The Tithe Read online

  Table of Contents

  THE TITHE

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  THE TITHE

  ELLE HILL

  SOUL MATE PUBLISHING

  New York

  THE TITHE

  Copyright©2014

  ELLE HILL

  Cover Design by Fiona Jayde

  This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.

  Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

  Published in the United States of America by Soul Mate Publishing P.O. Box 24

  Macedon, New York, 14502

  ISBN: 978-1-61935—549-1

  www.SoulMatePublishing.com The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  To my mother,

  a strong woman who raised four girls

  to become four social activists.

  Where do you think

  we learned that compassion, Mom?

  To all people with differing physical

  and mental appearances and capacities.

  We deserve a story

  in which we’re the heroes.

  Acknowledgements

  My most sincere thanks to Jen for listening to me as I agonized over this novel’s identity politics and religious foundations. Oh, and to some existential angst about what it means to be a writer of marginalized peoples. Trust me when I say Blue would have been very, very different without her input.

  I can’t thank Lauri enough for proofreading the fourth version of this story. I should have snagged her assistance far before then, when I had time to implement more of her brilliant commentary. And yeah, Lauri, I guess I do remember elevators traveling downward will exert an upward pressure. Maybe I should have taken physics instead of geology.

  Thanks, Jules, for the endless support and for the painting of the Joshua trees to commemorate the year-long writing of this novel. Heads up: The painting just might make a cameo appearance.

  As always, I offer my endless gratitude to my editor, Debby, who somehow manages to offer constructive criticism in a way that doesn’t sting even a little bit.

  I’m learning to write with the assistance of others. This novel could have sparkled even more brightly had I done that more completely and consistently. Thank you to everyone who offered their assistance and support.

  Most of all, thanks to you for reading this. I hope I’ve crafted a story that will make you scratch your head and clutch your chest in equal parts.

  Chapter 1

  Really, the outdoors weren’t such a special place. First of all, they weren’t temperature controlled, and in the high desert, that led to a lot of redness, sweat, and crankiness. Second, it was pretty hard to keep track of everyone in the vicinity without walls to keep them bound to some kind of order. Finally, voices sounded different out here: flat, finite, just one more note in the cacophony of nature and humanity.

  This was Josh’s first time outdoors. Well, not strictly, since someone, probably a parent or relative, had plunked her, naked and sniffling, on the steps of the rab’ri twenty years ago. But she didn’t remember that incident, being newborn and all. Ima Ninka, an intensely sweet and somewhat dotty imrabi, had found her and carted her indoors. Two decades ago, smiling Ninka had closed the door on the porch and on Josh’s congress with the outside world.

  And now, here she was, marching—let’s be honest: scuffling——along with six others on their way to the Tithing Festival. The seven of them plodded forward, eyes red and dry, mouths closed, words spent or swallowed. They shuffled like dumb cattle toward a tall, beige building Josh had only seen in slivers from the rab’ri’s windows. It towered in an impressive, rectangular squat, a white sidewalk lolling like a bloodless tongue before its double doors. Dull yellow paper streamers dangled from windows and doorways, unstirred by winds.

  Crowds parted before them, wavelike, in a scene eerie in its reference to the arrival of Elovah in the Book of Wrath. Josh didn’t feel entirely godlike; perspiration from the heat and the pain sighed down the back of her neck and pooled in her eyebrows. Couldn’t they have pulled the autos right in front of the building rather than put the Tithes on parade?

  Women, men, and children stepped reverently away from the sparkling sidewalk, clearing the path for the seven Tithes. Josh was neither the oldest nor the most incapacitated; she shuffled along at number five. Behind her, a teenaged girl tottered in an uneven gait, holding her atrophied right hand against her chest. The man before her displayed no hardship in walking; he was probably what Ima Christina, a younger imrabi and one of the few people Josh thought might miss her, called “addled.”

  Pain sizzled along the muscles in her calves. She gritted her teeth. What in heaven were these people thinking, making the seven of them walk this far? Pageantry was one thing, but . . .

  The man in front of her halted, and she gratefully dropped her foot back to the ground. It made a dull clunk as her boot slapped the sidewalk. Heat crackled in the air, dampening her hair and caking her tongue.

  Just two steps before their bedraggled group, and not five feet from the building’s doors, stood a tall, round woman with a blazing halo of frizzy black hair. Two stocky persons, one a muscular woman with moon-pale skin and the other a large brown man with a scar bisecting his left eye, stood stoically behind her at the edges of the doorway. The first woman beamed a smile at all of them. The crowd silenced.

  “Welcome, Tithes,” she boomed. “Please come in and accept the feast we have prepared for you, in your honor and to honor you.”

  We’d love to come in, Josh thought, if you’d get out of the way. She sighed, and some members of the crowd glanced at her before dropping their eyes.

  The silence settled around them, gelled. What, did the woman expect a response?

  “Thanks,” Josh called. “Can we go in now?”

  Nervous tittering washed through the crowd. The large woman stared at Josh for a moment, brown eyes bright, teeth still gleaming. Finally, she barked out a laugh.

  “It is hot, isn’t it?” She nodded and flung her arms wide. “Our seven honorees, welcome to your feast.”

  The smiling woman led them inside the building. Josh sighed, almost a moan, when the door closed behind them. The room tasted sterile and artificially cooled, exactly the way she liked it. “Sterile” was a good term for the room, with its smooth, creamy walls, white flooring, and textureless ceiling that stretched two stories above them. Simple fluorescent lights swung in
chains a couple dozen feet above their heads.

  And everywhere, the corn dolls. Faceless, stiff, their corn-husk hair tied in braids or left hanging, their corn-husk clothing mimicking dresses or pants, the dolls occupied a large fraction of the room’s horizontal surfaces. They slumped against walls, occupied counters, even adorned the large rectangular table hunkering in the center of the room. Smaller tables, already occupied with seated guests, orbited the central table.

  “My name is Eloine Crawsin d’Ijo,” announced the smiling woman, “and I am the mayor of Barstow. Please, Tithes, seat yourselves around the table of honor. There are place settings with each of your names listed.” She gestured grandly to the center table.

  Josh almost laughed, but, of course, around one-seventh of the room’s eyes were on her. Leaving this group to read their place setting? Who planned that slice of brilliance? Then again, she’d heard of Eloine Crawsin d’Ijo, mostly neutral-to-favorable judgments. This was the first Tithe she’d proceeded over; hard to judge a woman based on her handling of a holiday that occurred only once every seven years.

  Four of the seven Tithes milled stiffly about the table until sinking with obvious relief into their padded dinner chair. A moment later, Josh dragged her burning legs to a huge-eyed little girl.

  “What’s your name?” she asked the girl, probably more brusquely than she should. But, heaven, her legs had cramped up and were twitching behind her shiny brown boots.

  The girl, no more than six years old, swung her enormous brown eyes upward. Her dark brown hair spilled across her face. “What?” she whispered.

  Gritting her teeth, bending at the back, Josh leaned over. “Your name?” she asked through her teeth.

  The girl stared at her for a moment. Josh had straightened by the time the girl whispered, “Izel.”

  “Follow me, Easel,” she commanded, and then shuffled on nearly useless legs to a gray-haired White man who stood straight and tall, staring straight ahead.

  “Your name?” She sighed.

  “Anson McCall d’Ijo,” he replied.

  “Follow me, Anson,” she said. A step later, she looked back and noticed Anson had remained in place.

  Ah.

  “Easel, will you take the nice man’s hand and follow me?” she asked.

  After a long, wide-eyed moment, the girl nodded.

  They shuffled halfway around the table until they found Anson’s setting. Josh hoped the attendees would mistake the moisture around her squinted eyes for sweat as she helped the blind man into his chair. Luckily, Izel (not spelled like the painter’s tool after all) sat next to him.

  Josh finally located her seat—just one from the head, where reigned a tight-lipped Eloine—and sank down with a mostly-silent groan. The pain in her legs, the artificiality of the situation, the pressure of over a hundred people staring at her: she was pretty sure she weighed twice what she had just a half-hour prior.

  “May you remain shielded from Elovah’s wrath,” Eloine Crawsin d’Ijo called to the entire room.

  “Let us strive to be blameless,” everyone murmured in response.

  Josh hadn’t known the ritual existed anywhere but the rab’ri and synasch. She found it particularly hilarious, given she would be hard at work in the rab’ri right now, poring through old books and transcribing old texts, if not for this mockery of a party.

  Ah, well. It wasn’t as though the prayer applied to her kind.

  “My thanks to the fine citizens of Barstow who have come here to honor this most holy ritual.”

  Please. Everyone, even freaks shut away from the public, knew today’s attendees paid a week’s wage for the privilege to gawk at the Tithes.

  “This is the first Tithing Festival I’ve attended, and I feel privileged to be in the presence of such brave and blessed people.”

  Fourteen years old. Ima Emm calls Josh to her office. On legs trembling for many reasons, Josh sits in the office she has cleaned, stocked, and now fills with reports but until now has never officially visited.

  Josh babbles away the first five minutes. Finally, she sits back in her chair, unwilling to breathe more life into the delay.

  “Your feet,” Ima Emm says.

  It’s her legs, too, but she merely nods.

  “You’re not some rural girl her parents can hide. You’re an orphan, a daughter of all imrabi everywhere. It’s our duty.”

  She knows.

  “The next Tithe is in six years.”

  If this was blessed, Josh wouldn’t mind landing a nice curse.

  “To show proper reverence on Tithing Day, I’ve invited Minnabi Mason, who leads services at the Fist of Elovah Synasch, to explain the history behind it.” Beaming her relief, Eloine lowered herself into her chair.

  While the minnabi made his way to the center of the room, Josh used her right foot to massage the stinging muscles of her left ankle and calf. It was a technique she’d perfected, even while wearing boots, in her many years of sitting through services in the rab’ri. She knew Minnabi Mason, although he seldom visited her—their rab’ri. He was the perfect choice, since he styled himself an Arrivalist scholar. It occurred to her he was no older than Eloine Crawsin d’Ijo: maybe early-to mid-forties. She’d known him for years and had always thought him older; it was his prematurely gray hair, perhaps, or his effected—oh, what was the word?—gravitas.

  “May you remain shielded from Her wrath,” the ‘nabs said. He paused, eyes lifted toward the ceiling. After the expected response, he continued. “Good day, children of Elovah. I feel the angels smiling on us all for honoring our covenant. These seven young people—” (Seriously, at least two of them were older than him) “—bear a holy burden. In their seven young hearts are written the fate of our town.”

  Josh wasn’t exactly sure what that last statement was about. A particularly bad metaphor?

  The minnabi paused, his lips pursed. He stabbed the air with a forefinger. “Every seven years our city sends seven persons, our tender and holy town members, into the heart of the desert to meet with Elovah and plead with Her to spare us from the crushing weight of Her judgment.”

  That wasn’t exactly what the scriptures said, but Ima Emm always said the ‘nabs were a little free with their interpretations. Personally, Josh thought Minnabi Mason styled himself a scholar, holy man, and poet.

  The minnabi nodded slowly, taking time to look in the eyes of the various spectators. He never turned and looked at any of the Tithes.

  “Her judgment is fierce. As it says in the Book of Wrath, when Elovah returned to the Earth and found the Twelves living chaotic and selfish lives of idolatry and greed, Her heart wept. Surely She’d warned them against false gods, against worshipping worldly treasures above heavenly ones. They lived side-by-side with millions of people, never knowing them as sister or brother, only living their tiny lives, contenting themselves with rootless loves and material wealth.

  “In Her grief over their short memory and callousness toward one another, She gathered the leaders to Her. Instead of falling to their knees, the leaders laughed. What power could this being have? And so Her grief turned to wrath.

  “Elovah sent Her angels, beautiful and fearsome, to smite all sinners and disbelievers. But, as it says in the Book of Wrath, this meant none would survive. After six days of massive death and destruction, the leaders finally relented. On the seventh day, they prostrated themselves before God, begging Her for forgiveness.”

  Call her immature, but Josh always felt uncomfortable with the term “prostrate.” The scriptures actually used the phrase “cast themselves before Her mighty judgment.”

  “But Elovah didn’t trust them. How could She, when they’d only come to Her after She’d displayed Her might and wrath? The leaders wept and swore they would never again let the world stray so far from Her. And now that their numbers had been decimated, it would be even easier to rebuild a world devoted to Her glory.

  “In Her wisdom, Elovah chose to allow them their chance. She called Her ange
ls back to Her, and the destruction ceased. However, She told the town’s leaders, She would never again allow them the freedom they’d had before Her return. Her eyes would remain upon them, and the fire of Her wrath would burn as brightly.

  “While they groveled before Her, Elovah told the leaders of each town to choose one person per year to approach Her and plead for Her lenience and grace. This is their Tithe, their hope and their payment for Her continued blessings.” Interesting take on the scriptures. “The leaders, still selfish and fearful, begged God allow them more time with their loved ones. Maybe once every five years they could send five people? Although Her pain burned in Her chest, Elovah in Her infinite power was merciful. One person per town per year, She said, one year for each day of the Holy Scourge, collected until the seventh year. Every seven years, seven Tithes, seven blessed beings, from each town would meet Her as emissaries to plead for Her continued generosity.