And then she heard the door click shut, the lock grate into place. No one could hear her screams of protest.

She drifted in and out of sleep the first twenty-four hours, exhausted and in pain. When they let her out, there would be a celebration to welcome the renewed version of herself back into the group. She held on to that, tried to think of the party, the bacon sandwiches that sat on red-and-white paper, the table piled with pink frosted cakes and cookies, the way everyone in the compound would clap and smile as she walked into the room as she’d once clapped for others.

She’d known nothing then. She couldn’t believe she’d helped celebrate something so awful. After the feast, the women would take her to the communal bathroom, which would smell like eucalyptus and be filled with hot steam, and they’d let her shower for as long she liked. She’d be clean and have a full belly, and they’d put her in a white dress, brush her hair and then lead her to the chapel, humming in the creepy way they did sometimes, but it would be okay—because it was over.

She’d assisted at an “after” ceremony when she was thirteen: her mother’s. But all she’d seen of it was the celebration; she had no idea what her mother had gone through, the hours she’d spent behind the doors where she herself now sat imprisoned. Why hadn’t her mother told her? She’d let her daughter believe these things were good, let Taured tell her that they were. Summer screamed as loud as she could, straining against the ties that bound her; she screamed so loudly that her throat felt like it was on fire.

She guessed that twelve hours had passed before Rhodi came back to release her from the stool and give her a bowl of broth and a bottle of water. She tried to take it easy on the water, knowing she should save some for later. She wanted to know if her mother was receiving the same punishment or something worse; she knew in her gut the latter was true.