“Thou shall not commit adultery.”

The nausea rising up in Maryanne’s mouth soured her stomach as her father, the Reverend Silas Watson, pounded on the pulpit with a clenched fist.

“The evils of the flesh, the wantonness of women in a world tainted by debauchery. The time has come for us, the chosen of God, to purge and cleanse ourselves of such evil. Mark my words, the wrath of the Lord is upon us, and our day of reckoning is nigh,” he ranted.

Maryanne wanted to get up and denounce him as a fiend. Only the threat of what Fiona might have to endure later stopped her. There wasn’t a God. No God would allow such depravity to go unpunished.

She caught her stepmother’s pious, holier than thou look and the horror of last night shuddered all the way through her. I must sit here, I must. She closed her eyes, but opened them again quickly, in an effort to blot out the picture of Fiona, her delicate, gentle sister, whose body had been so degraded last night.

“Harlot, slut, you’re the image of your mother. I’ll rid you of her evil ways,” Silas had snarled.

Fiona’s desperate pleading had been followed by terrified screams. And Sarah, what kind of woman was she? A woman who forced Maryanne to watch her sister’s violation, as Silas spread-eagled his daughter’s legs and pushed and thrust himself inside her until he was spent.

The pristine whiteness of sheets that she herself had pummeled and washed, because they could not afford a maid, had been stained vividly red with Fiona’s virginal fluid. Afterwards, poor Fiona lay with her auburn hair cascading over the pillow. No sound passed from her bloodless lips, not a vestige of color remained in her waxen face.  It was as if she had already died, even though she still breathed.

Maryanne’s fingernails gouged into her palms as she sat on the hard wooden pew with her teeth clenched so tightly together her jaw ached. Even a dog should not have been left alone in such a distraught state, yet Silas Watson claimed to be a man of God.

At least once a week, their father found reason to beat them on their bare buttocks. His clawed, birdlike hands were as strong as those of a blacksmith as he ferociously wielded his cane.  Sarah stood there, watching it all, with that pious expression Maryanne loathed.

They must get away, but how? Could she perhaps get a position as a domestic? Slaving away in a London factory, living in some slum or even the workhouse had to be better than living in a quaint little village that nurtured such evil. As soon as Fiona recovered sufficiently, they would leave. I’ll do anything to get us away from here.

Maryanne, like a dutiful daughter, stood next to her father and Sarah while the congregation filed out of the church. Her heart felt so full of hatred and loathing, she wondered why it did not explode.

They walked in silence the few hundred yards to a dark stone house, brooding sullenly in the winter dullness. Maryanne shivered as the wind knifed through the thinness of a parishioner’s cast off black taffeta gown. The seams had been taken in considerably so it fitted her slender figure.

Inside, the hallway oozed dampness, as Silas considered it sinful to have fires lit anywhere but in the parlor or kitchen. Their parlor was used only for guests, so they normally huddled in the kitchen for warmth. Not that they found much time for idleness with such a large house to be cleaned, and only herself, Sarah and Fiona to do it.

Silas was not a poor man. How many times had she watched him greedily counting and fingering his growing pile of silver coins? But he was too mean to pay for any outside help.

As soon as Silas disappeared into his study and Sarah took herself off to the kitchen, Maryanne sped upstairs to check on Fiona. How frail and still she looked. Far too still. She rushed over to the bed, and touched her sister’s ice-cold, waxen cheek.

Screams spewed from Maryanne’s mouth. Silas charged into the room and his backhander sent her sprawling at the foot of the bed.

“You killed her. Murderer,” she screamed the words out over and over.

Three vicious slaps administered in quick succession almost decapitated her, but she struggled upward and threw herself at him, fists and legs flailing.

Sarah entered the room brandishing a large kitchen knife. They struggled over it like starving animals fighting over the one prey. As Maryanne grabbed the point aimed at her face, she felt the blade slicing through her palm.

She twisted and turned trying to escape. Sarah suddenly gave a blood-curdling scream as the knife plunged into her shoulder. Silas lunged forward. He rained blows all over Maryanne’s face. Grabbing a handful of hair, he drove her head into the floor, again and again until she lost consciousness.