UnWholly

The boy sobs, and the girl tries to calm him. “It’s all right, Timothy,” she says. “Whatever’s going on, it’s going to be okay.”

Lev sits across from them, feeling awkward and frightened by their fear. He knows he needs to put forth confidence and comfort, but facing a pair of terrified kidnap victims is different from facing adoring ex-tithes.

Cavenaugh is not present, but two adults in his employ stand at the ready. Lev swallows and tries to keep his hands from shaking by gripping the arms of his chair. “Okay, you can take off their blindfolds.”

The boy’s eyes are red from crying. The girl is already looking around, surveying the situation.

“I’m really sorry we had to do it this way,” Lev says. “We couldn’t risk you getting hurt, or figuring out where you were being taken. It was the only way to safely rescue you.”

“Rescue us?” says the girl. “Is that what you call this?”

Lev tries to deflect the accusation in her voice, but can’t. He forces himself to hold eye contact the way Cavenaugh does, hoping he can sell it as confidence.

“Well, it might not feel that way at the moment, but yeah, that’s exactly what we’ve done.”

The girl scowls in absolute defiance, but the boy gasps, and his wet eyes go wide.

“You’re him! You’re that tithe who became a clapper! You’re Levi Calder!”

Lev offers a slim, apologetic smile, not even bothering to correct the last name. “Yes, but my friends call me Lev.”

“I’m Timothy!” the boy volunteers. “Timothy Taylor Vance! Her name is Muh—Muh—I can’t quite remember, but it starts with an M, right?”

“My name is my business and will stay my business,” she says.

Lev looks at the little cheat sheet he’d been given. “Your name is Miracolina Roselli. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Miracolina. Do you go by Mira?”

Her continuing glare makes it clear that she doesn’t. “All right, Miracolina then.”

“What gives you the right?” she says. It’s almost a growl.

Lev forces eye contact again. She knows who he is, but she hates him. Despises him even. He’s seen that look before, but it surprises him to see it here.

“Maybe you didn’t hear me,” Lev says, getting a little bit angry. “We just saved you.”

“By whose definition of ‘save’?”

And for an instant, just an instant, he sees himself through this girl’s eyes, and he doesn’t like what he sees.

“I’m glad you’re both here,” he says, trying to hide the quaver in his voice. “We’ll talk again.” Then he signals for the adults to take the kids away.

Lev sits there in the ballroom alone for a good ten minutes. There is something about Miracolina’s behavior that feels disturbingly familiar. He tries to think back to when Co

He will win her over. He has to. All the ex-tithes have been turned eventually. Un-brainwashed. Deprogrammed.

But what if this girl is the exception? What then? Suddenly this whole rescue operation, which had felt like a grand and glorious idea, feels very small. And very personal.

24 • Miracolina

Born to save her brother’s life and to be gifted back to God, Miracolina will not stand for this violation—the corruption of her sacred destiny into the profane life of a fugitive. Even her own parents became weak at the end, willing to break their pact with God and save her from her tithing. Would this please them, she wonders, for her to be captured and forced to live whole? Denied the holy mystery of the divided state?

Not only must she suffer this indignation, but she must suffer it at the hands of the boy she practically considers to be Satan incarnate. Miracolina is not a girl given to hatred and unfair judgment—but to be faced with this boy proves she is not nearly as tolerant as she had thought.

Perhaps that’s why I have been put on this path, she thinks, to humble me and make me realize that I can be a hater, just like anyone else.

On that first day, they try to trick her by putting her in a comfortable bedroom in much better condition than most of the mansion. “You can rest here until the last effects of the tranqs wear off,” says a plump, kindly woman, who also brings her a meal of corned beef and cabbage, with a tall, heady glass of root beer.

“Saint Patrick’s Day, don’tcha know,” she says. “Eat up, dearie. There’s more if you want seconds.” It’s a blatant attempt to win her over. She eats, but refuses to enjoy it.

There are videos and books in her room to entertain her, but Miracolina has to laugh, because just as the harvest camp van had only happy, family-friendly movies, the titles she has to choose from here have a clear agenda as well. They’re all about kids being mistreated, but rising above it, or kids empowering themselves in a world that doesn’t understand them. Everything from Dickens to Salinger—as if Miracolina Roselli could possibly have anything in common with Holden Caulfield.

There are also drawers filled with clothes in bright colors—all her size, and she shudders to think that they took her measurements and prepared a wardrobe while she was unconscious. Her tithing whites have become dirty, but she won’t give them the satisfaction of changing out of them.

Finally a bald middle-aged man comes in with a clipboard and a name tag that just says BOB.

“I used to be a respected psychiatrist until I spoke out against unwinding,” Bob tells her after the obligatory introductions. “Being ostracized was a blessing in disguise, though, because it allowed me to come here, where I’m truly needed.”

Miracolina keeps her arms folded, giving him nothing. She knows what this is all about. They call it “deprogramming,” which is a polite term for undoing brainwashing with more brainwashing.

“You used to be respected, which means you’re not anymore,” she tells him, “and I don’t have respect for you either.”

After a brief psych evaluation, which she refuses to take seriously, Bob sighs and clicks his pen closed. “I think you’ll find,” he says, “that our concern for you is genuine, and we want you to truly blossom.”

“I’m not a potted plant,” she tells him, and hurls her glass of flat root beer at the door as it closes behind him.

She quickly discovers that her door is not locked. Another trick? She goes out to explore the halls of the mansion. She can’t deny that even in her anger at having been abducted, she’s curious about what goes on here. How many other kids have been torn from their tithing? How many captors are there? What are her chances of escape?

It turns out there are tons of other kids. They hang out in dorm rooms or public areas. They work to repair the unrepairable damage and rot around the mansion, and they have classes taught by other Bob-like people.

She wanders into a social area with a sagging floor and a pool table propped up with wood to keep it level. One girl glances at her, singling her out, and approaches. Her name tag says jackie.

“You must be Miracolina,” Jackie says, grabbing her hand to shake, since Miracolina won’t extend it. “I know it’s a tough adjustment, but I think we’re going to be great friends.” Jackie has the look of a tithe, as do all the other kids here. A certain clea

“Are you assigned to me?” Miracolina asks.

Jackie shrugs apologetically. “Yeah, kind of.”

“Thanks for being honest, but I don’t like you, and I don’t want to be your friend.”

Jackie, who is not a formerly respected psychiatrist, but just an ordinary thirteen-year-old girl, is clearly hurt by her words, and Miracolina immediately regrets them. She must not allow herself to become callous and jaded. She must rise above this.