October’s Harvest

Chapter One

My name was October Harbuck, and I lived in a cult. Although me and my brother weren’t born there, our destinies had been intertwined with the farm since its conception.

The place where we lived was named Blue Corn. The Blue Corn Farm to outsiders. The farm was our whole world. We lived and died in Blue Corn. It was a place where no one came, and no one left. It was a place built a long time ago by a man named William Walsh and generation after generation of his family controlled the place with an iron grip. It was William Walsh who was instructed by God to trap us here. 

I always imagined how this place got started. What would’ve led the founding prophet William Walsh to learn the liquid gold language that he would use against us. His suit must’ve served him well as he traveled over mountains and ridges to get to the farm’s flat piece of land, and the good book must’ve given him a sense of purpose as his boat swam over the passage to the new world. Whether this was where the divine revelation from God took place no one will ever know.

The land that the community was built on had once belonged to the woods where the earth was brittle and the soil as dry as the air. Sometimes in the spring the pond that lay in the thicket of trees returned. In the winter it froze over. By the hands of William Walsh, the land was replenished. Growing grass. Bountiful fields of corn. The fruit of William Walsh’s labor blossomed, and it bloomed into the place where our entire lives were conceived. It was supposed to leave us wanting less, but the blossoming fields only left me wanting more.

***

“October?”

I snapped my head over from the window to look over at the class, but everyone was looking at the teacher, Sister Jennifer. She was William Walsh’s great-great-granddaughter and our current prophet’s sister. She hit the chalkboard with her stick, and I flinched. I placed my hands flat on the desk in a manner of respect and discipline.

Our schoolhouse was small. The older kids like me had class in the afternoon where we learned how to read and write and basic arithmetic like adding and subtracting. The smaller kids like my brother had class in the morning. I was seventeen. This was my last year in school before I would be assigned, and since I was a Sinner, I would be assigned a job that would be equal punishment. 

My family wasn’t always Sinners. They were Saints, and they got to live in the big houses with running water and food filled fridges. My brother and I made them Sinners, and after last year, our place in the poor part of the community was sealed forever. Sinners got leaky ceilings in their cottages and stale bread for dinner. While Saints worked in the community, Sinners worked in the cornfields, the mill, and the rest of the farm. Smoke from the mill cast a grayish shadow over the skies, and after the workers got off from work, they scattered out of the building with sunken faces. My father used to complain about his aching back and cramped fingers. My mother suffered from cracked nails and calloused palms.

My father, who loved his job at the mill, was a man known by all, befriended by a few. But he had an extraordinary amount of influence on anyone who disregarded their best instincts and associated with him. He was a hard worker and was bound to his job just like everyone else was. In fact, he would have been supervising, he had the charisma. He would have been the head of the mill. He had the brains, but as he was returning home from work, he vanished. Disappeared off the face of the earth.

Though the news of his disappearance was talked about all over the community, soon it had to be forgotten. The rumor had said that he left the community. That somehow he was able to climb the tall wooden fence that bordered Blue Corn until he made his great escape into the great unknown. But that wasn’t the truth. 

The disappearance left a grieving wife in Blue Corn: my mother. She stopped smiling for some time. She didn’t speak for a while. She said that she could hear his calls in the wind, and that she could taste him in everything that she ate, that she couldn’t stand the sight of anything. It reminded her so much of him. At times, I think that included us. Her love no longer reached her eyes which had turned gray and hard as steel. A dark shadow lived on her face feeding off of her grief.

After my father’s disappearance, my little brother was more aware of our mother’s presence. Brayley had turned twelve that summer and I had turned seventeen. When our mother went to cook, he would steady himself beside her, with his hands out to help. I would talk endlessly to fill in the rest of the space. After a while, the radio would turn on, and Josef’s announcements drifted through the house. I was an expert at ignoring things, but even his voice would find a way to pour into my ear.

When dinner came, I would help set the table, and then we would sit around the table and eat together. But we were always watching her. She was our queen whether she wanted us to worship her or not. We bowed to her because we were afraid that she would vanish like our father.

When the last remnants of summer fell away, my mother decided that love would never find her again and soon felt it a thing of longing just like the summer nights. That was when love appeared on the doorstep in the form of our current prophet, Josef Walsh, William Walsh’s great-great grandson.

His plan had been to stay for dinner to tell us the good news. My mother was going to be remarried. Josef explained to us that God made my mother for a reason, and it was to be married to someone who would take care of her the right way. Then Josef went on to say that my father was never the right man, but there was someone out there who was the right one for her. I soon found myself ignoring what he said but watching him. His eyes searched hungrily over my mother’s face like he was looking for something. Some kind of reaction that she was happy, but my mother hadn’t given him the courtesy. Josef was a man who could make an unbeliever a believer. A man who knew how to use his charm in a way that made him dangerous. After all, the most beautiful roses have thorns.

I cried that night, a small cry that didn’t wake Brayley as he slept beside me nor wake my mother who slept in the bedroom beside ours. The sound would pause briefly and then I would think. I knew that Josef wanted my mother for himself. He was going to make my mother his wife. He had always wanted us out of the way.

A month later and I still mourned, because in the autumn season it had never occurred to me that my mother was going to be married to the prophet, the dashing Josef Walsh who wore nice clothes and combed hair, and who remembered the name of every person in the community, and who preached his fire and brimstone and who smiled even when no one else did, with an impersonal manner that we all resented because no one actually liked him. 

Josef was the bringer of death. The dead look of the community stirred a strange enthusiasm in him, and made him forgetful of the real reason his great-great grandfather started this place. He would look at each of us with the most loveliest expression, and then close us up in the palms of his hands since he did own us. This was death. But all the same, it was how he loved us best.

***

Soon the autumn fog covered the afternoon air lightly like a hot breath on glass. The children finally came, running out for recess. The boys wrestled each other, landing in dirt and pulling dust up into the air, and the girls hung around the swings and talked and watched the boys. This happened every day, a familiar wonder. The sun would rise and I would daydream about what lay beyond the fence that stretched from Blue Corn on every side. And I would feel lonely. It was the same kind of loneliness that my brother felt as I watched him as he seemed to belong to a world all of his own. Dark skin was all we had known, first the outrage and then the dirty looks, and now most people did not wish to acknowledge us.

Now, to comfort myself, I waved at him. My brother noticed me. His face was delicate yet solemn just as it was when he was a baby. Brayley would watch my face with a different intensity than when he watched my mother. He didn’t want me to take on the postures and dialects of our community, to assimilate my life into theirs, so that they would never feel invaded upon. My love for Brayley was immaculate, my attitude towards him loving. He saw me not as other people were because I had never taught him to be like them. I wanted him to be himself.

Nikki, my best friend, glanced over at me. She had freckled skin and red hair. She was pretty in an unconventional way, but others managed to make her feel like she wasn’t. She sat in the desk beside me, and her eyebrows rose, warning me of Sister Jennifer. Through all of my complaints, Nikki’s eyes were always wide with excitement to learn. She was eager to drink from the fountain of knowledge. I sighed and moved my attention to the chalkboard in an attempt to pay attention to Sister Jennifer’s lesson.

Nikki loved me and my family. She had three other siblings and parents, who sometimes had to sacrifice their own plates to feed their children, their throats parched, hunger pulsing in their temples. In our decade long friendship, Nikki confided in me as I confided in her.

When Nikki learned of my father’s disappearance, she began to urge me to be careful. She believed something wasn’t right with his disappearance. I pretended to believe her in an attempt to appease her. In this small place, no one could leave without someone noticing and no one could just disappear in a place that was as tightly controlled as we were. She proved to be right.

***

“So has your mother decided yet?”

“What choice does she have? She either marries him or-”

“Marries him.”

We sat at one of the picnic tables in the corner of the school’s backyard, food in front of us. We were not inclined to eat. I could hear the voices of the other students carry over to us. Students, who were fond of grayish mush and raw carrot sticks, gathered to chat, while we picked over our food. We would be looked at by others who would judge, stare, and watch us, charged with keeping us near them but not too close.

“You’re going to have to call him Father, you know?”

“I will…as soon as hell freezes over.”

“You shouldn’t curse,” Nikki said.

“Should you really be eating that carrot?”

It was them. As in Genevieve Walsh, Cora Davidson, and Raven Collier. They were everyone’s enemy yet people still wanted to be like them. They sat in front of us smiling incapable of pure emotion. They were privileged. They were deemed as Saints. People that Josef believed were touched by God and untouched by us. Genevieve was in charge because she was Josef’s niece. It was said that when the bells rang the girls would step down the stairs in unison and they would sing, and others would sing back to them, their voice and their followers’ voice, on and on, between harmony and murderous symphony. After a while Genevieve’s dark eyes would bore into your soul as Raven whistled along, and Cora flirted with her blonde hair. The song of the siren, and no doubt their spell would be cast.

I sighed. “Leave us be Genevieve.”

“Or what? You’re gonna call your father the vanishing king,” she spoke with venom. Her words were sharp. In my head, I called her a corneater. The kind that slithered between the stalks looking to bite the ones whose hunger got the best of them. “Your ‘mother’ better take my uncle’s offer or she’s in for a rude awakening.”

Genevieve could wave it all away with her hand and waved she did. I shuddered, she winked, and went back to pretending as if nothing had happened. 

I glanced at Nikki, and she shrugged. It was a mystery to her too. Mystery plagued itself over Blue Corn into its people. Even into the boy whose very existence was a constant reminder of things I would never have. 

Ever since I could remember I have had a crush on Drew Keegan. He carried himself like a dreamer. Or maybe he was still mourning as well. Before my family became the brunt of conversation, his family held the title. His mother had died a little before my father had disappeared. Drew’s green eyes and golden hair and olive skin always made me fear that he would never notice me. And I couldn’t stop thinking about him. I was certain that he would never accept me. 

“You should be careful,” Nikki said.

“About what?” 

Nikki followed my gaze to Drew who sat at the table across from us. “I can see it in your eyes. It’s no secret that you like him, but Cleansing is coming soon and then you’ll stop thinking about him for a while.”

Nikki was not a girl of excess, and so her crush, as it became more and more ironic, was surprising. It was Zan Hutchinson who was still brisk and bright when most of us had sunk into the ordinary cycle of every day. He had bright eyes and a messy haze of dark hair. He had submitted to this life in a way that was both terrifying but overwhelmingly suspicious. A smile was always plastered on his face from ear to ear. When he walked the halls, eyes lowered and knees bowed. Sometimes he laughed when he saw us or washed his hands. In my fondest memory of Zan, I remember him accidentally dumping a tray over our heads. Even then he was still good looking. 

“Do you remember what Zan did to us?” I would ask, but Nikki would always look away. 

A long moment of quiet fell upon us. We ate our mush, choking it down with our small drink of water. The taste was awful, but it filled our stomachs.

“I don’t believe he ran away.”

“Me neither, but it’s probably best if we just go with it.”

“Why?” I asked her.

Nikki looked up from her plate. Her face was grimly set, and her blue eyes darkened with an intensity that frightened me. “People who find answers disappear like your father.”

Chapter Two

School felt like an eternity and only when the bell rang were we allowed out of our seats and to go about our day. Like always Genevieve and the other Saints lagged behind. At the sound of the bell, they didn’t feel the need to rush out of their seats, like we did. Saints were exempt from working in the cornfields. I watched as Drew was suddenly surrounded by everyone. Everyone hoping to get the chance to talk to the community’s golden boy. 

“Off you go,” Sister Jennifer said, shooing us Sinners out of the schoolhouse. It was time for us to work. The corn wasn’t going to pick itself.

On our way to the cornfields, we were met by Brayley and Nikki’s little sister, Nadia. Nadia’s red ponytail swayed from side to side as she and Brayley whispered to each other. I listened because something was wrong. I could tell by the way Nadia looked at Brayley with a look of sadness and love. Nadia was to Brayley what Drew should have been to me, but somehow Nadia was more possible for him.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not.”

“Garrett’s a jerk.”

“He’s a Saint.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

I couldn’t listen anymore. I knew something had happened. A fight. Between him and the boy who always would be there to remind us who we were. He was the worst of Blue Corn.

Nadia’s hand brushed against Brayley. I glanced at Nikki who was staring at them. She had a small smile on her face. Brayley and Nadia’s relationship was like ours sometimes. How we were connected by nothing other than familiarity but we had each other. Unlike Nikki and I, Brayley and Nadia’s relationship was ridiculed and they were always threatened.  

We walked through the thick atmosphere. Sometimes the sun would be out. Today it wasn’t. Above I watched the clouds as they drifted by. Even though the fog from earlier had disappeared, it was still gray and there was a stillness in the air.

We finally arrived at the cornfields which were the trademark of the farm. I looked over at the green stalks. In the fall, their color was lush. Green as the grass underneath them. The yellow peeked out ready to be picked.

For some reason the cornfields were a source of pleasure for the Blue Corn Farm. It was producing and everlasting. Several acres of it grew. The people here always looked to expand it, until the tall stalks reached high into the heavens. Farmers heaped piles of corn into buckets that were sent out across the whole community and to the outside world. We ate corn almost every night. Cream corn. Regular corn. Corn salad. Corn pudding. There were barrels of it. It was how we made our living to be so isolated. It was how we stayed alive.

Some kids were already picking the corn. Some would say the sins of the father shouldn’t be passed to the child, but here it was different. Kids were deemed sinners because of their parents’ mistakes. For us, it was different. My brother and I were deemed sinners because of who we were. I stared at some of the kids picking the corn. There were some older than me and even younger than Brayley. Some kids had bags underneath their eyes. Some kids had smiles. Pain in their fingers.

I held my palm out as my father would clean my wounds with alcohol.

“I’m sorry pumpkin,” He would say to me as he tended to my wounds. Picking corn was hell on an eight year old’s hands. I had about as many blisters and calluses as he did.

“It’s okay,” I would say to him. He looked up at me. His blue eyes were sharp. Never dull. He never rested in this place.

“It’s not okay. It’s never okay,” he would say. He bowed his head and sighed. “Children shouldn’t be put to work. It’s not right.”

“Well, what are we going to do?” I would ask.

He looked back up at me. “There’s always something we can do.”

I turned my back to the cornfields.

“Go home,” I said to Brayley.

Nikki snapped her head in my direction.

“Why?” he asked. “We can’t do that.”

Brayley was right. From the moment we were able to go to school, we were expected to spend our afternoons in the cornfields. We all had to contribute in some way.

“You’re too young,” I said to him. I turned my attention to Nadia. “You too. You should go home.”

Nadia looked over at Nikki. Nikki pursed her lips together. Even though she would never agree with me, she didn’t want to admit when I was right. “We’re supposed to work.”

“I want you to go home. Say you’re sick. I don’t care. Stay home.”

“I’ll get in trouble,” he said to me.

“You won’t,” I said to him. I looked over my shoulder to see the overseer for the day walking through the rows. If he saw us, Brayley wouldn’t be able to get away. “Go. Now.”

Nadia grabbed Brayley’s hand. She nodded and feigned a smile in Nikki’s direction. Nikki nodded in agreement.

I watched as they walked off. Slow at first, but then they picked up the pace and they were running. Far from the fields. I looked over my shoulder again to see that the overseer was coming closer. I turned to go back, but Nikki grabbed my arm.

“They’re going to know,” Nikki whispered. The overseer had spotted us, and it looked like he was coming our way.

“They can’t keep doing this,” I said to her. “Starving us and expecting us to break our back to work. It’s not okay.”

Nikki opened her mouth to say something just as the overseer walked up to us. It was Brother Jack. I remember he worked with my father at the mill. He peered at us from over his glasses.

“You two ladies, okay?” he asked.

“Yes, Brother Jack,” we said in unison.

He nodded. “It’s good to see you, October.”

I nodded and walked past him heading into the cornfields.

Nikki and I found an empty spot to work in. Far enough not to be heard over the stalks and not too far to get from the sight of Brother Jack.

“Bucket,” she said, signaling that it was my turn to go get the bucket from him.

I walked to the front of the corn stalks and spotted Brother Jack. I couldn’t tell if he was looking directly at me, but I could feel eyes on me. Everyone was always watching me. I picked up the red bucket and looked back at him. He had turned his head, but I knew he was studying me. I walked back to the stalks with the feeling that it was something he had wanted to say.

Nikki and I picked quietly for a while. Our bucket filled as fast as our fingers worked. The stalks were quiet. No one had anything to talk about. We could all sense the fence which was the closest when we were in the fields. 

The fence hovered over all of our minds in Blue Corn. When the air glowed in the spring, the exhale of fresh flowers. The wind blew and the smell of freedom. When the ground was wet from summer rain, the rush of excitement at the thought of a slippery escape. In the winter when the air was cold, my fingers twitched and my heart ached. The breath of imagination as I thought about what it would be like to take the climb.

“Why did you do that?” Nikki asked all of a sudden. “It was a risk.”

“It’s a risk I’m willing to take,” I said to her. “Kids shouldn’t have to work in the cornfields.”

“We shouldn’t have to do a lot of things. It’s just our way.”

“Their way,” I corrected her. “And it’s the wrong way.”

“What do you want us to do, October? Leave? You know that’s not happening,” Nikki said.

I pulled my hand from out of the stalks as my finger began to sting. I must have scraped it. A tiny cut on my pointer finger began to bleed. I placed my finger in my mouth and began to suck on the wound. A metallic taste filled my mouth. 

“Times up!” we could hear Brother Jack yell across the stalks.

Nikki and I each grabbed a handle to the bucket. We were careful not to spill it as we walked to the front of the stalks where the rest of the kids were. Brother Jack was inspecting each of our buckets to make sure that we had our buckets filled. There was supposed to be twenty-five buckets filled every afternoon. Not a drop less.

Nikki nudged me as Brother Jack paused at the bucket beside us. It belonged to a couple of twelve year old girls. One of them coughed into her hands as the other stared down at the ground. She was visibly shaking. The belt in Jack’s hand was enough to cause all of us to shake.

“We’re sorry Brother Jack. Hannah isn’t feeling well and I couldn’t do it all by myself,” said the girl with the shakes. Her name was Lily.

Brother Jack stepped closer to the girls. I held my breath as we all waited.

“Well…” he started. “I guess Hannah needs to get better then. We’ll do better next time.”

My jaw dropped. For a second, his eyes drifted over to me. I looked back down and heaved a sigh of relief.

Sometimes the cornfields were our hells. Beautifully wrapped green and yellow hells. But today there was hope. And hope was like heaven. 

When I got home from the cornfields, we were not surprised to see our mother sitting at the table looking flushed by the vapors that rose from the hot tea that she was drinking. We pulled off our coats in the kitchen, pulled our boots off, and limped over to her. Long dreary days were catching up to me.

She looked us over and smiled sadly. The bags underneath her eyes were now permanent markers of her despair. “What’s wrong, Brayley?”

Brayley and I exchanged glances.

“Nothing,” he answered.

Mother considered his answer and was baffled. Her appetite for her tea suffered. She knew something was wrong and now needed an excuse to talk with him about it. “I need this traded in,” Mother said, handing me a pearl necklace. I never asked her any questions when she handed me things that she found at work. I just accepted that her sticky fingers helped put food on our table. “We need food.”

I stared at the necklace as I rubbed the tiny beads in my fingers.

“October?”

“Yes. I heard you.”

“Okay. Bring back all the food you can get.”

Despite the lack of curb appeal, the Plaza was considered an impressive place to us and I loved going there. The Plaza suggested to me that maybe Blue Corn wasn’t all that bad. Even before I arrived, I had begun to compose an image in my head. Were it not for the clutter of shops, the flocks of birds scavenging on the ground for leftover crumbs, and the people who came through to trade and buy whatever they could scrape up and sell, it would have been possible not to realize the importance of the Plaza at all. Where I stood I could feel the reach of the fence behind me, and far beyond me on either side, in a silence that seemed to ring my ears. I suddenly became aware of the darkness of the world that I had never known about, too close to me, like a dark figure in the corner of a room.

The sight of the Plaza was then the only comfort there in the world, and there were not many of them in Blue Corn.

I watched as Drew stood near his family’s shop throwing breadcrumbs to the flock of birds. The birds were busy shoving their beaks down into the ground romping around digging for a last meal. When I finally stepped onto the Plaza square, I was not surprised to see that the fountain had dried up, the fountain looked just as thirsty as the rest of us. Drew looked up from the birds with his fingers still outstretched.

He smiled at me and looked me over. He watched me intensely to see what I was going to do. My face grew hot, and I hurried into the trade shop to avoid his gaze.

Sister Mary was not alarmed when I walked into her shop. I was no stranger. My family and I were always here to trade in goods. My eyes gazed over the secondhand trinkets and the dusty antiques. Too many to count. They lined the shelves which extended throughout the dimly lit shop. And here I was, cheeks flushed and eyes bright, thinking about Drew. How he had noticed me. Maybe I wasn’t invisible to him after all.

Sister Mary considered me. A cloud of remarkable force blew in my face as Sister Mary smoked a long brown pipe and rocked in her chair. She smiled at me revealing yellowy, rotten teeth and her face was filled with crevices and cracks as deep as the bowels of Earth. It was a rumor that she didn’t always look like this. That she was a beautiful lady with flowy hair down her back, glowing skin, and beautiful eyes. I wondered what her story was.

“Why hello darling,” she purred.

“Hi, Sister Mary.”

“What can I do for you today, sweetheart?”

“I just have one thing.”

“Well, let me see what you got.”

Sister Mary was one of the few people in Blue Corn that dealt with me, so I gladly handed over the pearl necklace and she responded by reaching into her pocket and handing over a crisp twenty dollar bill. “Thank you.”

“How are you holding up?” I shrugged. She reached out her wrinkled hand and placed it reassuringly on my arm. “God bless you dear. You’ll find your way.”

I nodded. She smiled as if she knew a secret that I hadn’t been told.

I couldn’t help but make my way over to the Keegan’s shop. I just wanted to see him, and I was excited when I saw him behind the counter. 

“Hi,” I said to him. “Can I get some sugar?”

Drew leaned towards me and stared at my mouth with curiosity. The same curiosity that killed so many cats. The temptation for the first bite. He opened his mouth to speak but then hesitated as he set his lips instead for a smile that melted my heart. His sparkly green eyes made my knees weak. “Sugar? Must be a special day?”

“Yes,” I couldn’t tell him about the pearl necklace.

“Is there anything else I can get you?” he asked.

I stared at him, not wanting to get sidetracked, but getting more distracted every second I stared into his perfect face. “No thank you.”

He went off to the back to fill my order and all of Blue Corn was plunged into darkness again. I sighed and leaned against the counter. Beside me pieces of delicious looking sweets were on sale. My father could never afford to buy us sweets. I smelled the air and traces of chocolate kissed my nose. Drew came back carrying a brown paper sack in his arms. The muscles on his arms tensed and bulged underneath the weight. I looked away and was suddenly glad that my dark skin hid the blushing that would’ve been so obvious on other people.

“Here you go.”

I handed him the money.

“Thank you.”

“See you later.”

“Yeah, okay.” 

***

Brayley was sitting at the table waiting for me. He perked up at the sight of me coming inside. I sat the bags on the table just as Mother walked into the kitchen with a quiet that seemed compounded of gentleness and stealth. She smoothed stray blonde hairs back from her face, making herself neat for us. She reminded me of a tragedy. Eve fallen from grace.

“How was Sister Mary honey?”

“Good,” I said, handing her the rest of the money. “I think it’s about time the Elders gave the place to someone else though.”

My mother stared at me. “Do you ever listen to me?”

“I thought it’d be a good idea if we started saving money. You never know what we might have to buy.”

My mother sighed. “That’s not your decision.”

“I’m sorry.”

“All the money that we have has to be used for food and for offering,” Mother said.

“We have food and you gave the offering for this month, right?”

My mother nodded. “Yes, offering comes every month, if you’ve forgotten.”

“Well, Josef sends you money every week.”

“Brother Josef,” my mother corrected me.

I started to unload the bags.

“Thank you October for thinking about us, but I got it. I don’t want you trying to be an adult right now. You’ll have your time. Trust me.”

“Mother, pretty soon I’m going to be forced into a marriage and a life that I don’t want. It’s going to happen and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.”

“You’re not forced.”

“Yes we are. I don’t want to get married. I don’t want to be assigned a job, and I don’t even think I want children.”

“It’s not as bad as you think.”

“What if the Elders assign me to someone I don’t like?” I asked.

My mother shook her head. “That’s how it is. People rarely get married to the person they want. They’re blinded by their own lust to see the plan that God has for them,” Mother took note of my unconvinced expression. “You’ll grow to love them.”

“You have no choice but to love them,” I muttered.

After a moment, Mother’s attention was drawn to the insides of the bag. “This must’ve cost a fortune. Why would you buy chocolate?”

“I didn’t buy chocolate.”

My mother corrected me by pulling out a big chocolate chip cookie. “You didn’t buy it?” I shook my head and she set the cookie down on the table carefully. “You have to take it back, October. I can’t believe you would do this. I thought I taught you better-”

I threw my hands up in defense before she could accuse me of doing such a thing. “I didn’t steal it! Drew must’ve given it to me.”

Mother raised an eyebrow at me. “Brother Peter’s son?” I nodded. She stared at the cake contemplating. “Well, that was nice of him-”

“October should keep it,” Brayley interrupted.

Mother closed her mouth and smiled. “Okay. October, be sure to thank him tonight,” She pointed for me to hand her a towel as she began to prepare dinner. “So Drew, huh?”

“Drew, what?”

“October, I was seventeen once,” A smile crept on her lips. “When I was in school, I had the biggest crush on his father.”

I raised an eyebrow at her.

“Yeah, and on Assignment day I thought Brother Peter was going to be assigned to be my husband, but he wasn’t,” Mother said.

“Were you upset?”

“Absolutely,” she said but then smiled to herself. “Your father was notorious for his curious mind. Cleansing never did keep him long so I knew he was going to be trouble.” I didn’t know whether I should defend my father or accept that she was right. My mother looked at me with a twinkle in her eyes. It happened every time she talked about him. “But I knew he was the kind of trouble that I needed.”

Chapter Three

Whereas the cornfields represented the heart and soul of the community, the church was the head. It was grand and the most gorgeous building in the community. While all the other buildings had been built squat and thrown together, the church had been built with a vision and a purpose. A long white steeple extended out to the sky. A mixture of pillars and stained glass was the backbone of the church. Beside the church was the cemetery. It was massive, probably because it was where everyone in Blue Corn was buried. The church’s backyard was where we held evening worship.

Tonight was no different. Like a usual night, Genevieve, Cora, and Raven were leading the songs. Genevieve was the front singer while Cora and Raven backed her up. Their voices waded over the crowd like a spell. Everyone danced as if they were enchanted. Zan played the guitar in the back, and Drew played the drums. I watched him as he played. He seemed to be at peace banging against the drum set. Sweat glistened on his forehead, and his jaw clenched as he focused on what he was playing.

Nikki nudged me. “Stop staring.”

“I was just watching,” I mumbled.

Nikki chuckled. “Sure.”

I moved my gaze just as Drew looked out over the crowd. I couldn’t tell if he had seen me. I hope he didn’t. I caught Genevieve glancing at me. She smirked behind the microphone and belted out more vocals. I rolled my eyes. She knew how to get under my skin.

“Hey, October!” Brayley said, running up to me with Nadia at his side. I looked down at their interlocked hands, and my stomach dropped.

“Brayley, take your hands off of her,” I growled at him.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

I stepped towards him and tore his hands away from Nadia.

“Hey!” he shouted.

“You can’t do that!” I yelled at him, catching the attention of some of the others. I glanced at Nikki, and her eyes were wide with worry.

“What happened?” my mother asked, running over to us. She placed a hand on Brayley’s shoulder in a protective manner.

“He was holding her hand,” I said, nodding at Nadia, who had her head hung low.

“I’m sorry,” Nadia mumbled.

My mother looked around. She bent down and whispered into Brayley’s ear. He nodded. He glared at me and stalked off.

“They don’t understand,” my mother said, not angrily but firmly.

“Well, that’s the kind of thing that’s going to get them in trouble,” I said to her. “Whether they understand or not.”

My mother pursed her lips and turned her attention to Nikki. “Good evening, Nikki. Sorry for the misunderstanding.”

Nikki nodded. “They’re just kids. They’ll learn from their mistakes.”

My mother nodded in agreement. She gave me one last glare before leaving.

“It wasn’t that big of a deal,” Nikki said after she left.

“Yes, it was.”

As the music died down, Josef finally got up on the stage. Genevieve and the other singers moved over to the side to allow him to take center. Drew and Zan remained in their places as Josef took to the microphone. The crowd quieted down at his presence on the stage. All eyes were on him.

“Good evening Blue Corn,” he said into the microphone.

“Good evening,” we repeated back to him.

“Now I can see you all are enjoying yourselves, but our true enjoyment is from Him,” Josef preached. The crowd cheered. Every word he said they soaked it up. “We give glory to God. May he continue to bless our covenant community. There is no one else like us.”

The crowd cheered again. My mother and Brayley stood in front of me. She grabbed Brayley’s hand. He smiled at her touch. 

“There is no one like us!” the crowd chanted back. I was silent. I glanced at Nikki who chanted along with the crowd. She looked at me and shook her head. I was silent. I wasn’t a part of this, and I didn’t believe in any of it.

Josef held his hands out to silence them. The crowd quieted down. “Let’s pray.”

We all got down on our knees. I bowed my head. I stared down at the grass and listened to Josef as he continued to preach.

“God, continue to bless our people. May they keep your prayers in their heart and serve out of what they know is right…”

I moved my eyes up from the grass to the stage to see that Josef had his eyes closed too. Drew was kneeling beside his drum set. For a second, he moved his head up. His eyes were no longer closed and he was staring straight at me. My breath caught in my chest. We stared at each other completely oblivious to the fact that Josef had stopped praying. He cleared his throat. I looked over at him, and he glared at me. I looked away as the others began to get up from the ground. I looked back at Drew and he wasn’t staring at me anymore.

“Bless us dear lord to keep our eye on you. For all other distractions will only lead to death,” Josef said, catching my eye. I looked away.

“Come on October. Dance with us,” my father would urge me. He would dance with Mother during the evening worship. This was the only time that I felt like he was a part of Blue Corn. He would spin her around, and she would giggle until she stumbled from being dizzy.

Brayley would urge me too by grabbing for my hand. He loved to dance like our father. I couldn’t dance so I didn’t like to dance. There was no use in embarrassing myself. I was embarrassed enough.

“Holy be his name!” my father would repeat after everyone. 

I would laugh and after, he would be able to convince me. The feeling of jubilation that I felt didn’t come from praising some unknowable God. It came from dancing with my father. A man I loved. Our laughter was spiritual and cleansing to the soul. Not Josef’s fake sermons.

“Hi,” a voice said beside me.

I was sipping from a cup of water. The other refreshments were cookies baked by the women in the community. I looked to see that it was Drew.

“Hey,” I said to him. I watched him as he reached for a cup and poured himself a glass of water.

“You don’t want to dance?” he asked, gesturing to the crowd.

“No,” I said, watching the others. Flailing arms. Shouts to the sky. It was like something out of a horror show. “I’m not much of a dancer.”

“You seem like you could keep a beat. I thought I saw you tapping your foot up there,” he said and smiled. I looked away happy that he couldn’t see me blush. So he did see me after all.

“Well, you’re a pretty good drummer,” I said.

“Thanks,” he said. “I-”

“October!” a voice interrupted him.

I turned to see that it was Josef.

“Good evening, Brother Josef,” I said to him.

“Good evening. How are you?” he asked.

“I’m good,” I waited for the next part. The part that always came after.

“How is your mother? Anything I can do to help?”

I feigned a smile. “We’re all good.”

“Great,” he said, placing a hand on my shoulder. I felt myself tense up. I couldn’t stand being close to him. He reeked of corn and lies. “May the Lord guide you.” I nodded. He turned his attention to Drew. “Drew, you’re alright?”

“Yes, Brother Josef,” he held up his cup. “Just getting a sip of water.”

Josef nodded and glanced at me. “I’ll have Sister Celine bring you some next time.”

Drew nodded. “Yes sir. Thank you.”

Josef looked back and forth between Drew and I. He nodded curtly at me. “I’ll be seeing you.”

“Yes, Brother Josef,” I said. Josef eyed us one more time before leaving. I looked over to see that Drew was watching him. “You should be going back. Wouldn’t want you to get in trouble.”

Drew placed his cup down. “Yeah. Wouldn’t want to miss my solo either.” 

I chuckled. There would be no solo. The only one who got solos were Genevieve.

“Have a good night,” he said walking away.

“I’ll try,” I called out to him. “Thanks for the chocolate!”

Drew chuckled as he walked back to the stage. I watched as Genevieve walked up to him and started to talk. But he wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at me. The butterflies in my stomach grew. I smiled.

If distractions led to death, then I was so dead.

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