Looking for Cassandra Jane (The Second Chances Novels) (26 page)

“Rainbow,” he said quietly. “I’ve asked Sunshine to clean up in here tonight. I want to talk to you in private.”

I blinked in surprise to see Sunshine standing in the doorway. I realized then that I hadn’t actually seen her, really
seen
her, for days, maybe weeks now, and as I looked at her standing there, her countenance dark and gray, she honestly seemed a mere shadow of her former self. She didn’t even smile at me. I didn’t know if it was because she felt guilty for abandoning me by marrying Stone, or maybe she was actually worried for me. At that moment, I don’t think I even really cared. I shrugged, then flipped my braid over my shoulder as I set down the stubborn pan. I slowly removed my apron and handed it to Sunshine. “Have fun.”

Sky opened the back door and led me out into the autumnal night. The air was just starting to get a slight chill to it, but the smell was still that of summer—the last tomatoes ripening on the vine, the heaped compost pile decomposing, remnants of overlooked fruit now lying rotten on the ground. We walked in silence and I could sense a seriousness in Sky’s step—nothing new, really. It was almost as if he wore his sobriety, his spirituality, over his shoulders like a thick, heavy cloak for all the world to see. But for once I didn’t quite care, and I realized as we walked that I wasn’t even scared.

For days, I had known that Sky would eventually call me aside to reprimand me for my willful and disrespectful ways. (I’d even stopped coming to Bible class of late.) He might demand that I show contrition by kneeling down before the group and begging their forgiveness and then waiting for my punishment (it might be extra chores or an extra hour of prayer or maybe even corporal punishment—we hadn’t actually seen that yet, but Sky had alluded that it could happen). But wouldn’t he be surprised when I refused to submit to his rules? How would he react when I told him that it was all over—that I was finished with the game? Would he even care? Or maybe I wouldn’t get the chance. Maybe he planned to publicly shun me now—to excommunicate me from the group. Perhaps he would send me from “The Promised Land,” out into “The Wilderness” to wander for, say, forty years? Well, maybe that would be just fine and dandy with me. Surely anything would be better than this.

“Rainbow, I don’t know how to say this,” he began.

Waiting in silence, I offered him no help. I said nothing. Felt nothing. Was nothing.

“This isn’t easy, but I need to tell you something.”

Again he paused, and now I grew slightly irritated. I drew in my breath and held it inside my chest, preparing myself for the worst he could give me. I would welcome his judgment, his stinging words, his chastisement, and even his exile.

Then he turned to face me and gently placed both hands on my shoulders. And suddenly I felt disoriented by this strange turn, and the breath I’d held in now escaped in a long, slow sigh—I was deflated.

“Rainbow, I need to ask you to forgive me.”

I shook my head in disbelief. I must’ve heard him wrong. I couldn’t ever remember having heard Sky ask anyone to forgive him.
“Forgive you?”
I repeated almost inaudibly.

He nodded, and in the faint light of a half-moon just cresting over the eastern hills, I could see a glistening on his face as a tear streaked down his cheek. Was Sky actually crying? “I have made a grievous mistake,” he said. “Rainbow, I—I—”

I clearly heard the break in his voice. “What?” I asked him as I strained my eyes in the semidarkness to better see his face, to study his expression. Was this for real? Was he really upset? Or was I simply imagining this whole thing?

He collapsed onto the bench, and holding his head in his hands he sobbed like a child. I sat down beside him and placed my hand on his back. “What is it, Sky? What’s wrong? Please tell me. I don’t understand.”

After a long moment, he sat up straight. Then taking both my hands into his, he looked directly at me and said, “Rainbow, you were the one I truly wanted to marry. You were the one that I loved. But you were so young. And Moonlight—she enticed me with her—her ways—and—and—” His head slumped down again.

My heart pounded against my chest and I could hear a high-pitched buzzing in my ears, getting louder. I felt sickened and confused and just slightly faint. I didn’t understand what he was saying, whether he meant it or not, or even if I’d heard him right.

He looked up. Placing his face close, just inches from mine, he said, “Rainbow, I don’t know what to do now. I’m married. But you need to know that I love you. I have since the beginning.”

I just nodded, still too dumbfounded to speak.

“And every day I notice how you’re so beautiful and so truly spiritual, but each day you look sadder and sadder, and I don’t think I can bear it for another day. Can you ever forgive me?”

Still unsure as to whether I could form words, I simply nodded, a multitude of conflicting and indescribable emotions tumbling and whirling through me like a tornado.

Then I felt his hand cup my chin and he gently pulled my face to his, and I felt the warmth of his breath and the stiff prickle of his beard… and then he kissed me! Not a brotherly kiss, but fully on the mouth.

And perhaps most humiliating in this memory is that I kissed him back. Certainly I was tentative at first, but as he continued pressing his mouth against mine, I responded—eagerly and hungrily. I don’t know how long we kissed, but I do remember feeling dizzy and dazed when we finally stopped. And again I thought,
I must be imagining this.

He then pulled me into his arms and held me tightly against him, stroking my hair as he spoke the kindest, most comforting and soothing words to me. He promised me that he would look out for me especially now. That I was to be set aside like his precious jewel, and that I would never be forced to marry anyone.

And somehow, despite my earlier resolve to walk away from that place, I now knew I wouldn’t. I simply couldn’t. That door was bolted for good.

More than anything, I wanted love, and I swallowed Sky’s words of love with a fierce hunger. I bit right into them—hook, line, and sinker—and he began to reel me in.

Nineteen

H
ow is it possible to feel
totally hopeless and worthless one moment and then higher than the sun and the moon in the next? When Sky finally opened up to me, revealing his humanity, his broken dreams, yes, even his sin, I fell in love with him like I’d never imagined possible. Of course he warned me our relationship was to remain strictly top secret. But he also told me that just because it was secret didn’t mean it was sinful. He said that sometimes God has reasons for making us keep secrets. The Bible is full of them, he said.

Then he carefully explained that he was like Jacob (in the Bible). He even read the story to the whole group the following night, but I knew he was reading it for my benefit. And I’m sure I sat there gazing up at him with real stars in my eyes.

He had already told me how Jacob had been in love with the beautiful Rachel, but after working hard to earn her for his bride, he’d been tricked into marrying her older sister, Leah. But Jacob didn’t give up, no, he worked for another seven years and was finally allowed to marry the lovely Rachel. And although he had to keep Leah as his first wife, Rachel had always been his one and only true love.

“And that’s just how it will be with you,” he secretly promised to me later.

“Does this mean we’ll get married?” I asked.

“In due time,” he told me. “Just be patient.”

And so I was. Incredibly patient. But it wasn’t that hard, really. To be honest, I didn’t feel any great hurry to be actually married. It was enough for me to simply be
loved
by our admired leader.

Instead of being jealous of Moonlight, I almost came to pity her, for she seemed to grow more unhappy and even fatter with each passing day. And it wasn’t just the natural weight that comes with pregnancy. Supposedly Breeze’s baby was due before Moonlight’s, but she wasn’t nearly as enormous as Moonlight.

Of course, I was privileged with information about the real due dates. Sky had confessed to me that Moonlight had enticed him into her bed several months before their marriage. He explained how he’d been in a weakened state just then, feeling concerned that he’d forced River and Breeze to marry and worried that it might’ve been a mistake. And Moonlight had offered him her “comfort” and naturally that led to other things (sinful things). And even though they’d “only sinned once” according to Sky, Moonlight had missed her following period, and then her next, and that’s when the sudden July wedding became necessary. Somehow this all made perfect sense to me back then, and I felt greatly comforted in my newfound knowledge.

Now I felt happy to work and to wait—more a part of the family than ever. And it was amazing how just a smidgeon of Sky’s attention could take me a long, long ways. How I loved it when he pointed me out to the group as such a good and willing servant. He often used me as an example of how we all should live, and I know I took exceeding pride in all this (even though I had to repent of it later). But repenting, for us, was just a normal part of daily life—and in some twisted way I’m sure it almost gave us pleasure. We would get down on our knees before the group and confess to all sorts of sins, everything from impure thoughts to picking our noses, and then we would sob or beat our fists on the floor and beg forgiveness from God and everyone.

The only one who never seemed to have much to repent of was Moonlight. I found this interesting, especially in light of my suspicion that she was stealing food from the kitchen. I first noticed food missing in the fall. I’d go into the cupboard to get something, like a bag of chocolate chips for making cookies (this was before all forms of sugar were outlawed) and the bag would be gone—not just some chips, but the entire bag. Or maybe it’d be a jar of peanut butter or homemade jam (and that really made me mad because I’d sweated over a hot stove putting up that jam!). At first I thought it might be one of the brothers—and they worked so hard it was understandable that they might get the munchies and come foraging (even though it was forbidden). But when none of them confessed I became suspicious.

And so I decided to set a trap. Mindful that things most often went missing following a grocery trip, I waited till Sky and Stone returned from shopping in town. (The brothers were the only ones allowed to leave the farm.) As usual, I had given Sky a very detailed list of what was needed for the kitchen. I ran on a very tight kitchen budget since our income was limited to whatever we could sell off the farm—like old antiques found in the attic, Sunshine’s car, and even produce. (It was starting to become slim pickings, but we had high hopes for the upcoming year, when we planned to have even more produce and perhaps some handcrafted items to sell.) I unloaded the groceries as usual, but when I got to the chocolate chips, the cheap kind that came in a bright red bag, I carefully “painted” over the red plastic surface with red food coloring and then set the “bait” in a visible spot in the food cupboard.

The rest was simply child’s play. I listened until I heard footsteps, right around midnight, then slipped downstairs in time to spy Moonlight in the kitchen furiously trying to wash the red food coloring off her fingers—I’d caught her literally red-handed! Then I went to Sky’s room and told him about the problem. I knew I was being a snitch, but this behavior was expected within our group. It was our responsibility to hold one another accountable.

Moonlight was punished by having to wash dishes for a week—quite a nice little vacation for me, but I must admit to feeling just a little guilty as I watched her straining past her extended stomach to reach the sink. Still, I figured the exercise might do her good.

Sky was going into town on a fairly regular basis these days, sometimes to sell things, and sometimes to pick up supplies. But to my surprise he traded an old dresser for a bunch of used guns.

His rationale, he explained at dinnertime, was that he and the brothers might need to do some hunting during the winter (for food). Plus, he said, who knew when we might need protection?

“Protection from what?” I asked as I set a bowl of potatoes on the table.

“Now I don’t want you to be afraid,” he said in an authoritative voice, “but we live in strange times and there are people out in the world who don’t like us.” He looked around the table and I could feel a lecture coming. “We are not of the world and so the world questions our ways. And the world will persecute us for our beliefs—we don’t know what they might do to hurt us. So it’s best to be prepared for anything. Besides, as I’ve been teaching you from the Scriptures, this present world will soon come to an end. But first there will be a holocaust and plagues and warfare, and we must be prepared, my children. We must be ready for anything.” He smiled then. “But don’t be afraid.”

Well, it was hard not to be fearful when you thought about all those things, and I suppose it was our fear (in a way) that kept us in submission to Sky’s authority. He was like our big daddy, our protector. Under his spiritual roof, we believed we would be safe from all outside harm. We never considered the harm within our own gates.

When Sky drove around town in his colorful van (decorated with crosses and fishes and doves) he occasionally met up with other Jesus freaks, and they were always interested in who he was and what he was doing. As a result, he sometimes invited folks to come out and visit our farm. These were special times, and we always worked hard to get everything all spruced up for our visitors. And it was fun seeing a fresh face—almost like a holiday (which were of course forbidden).