A Thing Devoted by Lotis Key

Author:Lotis Key
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2012-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

20

Tiptoeing to the hall closet, I pulled off my boots and lined them up neatly with the rest. Then, in my socks, quietly going up the stairs, I almost fainted from the horrible fright Ana gave me.

“One, you’re not supposed to go out without telling anyone. Two, you’re not supposed to go out alone.” She was sitting on the top step in pitch black darkness.

“THREE, you’re not supposed to lock your door!” Heart pounding, hand on banister, I felt my way up in the darkness and sat next to her. “There’s more chance of my dying from a heart attack in this house, than being hurt anywhere else. Why are you sitting here in the dark?”

“Is Meany dead?”

“No.”

“Dying?”

I considered this. “We’re all dying.”

“Yes, but some more quickly than others.”

I could see her now, just a little. She was very pale. “Do you feel like you’re dying, Ana? You look like you might be. Should I get Nijah?”

“No. Abster, would you miss me if I died?”

I found Ana’s hand in the darkness. “Yes. I’m sorry about my Bible study. It made you cry and I didn’t mean it to do that.”

“No, you did a great job with it. So great, I saw myself clearly … I’m Achan.”

I started to protest, shocked that sweet Ana would identify with a criminal. She put the hand that I was holding, over my mouth.

“Hush. In case I die, I need to make my confession, Abster. I’m the one who brought the sin on this family. It’s my fault. I might have stopped it happening, but I was weak. I’m not bright and brave like you, so I did nothing.”

I began to tremble and she put her arm around me, pulling me close to her.

“I saw them, Abster. I knew it was wrong and I didn’t tell Mommy.”

My teeth began to chatter, but I wasn’t cold. I felt instead, like I had a burning fever. “Saw who? What do you mean? Daddy and Yuli? How could you have seen them? How could you have known? Stop it.”

“Hush,” she said again. “You have to hear my confession, and if God punishes me with death, tell Mommy how sorry I was that I didn’t do the right thing.”

I started to cry and she held me tighter.

“It was at the ball game last summer. The one we went to for Nijah’s birthday. Daddy left to get us hot dogs. He was gone for so long that Mommy thought maybe he needed help carrying everything, and she sent me to find him.”

I remembered this. Nijah and I were annoyed because Ana had been gone for a long time and come back without a single hot dog.

“I looked everywhere and was about to give up when I saw him from across the entrance hall. He was in a stairwell near the men’s room. I started towards him then stopped. A woman in a bare back dress was holding his arm and … I think she was whispering into his ear. He was laughing and his hand … was on her bottom.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.