A short story I am working on.
She is a curious girl who questions authority. Years from now, she will recall the days of her early youth where her never-ending questions of ‘what’ and ‘why’ always end with Mother’s stern look accompanying silent judgement. Father always looking away and staring into the distance. Something he does a great deal of during throughout taut marriage. At the tender age of six, this unsettling experience will set the tone for the rest of the child's constricted life.
Seated quietly in the backseat of the family’s silver 2014 Toyota Corolla, the child poses straight against the seat, her short legs fusing together, dangling just above the smooth, carpeted floor, hands flat on her lap.
Father keeps his focus on the road as the neighborhood trees sweep by in the windows. Mother sits in the front passenger seat. Eyes closed, mumbling to herself. The child can faintly hear words like “Saintly Earth” and “giving us strength.”
The child then makes a mistake, breaking the quiet. “Mother, why does a planet need to be worshipped?”
The parental units tense, bodies rigid in their seats. Staring straight ahead, faces blank, mouths unmoving. “Are you questioning the faith?” Mother calmly responds.
Cold, hard eyes now stare piercingly through the rearview mirror, sending shivers down the child’s spine.
“N-No,” the child stuttered and quickly looked down. But Mother was not done. “And what else?”
The child looked to Father, eyes pleading for the mercy of an intervention. Instead, he continues to drive, his only focus is the road. Stoic yet indifferent. The child sags her shoulders, closes her eyes, and obediently recites the phrase taught to her tediously over previous weeks.
“The Divined Goddess, Her Holiness Supreme, Our Protector, Our Savior, blessed is she, therefore are we.”
Mother nods in approval, slowly smiling in that way that always makes the child uneasy, looking at the road once again. All three sit in that claustrophobic car as the overgrown mossy temple rises into view.
Suddenly, that heavy feeling emerges in the child’s chest again. One she has felt before and will become very familiar to her… fear.