Work Text:
A soft breeze blew through the field, sending knee-high cat tails rustling. The wind funneled down a length of beaten grass that could only be called a footpath, and at a crossroads, it chose the path less taken. Finally - when it was just hot air - it came to rest at a little stable snuggled between trees and buried in overgrowth. A hundred years ago there had been horses here, and fifty years ago there had been a family gathered around a little wooden altar, but the horses were now very dead and what remained of the family wasn't far behind. The altar stood still, and in front of it, so did a little girl.
Scruffy overalls a size too big hung from her shoulders, occasionally catching bits of hay as they fell from her noodly hair. There was sand on her knees and dirt under her finger nails. Her cheek had a single small cut from a thorn bush. It was a picture perfect stereotype of a farm girl- if you'd never met one of those, you might even be fooled by it. You'd miss the glittering silk-and-satin undershirt or the perfectly white socks or the fact her hands didn't have so much as a scratch on them. You might miss that she was rich.
She had a smart look about her, too. The kind that conveyed that she knew many words only people much older should know. Words with five syllables and a six-step etymology. She might've even knew how to pronounce the word 'etymology,' though right now, she was busy with 'Corinthians.' There was a large Bible laid out in front of her, the kind so thick with addendums and heavy with trimming even grown-ups struggled to hold with one hand. It was the kind that was meant to sit - not to be held, to sit - in front of a reverened and read passionately to a congregation. It was not meant to be kept on a dusty old altar in some stables.
Just feeling the little gold trim on the silky bookmark made her shiver. Her Mother let her come down to the old stables every Sunday in lieu of church, because, quote, 'they were too busy doing God's work to see Him there.' It was her favorite part of the week. Though... well. She felt a little guilt in her heart when she confessed it each week, but, studying wasn't the only reason she liked coming here.
There was a rattling, a scraping, and finally a heavy thump as Jax fell in through the window.
Ragatha quickly ran from the altar and to the pile of hay he'd landed on. She found him quite comfortable on his back with a barley stalk hanging from the corner of his mouth.
"You're gonna get hurt if you keep doing that," Ragatha said, like she did every week.
"Nah, I'll be fine," He replied, like he did every week.
He got up, and they took seats opposite one another, still in the shade out of the view of the doors. The stable doors were facing towards her home, of course, and she was not allowed to close them. She suspected she was also not allowed to meet with Jax, though that order had never been stated so expressly as her Mother's policy on privacy. If she hadn't been told no, it was alright, right? Her Mother had certainly been so clear about everything else. . .
Now Jax. He wore overalls just like she did, though he fit them better. He'd always been a size too tall for his age but never a size too wide, which made shopping for him basically impossible. His family couldn't afford much of that though, so it was fine. Jax - like Ragatha - had a look about him that belied intelligence, though it brought to mind 'clever' rather than 'smart.' Just like Ragatha, his eyes conveyed he knew many words only people much older should know. Most of them had four letters.
Like criminals meeting in a back alley, the two of them leaned forward and wordlessly rifled through their pockets. They produced the contraband at the same time - a five dollar bill from Ragatha, a grip of sugary sweets and fizzing sodas from Jax.
"Ew! Gross!" Ragatha cried, "Are those worms?"
"Made of gummy, gooey... stuff," He shook the bag, "They're good."
"They're creepy! Put them away, put them away, put them away-"
"Ugh, you are such a drama queen," Jax relented, pulling out some much more approachable looking candy bear thingies, "Lucky I know what you like."
"You buy for both of us..." Ragatha mumbled, and handed over the bill.
Jax flattened his palm to his chest, splaying his fingers out, "My mom trusts me to go to Mister Tanner's shop all on my own. Guess you just need to be more responsible," He teased.
"My Mother'd kill me if she found me buying any of this stuff, and I know she talks to Mister Tanner."
"Your mom talks to everyone," Jax mumbled. His expression immediately soured when he saw the note, "Hey! Where's my ten?"
Ragatha squirmed.
"I bought plenty for both of us. Gimme a ten."
"My Mother's not giving me my full allowance right now..."
Jax turned over his palm expectedly. There was a pause - the feeling in the air was most comparable to the moment a man digging a hole realizes he's dug deep enough that he can no longer climb out. Finally, Ragatha reached into her pants overalls and produced a few notes and a fistful of coins. She shifted them from one hand to another, and then gave them to Jax.
"I've got three dollars and," She mouthed the numbers as she counted, "eighty seven cents."
Jax snatched it all and began a recount on his own. The notes were easy, but she heard him restarting on the change a few times under his breath. Satisfied - or as close to it as he'd come - he stuffed the cash in his pocket and opened a soda. A little bit of sun crept in through gaps in the wood, and the drink glistened like sugary honey. He passed it to her, then began on his own.
The two of them sat together in gregarious quiet for a while. Little grumbles and self-talk leaked out, which earned inquiries from the other along the lines of 'Huh?' or 'Did you say something?' which lead to replies invariably like 'Nothing' or 'Just talking to myself.' Soon, though, their grumbling became audible, and they began to comment on it, and the comments spun into little conversations, and finally, the little conversations grew into one big winding discussion about no particular topic.
This is the ritual known to people around the world who would never call one another friends, but would hate to miss their weekly meet-up.
They were in the midst of discussion about the most recent sermon - a disaster that proved Father Mapple should've retired decades ago when he was a spry seventy year old - when a lull fell over them. It wasn't unusual. They had not yet developed that trait that grown-ups have, where they keep talking even when they have nothing to say. Jax leaned backward on his bale.
"I found out how to deal with your mom," Jax said casually, and could not hide the smile that grew on his face when Ragatha whipped around and stared at him. It was a foul habit, the kind that would incurably persist into adulthood - smiling when he was about to inflict pain.
A moment later the two of them were at the altar. While Jax heaved the Bible, Ragatha looked hastily back from the shadows he was shrouded in to the doors of Mother's cottage. She feared she was always being watched by her omnipresent parent. For most children, this is an unfounded delusion, encouraged by parents who can't possibly police them all the time and prefer the children police themselves. For most children, this is a delusion.
"This is heavy!" Jax groaned as he stooped down, finding the word of God heavy with import, or at any rate heavy, "Stop standing around and help me out here!"
"O-Oh, Sorry," Ragatha mumbled, and took the bottom half of the Bible in an underhanded carry.
Like they were moving a couch, they moved the volume - which could only be described in terms like 'volume' and 'tome' - they brought it to their haybale seats and eventually manuevered it into Jax's lap. Ragatha's mouth drew into a worried line. They really weren't meant to be moving this. It was older than they were. It might've been older than a lot of grown-ups she knew. She'd get punished if they found she'd moved it, but, then, she'd get a lot worse if they found Jax.
"I didn't even have to look far - it's right there in Genesis. Jeez Rags. I thought you were the studybug. Here. Genesis 2:24 - Therefore a man-" he began to read in his usual side-mouthed way, which had always gotten him in trouble when it was his turn in front of the class, "... 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and join with his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.'"
He slapped the page once he was done.
"You're not supposed to do that!"
"It's okay."
"It's my Grandfather's bible! My Mother will kill me!"
He rolled his eyes, "You don't get it. The part I just said means she's not a problem! If you get married, it says you can leave your father and mother. So you don't have to listen anymore."
Ragatha's jaw hung open, "But," She drew herself up, "First, I'm not a boy, and that passage is only about boys."
"The boy you marry is gonna take you with him though, right? It'd be lame if he had to move in with your mom. He's gonna get his own house and stuff."
Ragatha's eyes widened. She brought a finger to her chin in the manner of one who'd just had many different ideas click into place, and was trying to figure out where the other ones fit in.
"But I still need to get married."
Jax leaned against the altar, looking at his chewed fingernails, "Then marry me."
Ragatha clapped her hands to her face, but it totally failed to hide the shade of beetroot coming across her cheeks. Jax looked at her strangely. he'd flustered her more than once - it wasn't hard - but she usually just told him off or had one of her girl huffs and gotten over it. She'd never been this red before.
"What?" He threw his arms out, "It's not like I love you or anything."
"ShutupJax," Ragatha mumbled through her hands, all one word.
"It's just pretend. I'm only doing it so I can get some of your mom's stuff," He confessed, though Ragatha had heard Jax confess many times, and this one sounded no more genuine than the others, "When you get married you get stuff. That's how it works."
After a time, Ragatha peeled herself from her palms a shade less vibrant, and raised a declarative finger.
"God only lets people marry if they love each other very much," She nodded to herself.
"Then we just say we love each other. But we don't really."
Ragatha looked at him like he'd just suggested they walk through a wall, "But that isn't allowed."
"This isn't allowed," He pointed at himself, her, and the ground, and then made vague gestures to smuggled confections and teeth-rotting sodas, "We do this every week. Getting married is just like doing this, but every day."
"But we'd have to-" She struggled to condense what, exactly, happened when two grown-ups got married, "Sleep in the same bed together. And I'd have to clean your house and make you food."
Rifling through a pack of worms, Jax pulled the longest, thickest, most off-purple one from the pack and bit of its head for emphasis. Ragatha's concerns about holy matrimony were quickly replaced with a much more earthly kind of discomfort. It was better that way. He thought she spent too much time with her head in the clouds - if she was looking for Heaven, she wouldn't find it.
He shook the bag - "I can just eat these" - and as far as they were concerned that leg of the matter was settled.
"But I'm supposed to do it. It's what wives are supposed to do," Then, in a smaller voice, she said, "I don't like cooking."
Jax sat back, looking up at the ceiling beams criss-crossing the barn. After a while he spoke - "You know that old guy down the street? Weird big eyes? Beard, kinda?"
"I... think so. My Mother says we don't see him anymore."
"He cooks for himself, right? Was at a cook-out and I took some of his steak. He's married."
"His wife's not well," Ragatha said, echoing the words of everyone who she'd ever heard talk about him, though they never seemed to say anything more, "He's not. . . I don't know if he's okay either."
"If he can do it sick, I can totally do it. I never get sick."
"You'd cook for me?" She asked, not in the flattered tones the words implied.
"Psh, no. I'd cook for me, if I had to. You can cook for you. We just live together."
She raised a warning finger, "And sleep together."
Though Ragatha was the older of the two, Jax was ahead of the curve in a few important ways. He spent less time in books and more time in ditches. The kinds of literature he did enjoy he looted from bins and from under his parent's bed. So it was that when Jax covered his mouth and stifled a giggle, she could only tilt her head, confused.
"We could just split the bed," He said finally, still fighting a smirk, "you get one side I get the other."
"No!" Ragatha stated emphatically, "And besides, you would try and take over my side!"
"Whadaya talkin' about?"
"Remember Vacation Bible School? You took all the covers from your Buddy."
"Ugh, I'm never gonna hear the end of that," He said, sounding much older than he was. He gave in, falling on plan B - "You know the Eberharts? They sleep in seperate beds next to one another - have a big uh. . ."
"Modesty screen?"
"Yeah, that. They had a big fight about it in Church one time, remember?"
"Mister Eberhart had had too much sacrimental wine," Ragatha clarified, because it was in her nature to defend people she had not spoken to for many years, and who she'd last heard shouting words she wasn't allowed to say, "I'm sure they're not still like that. . ."
The words fell flaccidly between the two of them, like a snapped rope.
"Mh. Sure. Anyway, we can get one of those if you really need one. Easy."
Ragatha found herself nodding her head back and forth, as if her subconscious was weighing options her conscious mind hadn't. It did all sound... pretty good. Marriage would take her away from her home, and all of the less-pleasant aspects of it could be walked around. It didn't sit well with scripture, but neither did a lot of the things she saw people do. When was the last time she saw her Mother working in the kitchen, instead of The Help? There had to be some way it was alright she just wasn't grown-up enough to understand yet.
It wasn't a new idea to her either. She'd never tell, but more than once had she dreamt of being swept away in the arms of a tall, smiling man who's face she could not make out. She'd be wrapped up in a glittering white dress, have a wonderful ceremony with conspicuously empty pews, and live in a cottage even deeper in the countryside. The real countryside, with farm animals and stables and lots of washing up to do, though in her dreams it was all conveniently already done. She'd be free. Even better, she'd be. . . in. . .
She shook her head, "We can't."
Jax threw his hands up, "Why not!?"
"Because we don't love each other."
He sighed, then said as if repeating a mantra - "You don't need to love someone to marry them."
"Yes you do! Marriage is what people do when they really really like each other, and want to be together forever."
"You really think that? Here?"
"What?"
"Nothing. . . You're just wrong."
Ragatha suddenly lunged forward, snatching the Bible from Jax's lap and heaving it onto her own. She had to scratch and scrape to keep it above her knees, all the while desperately turning the pages. She flipped through her mental index of all the passages drilled into her through countless sermons.
"You're serious about this," Jax drawled, cheek resting against his fist.
"Wait-" She urged hurriedly over the sound of ancient pages turning. She dreaded hearing something tear until she turned the very last one she needed. She thumped it with her finger a few times.
"You got mad at me for doing that-" Jax began, and didn't get a chance to finish.
"Colossians 3:18 - Wives, submit to your husbands, as commanded by the Lord. Husbands, love your wives and do not be harsh to them." Ragatha declared. Some of the words didn't feel quite right in her mouth.
"That doesn't say anything about having to love one another to get married. But whatever - we can just say we love each other and it'll be fine."
"But it'd be lying!"
Jax looked at her with the expression of a man who - in the middle of a bank heist - asked his co-conspirator to go crack the vault and heard 'but that's illegal.' He had to shake the look away like dust from his eyes.
"If we lie good enough," He began slowly, "no one would know."
"God would know!"
Now it was Jax's turn to snatch the Bible from Ragatha, slamming it shut and throwing it down on the hay beside him, crushing some crumpled plastic in the process. Ragatha was reduced to biting her nails just thinking of the thousands of straws scratching the golden cover.
"God won't know," Jax said definitely.
"Why?"
"Because God isn't r-" He began, crooked finger freezing in the air. He rolled his eyes, "Because God isn't listening."
"God's always listening."
"He doesn't know what we're thinking."
"But He knows everything."
"No, he doesn't,"
"He so does!"
Jax made a frustrated noise, and then, as if revealing a very big grown-up secret, leaned in closely, "If he really did - why would they make us pray?"
He leaned in further, slipping into sotto voce.
"When you're in a confession booth, who do you think you're confessing to? It's just the guy on the other side. God doesn't know anything you don't tell him. So we just won't tell him."
Ragatha shook her head, "That'd be wrong. I-If we did that, He'd find out."
"He'd find out? So he doesn't know!"
"No, I mean-"
But it was too late. Jax had that look in his eye, the mad glint he did when he was proven right, when he'd been holding out against the rest of the world saying no and finally heard a triumphant 'yes' from someone with authority, or at any rate someone he considered an authority. There were very few people in that town who thought more about God than Ragatha. There were few people in that town who truly thought about God at all. He'd try to pin the grown-ups down and they'd always just say 'you're too young to understand' or 'you shouldn't say those things' or 'go to your room and think about what you said, and no supper tonight.'
Ragatha wouldn't though. She thought too much, and hadn't gotten old and stupid yet like all the adults. She was the smartest person he knew. Smarter than him, though certainly not cleverer. If there was anyone he considered an ultimate authority, it was her.
He'd had her. She knew it. He could just tell.
Apparently she had been so thoroughly gotten that she stood up, rifled roughly around him, grabbed the last soda and a little bag of chewy stuff in the shape of eggs. All the way to the door, she was aware of how she'd be ripped to pieces if her mother saw her with filthy things like this that would rot her teeth and leave her a spoiled, rotten girl no man would want. She didn't care. There was a spot in the chest-high maize with her buttprint on it, just waiting for her to refresh it.
She was halfway out the stables when Jax grabbed her by the hair and yanked her back in. She squealed all the way to the floor, clutching both sides of her head and squinting out of one eye.
"Jax! You hurt me!"
"Duh," He said, dropping into a squat in front of her, "'Cos you're not listening. You know I'm right."
She looked to the door and then back to him, considering how firm a push she'd need to give him and how fast she'd need to run. But then her eyes settled on his, and she knew this was serious.
"What's wrong?"
Jax moved so close that his head cast a shadow on her face, lit from behind by the orange sun, "Do you wanna get away from your mom or not?"
"Of course I do!"
"Then let's get married."
"Okay."
"Promise."
She looked to the side and mumbled something.
"Louder."
"I promise."
"You're not exactly convincing me."
"I promise! We'll get married!"
He turned over a hand and for a moment she thought he was going to pull her hair again. Eventually, she took it, and they stumbled over one another as he pulled her to her feet. They rocked awkwardly in front of one another, avoiding eye contact.
"Your hair alright?"
"I forgive you," Ragatha said, because she knew that's what he was really asking for.
"Come on," He said, rushing worryingly into view of the doors, "Let's do it."
"But we're not grown-up yet."
"Duh. We'll do it for real when we're older," He came up to one side of the altar where the Bible once rested, "But if we do it now we won't mess up."
She bunched up her skirt in her hands, and reluctantly stepped forward. Arguing about the rules of marriage - of which there were many, not least of which was that there needed to be someone to witness it - seemed pointless now. In her dreams, she'd imagined something much fancier than some stables, but if it was good enough for Jesus. . .
She quickly came to the stable doors and began shouldering them shut, little feet slipping in the hay more than once.
"Won't your Mom notice?"
"Yyy-es", she grunted, "But I won't get in as much trouble for closing the doors than I would if she caught me with you. We have to be quick though."
Jax grinned and helped her with the other door - Ragatha was doing his kind of math.
Once the doors were closed, the two gathered around opposite sides of the altar, lit by a thin streak of daylight. Ragatha clasped her hands in front of her chest, imagining herself wrapped in a glittering wedding gown. It was funny. She'd been so comfortable in denim until just then. She fiddled with the straps on her shoulder and brushed her hair down; grown-up girls did that kind of thing when standing face to face with their husbands.
"Uh."
They had an expanded book of hymns and sayings at home, the wedding vow section of which she'd leafed through a few times, but all of it was gone from her head now. Her practical experience as multiple-time flower girl did her no good either.
"We are gathered here today-" No, no, that was how you addressed a crowd, "Do you, Jax, take Ragatha-"
"I do," Jax said.
"Jax, we've got to do it properly!"
Suddenly, his finger traced alongside her face. Her eyes widened, and she didn't realize she was leaning in until they were inches from one another's face. Instead, she noticed all the little things - the stuffy smell of dry hay, the bristle of grass under the wind, the bits of dust floating in the air that would've been hidden if not for the sunlight shining on them. Time seemed to slow so that she could just appreciate the moment. It was the kind of thing you knew you would remember even as you lived it.
"I-I do," Ragatha stumbled, as inches between them turned to centimeters. Those would be the last words that left her lips before they had their very first-
"- Performance? Your very first?"
Ragatha leaned forward, smiling at one of her students as he told her all about his placement in the church choir. He nodded emphatically.
"That's exciting, Matthew. Do you know what songs you'll be learning?"
Her class was wrapping up for the day; eight children sat cross-legged in the field in front of her, filling time before their parents arrived to pick them up. They ranged in age from five to ten, but they were all probably younger than the copy of the Bible they'd been issued. She cringed every time she saw the ragged spines and bug-eaten pages - funding for her district was not what it had been, and her mother's money was going elsewhere. To bigger causes, or so she'd been told.
Ragatha reclined against a fence, her own Bible laid in her lap beside a crumpled newspaper. Now was question-and-answer time until the proverbial bell rang, and technically she was supposed to question the students rather than letting them question her - but why? She didn't see any value in grilling them every last second. They'd all worked very hard, she thought, and deserved to indulge their own curiosities. It was healthy for their minds. It'd make them feel safer around her, if there was a little play with the work. In so far as sitting around and talking to their teacher counted as 'play.' It was the best she could do.
"Me? No, I was never in the choir - I was taught to play the piano, though. Even the Church organ," Her eyes narrowed as she peeked at the back of the class, "Mary, no pulling hair."
"But Miss-"
"I know, it's all fun and games," Ragatha raised a finger and hoped she didn't seem too imperious, "until you pull some of it out by accident. That goes for you too, Claudia."
"But she started it!"
"No one's in trouble. We just don't want anyone to get hurt, right?"
The two girls bobbed their heads. Ragatha never liked treating those two like that considering, but it was all she could do - she'd done all she could about what was happening at home.
Eventually, their parents arrived - these two had very punctual parents, unfortunately, and the rest weren't far behind. One by one the group shrunk until eventually it was just Ragatha and Lily. It was always Lily last. She was not a very talkative girl, and Ragatha understood that simply existing in the same space as her was more than enough socializing. When she wanted to talk, she'd talk - hence why their time together at the end of each lesson was almost always just a few minutes of pleasant silence.
Ragatha brought a paper just for such occasion - she could sometimes get in light reading in between wrangling the whole class, but Lily was a dream. She leafed through, focusing on a particularly troublesome headline.
MISSIONARY MAN ROBBERIES CONTINUE; SINGLE SUSPECT LIKELY
Households from several districts within the state have reported missing valuables in their home after accepting visits from a missionary, claiming to be a representative of a local commune. These are presumed to be related to earlier reports from further North within the territory. Recent evidence indicates these events may be tied to a single individual, rather than a series of unrelated imitation robberies as previously speculated. Police are quoted as explaining that - due to the suspect's knowledge of the commune's missionary script, as well as their movement patterns across the state - that this individual is likely-
"Miss."
- Arrested several times during his time in the commune, he would eventually disappear -
"Miss?"
- Likely homeless, reported to have a travelling accomplice. Police have released a composite sketch -
"Miss?"
Ragatha blinked, "L-Lily? Yes? Is there something you'd like?"
"You're not married," She pointed to Ragatha's ringless hand.
She shook her head emphatically, "No, I'm not."
"Did you ever want to get married?"
She stared at the sun a while. Then, looking down, Ragatha smiled her well-practiced, reassuring smile. The one that pushed her cheeks out and crinkled the corners of her eyes.
"No," She said.
"I don't. . ."
Ragatha waited. It was best not to rush her.
Then Lily began - mind, a girl no older than ten, who had far more weighing down her voice than a child her age ought - to whimper and say - "But everyone says I should."
". . . I know they do."
"I don't wanna get married, Miss,"
"Tell me what you want."
A few minutes later, Lily's parents parked down the road. Ragatha wiped the tears from Lily's face, quietly whispered to keep this just between them for now, and helped her up. She guided Lily along by the hand down the field as the sun set behind them.