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“Oh, come on, Mom. You don’t seriously think this was orchestrated, do you?” Nate asked.
“I don’t know. It could be,” Shelby said, though she wasn’t sure of that. Cass burst out laughing.
“Really, Mom? Really?” she asked as she pushed her long brown hair out of her eyes and over her head.
“How else do you explain something like this?” Shelby asked.
“You know, we have this little term called ‘coincidence.’ I’m pretty sure that’s what this is. Some asshole probably ran off the road and took out a transformer or something,” Cass said before returning to her phone.
“Watch your mouth,” Shelby said, narrowing her eyes at Cass. She’d grown bold lately, no doubt thanks to Joel’s influence. “And I don’t think this is a coincidence. I saw people lined up at the gas stations and convenience stores for gas and food on my way home. They wouldn’t be doing that if they didn’t think it was something big.”
“Then they’re morons,” Cass said. “And tomorrow morning when they wake up, and the power’s back on, they’ll figure that out and wish they’d saved their time and money.”
“We’ve had power outages before; this one isn’t any different,” Nate said. But it was different. For Christ’s sake, nearly a fourth of Los Angeles was without power—maybe more than that—and her kids were acting like it was the most routine thing in the world.
Shelby hoped they were right, but she couldn’t ignore the pit of dread resting in her stomach like a stone. She’d learned over the years to trust that feeling—the anxious, frantic energy that sometimes took over her—because it was right more often than not, even when others thought she was paranoid.
The air around them seemed charged like it was waiting for a spark to ignite it, and every hair on Shelby’s body stood on end in anticipation.
“Besides, what do you think you could do for us if there were an attack or something?” Nate asked. Shelby’s breath caught in her throat. He wasn’t wrong, but still, how could he say something like that? “We’re pretty much adults, Mom. There isn’t anything you could do that we couldn’t.”
“We’ll see about that,” Shelby said, though it wasn’t what she wanted to say. If the circumstances had been different, she might’ve traded barbs with Nate, but now wasn’t the time for it.
As much as they pretended otherwise, neither of Shelby’s kids was remotely close to being adults. She knew that after a day or more without power—if, heaven forbid, the outage lasted that long—Nate and Cass alike would realize they still needed their mother far more than they’d ever like to admit.
Shelby hated the way the thought made her feel like she still meant something to her kids. Why did Joel have to be gone for this? And why had they parted on bad terms?
More than anything else, Shelby wished she could call him and apologize for the way she’d acted and blamed him for her unhappiness. Joel spent more time away than at home thanks to his profession, but Shelby had never felt his absence as starkly as she did in the absolute darkness alone with their kids.
“Come inside. I need your help getting candles and flashlights out of the closets,” Shelby said, and Cass scoffed. “Now,” Shelby barked, fixing her gaze on Cass, and though she sighed and rolled her eyes, she stomped inside, the flash on her cell phone illuminated to keep her from tripping over anything.
“I dunno why you're all nuts. The power will be back on before midnight according to Pacific’s Twitter account. This isn’t any different than the times Dad forgot to pay the power bill,” Cass said.
“What if it is different? Do you want to be stumbling around here in the dark looking for bare necessities tomorrow?” Shelby asked, her pulse pounding. Now wasn’t the time for Cass’s attitude—not that it ever had a place. Cass shook her head and rolled her eyes again.
“That’s what I thought. Now move.”
Without another word, Cass led the way to the hallway closet on the first floor where Shelby had stored all the random knick-knacks she hadn’t been able to find another place for after the move.
“There’s a box full of candles and matches toward the back,” Shelby said, pointing over Cass’s shoulder.
“Yeah, I’ve got it, thanks,” Cass said and yanked the box out of the closet with a heave. Something solid thudded against the shelf. “What the hell?”
“What is it?” Shelby asked.
“There’s something behind the box,” Cass said. She passed Shelby the candles and reached into the closet up to her shoulder. Her eyes went wide.
“What is it?” Shelby asked again, her voice rising.
“A gun,” Cass said.
“What?”
“You heard me. There’s a fucking gun in there,” Cass said. That couldn’t be true. How the hell could a gun have gotten into Shelby’s house without her knowing it?
Joel. It had to have been Joel, something he’d bought years ago in Tennessee before they’d moved to California.
He’d always loved going to gun shows, but he’d also promised he wouldn’t buy anything. Shelby had forbidden him from bringing one into her house, so how had he gotten it past her? More importantly, why would he have hidden it in the hallway closet instead of somewhere more unlikely to be found by the kids?
“Leave it. Don’t touch it, just leave it,” Shelby said.
“Well, according to you, the end of the world is here, so maybe I should take it,” Cass said.
“Very funny,” Shelby said as she pushed Cass out of the way and closed the closet door to rest her back against it.
“Mom?” Cass asked, but Shelby barely heard her over her thoughts. There was a gun in her house, and she had no idea how long it’d been there.
Violation ate at the edges of the illusion of Shelby’s safety. She felt as if the house had been broken into while she slept and she’d woken to find all her things in the wrong place, her underwear drawer strewn about the floor. The anxious knot in her stomach doubled in size.
As soon as Nate and Cass were asleep, Shelby would bury the gun in the backyard or find somewhere in the garage to hide it. It couldn’t stay in the house.
“Mom… why is there a gun in the closet? You’re starting to freak me out,” Cass said, tearing Shelby out of her thoughts.
“I don’t know. Really, I don’t. Just forget about it and take the candles out to the living room,” Shelby said, shoving the box into Cass’s hands. Cass hesitated, her eyes darting from the closet door to Shelby’s face and back again. “Go!” Shelby shouted, and Cass ran, clattering through the dark house and knocking all kinds of things over in the process.
Shelby sank down against the closet until her backside found the hardwood floor, her mind unable to focus on anything other than the gun. Cass knew it was there now, and there was no way in hell she’d let it go. Like her father, she’d always had a fascination with guns, but Shelby had forbidden her from touching them.
Then again, she’d forbidden Joel from bringing them into her house too, but that hadn’t exactly panned out the way she’d planned either. Had Cass known about the gun being there all along and played stupid? Had Joel bribed her to keep it their little secret?
Whatever the case, she prayed none of them would ever have to use it.
“Mom, there’s something weird going on in the sky! Get out here!” Nate shouted from the back porch and chills rippled across Shelby’s body. Her gut feeling had been right, as it always was.
She stood from the floor, flung open the closet, and reached far back into it until her fingers brushed against cold steel. The gun’s smooth finish made her shiver, a potent mix of power and panic, and her breath caught in her throat when she pulled it from the closet and felt its horrible weight in her hand.
As Shelby stared down at the gun, the training she’d taken in Tennessee to get her concealed carry license came back to her in fits like an old engine struggling to turn over. She didn’t know what kind of gun it was, but she did know how to use it if it came to that.
“What the…?” Shelby started, her voice trailing off as she looked at the sky. She’d never seen anything like it. Shades of yellow, red, and orange undulated in the clouds as if the atmosphere itself had caught fire. She watched in awe and terror, struggling to make sense of what she saw.
And then the sky erupted, a roar of blinding light and deafening sound as if Heaven itself had burst. Shelby collapsed on her hands and knees on the deck and said a silent prayer.
3
Fear clenched Ashley Jenkins’ stomach.
As she pulled into the remote gravel parking lot of the Mountain Spirit Meditation Center, she realized nothing could've prepared her for the month of near total silence she was about to spend in the mountains of Woodacre, California.
When she came to a stop in her rusted-out Mercury Topaz, surrounded by a cloud of dust, Ashley wondered if her decision to come might’ve been the most prominent mistake she’d made since admitting she’d been having flashbacks from her time in the Middle East.
“No time like the present, Ash,” she sighed as she put the car in park and slumped back against the headrest of her seat, her tangled dreadlocks tumbling down her shoulders in the process.
After her superiors decided she wasn't fit to serve, Ashley been called many things by many people. But none of them had seen the things she’d seen, none of them had to live with what she did. If she’d been allowed to stay, sucked it up like her father had urged her to, Ashley probably wouldn’t have lived for another year.
Not even the new-age therapist Ashley had been seeing since her discharge was convinced a month of silence in the middle of nowhere would help—but Ashley had signed up and paid for a retreat anyway, and there wasn't any way she could get her money back now.
Besides, how bad could it be? Dozens of forums online and several books she'd read on meditation and Buddhism all sang the virtues of mindfulness retreats, particularly for trauma-related incidents, so she figured it couldn't make her feel any worse. And maybe, just maybe, some time spent confronting the awful memories she carried everywhere rather than running from them would make her feel better.
A girl could dream, right?
She pulled the duffle bag she'd brought, the same oversized, olive-green one she’d taken with her to basic training, from the back seat and climbed out of the car.
The sky above looked strange, alive with light and color. Ashley had heard that sort of thing happened out in the mountains sometimes, so she tried not to pay it more attention than it was worth. She wasn’t superstitious, but she had to admit it made her skin crawl.
The idea of leaving her already unreliable car exposed to the elements didn't sit well with her, but what choice did she have? It wasn't like the car was worth much anyway, and the rust that ate at its every edge had done more damage than the sun or a blast of radiation from space ever could, so she locked it up and prayed it would start the next time she got in it.
As she walked up the gravel path toward her new home away from home, the center peeked above the rolling, grass-covered hills that hid it from the front, and Ashley let out a gasp.
It was beautifully framed by the mountain range that seemed to stretch on forever behind it, and its walls stood in an Eastern style with high roofs and sharp corners. The floor-to-ceiling windows that let the eerie light pour in from every angle only added to the building’s mystique.
“Maybe living here for a month won't be so bad,” she chuckled and slung the duffle bag over one shoulder.
A vibration in her pocket stole her away from admiring the architecture. Ashley pulled her phone out of her back pocket, brushed her dreads out of her face, and punched in her passcode. A single text waited from her father:
>> Dad: Regretting your Hansel and Gretel vacation yet?
Ashley rolled her eyes almost instinctively. Things between them hadn’t been great since she’d gotten home, but she couldn’t believe he’d tease her now of all times.
She thought about replying, but after she remembered she’d be incommunicado for a month, she decided against it. The silent treatment would be more than her father deserved.
The only way to prove him wrong would be to see it through, so Ashley slipped her phone into her back pocket, took one last deep breath of the clean mountain air, and threw open the door to the center.
Inside, it was strangely quiet, so quiet that Ashley’s breathing hurt her ears. The room she’d stepped into was round and littered with dozens of little red cushions. Matching wooden chairs spread across the floor in a shape that echoed the boundaries of the room itself and in the center of it all an altar stood lined with incense and little statues of religious figures Ashley didn’t recognize.
Where the hell was she? The only idols she knew were military veterans and war generals. But there wasn’t time for regret or second thinking now, so she gathered herself and her things and wandered through the massive main room toward another door at the back. The mumble of hushed conversation crept out from under a crack at the bottom.
The conversation halted as soon as she walked through and Ashley found herself standing among a dozen or so people kneeling on cushions or sitting in straight-backed, uncomfortable chairs. They faced a female monk who sat still as stone, her bald head glimmering in the light from outside. For a moment, Ashley thought the monk was another statue until her eyes fluttered behind oversized glasses.
“Hi, uh, I’m here for the retreat. Am I in the right place?” Ashley asked, her face burning as everyone stared at her.
“Yes, dear. Welcome,” the monk called from her place on a raised dais, her legs crossed. “Please, come in and have a seat. We won’t bite, we’re vegetarians,” the monk said, chuckling. She gestured to an empty chair in the front row for Ashley to sit down—great, just great. “We’re waiting for everyone to arrive before we get started.”
Ashley smiled and took the seat, careful not to tread on any of the bare toes she passed—because of course, no one wore shoes.
When she made eye contact with the other retreatants, to Ashley’s surprise, each of them smiled and nodded at her. She hadn’t gotten a warm welcome like that in longer than she could remember, so she sat down, and the monk smiled at her wordlessly. Evidently, they were friends now.
“I’m Reverend Susan. I’ll be leading the majority of the retreat this month with assistance from some of my colleagues,” the monk introduced herself once Ashley had gotten settled. Reverend? Did Buddhism have those? “What’s your name?”
“Ashley Jenkins,” Ashley answered.
“Welcome, Ashley,” Reverend Susan said. “Where are you from?”
“Ventura,” Ashley said, uncomfortably aware of all the eyes on her. It was like being back in high school, forced to introduce herself to the entire class. Would Reverend Susan ask her to share an interesting fact about herself next?
“Some of us travel from far away, others travel from our backyard,” Reverend Susan said with a smile. A few people behind Ashley chuckled, but Ashley didn’t know what was so funny. “Is this your first time at a retreat?”
“It is. I’m not sure what to expect,” Ashley said, and Reverend Susan’s smile widened.
“Everything and nothing,” she said.
“Yeah, right, of course,” Ashley said to more laughter. She was already off to a fantastic start—so much for not letting the rest of them know she’d barely even meditated before.
Her phone vibrated in her pocket again, jolting her, and she knew without even looking at the screen it was her father. Maybe he was right. Despite herself, Ashley fought to get her phone out of her back pocket and, sure enough, another message from her father waited on the screen:
>> Dad: You could at least reply to let m
e know you didn’t crash on the drive out there.
Ashley pressed and held the power button to switch the phone off.
“All right, it looks like everyone is present and accounted for,” Reverend Susan announced over the commotion of a few other people shuffling into the room, thankfully taking the attention off Ashley.
“Thank you for joining us, everyone. At this time, I’d like to respectfully ask you to turn off any and all electronic devices you might’ve brought with you and place them in the basket that will be making its way around. And don’t worry, we’ll make sure you get your things back at the end of the month,” Reverend Susan said, and an assistant of hers from the front row stood to hand a woven bamboo basket to Ashley.
Of course she was first.
Ashley held her phone above the basket, her head whirling with guilt for ignoring her father, and let out a sigh when she finally dropped it inside. It should’ve been freeing, but instead, her stomach twisted as she passed the basket—and her one link to the outside world—to the woman sitting next to her.
Separation anxiety, indeed.
Within minutes, the other phones had been collected and brought back to Reverend Susan. She smiled at them all, made eye contact with each of them, and nodded slowly.
“And so we begin. I’d like you all to close your eyes and listen to my words. If you’ve never meditated before, don’t worry, we’re always beginners in Buddhism,” she said.
Reluctantly, Ashley let her eyes flutter shut and relaxed her shoulders. She straightened up against the back of the chair and swallowed, trying not to think of the texts from her father.
“Reverend Susan?” a guy asked and annoyance caught in Ashley’s throat. To her credit, the Reverend ignored whoever had spoken up, and Ashley continued breathing in and out, nice and slow.
“Reverend Susan?” the guy asked again, his voice high and panicked. “I think you need to see this; there’s an airplane that’s—” Ashley’s eyes snapped open, and she whirled in her chair to tell the guy to shut up—until she saw the light in the room. The strange colors she’d seen in the sky before had intensified, casting them all in a kaleidoscope of color.