Read The First Chapter

            The first swish of the whip whistles through the silence. I’m not ready for it, even though I know it’s coming. Neither is the girl. Her torso arcs as the switch slashes across her creamy back, tattooing her in an instant with a long, jagged gash, the first of what will become a tangled latticework of scars. Her body, stunned for a moment, freezes. Then a rivulet of blood seeps from the wound and trickles down her skin, weeping. Wrapped in the all-consuming agony of that one blow, she forgets to brace for the next one, and when it comes, crisscrossing a second leaking wound over the first, her toes, suspended an inch off the ground, flex and twitch. There will be twenty-eight more, I know, subconsciously counting the snapping lashes. Will there be enough flesh left? Her back is so small.

            Her wrists hang from the top of the wooden tripod; the Trinity, as they like to call it. Bound together, her hands dangle from a small hook near the top of the pole. No doubt it’s meant to look like a shepherd’s hook. The girl’s feet swing as the snarling whip strikes her for the third time. A noise escapes then, the first she utters. Keening, I think one might say.

            The crowd, riled and rabid mere moments before, stands in silence, savoring the cracks that smack across her body. Number four. Number five. I will the girl to faint.

            Her white dress, the top half bunched down at her waist, is already stained with so much blood. Oh, how they had relished tearing it from her, making sure everyone in the crowd got a long look at her breasts so that her Punishment began laden with hot shame. I cannot see her face but I know she’s somewhere beyond crying, her features contorted with the disbelief of such a shocking sensation.

             Her back is a mass of shredded ribbons. She strains and drips and spills over. Number ten tears at her, or is it eleven? She writhes and twists, her entire body laboring, though no birth will follow.

            Her head tips forward with the next lash and her body stills. Don’t get the bucket, I beg inside my own head. Please.

            They get the bucket.

            She sputters as cold water sloshes over her. Someone in the crowd laughs but everyone else is silent, hypnotized by the swaying, battered girl. I look for Emilie but don’t see her. Maybe she’s behind me but I don’t turn around. A strange sort of paralysis has taken hold of me.

            Only a few minutes have passed since the Punishment began, but the shadows on the ground already look longer. The sky is filled with silver-bellied clouds and the air is hazy with diffused light. On the Trinity, blood runs down the girl’s spine like rain streaming down a window.

            One of the Officers reaches up and cuts her loose with a switch of his blade. As her bindings fall from the top of the tripod, her dress slips from her narrow hips and falls to the ground the moment before she does. Crumpled at the base of the Trinity, curled into herself, the girl looks younger than her fourteen years.

            Someone, her mother perhaps, is allowed to collect her, and as she is placed face down onto a stretcher an Officer tosses the bloodied dress over her naked body. This is not done to cover her, but as one last scarlet marking of her transgression.

            The righteous and riotous crowd erupts. They cross themselves and pump their fists in the air. Flags unfurl; the red and black of the Southerly State flapping under pregnant gunmetal clouds. Female voices, from the back, begin to sing a hymn. Of course they do. Divine and conquer, I think to myself.

            A word rumbles from deeper, angrier throats, until it envelops and engulfs the hymn completely. The angel voices singing God’s word abandon their melody and take up the cry as well. It rolls over the crowd, that one word, the word the girl is forever branded with:  Sanguidam. Sanguidam. Sanguidam.

            I want to turn and run, but I know better than to move just yet. I put down my head and stare at my black boots. Anyone watching me might think I’m praying for the girl’s soul, or maybe my own. There’s a squeeze on my arm. Emilie.

            We stand there a long time. Her hand grips the flesh of my arm. When a new hymn rises up against the rallying cry, I finally look at her. She nods and we turn around to push through the crowd, but a bullish man stands in our path. I’ve seen the mocking leer on his face many times; they all look the same.

            I know what he wants. Emilie’s hand tightens around my arm but I shake her off. I look up at the flag in his hand, the bold colors of the Southerly State hanging over me. I catch a furtive glimpse of the bulge under his jacket and recognize the outline of his gun. I touch my right hand to my heart and make the sign of the cross. I raise my three middle fingers to my lips and kiss them, then touch the tip of the flag. Emilie does the same.

            The man nods at us, pleased with our allegiance. He touches his own heart and crosses himself. I bow my head, trying to look as demure as possible, and sidestep around him as he raises his three fingers. Emilie’s hand returns to my arm, holding me tighter than before.

            We walk out of the square, our steps quickening as we near the outer fringe of the crowd.  Our boots tap the concrete in perfect synchronization.

            “Was she yours?” Emilie whispers, not daring to look at me.

            “No. I don’t know her,” I answer, trying to keep my lips still.

            But they are all mine in a way. She might as well have been under my care.

            We don’t speak another word on the street. Our footsteps grow louder as we walk farther from the square. I concentrate on each echoing step, but they aren’t loud enough to drown out the dying strains of the Sanguidam chant that flicker in the bruised light of the evening, following us all the way home.