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Teacher says that Harrowhark is sick. She believes him, because he is her priest and confidant, and he wouldn’t lie to her.
“The sea will help her,” he says, voice low, talking to parents who worry about her like one worries about cattle: if she gets sicker and dies, the world will go on, although with some loss to the value she provided them.
“And will you be with her, Mr. Gaius?” Her mother asks. There’s no fussing, there’s no underlying current of worry. Harrowhark is an asset, a weapon, a holy scripture, and not a girl of barely sixteen.
She can’t see them fully. Laying in her bed, tied to the bedposts because they’re afraid of her, Harrowhark can only hear when their voices float by her, can only see a sliver of her teacher’s face.
His gaze meets her. There’s a small glint on his gaze that, Harrowhark, too sick, cannot decipher.
The ghost at the foot of her bed knows, though, scowling.
“Priest, it’s been a day since my last confession,” Harrowhark says, voice soft, and pastor Gaius chuckles, tugging at his white shirt.
“I’m still not used to this formality,” he says, and Harrowhark does not fault him. It’s not his role to bear, not fully.
The late afternoon sun warms the back of her neck. She kneels at the altar between his legs, and looks up to him between her eyelashes.
Her family had always followed catholic doctrine, even if it was relatively unpopular amidst the people of her agrarian town. Harrowhark had spent her childhood reading the bible to chickens and hallucinations, the terrible girl with too much faith that, while familiar, was simultaneously foreign in its interpretation.
Harrowhark had never been so alone, until - until a new teacher moved into town.
John Gaius was a handsome man, although awkward at parts - but he was good with swaying people, with making them friendly towards him with a quick chat or two. He dominated Harrowhark’s class with ease, and the once unruly mass of students now looked forward to his mathematical teaching.
Harrowhark had figured out their shared religion easily: he had smiled at her cross necklace, and after class, when he invited Harrowhark for a talk, told that, if she wanted to confess, she could do it with him. John had smiled, saying he had some seminary training, and Harrowhark…
It had been tempting, but it was preferable to confessing her sins to her father - there were things she couldn’t tell him.
It’s easy to fall to her knees, John opening his legs to better accommodate her. She clasps her hands and asks for absolution, and John, with a hand in her short hair, forgives her.
When Harrowhark goes insane, she knows it’s her own fault. The ghost that haunts her doesn’t laugh, but does smile at her sins.
It was the magazines, the ones she sneaked home and thought she’d hidden well enough: glossy pages, still new, stolen from boys who thought it a good idea to display it to the entire class, the apex of sin.
Harrowhark was holy. Her duty was the salvation of others, so it made sense to grab the magazines during the break, to confess her sin to John after class, and to get home and open them to make sure they contained the sins the boys said they had - and they were, full of skin showing and women doing things Harrowhark could have never dreamed of, her hand tentatively lowering itself until it caught on the edge of her skirt, where she removed it and fled to the bathroom, washing desire away until her skin was raw.
Harrowhark is aware of her sin, of the desires that are forbidden, abnormal, wrong: she hides it well, and fails at praying it away every night. Still, the desires win sometimes. Maybe that’s what makes her keep the terrible magazine, instead of burning it away like so many others before.
She had thought she’d hidden it well: under the bare mattress she slept in, amidst other forbidden content Harrowhark had amassed with time.
But it hadn’t been. Somehow, her father found out, made Harrowhark kneel on rice and pray while they tore her room from top to bottom. Her ghost kneeled with her, but her prayers were not spoken out loud.
They tied her to bed, and invited John to talk: she’d heard his voice, coming from the living room, a breeze she couldn’t decipher the words spoken.
Her ghost wept, and Harrowhark didn’t understand why.
They put her in a car, and John, outside, smiles at her parents, saying she’ll come back better. They don’t dwell, leaving while the night is still young, with stars shining and guiding their path away from the corn mazes of her home.
When John checks them into a hotel, he puts a paternal hand in Harrowhark’s shoulder, and claims they’re wife and husband.
The clerk doesn’t look twice at them when John pays in pure cash.
It stars with the meaningless: grabbing her elbow as Harrowhark walks downstairs, kissing her cheek as they enter shitty dinners where Harrowhark barely eats, holding her waist, touching her thigh as he drives, not moving an inch as Harrowhark undresses.
It’s fine. John has said many times it’ll help them pretend to be husband and wife. Her priest wouldn’t lie to her. Her priest would only do good for her.
The first time he kisses her, it’s when they are in the car, in the backseat. It’s warm, and the car broke down. John had just barely managed to fix it, and Harrowhark had laid in the backseat to wait, staring at the ceiling with freckles of dirt.
“That wasn’t so hard,” John lied, because she had heard him swearing under his breath. He crawled to lie by her side, his sticky skin against hers. “We can proceed after I rest a little.”
“Okay,” Harrowhark said, and kept staring up.
“We should arrive soon at our new place,” he said, and Harrowhark nodded. She didn’t need to say anything. It was just for her sickness.
He kisses her, and when Harrowhark doesn’t react, John takes it as permission to climb over her body, pawing at her like they’re truly married.
Harrowhark allows him. She deserves it.
The ghost of the girl reaches to hold her hand, and Harrowhark grabs the offering like a lifeline.
John makes things right: he marries her in a small church, with Harrowhark in a thrifted dress and he in a white shirt he wore to teach.
It’s nice; that’s all Harrowhark can say about it, aware of the lust in John’s gaze. He had already claimed her; this was just making sure it’d stick.
Harrowhark looks at the sea, and John, with a mug of coffee, leans down to kiss her, a brief touch that makes her sizzle.
It doesn’t matter that his touch makes her nauseous. This is what she deserves. This is what she needs to be normal and good.