Beth stared straight ahead as she stood before the congregation. Razer’s gut clenched, it was the same look she had given him earlier that night
“I am pleading for forgiveness from my Lord to forgive my tardiness to dinner twice this week. My mother works hard to make the meal and my father works hard to provide the meal. I should be more appreciative, showing my respect by being on time.”
“Beth, do you repent your sins?”
“ Yes, Pastor Saul.”
“Then kneel before your peers and take your punishment.”
Beth got to her knees. Her father stood behind her carrying a leather strap.
“REPENT” he screamed and the strap struck out hitting the girl on her back.
The church members yelled back. “Repent.”
Three more times the leather struck her on her back before her father allowed her to resume her seat. Razer was unaware of Shade and Evie entering the room standing behind the couch watching. Clumsily, Razer removed the tape and put in the next tape. Razer watched the next six tapes, each with Beth getting strapped for little or no reason. Razer noticed no other members of the congregation volunteered to repent their sins, yet each sat mindlessly as Beth took beating after beating. The room began to fill as member after member came to get dinner, becoming engrossed at the tapes playing.
Cash stood shakily behind the couch as one particular tape began. He remembered it well. In fact, he still had nightmares because of it. He had done two tours with the seals and no single sight had affected him as much as the tape brought back to life.
It wasn’t a regular church meeting, instead it seemed as if they were in a smaller church and the parishioners were standing around chanting. Razer didn’t know what they were doing or saying. They were dancing in place and chanting in a language he had never heard before. A large bearded man went behind the podium and pulled out a snake. Beth who had been stepping slowly back and forth between her parents was pushed forward as the snake was held out.
Beth did not speak, but continued moving, holding out her frail arms. The snake slid up her forearm, pale and obviously frightened, she couldn’t have been nine years old. A look of pain and a whimper escaped her as the snake reared back and struck her in the upper arm.
“Praise god.” The man pried the snake’s teeth from her arm, she fell to the floor crying as the parishioners circled around the whimpering child.” Suddenly the tape ended as if the machine taping it had fallen to the floor.
“I remember that day. I tried to get to her and knocked the machine taping it over.”
“What the hell was that?” Jewell said in shock.
“Snake handling. Her bastard of a father would take us into the mountains once a year to a sister church. Every year I watched the same scene. Didn’t Beth tell you when you saw the scars on her arms?”
“No.” Disgust was eating at Razer that he hadn’t tried to get to know Beth.
“Did they take her to the hospital? Why didn’t someone call social services?” Bliss questioned.
“No they never took her to the hospital. The proof of faith is when she doesn’t die. So no medical treatment, no one reported it to social services, and the Sheriff back then was a member of the congregation. The congregation prayed over her all night. Her little body was wracked with pain till morning. It was the last time I ever prayed.”
“The next year they went, they didn’t make her do it again did they?” Viper asked.
“As far as I know from what my grandmother told me, yes. A couple of times it was a close call, but she survived. The members took it as a sign of their faith, but I would say it was more likely she built up immunity to the venom. I wouldn’t know, I left town the next day and enlisted in the Navy. I never went back to that church.”
Razer went to the next box and picked a tape from a couple years later. Beth would be about eleven, he thought. It was more of the same, except the beating became worse. Razer noticed one deviation, she begged God’s forgiveness, never her stern faced father no matter how many times the leather struck her back.
The next tape had Lily’s first appearance. The small underweight child was brought forward as they explained the charity they had to give a child in desperate need a home. No mention was made of where she came from. Several tapes were gone through before the minister ordered Lily forward for a misdemeanor for punishment. When she would have stepped forward, Beth pulled her back explaining it was her fault Lily had committed what had been deemed as sin. The pastor thwarted in his desire for new prey and took it out on a blank faced Beth. This continued on until a tape when the pastor ordered Lily forward and when Beth would have stepped forward, was denied.