The Fallen Queen (Winner of the Write Way Award 2013) #Wattys2015 #MyWattysChoice #Featured

Chapter 12: What a Wonderful World

Let me know if you can read this chapter. There seems to be a problem with Wattpad. People can't read past Chapter 10.

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Our new religion did not leave us with many options regarding how we managed our lives. That seemed to reassure my mother in some way, maybe because she felt there were less responsibilities resting on her shoulders.

Everything we did was dependent on our gender: girls were to have long hair, boys were to keep their hair short; girls were to wear only dresses or skirts down to their ankles, boys were to wear long pants. Once married to a boy from the Church, a girl was to have a baby every year and stay at home to cook, clean, and look after the children—who were preferably homeschooled. The boys, on the other hand, were the ones to bring home the bacon. Girls were not encouraged to continue their studies; the boys—in order to get a better job—were.

The frenzy of The Beatles did not affect us since our church believed that if these groups were a success, they had without a doubt made a pact with the devil. It was difficult to decree which groups were satanic and which ones were not, so we were forbidden to listen to any music unless members of the church wrote it and it was pre-approved by the pastor.

We were not allowed to read any books either. I was a library worm, but since my parents had to approve all of my readings by pre-reading everything beforehand, I was greatly amputated. My dad was a slow reader, so I provided him with the light reading like comic books. I doubt Shakespeare would have been approved anyway for two reasons: the three witches in Macbeth and the fairies in AMidsummer Night's Dream.

Daddy said that trolls, fairies, unicorns, and even mermaids were shapes the devil took to make him appear more attractive and seduce us.

Did that mean I was doomed? I had seen nymphs in the river and had daily conversations with Ana a creature with features one could describe as somewhat elfish: incredibly beautiful, fair skin, red hair, fine traits, slender, mysterious, and even magical.

I must have had something evil in me if I could see such things. And Mother kept telling us how evil we were when we were too noisy.

Apart from that, we were strongly encouraged—if not forced—to read at least one chapter of the Holy Bible every day. Although it was left to our discretion, we would feel extremely guilty if we did not do it. Reading the Bible reassured me that the evil spirits I was so afraid of were going to stay away. The pastor told us that the devil was afraid of God's words, so I read the Bible in bed until I could no longer keep my eyes open, memorizing God's words, reciting them like a protective prayer.

I was a little afraid of the sudden change my family underwent. Especially after Ana had told me that it was only temporary, that the perfection was not going to last, and that it would have a tragic ending.

I remembered reading somewhere that one could never have one hundred percent certainty about anything. There were always doubts. It's like the yin and the yang: a little bit of darkness in the light and a little bit of light in the darkness. There could never be perfect darkness or light.

I suspected that things were going to go bad, but being surrounding by light, by the smiles that lingered on the church member's faces, I would not believe it. I chose to ignore the doubt and just let myself believe fully.

Our temple was located in the country, away from the city. The closest non-religious neighbor had a dairy farm and the cows' smell and the grasses' humidity filled the air for miles around. The temple was located at the intersection of two streets and bordered by woods. All of the people who lived on those gravel roads were church followers. Mother wanted to move closer to the church as well, but we needed more money to move and there were no houses available at that time. So we stayed in our ugly house close to the beautiful river.