She doesn’t bother with the small amount of makeup or anything else. She places each flat on my feet, and she leads me out the door, down the stairs, and into the waiting car.
Abigail accompanies me the whole ride.
I watch the trees in silence, wishing I was running through them, away from here instead.
But nothing and no one is saving me.
* * *
I lie in the milky water of the tub that smells of wildflowers. It sits in the middle of this room I have never been in before. This part of the cathedral has always been closed off to the public unless you are a bride.
Holy Divine, I am a bride.
My stomach twists, knowing it will be Samuel waiting to cleanse me during the ceremony. Bile rises up my throat, and I have to force it back down. The swirling mixture boils in my gut.
Abigail grabs something from the small side table by the tub, dips it into the water, and brings it up to my chest. I flinch away.
“Miss, it is tradition that we clean you up. Assisting you in your grooming and dressing for the cleansing ceremony is why we are here.” She looks only at the water, probably as uncomfortable with this situation as I am.
All I can do is nod.
The less arguing, the faster this will be over with.
She works her hands around my whole body. I stand, allowing her to reach everywhere like she is told to do. The fabric of the cloth scrapes at my skin harshly, and I wince a bit as she laps over my skin for the hundredth time, my skin growing raw.
She pulls the plug from the drain before offering me her hand to help me out. I stand naked on the rug, water dripping down my body, waiting for a towel to dry off. But all she does is grab a bottle of honey-tinted liquid, pouring some in her hand and rubbing it over my shoulders. It smells sweet and earthy. The way it glides on to me from her hands and the sheen it gives my skin lets me know it is oil. I watch her grab for more before handing it to the other handmaid there.
“Holy oil,” she states without looking me in the eye. Her soft, delicate palms caress down my arms and over my hands. “Blessed by the Divine.”
She gives me the information as if I want to know.
I don’t care about the oil or the details of all of this. I don’t even want to be here right now, but I don’t have a choice.
I don’t have time to think about questions swimming around my brain. The hows. The whys. None of that will help me here. I don’t get a say in if I want this because it doesn’t work like that. I have to follow what the Divine has laid out for me.
They know best.
I have lived my whole life with the belief that They saved me. They took me out of a miserable life I was living before I came here.
It wasn’t by chance Samuel and the Donovans came to my foster home that day. It is the Divine’s will that showed them the way to me. I have to trust that this is also something that would save me.
I mean, I do love Samuel—but as my brother. Even though what he told me earlier is right, we aren’t blood.
I can’t get over the way I feel he is just that. My brother.
I shake off the feeling as Abigail runs a brush through my hair.
Trust the Divine, Eden. Trust the Divine.
Everything in my body is telling me this is wrong.
Another handmaid comes into the room and hands Abigail a piece of cloth that looks like a veil.
They both exchange a nod before the other housemaid leaves Abigail and me alone in the room again.
“The clothing for your cleanse.”
She is still feeding me all the information I have no desire to know.
