Beth is in the scullery at the cottage. ‘You have remembered then?’ she asks as she scrubs the dirt from a bowl of potatoes.
I nod and brush an unbidden tear from my cheek.
‘I’m sorry it had to happen,’ she says. ‘I tried to tell you. But I don’t blame you for not listening.’
‘How did you know?’ I ask. ‘How did you know he was going to do that to me?’
She shrugs. ‘You are not the first and you won’t be the last.’ She turns from the bowl and wipes her hands on her apron. ‘I have begun to question it all of late,’ she says. ‘Why he does the things he does. I loved him so much, you see. He is the only one I have ever loved.’ She takes a knife and begins to cut the cleaned potatoes into chunks.
‘He takes who he wants,’ she continues. ‘He took me too,’ she says. ‘As he took you, only not as a bride. He has taken many of us. They are all his children out there. Every one of them.’
I am frightened by what she is telling me, but I know I have to keep listening.
‘But when I lost my child, he rejected me. He said it was the Devil’s child. But I knew it wasn’t. It was his child. It could only be his child.’ Beth lifts her apron to wipe at her eyes. ‘That’s when I knew,’ she says. ‘That’s when I knew he was lying. That’s when I knew it was all a lie. I am only glad I didn’t die, like poor Glory.’
My mouth falls open. ‘Glory is dead?’
She nods. ‘She is in Paradise.’ She gives a fierce little laugh. ‘It is strange, don’t you think? She was promised eternal life, but died in childbirth.’
My temples are throbbing. I don’t want to hear any more. It is like a wall in my head is being knocked down, stone by stone. But I don’t move. My feet are frozen to the floor.
I suck in my breath. ‘What are you saying, Beth?’
‘He is not God,’ she says. ‘It’s as simple as that.’