to the more guttural tone of our native tongue as he lifted me from his lap and dropped me onto my soft pillows. “Now get some rest, lamb. I need to clean up before your mother gets home.”