Bound by Blood and Brimstone by D. L. Dunaway Read Free Book Online Page B

some agony. I could’ve gone straight
    to Wonnie for the full story and been done with it. Instead, my mind was focused on Lorrie Beth
    and the approaching end of the school year, and I hardly noticed the small stain on my cotton
    panties when I visited the outhouse during morning recess. Distracted by the need for haste, I
    thought I’d scratched myself on the rough toilet seat. Then I promptly forgot it.
    Recess was the only time of day I was free to mingle, and I wanted to use that time to
    chat with some of the girls in my section. As I slammed the outhouse door behind me, I heard
    giggling nearby. A group of them were standing by the coal bin.
    As I sidled up to them, Callie Stanford said, “It doesn’t surprise me at all. Rose Hughes is
    no different than her slut sister, Charlotte.” Callie was in seventh grade, which made her an
    authority on most topics, and everybody knew she was going to California after high school to
    become a movie star.
    “I mean, what else can be expected from a Hughes?” she demanded.
    I knew Rose Hughes, who was in ninth grade at Silver Rock Creek High School. She’d
    been one of the prettiest girls in school, with elfin features and a sheaf of golden hair that draped
    her shoulders like a silk shawl. “What is it? What’s going on with Rose Hughes?” I asked, in
    what I hoped was a casual voice.
    Jennie Spencer turned wide eyes on me. “You mean you don’t know? Everybody in town
    is talking about it. Folks say her family might have to move because of it. Her daddy can’t hold
    his head up in the courthouse; he might even lose his jailor’s job!” She said this with the same
    glee of a child waiting to see the county fair for the first time.
    “So what is it everybody’s talking about?” I hated like anything to let on that I was too
    stupid to know what everyone else did.
    “About her being a whore just like her sister,” Callie replied in an icy tone, lifting her
    chin slightly.
    “Oh, is that all,” I said, trying to sound bored. I had no clue what was so bad about being
    a whore, since I didn’t know what it meant to be one.
    Callie snorted. “Is that all? She’s going to have a baby, that’s all! And just like Charlotte,
    she’ll probably give hers away, too.”
    “Yeah, those Hughes women are all alike,” Molly Harris interjected. Molly was an eighth
    grader, practically an adult. “Their momma’s the same way. I heard she had a little boy she gave
    away before they moved here!”
    “Well, maybe she gave it to somebody who really needed or wanted a little boy,” I
    offered, not sure why I felt the need to defend this Hughes woman.
    Callie tossed her curls and glared at me. “Well, if she didn’t want a baby to keep, she
    shouldn’t have done what it takes to make one! And that’s what makes them all whores!”
    I wasn’t about to disagree with her. I sensed that Callie would’ve punched Rose Hughes
    out cold if she’d been unlucky enough to be standing there. The best tactic, I decided, was to
    play along.
    “Yeah, people shouldn’t do what it takes to make a baby if they don’t want one.”
    Something in my tone must’ve given me away. Like a cat ready to pounce, Callie wheeled on me
    with vicious joy in her squinty eyes.
    “Ember Mae Roberts, I bet you don’t even know what people have to do to make a
    baby!” I was in over my head. Dimly, I could hear the rowdy laughter of the older boys as they
    played marbles. Girlish voices, attuned to the rhythmic sweep of a jump rope, drifted on the
    spring air.
    “Sure I do. I’m just not allowed to talk about it anywhere but home. My momma said it’s
    for private talk.” I had no earthly idea where that came from, but I was desperate to save myself
    from those she-devils and their wagging tongues.
    Callie’s sharp eyes never wavered from my burning face. “But this is private, private as
    can be. Nobody can hear but us. So, come on and tell us, Ember Mae. What do people have to do
    to make