Her comment about God being my groom was confusing, naturally, and once again I wondered if my staying might be a terrible mistake. But then I thought about Bobby. And I reminded myself that nothing bad had actually happened.

I was only playing a game, getting in costume and putting on a stage play. What harm was there in that, if it made everyone happy?

Kathryn came for me ten minutes later, put a blindfold on me because she wanted it to be a surprise, and led me out of the house, down the porch steps and across the yard, then through a door to what I assumed was one of the outbuildings I’d seen earlier.

I couldn’t mistake the excitement in her voice as she stood before me and asked if I was ready.

“I guess.”

Carefully, so as not to disturb my combed hair, she untied the blindfold, and withdrew it from my head.

I blinked in the dim light and looked around. We were in an old, small, wooden shed with exposed beams overhead and clean straw on the ground. Two metal candle stands each held a dozen white candles, which lit the room.

To my right sat a large porcelain bathtub with decorative iron feet. The porcelain was chipped in places but otherwise had been polished. It was filled to the brim with clean water.

Kathryn stood directly in front of me, dressed in her black dress, next to a table lit by a single candle. On the table were an open black-leather Bible, a brass bowl with some liquid in it, a clear glass with what looked like moonshine or some other clear fluid, a small golden ring, and a folded white robe.

Wyatt stood to my left, dressed in blue overalls, next to Bobby who was wearing a dark robe, but not like mine. His was old and ragged and dirty, which surprised me, considering how obsessive Kathryn was about cleanliness.

He watched me with pride, wearing that sheepish, crooked smile of his.

“Hello, Eden,” he said.

“Hush, Bobby,” Kathryn snapped. “Not a word from you.”

Bobby hushed, but his smile remained stuck to his face. Wyatt looked on kindly, hands folded at his waist.

Kathryn gave me an encouraging nod, lifted the Bible, took a deep breath, stared directly into my eyes, and spoke without looking at the pages opened before her.

“As it is written, though having made man in his image as his children, God found man’s ways wicked and intolerable. And what God had made lovely, he now detested, having no stomach for the wayward means of what he had made. Thus he hated his children and saw to confining them to a place of eternal torture without mercy. And there came into this world of hatred the Son of God, proclaiming that if those God had fashioned in his likeness bowed before God in fear and presented themselves as living sacrifices, the One who had fashioned them in love would forget his hatred of them and allow them to escape the torture awaiting them.”

She took another deep breath and this time blew it out through pursed lips.

“And so it came to pass that on the morning of the seventh day of the new creation, man brought the spotless lamb, a living sacrifice, before God. And with it, a goat.”

Her eyes shifted to Bobby.

“And on that goat God placed all of his hatred to satisfy his lust for vengeance.”

My heart leapt with frightful worry. I had never heard of this kind of God.

She turned back to me. “The lamb was found to be pure and acceptable in his sight. He took her as his bride, to be touched by nothing impure for the length of her life. And he commanded the lowly mother of the bride to tend her well and to present her pure before him on the seventh day so that his anger might not rise up again. In this way will God’s favor rest on the bride and on her household and return blessing sevenfold.”

One last breath, through her nostrils.

“Selah,” she said softly.

She dipped her head and set the Bible on the table.

“We present this bride to our Father to take away all of our sin, that we might be found acceptable in his sight and restored to our true birthright as the blessed children of God.”

She walked up to me and slipped the black robe off my shoulders.

“In removing the black robe, we shed the stain of sin from this spotless lamb of God.”

Kathryn released her grip on the robe and let it fall in a heap around my booted feet.

“Come with me, sweetheart,” she whispered, taking my arm. “Please do exactly as I say.”

I was wearing only my underwear and the rain boots and although it was hot outside, I suddenly found myself trembling.

“Sh . . . sh . . . sh . . . There now, it’s going to be okay. I’m not going to hurt you.”

She stopped at the edge of the tub.

“Step out of your boots and directly into the water without touching the ground, darling. You can’t dirty your feet and defile the water.”

Kathryn had said I wouldn’t be hurt, and nothing she’d done so far made me think she would lie to the daughter she’d gone to such lengths to find. The words and rituals were strange, to be sure, but then everything that had happened to me during the last six months was a bit strange.

So with Kathryn’s help, I pulled first one foot out of a boot and set it in the ice-cold water, and then the other. Now in the tub, gooseflesh rippled over my body and I stood shaking.

“Move closer to the front, sweetheart.”

I shuffled to the middle of the tub.

“Now sit down.”

I hesitated, then lowered myself into the cold water, shivering.

She smiled at me approvingly, placed her right hand gently around my throat and her left hand at my lower back.

“As God himself was lowered into the grave to appease his Father’s rage, so now we offer this lamb into the grave so that she might rise and be found worthy of God’s love.” To me: “Don’t struggle, darling.”

Without further warning, Kathryn applied pressure to my throat and pushed me back. I’d heard of baptism, of course, and so I already knew that she was going to push me under. I let myself go, not wanting to upset her.

The moment the water covered my face, I felt it fill my nose and panic ripped through me. My body jerked up.

But Kathryn wasn’t ready for me to come up yet. Her grasp on my throat tightened and she held me down.

For a moment, I relaxed, thinking that it would only last a second and then be over. But the second turned into two, and then four, and suddenly I wondered if she was actually going to drown me.

The instant that thought entered my mind, my survival instincts swallowed me and I began to struggle to get my head up and out of the water. But with my increased effort came increased pressure on my throat, holding me down.

I could hear Kathryn’s muffled voice crying out above me, and the sound pushed my fear deeper. I began to thrash, clawing for the edge of the tub, kicking my legs, screaming underwater.

Still, my mother held me down. I thought that I was going to drown. With each passing second I became more certain.

But I didn’t drown. Instead, just as my world started to go black, my head was suddenly pulled up and out of the water. I came up sputtering and gasping for breath.

Kathryn wrapped her arms around me and held me tenderly. But I was confused and I began to cry.

“It’s okay, sweetheart. I’m right here. Sh, sh, sh . . . Mommy’s right here to hold you. That’s my girl, I’m right here for you. Sh, sh, sh . . .”

I let her hold my drenched head in her arm and slowly brought myself under control.

“It will be much easier if you don’t struggle the next time,” she whispered. “We’re almost done.”

When I had calmed, she pulled back and put her hand under my arm.

“Stand up with me.”

I pushed myself up with her assistance and stood in the tub. Kathryn retrieved the folded white robe from the table, opened it wide and told me to step out of the tub. She draped the robe over me and helped me slide my arms into the sleeves.