Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 130761 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 654(@200wpm)___ 523(@250wpm)___ 436(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 130761 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 654(@200wpm)___ 523(@250wpm)___ 436(@300wpm)
Tears flooded my face as I held her in my shaking arms. “Sapphira.” I heard Martha sniff from beside me. “I will name her Sapphira.”
“It is beautiful, sister.” Martha laid a kiss on my head. Martha was fourteen, two years my senior, but I knew that at that moment she understood me more than anyone ever had.
“Sapphira,” Sister Leah said and leaned over me. Panic filled my lungs when I saw her arms stretched out to take my baby from me.
“No!” I said loudly. Sapphira jumped in my arms and began to scream.
“Give her to me, child. You know she is a David Baby. You know she does not stay with you. You have a greater purpose to serve.” A David Baby. Babies born to Sacred Sisters. Babies that are “owned” by Prophet David and not their mothers. Raised not by their parents, but communally by carers.
A sob ripped from my throat. I tried to turn away, to move off the bed. Sapphira was mine. She was my baby! “No, please . . .” I glanced down at her brown eyes. “She is mine. Please, do not take her from me. I will care for her. I will manage both duties.”
“Phebe!” Sister Leah snapped. “Do as I command, or Brother John will be brought in. You have known since you discovered you were with child that she would not belong to you.”
“No!” I shuffled off the bed. I held Sapphira close to my chest as I struggled to hide myself in the corner of the room. Sister Leah left, and I saw Martha staring at us, crying as she sat on the edge of the bed, lost.
They had done this to Martha too. Took her baby boy away when she had wanted to keep him.
I looked down at Sapphira and shook my head. My face was drenched with tears as I held her to my chest. “You are mine.” I smiled through my tears when Sapphira stopped crying and looked up at me. I kissed her head, feeling the warm skin beneath me. “I love you,” I said, my voice catching in my throat. “I love you, Sapphira.”
The door flew open and Brother John, followed by Sister Leah, stepped through. I wanted to run, to flee with my daughter, but I was trapped. There was nowhere to go.
Brother John glared at me in disapproval. “Phebe, hand the baby over to Sister Leah. Stop this foolishness.”
“She is mine,” I said under my breath, defiant.
He must have heard me, because he shook his head. “She is a David Baby. She belongs to the faith. You are a Sacred Sister. And you have a different path than being a mother. A much worthier cause.”
He came closer, and closer still until he had his hands on Sapphira. “No!” I cried again as he took her from my hold. “Please . . . I love her!” My chest racked with sobs and my body shook as Brother John gave my baby to Sister Leah and she took her from the room.
I screamed.
I screamed and I screamed until my throat was raw. I did not remember what happened next, everything was a blur, but when I lifted my head, Brother John was gone from the room too. Only Martha and I remained. My eyes were swollen from crying, and my body hurt all over from giving birth. But nothing was greater than the void I felt in my arms. The empty space where Sapphira should have been.
The pain came in crashing waves, over and over again. “Sapphira,” I whispered. “Sapphira . . .” Her name felt like a cruel prayer on my lips.
A hand lay on my back, stroking up and down. “Martha.” I fell into her lap. “What am I to do now?”
I felt Martha’s tears hit my cheek—a shared pain. She stroked my hair. “Brother John told me that we can earn the right, through fishing, to see them on occasion. We are forbidden from saying who we are to them, but we may claim that we are their sisters. They will at least give us that.” Her voice sounded as desperate as I felt.
I blinked quickly, trying to rid the water from my eyes. “They will?” I asked, a glimmer of hope sprouting in my shattered heart.
“Yes,” Martha said. “And that is what I intend to do.” She sniffed. “If we recruit more men than our quota, our reward is time with them. And I must see him, Phebe. I cannot . . . I cannot . . .”
“Breathe,” I finished for her, when she could not express what was in her bruised heart.
“Yes,” she said after several silent moments.
Clutching my hand to my chest, I pictured Sapphira in my head.
My heart never healed after that day, shattered and irreparable. But I believed in our prophet. In the end, I believed he would do what was best for his people—including me.