“We have gathered here today,” comes the faint voice of Reverend Brother Morrison, “to celebrate the achievements of our children.” It’s a voice that shakes under the weight of its words, the voice of the man who promised to wed Theo and me by the river when we were ready, when God had made me perfect with the Flood. Nick freezes against the door, eyes squeezed shut. My left hand shakes so badly, I have to shove it into my pocket. “To put the worthy through trial. To help them take their places one step closer to the Lord’s side.”
Nick lets me through first. The room is dark and musty, piled full of boxes and discarded pews. I didn’t need the map of the church we studied; I know this building. Theo and I snuck away while the presiding reverend readied himself for the ceremony, creeping through the halls to find a place all to ourselves. He stopped by a hidden staircase and kissed me, and when we got back my braid was a mess, so everyone knew what we did. I look up to see the same tendrils on the ceiling, a fingernail digging into the beams. We all come in, and Nick closes the door tightly. The room plunges into darkness.
I can do this.
“Brothers, take pleasure in your struggle,” Reverend Brother Morrison commands. “Learn to love the pain. It is a cleansing pain. It is a glorious pain. Love it the way Jesus loved the nails through His palms, the thorns upon His brow. It is not a soft love; it is not a gentle love, but it is a perfect one.”
Nick catches my arm—his fingers on my sleeve, enough that I feel them but no more—and murmurs, “On your signal.”
“On my signal,” I repeat and step into the guts of the church.
“Your love must be strong enough that it becomes fearsome! It is fear that brings the unfaithful to the Lord. It will be fear that saves the nonbelievers. It will be fear that teaches heretics the truth of our Almighty God.”
The back hallways are claustrophobic. Dust cakes the carpets, and cobwebs hang in the stone ribs holding up the ceiling. A rumble shakes the walls as those trapped here on Judgment Day groan in pain. I almost feel Theo pulling me through the corridor, smothering his laughter, glimmers of happiness shining at the corners of his eyes. The memory is beautiful and terrifying.
Focus. I feel out the doors in the dark. I’m not looking for this one, or the next one either. The offices are back here; one of these doors leads to the sacristy, where the priests prepare for service. A kitchen, the little rooms where Sunday school was held. None are what I need.
“Fear will always be what pushes sinners toward God because we are broken things that do not deserve His love. The first step to wisdom is to fear the Lord, to tremble in the face of His truth. And you! Oh, you, my children, will be His terror made flesh.”
I find the right one: the back door to the second-floor pews. There are never any people on the second floor since they are kept empty for the brothers in Heaven. They receive a seat, and that is the most thought Angels will ever give to the dead. I yank open the door.
Sound hits like a solid wall, like the reverend holding you underwater for your baptism until your lungs burn and your vision blurs at the edges. Baptism in drowning, baptism in blood, Are you washed in the blood of the Lamb?
Up the stairs, slowly, quietly.
I’m on the balcony.
The sanctuary of Reformation Faith Evangelical Church is the belly of the whale. Stained glass glimmers in every color of the rainbow, muted by dust and cut through with white where pieces have broken from the pane. The rafters are ribs, each wood beam another bone reaching up toward the spine. The pews below are full of boys, pale and hunched in prayer, knives in their laps and their allowed loved one begging God for their child’s survival behind them.
I duck below the waist-high wall. It’s so much harder to breathe up here. Reverend Brother Morrison has his Bible on the altar, hands spread wide, blood smeared down his face and throat in worship. A nonbeliever lies at his feet, head wrenched back to reveal the festering black hole of their throat. The choir of children flocks at his sides, so little, too little, staring at him in awe.