Series: The Un Series by Izzy Sweet
Total pages in book: 109
Estimated words: 109192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109192 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 546(@200wpm)___ 437(@250wpm)___ 364(@300wpm)
My stomach settling, I look over at him in awe.
His kindness… his thoughtfulness touches me so deeply I have to fight back tears.
“Ah, lass, now don’t you go crying over a hamburger,” he says. “I’m sure a raccoon will make a fine meal of it.”
Feeling silly, I jerk my face away and stare out the windshield.
The road we’re traveling on is mostly empty. Only the occasional pair of headlights flashes by, momentarily blinding me.
I have no idea where we are. I don’t think I’ve ever been in place like this before. A place without concrete sidewalks or tall, looming buildings.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
I probably should have asked that question a lot earlier, but it didn’t seem a priority. Not when I wasn’t sure we would escape in the first place.
Father McCall says almost jubilantly, “Canada.”
“Canada?” I repeat in surprise.
He’s taking me out of the country?
“Yes, I have a few… friends in the Catholic Church up there. They’ll give us shelter.”
I twist back around to face him, my mouth agape. He’s taking me to the Catholics? The same Catholics my father said have lost their way?
Was I wrong to trust him?
Will they do even worse things to me?
“Now don’t you go looking at me like that,” Father McCall says, scowling through his beard. “I haven’t betrayed you. I know you’ve probably heard some awful things about the Catholics, but my friends are good people. Good people who want to help us.”
Granting him the benefit of the doubt for the moment, I ask, “Why do they want to help us?”
Father McCall glances over at me, light reflecting off his glasses. “Because the Order of Saint Benedict has turned their faces from the light of God. The things they’re doing to women and girls like you, the things I’ve seen…” He looks away, his voice choking up. “It’s despicable and heinous.”
A chill runs through me at the mention of other women and girls. Women and girls who might be suffering like me.
Who might be suffering more than me.
I was so lost in my own torment, I never considered there were others out there going through the same things.
Staring hard through the windshield, Father McCall’s hands tighten around the steering wheel. “It isn’t right, and something must be done. It must be stopped.”
“You’re going to stop it?” I ask, my heart quickening with excitement at the prospect.
He shakes his head. “Not all of it, lass. I’m only one man and their power is growing every day. But I’m gathering friends, like the Catholics, and doing my best to help as many of you girls as I can.”
I nod slowly and sink back in my seat. His explanation grinding me back down to reality. It does feel like an impossible task to take on the entire Order.
Especially after what I, myself, have gone through and seen.
I may not know any of the finer details, but I know my father was a man of power and wealth. I lived a privileged life of luxury, despite the tension with my mother, before he abandoned me.
All the children I remember came from privileged families. And those families’s beliefs run deep. So deep they’re willing to give up their own flesh and blood in exchange for the promise of eternal paradise.
When you add in the Prophet himself, all his fanatical followers, and the army of zealous young men he’s been building…
It will take more than Father McCall and his Catholic friends to change anything.
Father McCall sighs. “Now that you know my plans, there is something I must ask of you. Something I have no right to ask.”
Unease slithers through me and I wonder if this is the moment he turns on me like everyone else in my life has.
“There’s another young lady, like you. She’s been under my care for many years, since she was a babe, and I’ve shielded her the best I can.”
I remember him speaking about another girl while the Prophet had me on my knees, but he said I wasn’t like her at the time. Was he lying?
“You said she’s not like me,” I remind him.
He glances over at me quickly and shifts in his seat like he’s nervous. “She’s not. She was born with the mark.”
“Born with the mark?” I repeat incredulously. “How?”
I’ve never heard of such a thing. Granted, I know very little, and what I’ve been told could have easily all been lies. But I was taught that the mark doesn’t appear until after a woman has had her first menstruation.
That’s why I was so upset I got my period.
Had I known it could happen before then… I don’t even want to think about what I would have done.
I probably would have found a way long ago to hang myself from my bedsheets.
“We don’t know how,” he admits, “but she’s… special. She possesses incredible healing abilities, and the Order has been using those abilities to bleed her weekly. I was at the Boston cathedral today on her behalf. I had hoped to get the Prophet to agree to transfer her to a different location.”