Three Converts

Part 13

The walk up the mountain was the slowest, most laborious walk in recent memory. The heat of the day didn't dissipate as I'd hoped it would, but the physical discomfort was nothing compared to the storm of thoughts thrashing around my brain. I should be worried about telling Sophie and my parents it was another useless day, but I couldn't stop thinking about Griffin. The hike felt absurdly long, but ended abruptly before I was ready to face anyone. Sophie's face usually cheered me after the long days. Today her shoulders slumped the second she spotted me. She could tell without a word I'd lost my conversion. Of course, she didn't know I'd lost a friend too.

At the top of the trail my sister took my hand. If I didn't know better I'd guess someone had a knife to her back for how forced her smile was. We walked to the house without talking. She helped with my chores, which were light so I could focus on my primary job, which was converting three people to Diety. Why couldn't I manage that? Three was such a little number.

Mother and Father must have picked up on my distress because they were equally quiet, avoiding eye contact. Father's muscles were tense and Mother's mouth grim. They'd never let their disappointment surface before. I wanted to crawl into bed and sleep this awful day away. Dinner was painful. Sophie tried to initiate conversation, but none of us could put together a cordial response and eventually she gave up. I opened my mouth to ask if I might be excused when Father finally spoke.

"Brother Augustus stopped by today." I folded my hands in my lap. The council elder didn't make neighborly house calls. "He requested your presence at the council meeting tonight, Lucy." I bit my lips to keep them from trembling. I stared into my lap.

"Lucy?" Sophie's voice was trimmed in fear, "WhyLucy?" Nobody answered. My parents, because they probably didn't know why andme, because I seem to have lost my vocabulary between an alleyway in Mayroodand the path back to my mountaintop.

"He did not specify the reason," Father answered. I risked a look at my mom and saw her watery eyes on me. In them I saw disappointment, embarrassment, and fear. Covering all those emotions though was the unmistakable illumination that was love. My heart would never be the same.

"Lucy?" Sophie asked. My darling sister whose voice never failed her, but only served her well- in converting people to Diety and in a million other ways. "Luce, why do they want to see you?" I owed her an answer. I owed my family an answer. I inhaled. "It's the glass isn't it? The good luck charm?" She covered her face, while I pieced together her logic. Mother and Father moved their baffled expressions from me to their youngest daughter. "I didn't mean to get you in trouble!" Sophie wailed.

"Soph," her guilt jostled my brain into forming a sentence. "Soph. It wasn't that. I'm not entirely sure what they heard, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't that." I boinged one of her curls. "Maybe they need clarification on something, or..." I really had no idea. Nobody was summoned to a council meeting except for punishment.

"We'll walk you over," Father determined. "Let's go."

"Now?!" I needed time to prepare. To stew and speculate, to go over my story.

"They're meeting now. Best not to keep them."

We left the dishes on the table for the first time in my life. Sophie and Mother flanked my sides, Father led the way. Mother spoke to me for the first time that day. "Don't feel like you have to tell them everything, Lucy," she whispered in a tone I'd never heard her use. "They don't have to know everything."