Free The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams Page B

Childs again.”
    My backbone straightens and I look right at Uncle Hyrum’s face. I think, I’ll ask Father to go again and again and again to see the Prophet . I think, I’ll ask him until Prophet Childs and God hears me . Uncle Hyrum doesn’t look at me. Just keeps staring away.
    “You know what happens to those who contradict God, don’t you?”
    I try not to, but I gasp.
    Now Uncle Hyrum looks at me and smiles. He’s won and he knows it. “God has given you to me, Kyra Leigh. You will do what He says. What the Prophet says. What I say.” Then Uncle Hyrum walks away and leaves me standing in the milky night.
     
     
    I REMEMBER BILL TROPHY . He was always laughing. Throwing back his head and laughing so that I was surprised at the large sound of it. Mother said he had a great smile.
    “But,” she whispered to me and my sisters when Father wasn’t home, “he should have listened to the Prophet.”
    Bill went missing three or four years ago. I bet he wasn’t even eighteen when he ran.
    I remember.
    “He’s with the Lost Boys,” Mother said. “Gone off with them. That’s where all those boys end up. Somehow they end up together.” Mother looked away. “That’s what we’ve heard. That’s what we hope.”
    And Ellen. Quiet Ellen. Opposite of Bill. Mother said she was delicate of bone. Tiny.
    I remember Ellen and Bill together.
    I remember Mother Sarah telling me to always be obedient.
    I remember shots ringing out.
    And I wonder why Bill Trophy was allowed to run to the Lost Boys. And not Ellen.
    Ellen chose Bill. (You never get to choose if you’re a girl.) That loud laugh of his.
    Ellen chose Bill Trophy.
    Remember?
    I remember.
    I walk inside, shivers covering the whole of me. My brain running a million miles an hour.
    Bill ran.
    Mother and Father stand in the kitchen. His arms are around her and she rests against him.
    Look what I have caused , I think. Look at their grief .
    “Come here, Kyra,” Mother says. She opens her arm to me and when I get close to them, both she and Father pull me in tight.
    I am face-to-face with Mother. Her eyes are filled with tears. I can’t even look at her she’s so sad. Her face shows how I feel.
    Father kisses both of us on the tops of our heads. He holds us secure. But his holding me like this is a lie. He can’t do anything to save me. And he’s my father.
    Aren’t fathers supposed to save their daughters?
    We stand like this, the three of us, for several minutes. Then Father says, “I have to go.”
    He leaves Mother and me standing arm in arm.
    I am tired from the inside out. I am so tired at that moment it feels like I could melt away with no problem. If only.
    I walk Mother into her room. I want her to tuck me in tonight, have her check under my bed for monsters, have her pat down my blankets, fluff my pillow. But I saw her face at the dinner table. She looks to be on the edge, too. I sit on her bed.
    “Tell me about Bill and Ellen,” I say.
    Mother doesn’t say anything at first, then, “You remember them?”
    I shrug. Only a little light comes in from her window. We are shadows in her room, so I’m not sure she sees me. There’s the scent of lavender in here. Lavender meant to settle Mother’s stomach. “They just came to me,” I say.
    Again, Mother is quiet. “She was an example,” she says.
    I nod. The air is still and hot. Heavy. Like a blanket.
    “Sister Ellen married Brother Mathias,” Mother says.
    I had forgotten that part. There was a wedding.
    Lots of girls getting married. Maybe thirteen or fourteen different girls being married to several men. Including Ellen, one of Brother Bennion’s daughters, who had to marry Brother Mathias, an Apostle. He was at least seventy years old then. His teeth, yellow. His eyes, too. Like an egg almost. He sat at the front of the Temple during meetings, with all the leaders up there in white suits, looking us over.
    At the ceremony Ellen cried. Oh, she cried. Wailed. Fought. Screamed for her