“But,” Rose continued, lifting a finger, “if the boy’s sensibilities are wrong, the Fury will deliver swift judgment to both of them.”

The silence in the Chapel was thick enough to slice. I could feel Jamie’s eyes on me, and I knew he could sense my terror.

He shook his head. “I’ll go alone.”

“No,” Rose said. “Grace will join you. She already has.”

“But I’m the one who—”

“Sit,” Rose said.

Jamie barely hesitated before taking his seat. He wouldn’t dare confront Rose as she prophesied. Some boundaries were never crossed, even by Jamie.

“Grace,” Rose said.

I feared my legs might give out from underneath me.

“You willingly assisted your brother as he broke one of our fundamental laws, yes?” Rose asked.

My voice was trembling. “Yes,” I whispered.

“Was it because you too are unsure of what lies beyond? Are you now also questioning what you believe?”

I wanted to say no, because I wasn’t really. But a tiny part of me was. Looking at Rose, I knew I dared not lie.

“Yes,” I said.

“Do you trust your brother?” she asked.

“He’s my brother.”

“Then there should be nothing to fear.”

Her words were the nails in a coffin from which there was no escape.

Rose moved her gaze back across the congregation, and I knew she was finished with me. I slumped to my seat, stunned at the events unfolding. Andrew was staring forward, jaw fixed. I could read the anger in the shallow lines in his face and longed for him to send me a signal that maybe he would save me. But I knew that was foolish thinking. Maybe if I’d been with child, but until then I was only someone who met certain needs and held the potential to mother his offspring.

“We will trust our holy brother as his dear sister does,” Rose announced. “We will send them out with our blessing. May they find truth and faith. May we all benefit from whatever they discover. And all God’s children replied?”

“Amen,” the flock spoke in one accord.

And with that word, our fate was sealed.

TWO HOURS LATER, I STOOD STARING AT THE TALL wooden gate at the mouth of Haven Valley. A tall fence extended nearly fifty feet in either direction from where the red line that ran the full perimeter of the town began. The gate was more symbolic than a deterrent. The forest and the Fury, not a fence, were our guards.

The council had affixed a wide wooden sign above the gate long ago. The same inscription that we’d all burned on our hearts had been burned into that sign. The righteousness of the upright delivers them, but the unfaithful are trapped by evil.