Chapter Ten: It was All a Lie:

The night I learned the truth turned everything upside down.

“You’ve become an outcast now,” Mama Betty said. I stared down at my bowl. Another tasteless meal of… I didn’t know what it was. I felt her eyes on me.

“I’m not an outcast,” I said in a quiet voice. “I will go home. My family will take me back.” I felt her hand placed atop my head.

“You poor girl,” she said. “You really don’t know, do you?” The pity in her tone made it so much worse.

“What are you talking about?” I asked. I already knew that the answer was going to make it worse. The question came out before I had the chance to think twice. Mama Betty wasn’t going to let me take it back.

“How far along are you?” she asked. I pressed my lips together.

“You just found out, didn’t you?” Mama Betty asked. I slowly nodded. I didn’t want to look her in the eye.

“And you don’t know who the father is?” she asked. I froze. Mama Betty drew back her hand.

“I knew it,” she said. I couldn’t lift my head. Still, I could feel her eyes on me. She reached out and lifted my chin. That old lady had a stony look on her face.

“I’m going to tell you a little story,” she said. “This is about the great subterfuge that built this town.”

“What?” I asked.

“Please save your questions for the end of this story. This is important if you want to survive as an outcast.” Her tone commanded me to be quiet. I didn’t want to be an outcast. I wanted to go home. I wanted to raise my baby in town. But I didn’t have a choice. My parents wouldn’t let me back inside.

“Do you know about the Mud God outside in the woods?” Mama Betty asked.

“No…” I said. Mama Betty frowned and shook her head.

“What are they teaching you in school? Let me ask you this. How do you think the town has been able to prosper for so long?”

“I don’t know. Didn’t the Phil Brothers work hard and build everything with their own two hands?” I remembered the history lessons they drilled into us in school. I didn’t have any questions for them. We kids took it all as the truth. Mama Betty laughed.

“Is that what they are still telling you?” she asked.

“Huh?” I asked.

“Have you noticed how red the mud is during the daytime?” Mama Betty asked. Her question made me think. The mud did look bright red in the sun. Now that I thought about it, the mud on the outskirts of town looked red as blood. Something about it felt off between our toes. No one could ever figure out what that mud was made of. I asked about it when I was six years old. My father slapped me in the face. He told me to never ask about it again. So I didn’t.

“Uh… what is the mud?” I asked. Mama Betty’s face turned stony.

“That isn’t mud,” she said. She didn’t wait for me to ask. “Those are the blood and bodies from outcasts like us.” My eyes grew wide.

Mama Betty didn’t stop there.

“Let me tell you what’s out here in the woods with us,” she said. That old woman leaned in closer to me. I could feel my heart beating up to my ears as she closed the distance. I wanted to break away from her and run, but my body stayed where it was. The longer I stayed there, the worse the situation got.

“You are in serious trouble, girl,” Mama Betty said. “Because you’ve become unclean with that bastard baby in your belly, you and that child will be fed to the monster to feed the town built on this great subterfuge.” She broke down and told me the whole story from the beginning.