The Children of Red Peak

by Craig DiLouie

  The band started playing again, piano chords and chainsaw guitar in breathy, swirling tones. The LED projectors tuned into a perfect simulation of moonlight.

  Deacon said, “I wrote a song about it, which is going to be on our next album. ‘We Played So Beautifully.’ ”

  As he sang, the ersatz moonlight cast a ghostly halo around his tangled hair and pale, boyish face.

  Beth’s eyes watered as the words crossed the room and burrowed into her. He was singing to her. This was a song about her.

  Too young to kiss,

  But an old love so pure,

  Of all I miss,

  I’ll never be as sure,

  That we played so beautifully,

  But the wall fell down.

  How we played so beautifully,

  But the wall came round.

  Then Deacon was crying too, eyes bulging with tears streaming down his cheeks. A musician in Hell, singing his loss and sin in an endless concert for an audience of demons who’d come for the vicarious thrill.

  Beth thought of a line of ancient Greek tattooed on his arm, which he’d explained meant, What can’t be said will be wept.

  The crowd gaped back at him, mesmerized. The song had hypnotized them, luring them into a guided meditation along a cult survivor’s memories.

  As the song reached its climax, he sang:

  She played so beautifully.

  She played so beautifully.

  She played so beautifully.

  She played so beautifully.

  He was singing about his mother now, Beth knew. The warm, pure-hearted organist whose one sin was pride in her playing. A sin for which she’d atoned in the harshest way possible to prepare her spirit for its ascension.

  A punishment she’d inflicted on herself out of belief that something bigger and better awaited her.

  I wasn’t trying to hurt you, he’d said on the pier. I was using you to hurt me.

  “I understand,” Beth murmured through tears.

  They could never be together, but at least she now knew why.

  Deacon couldn’t stop his self-immolation. Neither could she. If he hadn’t hurt her again with his silence, she would have found a way to drive him out of her life with her words, wipe at the stain until it never reappeared. Forever, they were doomed to suffer separately in the comfort of their coping routines. In the end, even love couldn’t transcend their programs.

  The crowd let out a frenzied cheer as the song ended with a roaring blast.

  The horn she hadn’t heard in fifteen years.

  Lifeless forms rustled where they lay twisted and sprawling on the Temple floor. A pew groaned as it scraped along the hardwood.

  The shofar called the dead home to paradise.

  Mom was flying.

  Beth reeled toward the exit while the horn vibrated through the air to rattle her heart and fill it with raving terror.

  17

  SUFFER

  2005

  The clang of hammers and chisels echoed as the Family built their great stairway to the summit. The children went first, raking and sweeping loose stones from the path. In their wake, men hacked at the dry ground with pickaxes and shovels in a cloud of dust. Then the women came, hauling thick pieces of rough-hewn sandstone to form the broad treads, thinner stones to serve as risers.

  After a month of hard labor, the Family neared the first false summit, where the mountainside leveled out a short distance before resuming its climb to the peak. Grueling misery in the hot sun, but they did it with zeal, happy to have something to do, to have some control. Paradise awaited them at the top.

  Looking down at the great stairway from above, Beth was reminded of a wonder of the world, the building of the first railroad, or one of the big mysterious burial mounds that dotted the continent, visible as a serpent only from the heavens.

  She scratched at the arid dirt with her rake. Her blistered hands stung and bled like stigmata. School had stopped, and even play was a luxury, as it was pointless to do anything other than finish the work they’d been tasked. Aside from sponge baths, she hadn’t washed in weeks. Every morning, it took hours for them just to reach the highest part of the stairway and resume work.

  “Just a little more,” Deacon coaxed, “and then we can go back.”

  She nodded in the sun’s glare and tottered, light-headed.

  He handed her a bottle of water, which she gulped. “Not too much. You know it’s hard to get more.”

  She pictured herself splashing in the baptismal stream. She licked dry, chapped lips. “I can’t do it anymore.”

  “Sit down then. You can gather up the stones.” The stones were mixed with sand and poured to form a base for the tread stones. “Or take a rest.”

  Still dizzy, Beth sat on a rock. “I don’t feel very good.”

  Deacon gave her the bottle. “Finish it. I’ll be okay until we get back.”

  She drank thirstily.

  “The atonement is today,” he went on. “We’ll be in the Temple for the ceremony, and then we’ll have the rest of the day off.”

  The Spirit had instructed the Family to confess their sins. Then it had told Jeremiah they’d all have to purify themselves for the ascension. Twelve of the grown-ups had volunteered, including Deacon’s mom and David and Angela’s.

  Beth had no idea what purification entailed, only the children had a role to play in it. She’d pictured a celebratory ritual, like baptism.

  “Fine,” she said, hoping she had enough energy to walk back down.

  An apparition appeared at the crest of the false summit, a black specter shimmering in the heat waves.

  Beth raised her hand to shield her eyes from the blinding light. “What is that?”

  The kids stopped work to gaze up the slope.

  The specter solidified into the form of Jeremiah Peale.

  Every few days, he climbed the mountain to talk to God and returned fired with new energy and determination. His infectious smile, however, was gone.

  The Reverend sat in the dust. His blue eyes smoldered on his sunburned face. He drank from his canteen, swished it around his mouth, and spit.

  “You kids,” he rasped. “It’s time.”

  “I want to atone too, Reverend,” Deacon said.

  Jeremiah sat unmoving with his head bowed, and Beth wondered if he’d fallen asleep. His eyes shot open. “You will. By watching and learning.”

  “And singing,” Emily said.

  A flicker of a smile passed the Reverend’s face. “Just remember, if we suffer, we do it with joy. Abraham didn’t complain when God asked him to give his foreskin. He obeyed. He circumcised his entire house.”

  “Okay,” Deacon said uncertainly.

  “Just as I obey, though I asked the Spirit that this burden could be lifted, or be given to me alone.” He grimaced. “Yes, it’s time.”

  The Reverend stood and dusted the seat of his pants. Then he set off back down the mountain, where the Family had stopped work and waited for him.

  “What was that about?” Angela wondered. “That whole thing about Abraham?”

  “I need to talk to my mom,” said Deacon.

  “Yeah. I’d better talk to mine too.”

  Beth heaved upright. Stars rushed into her vision. The earth wobbled. She closed her eyes and waited for it to pass. She had to wash up and put on her vestments. Then she had to sing.

  She’d hoped the atonement would be a celebration, a relief from deprivation and hard labor, but now she wondered if things were about to get even worse.

  Dressed in white choral gowns and holding hands, the Family’s children crowded the sides of the nave. They sang as the first of the repentant entered the Temple and approached the altar, on which a smoking brazier rested.

  There’s a joy in my heart that shall ever abide

  ’Tis a joy to the world that unknown;

  For in undying love Jesus came seeking me,

  And he bro’t me again to his own.

  Deacon’s mo
ther had arrived first, scrubbed clean and wearing a white robe. A murmur rippled through the tense crowd. They waved fans to cool themselves. The pews creaked as they rustled with anticipation. Those nearest reached to lay hands on her as she moved up the aisle with an uncertain smile.

  Beth leaned to hiss at Deacon, “Did you talk to her?”

  Her friend was pale. “She told me to be strong.”

  “Do you know what they’re going to do?”

  He wagged his head. “I don’t like this.”

  Whatever it was, she hoped it didn’t last long. She was hungry and light-headed and wasn’t sure how long she’d be able to keep standing. Though she was out of the sun now, the Temple was sweltering. Under her gown, her body was slick with sweat.

  The Reverend raised his Bible as Mrs. Price reached the altar. “ ‘If your right eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out and throw it away from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members should perish, than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna.’ ”

  “Amen,” Mrs. Price said.

  He turned his fierce gaze to the entire congregation, his eyes full of love. “And ‘if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off, and throw it away from you. For it is more profitable for you that one of your members should perish, than for your whole body to be cast into Gehenna.’ The Book of Matthew, chapter five, verses twenty-nine and thirty. This is the word of the Lord.”

  “Praise God,” the crowd intoned.

  The Reverend hugged the small, stout woman, his lips moving as he whispered private words of encouragement. She shook in his arms.

  He kissed the top of her head and said, “Sherry, my oldest and dearest friend. Do you accept the Living Spirit in your heart?”

  “I do, Reverend,” she said in her small, shy voice.

  “Do you love the Spirit more than anything?”

  “I surely do.”

  “Have you come freely to purify yourself so you can ascend without sin?”

  “I have.”

  “Declare your great sin before the Spirit,” Jeremiah said.

  Mrs. Price lifted her chin. “My sin is pride, Reverend.”

  He raised his hands in supplication. “Lord, we pray that you give this woman the strength to make herself ready.” He smiled at her, though it wasn’t his normal joyful smile, more like one reconciled to pain. “We forgive you and call you sister. You may atone. Shed your sin and become pure.”

  This was the signal to resume singing. While Deacon’s mom rested her left hand on the altar, Beth sang:

  O the sweet and precious joy he gives,

  As I walk by his side day by day,

  In my heart the blessed Savior lives,

  And his love—

  Mrs. Price raised a butcher’s cleaver. The Family gasped and leaned forward in their pews. The singing faltered.

  His love brightens all—

  She swung the cleaver in a gleaming arc. The sharp blade sliced through the fingers of her left hand to thud against the wood.

  Mrs. Price reared with a high-pitched scream. Blood sprayed across the altar and sizzled as it struck the brazier.

  “Mom?” Deacon cried. “Mom!”

  Grimacing with her left hand jammed into her armpit, she picked up her fingers one by one and tossed them onto the brazier, where they hissed. Smoke billowed into the air along with the sickeningly sweet stench of burning flesh.

  “You are now one of the elect,” the Reverend said.

  Women rushed forward with bandages to help Mrs. Price to her seat. Deacon fell to his knees. Beth looked around wildly at the congregation and settled on her own mother, who stared at Sherry Price with a smile that gleamed with envy.

  Mrs. Young was already walking up the aisle toward the altar.

  The Temple began to spin. Beth twisted all the way to the floor and into utter darkness.

  Beth awoke to a hand clasped over her mouth.

  Hot breath in her ear. “Are you awake?”

  Whimpering, she nodded.

  “Come outside,” her father said. “I’ll meet you there.”

  Quietly, she left her bed and slipped on her shoes. Daddy waited outside in the moonlight.

  “What’s going on?” she whispered.

  Three weeks had passed since the purifications began. After nearly two months of hard labor and surviving on what the Family had brought with them from the farm, Daddy’s clothes hung on him like laundry drying on a line. The children no longer had to work on the stairway, but she knew the Family was now making steady progress to the second summit.

  He motioned for her to follow him away from the cabins. The full moon hung over Red Peak. The air was silent and still and mercifully cold.

  “Where are we going?”

  Boots crunching on the stones, he kept walking until the cabins disappeared in the darkness. “I wanted to talk to you about something important.”

  “Okay.” Her aching body protested at the walk, while her exhausted brain urged her to return to bed. “I’m listening.”

  “You’re almost fifteen now. Old enough to understand. I don’t have a choice.”

  “Daddy, stop. Tell me what’s going on.”

  Her father’s gait slowed to a halt. “Your mother. She’s going to purify herself tomorrow.”

  Beth looked down at her body sheathed in its nightgown and wondered what Mom would sacrifice on the altar as a burnt offering. Which part of her offended the Spirit and needed to be removed to purge herself of sin.

  Tears stung her eyes. “Okay.”

  “No,” Daddy said. “Not okay.”

  She started in surprise. “What do you mean?”

  “When your mother found this church, we almost got divorced. I just never believed the way she did. I went along with her because I didn’t want to lose you.”

  “Daddy? What are you saying?”

  He gazed into the darkness, no longer talking only to her, as if this were his own confession. “And she was right. The farm was good. I was even willing to go along with what was happening here for a while, as long as you were safe. This ascension business, though. I don’t know if any of us are going to survive it.”

  “We’re supposed to die.” She felt sick now. “I don’t understand.”

  “One day, you will die and go to Heaven, but the world is not coming to an end anytime soon. We’re not going to just vanish and wake up in paradise.”

  “But that’s how it’s supposed to work. The Reverend talked to—”

  “The Reverend isn’t right in the head, and he’s going to get all of us killed. That’s the only way this can end.”

  Jeremiah hadn’t purified yet, but he’d suffered more than most between barely eating and his labor on the stairs. He still climbed to the top of the mountain to beg the Spirit to deliver them now without any more suffering.

  “The black sea?” her father added. “The ascension? Cutting off body parts? This isn’t Christian anymore. It’s something else. It’s madness.”

  The Reverend never talked about God or Jesus anymore, only the Living Spirit, which he said lived on the mountain. When the Spirit came, no longer did it fill the Family with joy and make them dance and sing, only writhe on the floor chanting and howling and soiling themselves.

  She thought of Deacon, who wouldn’t leave his mother’s side. David and Angela’s mom, who’d cut up her face to destroy her beauty and stop inspiring love from men. She’d considered it horrible but also powerful, brave, breathtaking in its piety. Was it all for nothing? They’d hurt themselves for a lie?

  It hurt to even think about. She buried her face in her hands. “Stop it.”

  “I’m leaving,” he said. “Right now. I’m going to get help.”

  “But…” Beth didn’t know what to say. He was protecting her, as he always did, but she couldn’t shake the dread he was betraying them all.

  She thought again of David’s mom, her once beautiful face held together by strips of medical tape. Deacon’s,
who’d taken too much pride in her musical talent and would never play the organ again. Emily’s, who’d cut off one of her ears. Wyatt’s father, who’d plucked out his left eye.

  Tomorrow, her own mom would toss a body part onto the altar to burn into ash. What would it be? Her nose? A foot? Her lips?

  “Okay, Daddy.” The words surprising her. She wanted him to do it.

  The elders had the keys to the trucks. He was going to have to walk out on foot and cross miles of desert to reach Medford.

  He hugged her. “I love you, Beth. I’ll come back for you. I promise.”

  Then he disappeared, leaving her shivering in the cold night.

  The next morning, Beth awoke again to the sounds of her mother washing herself in a plastic basin.

  “Where’s Daddy?”

  Humming to herself, Mom didn’t answer.

  For a moment, Beth wondered if walking with her father in the moonlight had all been a dream. His confession he’d only joined the Family so he could stay close to his daughter. His belief the Reverend was insane.

  Hunger gnawed at her belly, but there’d be no breakfast again today. She pictured Daddy returning with the police. They’d cure the Reverend of his madness and order them to stop hurting themselves. They’d feed her bacon and pancakes and ice-cold orange juice, and they’d take her back to the farm, where she’d return to Christian living close to the land and forget this ever happened.

  Her choral gown lay folded on the edge of the bed.

  “Mom?” No answer. “Mom, you don’t have to do this.”

  Still no answer. She stepped out of bed and got dressed, ignoring her vestment. Mom was putting on her own, a white robe.

  “You shouldn’t have to hurt yourself to prove faith.”

  Nothing.

  “Mom! Why don’t you answer me?”

  Her mother spread her arms and inspected herself. She flashed a brief smile. “Not everything must be spoken.”

  Outside, the bell rang, calling the Family to the Temple.