The Beginning

In which something happens to enact change

It was on a day like any other.  Father went to town to buy some milk with Mother and I.  For some reason he never let us leave the house without him and was seldom long when he did leave without us.
I didn't understand this until later on in my life.
Mother and Father never spoke of my eyes. They let the villagers do that.  I would look at my eyes in the mirror and see that they were different from Mother's and Father's and the priest's and all the people in the villages.  The first time I saw a snake was in an illustration in my bible.  There was fire around it.  When I asked them all they could say is "Pray and change will come when it's needed."
I prayed to be fixed so that I could have eyes like an angel.  They said not to be vain that all beauty save that of our savior will fade.
That night the priest and some others went out and drank in excess at the tavern.  They came with torches and called me out.  The priest said "Look see how false obedience is used by the Deceiver!"  John who beat his wife so bloody one night that she couldn't walk for three days for pain said "See how they keep her like maybe she was proper.  I wouldn't lavish those frills on one of my daughters."  Micah the doctor said "He must be ridden of, how shall we be certain of his absence?"
They took Mother and I to the town square