Anathema by Lillian Bowman Read Free Book Online

God,” I whispered.
    “I’m not sorry. Child molesters are supposed to be anathemas. So I treated him like an anathema and killed him.” She mournfully surveyed the empty wrapper that remained of her burger. I handed her the bag with my untouched lunch. She tore it open eagerly. “The only thing I’m sorry about is that I didn’t do it sooner. Oh, and my brother.”
    “You killed your brother, too?” I said, aghast.
    Her eyes flickered with annoyance, and I realized she must not have. It occurred to me suddenly that she might’ve been pretty if she hadn’t been so gaunt, so hunted. Her eyes were large and long-lashed, her lips full. Everything else about her was sharp edges, spindly arms. Whatever life as an anathema had been like for her, it had robbed her of all outward softness.
    “My brother tried to take the blame. He confessed to the crime. He told me to stay quiet. I wouldn’t let him do it.” Bitterness crept into her voice. “It didn’t matter. We were both convicted. We’re both anathemas now.”
    “How were you both convicted of the same crime?”
    She shook her head. “Our judge was corrupt. He became an anathema himself a year later for trading kids for cash.”
    “What do you mean by that?”
    “You didn’t hear the scandal about the ‘Honorable’ Mark Cavahan?” Noelle’s lips twist bitterly. “It was big news when it came out. This local hunting guild was bribing him to declare people anathemas over the most minor offenses. It turned out that Cavahan was taking a percentage of every bounty claimed on his courthouse steps.”
    I’d heard rumors of corrupt judges doing stuff like this. It was the problem with privatized justice. Some said that monetizing any public service led the worst sort of people to take charge of it, the type who gleefully enriched themselves no matter the cost to society. It still shocked me to hear of a man ruining the lives of kids just for his wallet.
    Suddenly I felt foolish cornering this tormented girl over an article for the school newspaper. This wasn’t a profile on the custodial staff, an attack on snobbishness. This was very real. The very real consequences on a very real girl of a great evil in our society.
    “Looking back, I shouldn’t have just acted on impulse and killed him,” Noelle said distantly. “If he’d lost citizenship, I could have done it legally. Dad wouldn’t have lasted long as an anathema.”
    Various stories I’d read flickered through my mind. Child molesters didn’t last long once they lost citizenship. There were special hunting guilds dedicated just to them. The kind that didn’t care about the size of a person’s bounty.
    “But I’m still not sorry about what happened. It’s just my brother I feel bad about. He doesn’t deserve this life and he’s in it because of me.”
    I felt so sorry for her, I couldn’t breathe.
    “Sooner or later,” Noelle said, drawing a shaky breath, “we’re both going to be killed. People will just think we’re two more dead anathemas. But we were good people. He definitely was. Is. He doesn’t deserve this.”
    “I’m so sorry.”
    She jounced to her feet, the wind fluttering her dark hair. “It is what it is. Thanks for the burgers.”
    Maybe it was naïve of me, but I’d always believed the world should be fair. The injustice of her situation gripped me like a hand around my heart. I followed her soberly back up to the boardwalk, my mind racing.
    I wanted to help her. I imagined asking my parents to adopt her. They’d feel as bad as I did, hearing her story. We’d take Noelle in and keep her safe. She could go to my school. We’d become like sisters and she’d have all the opportunities she didn’t have now. Then we’d help her brother, too. Maybe hire a lawyer and get their charges dropped. I don’t know how we’d pay for it, but maybe Dad could talk someone into doing it for free…
    I was so busy spinning plots in my head that I nearly missed it when a man in