Gohatto: Gohatto

Disclaimer: The characters of InuYasha are not mine, they are property of Rumiko Takahashi, Shogakukan, Yomiuri TV, Sunrise, and Viz. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

A/N: First, about the manner of its construction. The frame of the story is set in the present, with Rin remembering certain, horrific events, but the meat of the story goes back and forth between different times of the past. The chronology is not linear. It's always been a goal of mine to write a story that shifts time around like that, ever since I read Faulkner's “A Rose for Emily”, another, dark-tale about twisted love.

Second, about Rin's POV. Clearly in the past, when she was only a girl, there were many things about the world that Sesshoumaru and Jaken hid from her. And, being a child, there were things she simply did not understand completely. Because the story is told exclusively from her POV the story's narrative is limited in the sense that, since she doesn't know everything, the narrative doesn't know everything, thus the reader doesn't know everything (until the end). Horror stories are more effective when the reader is kept in dark about certain, key details.

Third, the subject matter. It was inspired by an episode of Kappa Mikey, believe it or not. The LiliMu group goes through x-ray machines/metal detectors and something utterly disturbing is seen inside one of them. It just got the ball rolling in my head. Also, I have a twisted sense of humor and the tale is something of a parody of my kind of fanfiction.

“Gohatto”

November 21, 2006

Rin walked from the field to the house: the work about the farm was complete and she was free to be alone. And alone she knew she wanted the time to be with Koji Higurashi. She entered the garden and noticed the red and white chrysanthemums. She picked a flower and rubbed its wet, silky petals that dropped, one by one, and fluttered onto the ground.

“Lord Sesshoumaru?” she thought and gasped aloud.

Lord Sesshoumaru! It had been ages - ages! - so deep, so far back into the past as if it had been another life altogether. If not a dream.

But it was not a dream - not a dream of a normal, average human - and the grave within the garden was proof of the reality of the evil, base and corrupt, that could be perpetrated upon the world.

She clutched the flower and it shattered through the grip - its corpse, limp and lifeless, joined the grass and dirt ready to be absorbed by earth.

Rin shivered with torment and guilt. She loved Koji Higurashi but she loved Lord Sesshoumaru, too, and she should not think like that. She should not judge. She was mortal therefore unfit to be the moralist of the world.

Not without the hint of a tear, the suggestion of a whimper, she cut through the garden. Suddenly the foliage was clear. Suddenly the ground was exposed. Nothing but a mound of rock and dirt greeted the woman because nothing but death thrived there. There that part of the land was poisoned.

She looked at the pile. Staring at it now like then - the day of the burial - and gazing into its contours, she could not help but remark. It seemed to be like a bed with the outline of its sleeper revealed through the shape of the mound. Yet the sleeper would not awake.

“Do you miss me? I miss you,” she whispered hoping to be heard.

Rin loved Koji and her new, adopted family. The Higurashi took her into the house. They were keen onto the idea of a marriage between the boy and the girl. They already thought of that mysterious and enigmatic woman as the daughter. And, when the son died, they retained her grateful to be with another, living soul.

The man and woman Higurashi were the family she lived with the longest but she remained distant and unknowable. She knew that lack of intimacy was wrong; she felt they needed to know the truth - about Koji's death, about her own, convoluted history - and she could not divulge it. It tormented her, the guilt, the weight of the knowledge, it was unbearable for she knew, no matter how her maturity mellowed her conscience, she knew she carried the burden of the death of her soon to be husband.

It was for Lord Sesshoumaru that she kept it secret.

Still - what let Rin live with the shame was the realization - what if she told the story? It would be unbelievable. Such a thing could not be true. Impossible. Ridiculous. Even among demons.

Rin looked again at the mound of rock and dirt. In the twilight, amid shadow and darkness, was it not transformed into something new and different? Something wicked.

Like that mound she discovered alone when she was a girl, a servant of Lord Sesshoumaru.

* * * * * * * * * * *

The smell of it was repugnant but she discovered a spot where the wind carried the reek away. It was easier to study the mound of excrement at that location than at any other place. But what was Rin doing looking at a pile of dung? It was curiosity - she studied the droppings like she studied a mystery.

Lord Sesshoumaru was sick that night when he wandered away from the camp. He should have come back. He should have returned by the time she awoke and awaited. Yet he was not to be found. She worried and she followed the path through the forest - it was the very same path Lord Sesshoumaru followed.

Jaken warned her to keep out of that path. He said it would be dangerous. She did not listen. Rin knew he could be too cautious.

What was to be afraid of, anyway? she wondered aloud. It was just a pile of excrement. It was not harmful.

She explored the vicinity. At her age, at her size, she was unaware of the deep, gash-like scratches into the earth or the claws along the trunks of the trees. If she had been careful then as now, the signs of a great, animalistic struggle would have been obvious but she was just a child.

There was a stick. She grabbed it and used it to excavate the droppings. It was like playing with mud, she thought. She seemed to be bliss. And then the stick hit something hard within the mud. She poked and prodded and, indeed, there was something hard inside the pile.

Bit by bit, with the end of the stick, she carved away around the shape of the object. It was so deep, so entrenched, that she feared revealing it would be impossible. But, at last, the top of it was exposed. And, she sighed, its color was dung and she could not tell what it was by sight alone.

She dug further here and there and when the smooth, round object was revealed her heart skipped a beat.

“Lord Sesshoumaru!” Rin cried.

She dropped the stick and drew back, falling upon the earth, clamoring to break free, away.

She uncovered a skull. A face. Its skin ravaged by death and decay. Its eyes and mouth wide, open.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Alone, again, she knelt by the grave of Koji Higurashi. She raked her fingers gently almost lovingly through the earth. Rents, long and parallel - like the kind etched into rock gardens - were patterned upon the mound.

She carved `forgive me' into the fabric of the earth.

Then and there Rin was struck by the idea that she knew whose body was uncovered that day.

She sobbed and the tears were soaked by Nature.

How many deaths she caused? She did not know.

It was always her friends, the people she met along the roads and within the villages, she was certain of it then and now.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Jaken found her screaming. Or shaking? She could not remember, exactly, the state of her body. The little, green youkai did not speak but just by the look etched into his glossy, electric eyes she knew she had been bad. And, indeed, she felt dirty. She cried - she leaned against the shoulder of the monster but was flung away sternly and uncharacteristically.

“Don't touch me with those dirty, filthy hands! Girl, that smell lingers about you.”

Jaken appeared to be sensitive about the smell - the smell of the pile of dung - that clung onto Rin's skin and clothes. He did not want it upon him. Any trace of it.

She knew it was bad - she knew she was bad - and there would be punishment. She wanted to be punished by the toad demon rather than by Lord Sesshoumaru. She did not want the dog demon to know she was bad.

Jaken told her to take off her clothes and she did not protest. He told her to bathe within the stream and she did not complain. She washed her body thoroughly and completely while he laundered her clothes such that the smell of the heap would not be detected.

“If Lord Sesshoumaru smells and knows, girl, I don't know what'll become of you.”

The monster was very much afraid and though the threat was heavy, the concern was real and it reassured the human she would be safe.

Rin worried, though, not for herself, she knew Jaken would be there, but for Lord Sesshoumaru.

Every now and then Lord Sesshoumaru would be sick. First, it was lethargy. Second, it was fever. Then his speech slurred and his gate staggered. Eventually he could not move and remained under a tree for hours and hours. At the end of the illness - at night - he vanished into the forest leaving Jaken and Rin behind to wonder until he returned by morning healed.

He was not sick all of the time and he was not sick regularly. But he was sick repeatedly and whenever they encountered humans along their travels. Maybe, she thought, maybe he could not tolerate people the way she could not stomach meat. It could not explain why he was not sick with her and, besides, Lord Sesshoumaru could not be weak like that.

There must have been another cause.

Yet it could not be denied the sickness happened whenever she made friends with humans - typically with children.

And Rin made a great, many friends. It was remarkable that ease with which she befriended children and adults, women and men. What remained of her first, real life suggested that she used to be shy. Ever since she met Lord Sesshoumaru she was so vibrant because she was so happy that she cast away the former, lonesome manner and became friendly with strangers, humans and demons alike.

But, invariably, whether it was a boy in a village or a girl in a farm, whoever and wherever, people vanished as if into air. And then she watched, helpless and confused, while Lord Sesshoumaru sickened and Jaken worried.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Within the house, away from the garden and the tomb, the climate was subdued. Quiet and calm. It was supper and she served her would-be parents soup and noodles that she herself cooked. With a smile and a nod, content to be helpful, she sat by the pair while they ate.

Work busied her mind and body and kept her fixed onto the present. The past - and the future - were not places she enjoyed. Such as it was, there would be time enough to think about the future. The past, though, what could be done about it? She was a child! She could not have known. Suspected. How, then, she could be blamed?

If it was a sin, it was a sin of omission, that she did not reveal the truth.

But the past, like a flood, could not be quelled. And the guilt - that she should have known, that she should have acted - was too great to be suppressed. Because if she knew, if she knew, she would have kept away from the Higurashi and she would not have loved Koji. Perhaps, within that other universe, he would have lived and, perhaps, she would have met that similar death.

He was so noble, so kind he deserved life more than she.

“Aren't you hungry, child?” the woman asked.

“You haven't touched a thing, not a single solitary thing,” the man teased.

She smiled. She looked into the bowl and peeled out of the soup a throng of noodles. She ate it.

What a simple, little act.

* * * * * * * * * * *

When Lord Sesshoumaru was sick, he would be feverish and lethargic. At camp, he would be by the fire, by the trunk of a tree, meditating as silent as if death itself churned within him. During those quiet, domestic moments, Jaken would be tasked with the lighting of torches and the burning of small, queer offerings the scents of which were potent.

It always made Rin dizzy and sleepy whenever she got too close to the fire.

Even Jaken was forced away by the power of the aroma.

Often Lord Sesshoumaru grew hot and sweaty and the discomfort impelled the demon to remove that heavy, burdensome armor. Jaken assisted, untying the fragments piece by piece and setting the remnants under the shade of the tree. The swords, too, pressed against the waist and were to be removed and kept away along with the armor.

“Lord Sesshoumaru will be better soon?” she asked.

Only the toad answered as the great dog demon could not speak.

Worried, Rin collected nuts and berries for Lord Sesshoumaru, the offering would be uneaten until after the late night, healing excursions. Nevertheless, it was the only time she neared him, with the food in the basket, which she set by his lap while she stood by his shoulder. She tired and, though she knew Jaken would be cross, she sat against the demon. And, waiting and waiting, she fell asleep comforted by the warmth of the flesh of Lord Sesshoumaru.

Sometimes Jaken awoke Rin. The little, green monster terrified to catch the girl that close by the demon. And asleep! She saw it, that fear, upon the face of the reptilian. It could not be denied.

But sometimes he would not shake her out of the trance. And she lay there, eyes gazing, staring into Lord Sesshoumaru. It was like that, like that upon the ground like an offering between the legs of the demon, that she noticed the strange, misshapen nature of his stomach. It was distended almost as if he were pregnant.

Quiet and still, she lay against him and felt something hard. She was curious - it was something hard within Lord Sesshoumaru - she did not recall feeling that. She reached into his kimono and felt about his stomach. It felt full, as distended as it was, yet the hardness was elsewhere. Elsewhere and lower. Almost above the lap was where it started but though she could not probe through the fabrics of the clothes, she knew - somehow, someway - she knew the hardness continued into the body.

What was wrong with Lord Sesshoumaru? She wept. Dying? He was dying?

Suddenly and unexpectedly, she gasped and withdrew - the hardness within Lord Sesshoumaru moved.

* * * * * * * * * * *

After dinner, after the couple retired into the house, Rin wandered.

Life was not lonely. There were female friends, long married, who stopped by with children. There were male friends, too, who visited sometimes at the behest of the family and sometimes just to see her, just to gaze her beauty that the village thought was not entirely of the human world.

Soon it would be time to be married. Her adopted parents were old and frail and needed a man about the house as much as a woman. They required a generation to tend and care for the farm when they were gone.

Soon, yes, soon.

“Be happy,” they told her, again and again, “you would be the perfect wife.”

She was happy. And she was free. Free to love and be loved without fear.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Despite Rin's ability to befriend others there was a stretch of time when she kept away from humans. Was it months? Years? It seemed to be blissful eternity. The association was simple: all of the people she knew and loved vanished and Lord Sesshoumaru sickened yet when she avoided humans he would be well and all right. At the end, she could not bear watching him, seeing him suffer and, really, Aun, Jaken and he were the only people she needed.

She was content to be alone with them.

It came as a shock when Jaken implored:

“Enter that village, girl. Make friends,” he commanded, “with people.”

He was adamant about that queer, uncanny request.

She complied however strange it was coming from him.

Jaken could be weird, saying and asking strange things, but she supposed a person with all of those secrets would have to be weird from time to time.

It was not long afterward that the pattern repeated: friends vanished quickly and Lord Sesshoumaru was sicker longer and longer.

Rin cried herself asleep thinking about the pain it caused Lord Sesshoumaru.

* * * * * * * * * * *

At the rear of the house Rin stood by the garden. Her parents were asleep and she would have dreamt, too, if her mind were not unhinged and uneasy. That night she did not want to think about marriage or children. Especially children.

But once it started, it could not be stopped: every breath returned her to the scene of the excrement.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Rin grew bold so with sharper and longer sticks she dissected into the pile of dung. She dug hard and deep hoping to uncover the root of the mystery, wondering what it was that connected it to the vanished children and to the sickened Lord Sesshoumaru. Already patterns and ideas, or one shape and another form, were building within her brain and she needed to know the truth. What she would not suspect, what she could not guess - until too late - was the guilt and the torment that were to be the price of the knowledge.

She dived into the heart of the unknown. And she came upon the hint of the answer but she turned away. She could not bring herself to go further - it was too much already to see what she saw - and she could not bring herself to dig deeper.

The first time she uncovered a head, the last time she uncovered a skeleton. Complete and intact. As if the child - it must have been a child - had been swallowed and expelled whole. The bones were brittle and bleached as if all of life itself had been sucked out of them and they, now ashen and pockmarked, emerged through the onyx of the feces like a figure out of a nightmare.

Rin stared transfixed, unable to think or act, she did not know where to go, what to do. Who, if anyone, could be trusted. She did not recall the events that transpired after the revelations only that, eventually, Jaken grabbed her and dragged her into a spa where the ritual of bathing and laundry commenced.

Little by little, she emerged through the haze of the experience.

“Why does Lord Sesshoumaru eat children, Jaken?” she asked, though with that clear and calm monotonic voice it seemed to be another speaking words through her lips.

Jaken shook and let the clothes slip out of his grip.

“Ridiculous!” he yelped. A sense of fear flashed across his eyes. “Lord Sesshoumaru does not eat children!” He glared into her face with a look of horror and terror. He felt that for her. “It's improper to be eavesdropping on conversations!” he scolded.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Then, while passing through the outskirts of a village, at night with the moon and the stars, Rin met Koji. The first time it was a chance encounter, the second time it was a planned coincidence, the third time it was habit. Again and again, night after night, they stopped each other along the road and together they walked and talked.

Koji was very curious about Rin: he thought of her as that strange, beautiful woman too perfect to be part of that normal, human world.

“My mystery girl,” he taunted - she blushed.

She was taken by his kind and gentle nobility and regretted that she could not be as honest. She had to be cautious. Already he thought she could have been demonic. It would have been dangerous to reveal she traveled with monsters and it would have been lethal to alert those companions of that man's friendship.

One night they met at the Higurashi farm. In the shed. He held her hand; she did not withdraw it. She rubbed his knuckles and he kissed her fingers. He jittered tentatively and nervously, drawing closer and farther alternately. She took the initiative, kissing his lips, falling onto his arms. She felt hardness moving and growing out of his body and she did not fear it. She found the source of the stiffness between his legs and he released it through the cover of his clothes.

It was at the age of fifteen that Rin lost her virginity.

She slept by him in the hut amid the straw. Then she remained by him throughout the day. And then, again, the rest of the night. She was beautiful, seductive. She was unattached and alone. Until he asked and she agreed to be husband and wife.

Koji's family accepted Rin and she fit well into the life of the farm. The man, the father, complemented her deference. The woman, the mother, complemented her skill. Clearly, the pair agreed, whatever her story she must have been servant to a great and powerful lord.

And it was not just the family but the friends and relations that accepted her despite her enigmatic and anonymous background.

The life Rin settled into with Koji was perfect so much so that she could not imagine what the world must have been before that moment she met him - it was as if the memories of Aun and Jaken and Lord Sesshoumaru were fantasy.

Rin remembered being half-awake when Lord Sesshoumaru returned from one of those nightly, healing trips. Except that time, when he should have been healthy he seemed to be sicker and afraid. The great dog demon trembled.

“A bigger dose,” he stammered at Jaken.

The little, green youkai blinked. “That was the last of the -”

“A bigger dose!” he raised his voice, catching himself lest the shout could have alerted Rin. “Take Rin to Jinenji. Collect more, as much as possible.”

Jaken nodded and helped Lord Sesshoumaru recline against a tree: his body was too tired, too exhausted that he could not move by himself.

Rin pretended to be asleep. The girl was afraid. Would Lord Sesshoumaru die? she wondered. Because of me?

Then in the middle of the night, when the moon was bright and full, she heard that scream. Was it the first and last time? Perhaps not. Perhaps the screams were always there and she did not notice until that moment, that instant.

The scream returned - it came from Lord Sesshoumaru's direction.

She emerged out of the blanket. Tiptoed across the campfire. Through the fallen leaves and branches. Onto the site of Lord Sesshoumaru helpless against the tree. She was at once unused to that visage and quite, utterly familiar with it.

And the scream returned - and she screamed with it - the sound of it came from within Lord Sesshoumaru.

Then she darted aback, then she stood fixed, frozen - the demon opened its eyes.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Under the moonlight over the garden Rin stopped and shivered. Neither time nor distance it seemed dulled the impact of the memory. Would her mind be normal, she wondered, would her thoughts and fears haunt her forever, eternally?

Sitting at the edge of the veranda, she caught sight of an animal that sauntered by her bare and dangled legs. It was a housecat, a large, gray male to be exact, though in the middle of the night appeared only as an outline darting through the foliage. It seemed to be chasing. Hunting. And then it stopped - a shriek followed a squeal - and then it climbed upon the overhang. There by her she saw it eat the bits and pieces of the catch.

She was not repulsed by the sight as it was, of course, only a natural, healthy thing.

The body drew its strength from the food it consumed. The fresher the food, the greater the strength. And if it was fresh enough to be served alive was not the soul itself absorbed?

To devour the nutrient of the soul!

* * * * * * * * * * *

Jinenji was a friend that Rin missed. When she was a child, a servant of Lord Sesshoumaru, she visited that shy, old hanyou a lot so the memories of the encounters sated curiosity. She thought about visiting the gardener again but it would be too dangerous. She kept away from the past and the past kept away from her: if she ventured into that territory then everything would be jeopardized.

Thinking about Jinenji, she recalled the way they trekked about the farm, the way they identified and gathered the medicine Jaken and Lord Sesshoumaru required. Like that time she the demon sent the girl to fetch a rare and potent extract of knotweed. Yes, yes, it returned as though anew the scene of her picking the white, fuzzy flowers while catching the portions of a conversation:

“Lord Sesshoumaru appears to be consumed by obsession. Does it - Jinenji - does it kill him?”

“Kill him? No. Strengthen him? Yes. It's the manner the nutrient is ingested -”

“The first time - accident - I swear the boy was a human. It must have been human that day. Then it must have reverted while inside Lord Sesshoumaru.”

“And that's how it survived long enough to be -”

“Yes.”

“I imagine it could have killed him.”

“It almost did. I suppose it was at the end of the cycle that the sensation of it trying to fight, the feeling of it -”

“Perhaps it's addiction? Perhaps it's killing him, slowly, gradually. You know, they say a man's -”

“After the first time - yes - only humans. And I make absolutely, positively certain of it. Yes. They die.”

“And laxatives atrophy the system. If he needs stronger and stronger doses, the muscles must be weak already. And if it continues soon he will be unable -”

“Rin? She's bait. But I don't know what she knows. I'm too afraid to learn.”

* * * * * * * * * * *

It was a night like that night. With the moon and the stars. And while the universe revealed its infinity above the trees and the mountains, Rin and Koji played until she carried his seed within her body. It was as if the would-be wife absorbed the body and soul of the would-be husband. It thrilled her and scared her but she felt alive.

Content and fulfilled, she wandered through the back of the house. At that time that space was unadorned and she wondered what it would be like if a garden with shrubs and bushes grew about that part of the land. It would be beautiful, would it not?

A group of housecats, young and thin, stalked about the grass. The felines captured the mice. One, a skinny gray male, caught and swallowed a rodent while she watched.

The struggle! The sound of the struggle, sudden and unexpected, alerted Rin and alarmed the man and woman. A lamp was lit inside. She clamored from place to place trying and failing to follow the trail from the field to the house. When she entered the home, she joined the pair who were already following the fight through the corridors. But by the time she caught up with the two it was too late.

It ended at the bedroom, at Koji's bedroom, it had been broken into. A hole was torn into the wall. The furniture was tossed. The mattress was destroyed. And Koji was not to be found.

“I don't believe it, I can't believe it,” the man stammered.

“It was a little green monster that grabbed Koji!”

Rin's heart skipped a beat.

“No! No! Koji, my Koji!” she screamed.

Against reason, she ran into the gash that had been carved out of the wall. She scampered into the wilderness. Not my Koji, she thought and the words impelled her beyond the power of mere, human strength.

Even a demon as powerful as Lord Sesshoumaru could not swallow a full-grown man. Not whole and alive. It almost killed him when he swallowed a boy but it was a hanyou and a human would have died. Yet, the bodies were intact. Somehow, someway, he could be saved?

She ran through the forest. Not blindly. She wandered that expanse nearly ten years a servant of Lord Sesshoumaru. But it was the scent of the torches - the ones that Jaken lit, the ones whose aromas induced trances - that revealed the path through the wilderness. She knew where to go, what to do, already the air was thick with incense and she felt light-headed.

Her wish to save him could not be crushed. Because by saving Koji she was saving Rin. At last, she found a happy, quiet life with the promise of a future. And though she loved Lord Sesshoumaru, she knew the demon to be wrong. He was wrong, it was wrong. It was wrong as it was unfair.

The scents of the torches came from a crack along a cliff. Puffs of smoke blew out of the hole while Rin gazed into the rent. She saw the flames of the lamps amid shadow and darkness. Then braving the fear she slithered through the cave.

Within the main, vaulted chamber the fumes overwhelmed the nose and the ashy, sooty remnants irritated the eyes. Her senses were dulled, confused. She could not be certain of the reality of what she discovered. Was that a great, white dog belly-up and sprawled across the floor? Or was that Lord Sesshoumaru? Was that a body, naked with thick, fluffy fur? Or was that a kimono wrapped tight? Were the limbs - the two legs and the one arm - shaped more like a canine's than a human's? If she could have seen the face, she could have known the truth but the shape of the skull was obscured.

“Koji!” Rin called but there was no answer.

Suddenly Lord Sesshoumaru's legs arose. Suddenly the claws of the toes scratched the walls of the chamber. Fine, dust-like debris rained onto the floor.

She noticed legs - bare human legs - limp and lifeless above the tail of the beast that was, that would have been Lord Sesshoumaru.

“Koji!” she screamed and clutched the legs by the ankles. She tugged, realizing only too late that the motion of the thighs and the buttocks were drawing - swallowing - Koji into the body of Lord Sesshoumaru. But she tugged again and again with all of her might and the demon writhed, heaved. The knees, the waist, the chest emerged out of the orifice. At last the hands clutched the sphincter - and Koji freed himself.

Koji fell onto the floor. Without a second thought Rin grasped his shoulders and dragged his body away, out of the cave. She heard his gasping, moaning and groaning, but she did not stop. And she could not stop. Any pause along the way would be disaster since Jaken would have been sent to fetch the humans.

She reached the village and stopped by the river. With people watching and whispering, she bathed the man that would be the husband. She cleaned the excrement off of his face - the moon and the stars spared her the full, frontal tragedy revealed through the wash. What she extracted from Lord Sesshoumaru's body was only what used to be Koji. Miasma and poisons within the demon destroyed the human - the flesh, still alive, still alert, disintegrated into the water leaving only the bones.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Rin sighed. She wiped her eyes, red and tearful, and cradled her head into her hands. She wanted to remember Koji Higurashi the way he used to be and not what he became that last instant, that final moment of life.

Demons were different. Demons were not supposed to be like men. Men were bound by Nature to be weak, mortal creatures. And, clearly, Lord Sesshoumaru needed it. She loved him - no - she worshiped him therefore she would not judge and the secret would be safe.