Except that little tidbit had slipped into that website about the Hearth, and I overheard our parents once mentioning “the Brother” in passing. I remember thinking it was weird they were talking about a brother in Obvious Capital Letters. So I asked them about it and they told me and Taema, but told me not to tell anyone else about him. I didn’t know why they were so nervous about it at the time.

“You heard from the Brother?” Mana-ma asked. Her voice shook. It was the first time I’d ever seen her scared.

I nodded. “He was really upset that I was there. Kept yelling at me to turn back, that there was nothing but darkness and pain beyond. He said the forest was poison.”

That was considered bad, if you didn’t begin the next Cycle. How else could your soul grow and learn, on our world or another?

“That can’t be right,” Mana-ma said. She gripped my shoulder, hard. “He wouldn’t say that. You’re lying. You’re lying!”

With difficulty, I shrugged that shoulder, the skin of my chest pulling against Taema’s. “I’m just telling you what I saw.”

Mana-ma looked deep into my eyes. Whatever she saw there, she didn’t like it. She backed away from me. “You’re ruining the sanctity of the Confessional by lying within its confines.”

I said nothing.

“You are lying. You must be! He can’t contact you. There’s no way.”

I shrugged a shoulder, my skin pulling against Taema’s, all innocent. “Yesterday we connected with each other. Maybe I can connect with those beyond, too.” I was just throwing things out there and hoping they’d stick, and I’d struck deep.

She grabbed either side of my head, looking deep into my eyes. Whatever she was looking for, she didn’t find it. She let me go.

I didn’t register that she’d slapped me until I heard the noise and my cheek stung. Taema gasped, but I stayed silent. Taema’s hand clenched mine.

“Get out of here. Get out.”

“Don’t I have to formally release the darkness?” I asked, still all innocent.

“I don’t think the darkness can be released in you,” she spat. “Get. Out.”

We stood and walked sideways from the room, Mana-ma watching us go.

“What the hell were you doing?” Taema asked as soon as we were out of the church and walking down the dirt road toward home. “What was the point?”

“She does that to us, wrapping us around her finger. I wanted to see if I could do it, too. And I could.”

It was easy, and sort of fascinating even if I knew, deep down, it was wrong. Like picking legs off of an insect.

It made me wonder what else I was capable of.

13. Taema

THIRTEEN

TAEMA

I wake up completely disoriented.