Prologue: burned bridges
They traveled across what was once the Mesquite desert, and now had replaced the California coastline. The land was arid and rocky, nothing grew and the wildlife kept dying. Food was so scarce that the women made salad out of weeds and made soup with stones. Their paths sometimes intermingled with those of bandits and thieves, and more than once their men were beaten down and their children taken to be feasted upon. They were traveling northeast, looking for the one remaining city in the world that had not been hit. They had been told of an abundance of food and jobs that awaited them, that they would be taken in with open arms and treated as heroes.
She held her children closely and allowed Sam to lead them closer to the mountains and away from the ocean. They had met only days before, but Sam had promised them a safe passage to the city. As she carried one small child over her shoulder and held the hand of another, she recalled the home she had left. It had seemed a century ago since she had been in the nunnery, dusting the holy scriptures. A strange man, a self proclaimed prophet, came into the village. Passing her by, he reached for the Old Testament, holding it lovingly in his arms.
She asked him
Are you a religious man?
With a slight smile and the wave of a hand, the man lit a match and the words burned before her. He spoke, and told her that one day there would be no words of God, only words of men. Then he threw the book into the fire, and let it be consumed by it. Before she could say the word blasphemy, he was gone, and the nunnery had begun to burn as well. She remembered screaming out to the other nuns, all of whom came running.
Save the books! Save the books! They screamed.
She loaded as many books as she could into her arms: the Torah, the New testament, the Kabala, the chronicles of Mary Magdalena. The pews burned quickly, then the fire crept up and along the walls, over the roof. Smoke made it difficult to see and breathe, and she crawled out of the wreck on hands and knees, before the entire building collapsed behind her. A piece of burned wood tripped her and she landed on her stomach. Terrified, she felt for her baby before the fumes and the pain took her away and she became unconscious.
She had been afraid for her child. It was her third and it would be her last. A girl, the doctors had said. She had been prepared to name the child after the nunnery, St. Anne’s; but it was bad luck to name a child after a burned church. Instead, she named the child Rain, for rain was always a miracle.
Gender:
Points: 1978
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