The church scripture is a heavily censored religious text. Its passages accompany both Wendel’s anguished search for salvation and a coercive cutting ritual.
Juliette remembers the church’s ornate gilded scripture protected by a bent-steel cage on a welded podium, with only occasional sentences visible among blacked-out passages. By the time Father Wendel reads from Isaiah, his copy has come apart into loose pages, still marked with censored words and sentences. That passage promises salvation and restoration of the land.
At the later church gathering, an officiant reads a covenant concerning descendants and flesh from a book before cutting a restrained woman.
An ornate gilded book once protected by a bent-steel cage on a welded podium. Wendel’s copy is now loose pages with words and sentences blacked out.
A censored religious authority used in worship and ritual.