Chapter 3

The rumors started immediately, spreading through the church like a plague. Gabrielle Johns lost her voice because she sinned. She had a secret affair. She quenched the Holy Spirit.

The Council of Elders, the highest authority in our denomination, convened a public tribunal. They sat on a raised platform in the main sanctuary, a panel of grim-faced old men. The patriarch who had arranged my marriage to Caleb sat in the center, his eyes cold and disappointed.

I was forced to stand before them, weak, mute, and alone.

Caleb was called to testify. He stood tall, his face a mask of sorrowful confusion. "I don't know what happened," he said, his voice breaking with false emotion. "I only know that my wife has been... distant. Troubled."

Then they called Maria. She walked to the front, tears streaming down her face. She looked like a saint.

"I didn't want to say anything," she sobbed, clutching her pregnant belly. "I was trying to protect the ministry. But I saw her. I saw Gabrielle with another man. A rock musician."

She produced a photograph. It showed me in a dark bar, my arm linked with a man covered in tattoos. It was a fake, a clumsy manipulation, but in my silence, it was damning.

"I confronted her," Maria cried. "I begged her to repent. But she refused. She said she was tired of this life. She said she was giving her gift to him, to his worldly music. I tried to... to save her voice for God. To preserve it."

It was a brilliant, evil lie. She painted herself as a hero, a savior of my divine gift. The Council listened, their faces softening with sympathy for her.

The patriarch turned to me. "Gabrielle Johns, is this true? Did you betray your husband and your sacred calling?"

I shook my head frantically, my throat burning with the effort to speak, to scream the truth. But only a hoarse, ugly croak escaped my lips. I pointed a trembling finger at Maria, then at Caleb, trying to communicate their conspiracy.

Caleb stepped forward, placing a comforting hand on Maria's shoulder. "Please," he said to the Council. "She is not well. This is all just a terrible misunderstanding." His words were calm, but his eyes, when they met mine, were full of cold, triumphant dismissal. The Council believed him. The trap was sprung.