Hillary Jordan - When She Woke

“That’s Mary Magdalene,” said a reedy voice, the vowels dipping in a thick twang.

Startled, Hannah dropped her eyes from the painting to the face of a young woman standing to her left. She was tall and rawboned, clad in a faded prairie-style dress that covered her from neck to feet. Her hair was done up in a bun and capped by a pleated white bonnet with long, trailing ties. She wore a small silver cross and held a straw broom in her hands. If it hadn’t been for her lemon yellow skin, she could have walked straight out of the nineteenth century. Hannah stared at her in dismay. Clearly these people were extreme fundamentalists. Had her parents known that, when they’d decided to send her here? Had Aidan?

“She was a outcast, like us,” the girl said. “Then Jesus made the demons inside of her cut and run. He sent ’em straight back to hell, just like that.” She snapped her fingers. Her bony wrists stuck out several inches from the sleeves of her dress.

“I know who she is.” Hannah wondered what the girl’s crime was. Nothing too serious, or she wouldn’t be a Yellow. Drug possession? Petty theft?

The girl cocked her head. “Oh yeah? You’re so smart, tell me why she’s nekked.”

Hannah shrugged. “We’re all naked before God.”

“True,” the girl said. “But wrong.” She was plain-featured, with a weak chin and an unfortunate overbite. The kind of girl you’d dismiss, if it weren’t for her eyes. They were a rich amber, and there was a mutinous spark in them that animated her face and made Hannah like her in spite of her churlishness.

“Why then?” Hannah asked, wishing she could let the girl’s sleeves out for her. She was just a kid; seventeen, eighteen at the most.

“You’ll find out.” The girl gave her a sly smile and resumed her sweeping.

Hannah paced. Her eyes keep returning to the Magdalene, as they were plainly meant to; the painting and a simple wooden bench were the only objects in the otherwise austere room. The walls were white, the floors terra-cotta tile. Long horizontal windows near the ceiling let in thin shafts of light. There were three doors: the one she’d come in and two others, one near the girl and another directly beneath the painting. The latter was tall and narrow, made of dark, intricately carved wood rubbed to a high sheen. It looked old and foreign, like it belonged in some crumbling European castle. Hannah went over to it to examine it more closely.

“You can’t go in there yet,” the girl said.

“I wasn’t going to open it. I just want to look at it.” The carvings on the main panel, of a shepherd tending his flock, were very fine. Beneath were some words in Latin. Hannah ran her fingers lightly over the letters.

“It’s from Luke,” the girl said. “It says you gotta try to go in through the narrow door—”

“ ‘Because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to,’ ” Hannah finished. “I know the passage.”

The girl’s face lit with hostility. “You don’t know nothing. You think you do but you don’t. Talk to me in three months, then we’ll see what all you know.” She bent and angrily brushed the collected debris into the dustpan, then went to the side door and pulled it open.

“Is that how long you’ve been here?” Hannah said, before she could leave. “Three months?”

“That’s right,” the girl said, stiff-backed and sullen.

“I’m Hannah. What’s your name?”

“Eve.” She said it warily, like she was waiting to be mocked.

“Is that your real name, or did they give it to you here?”

“It’s mine.”

“It’s a lovely name,” said Hannah.

Something flickered in the girl’s eyes. “That’s the only thing they let you keep here.” She left, closing the door behind her.

A FEW MINUTES later, the door opened again and a couple entered the room, holding hands. The man was of medium height, trim and vigorous, with a head that was a little too large for his body. His clothes were plain: white button-down shirt, dark gray trousers, black suspenders. He was in his mid-forties, Hannah judged, handsome in an aging Ken-doll way, with a square jaw, a full head of dark blond hair and crinkles at the corners of his eyes. The woman resembled him strongly enough that they could be brother and sister, though she was considerably younger and more petite. She too was blonde and exuded robust good health and wholesomeness. A scattering of freckles across her pink cheeks added to the effect. Her attire was similar to Eve’s, but the fabric was a rich blue and of much better quality. Both she and the man wore crosses like Eve’s, only larger. Hannah felt reassured by their attractiveness and by their expressions, which were serious but not unfriendly. They came to stand before her, and the man spoke.

“I’m Reverend Ponder Henley, the director of the Straight Path Center, and this is Mrs. Henley.” His round brown eyes had a surprised, slightly vacant look to them. Hers were a twinkling blue that matched her dress.

“How do you do,” Hannah said, stifling an absurd impulse to curtsy. “I’m Hannah Payne.”

“Why are you here, Hannah?” Mrs. Henley asked. Her voice was sweet and girlish and her tone mild, but Hannah knew the question was a test. She searched their faces, trying to discern what they wanted to hear. “To repent my sins,” maybe, or, “To learn how to follow a straighter, godlier path.”

In the end, though, she shrugged and said, “I have nowhere else to go.”

Reverend and Mrs. Henley exchanged quick glances, their mouths stretching wide in approving smiles that revealed two sets of white, even teeth. Mrs. Henley’s cheeks were adorably dimpled.

“That is the right answer, Hannah,” said Reverend Henley. “Do you know why?” She shook her head, and he said, “Because it is the truthful answer. Without truth, there can be no salvation.”

“Do you want to be saved, Hannah?” asked Mrs. Henley.

“Yes.”

“And do you believe you can be saved?” asked Reverend Henley. Again, Hannah considered lying. What if faith in God’s forgiveness was required? What if they decided not to let her stay? She shook her head a second time. Their smiles broadened further. “That is both the right and the wrong answer,” said Reverend

Henley. “Right because you spoke honestly, but wrong because you can

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