The Bone Wall Read Free Page A

loft, we move more carefully, tiptoeing around the bell frames in the darkness and the holes in the floor where the ropes fall and light rises in dusty shafts. From here, we can hear every word said when the formal call to order silences the room.
    Crossed-legged, Rimma leans forward, an eye to a hole, her face illuminated as she watches the stir of activity, men shuffling into seats, still arguing, many surely standing against stone walls beyond curving pews. Deacons cluster at the dais, red-faced and muttering. None of this turmoil do I need to observe with my eyes, the imagery so clear in my head, the scene repeated with only a twitch more panic than when the shield began to fail.
    My knees fold up to my chest, chin resting on kneecaps, lips pursed as I watch Rimma listening. Neither of us speaks, and she avoids raising her eyes to me, as if I’m not here. So well I know her. She is me and I her. I reflect her expression, her gestures, the grace and awkwardness of her body, the tone and timbre of her voice. We are still fluid and undefined, shedding our childhood for an adulthood that disintegrates before our eyes. Heaven was once so predictable it was deadening, a generations-old pattern we weave just as our forebears did. Rimma believes the loom that holds the threads of our lives will last forever; I’m less certain. That describes perhaps the only difference between us for we are equally terrified.
    The gavel raps on the dais, both of us leaping from our skins. Rimma leans over again, an eye to the spyhole as sounds below begin to soften. The gavel taps in quick succession. Tap, tap, tap.
    “Quiet now, quiet,” Deacon Abrum’s deep voice reaches soothingly into the room’s stuffy corners. “Let us pray God’s Assurance.”
    Rimma’s palms press together at her chest, her eyes closed as she whispers with the congregation below. “Mighty God, bless us, your descendants, whom you have chosen in all your wisdom to guard the gates of Heaven. We await with faith and humility the day when the broken world shall bloom and we shall assume dominion over all that grows of the dark loam, creeps o’er the verdant land, swims the crystal waters and flies through sunlit air. This reward is ours for our ancestors’ faith and righteousness, our unwavering adherence to your laws, our steadfast denial of the devil-spawned and their evil ways. We are the merciless sword of your justice, keepers of the covenant, the Saved.”
    The prayer ends but not the thick silence. I imagine Deacon Abrum’s gray head bobbing at the somber gathering, singling out a few men from the sea of faces, remembering to acknowledge those crowded in the back. “This day we shall never forget,” he intones, his solemn footsteps creaking across the wood floor as he begins to pace. “Today we learned that Paradise has fallen. How can this happen, we ask? How did the people of Paradise so incense God that He abandoned them? What did they do to bring this fate upon themselves?” He pauses as if expecting God Himself to answer from the rafters. “Why did He lead them to our gates except to test us, to remind us of the penalty for sinning against His righteous laws?”
    My sister isn’t breathing. Her trembling hand slides up to her face and covers her mouth as the meaning behind the portly deacon’s words take root.
    A man’s stunned voice cracks the silence. “We can’t leave them out there,” he utters in disbelief from somewhere in the back. I wish I recognized the voice and envy Rimma’s view through the rope-hole.
    “We can’t let them in,” another man says indignantly. “We’re at capacity if all seven pregnancies produce healthy children. God’s law forbids it.”
    “Elder Demar speaks the truth. The law is clear,” Deacon Elie asserts, his nasal whine unmistakable and just as grating up here.
    “But God is also merciful, isn’t He?” another voice questions, this one familiar, my father. “Perhaps He challenges us to embrace