The Quiet Ones

by Brandon Massey

  “The property was abandoned,” Mallory said. “We went there yesterday.”

  “Go over there again.” Vivian nudged Mallory forward. “Somebody needs to bring all this to an end, and since y’all ain’t from here, y’all can do it. I can’t, and Cecil ain’t got the nerve, either. I’m gonna pray for you and your sister, baby.”

  Back in Ben’s truck, Mallory turned to him and said, “Sounds like we missed something when we checked out that derelict property yesterday. But I can’t imagine anyone is living there.”

  “I think they’re confused, Mal.” Ben switched on the engine. “This Martha Taylor, whoever she is, used to stay at that address, no doubt, but she’s gone now.” He drummed the steering wheel. “Got any better ideas?”

  Sighing, Mallory closed her eyes. Her head pounded; it felt as if walls were closing in on her from all sides, like some hokey deathtrap in a spy movie.

  “I’ve got nothing,” she said. “But let’s indulge Vivian and go look again. What else can we do?”

  Ben pulled away from the curb. Rain hadn’t been predicted to fall until afternoon, but a drizzle started to fall, misting the windshield. Ben flicked on the wipers.

  At a four-way intersection, Mallory looked both ways. Her spine went rigid when she saw an SUV with the Lincoln emblem and a light bar on the roof.

  “Norwood, coming up on the right,” she said.

  “I see him.” Ben shifted into Reverse and mashed the gas pedal. The engine growled. A home stood on their immediate right with an empty carport. Ben veered into the driveway and pulled underneath the shelter.

  Ahead, a chain-link fence enclosed the yard. A black mutt of a dog spotted them and puts its paws on the fence. It barked and snarled wildly.

  Cursing under his breath, Ben cut the engine. Mallory slid down in her seat, her fingers interlaced across her stomach. She kept her gaze fastened to the side view mirror.

  Neither of them spoke. The only sounds were their hushed breaths, the rain ticking on the carport roof, and the incessantly barking dog.

  Please, Mallory thought. Shut up.

  After a couple of minutes, the dog got bored with them and trotted away elsewhere into the yard, out of sight.

  Mallory exhaled and rose in her seat. “We should be clear now. Let’s get moving.”

  45

  They arrived at the address without further police sightings. Ben parked in front of the gated driveway.

  Mallory read the foreboding sign on the gate.

  Warning!

  No Trespassing

  Registered Gun Owner

  “If this woman, Martha Taylor, actually lives in this disaster of a home,” Mallory said, “how are we going to talk to her before she shoots us for trespassing?”

  “Very politely.” Ben cracked a small smile.

  “I don’t know how you can make jokes at a time like this.” Mallory checked her backpack, making sure she had everything she needed. “Do you have an umbrella?”

  “Always prepared.” Ben slid a blue umbrella out of a storage slot on his door.

  Ben opened the umbrella and balanced the canopy over them as they advanced to the gate.

  “I’ll climb over first,” he said. “Don’t ever say I wasn’t willing to take a bullet for you, Mal.”

  She smiled despite her grim mood. Ben clambered over the fence, landed on the other side. Mallory followed soon after. Side by side, they trod forward through the thickening muck of the overgrown driveway.

  She surveyed the dilapidated property as they drew closer. The shattered roof. The slats of plywood covering the windows. The sagging porch. Copious amounts of kudzu crawled along the exterior walls, weeds sprouting from fissures in the cracked foundation, as if nature were slowly digesting the entire structure.

  “This place is absolutely abandoned,” Mallory said. “There’s no way anyone lives here.”

  “Want to turn around?” Ben asked.

  She considered his question. Who was Martha Taylor, anyway? Googling the name had yielded no insights, and neither Cecil nor Vivian had shared why they needed to speak to this woman. Would this strange excursion take them any closer to freeing Liz?

  The rain fell harder, pounding the umbrella. Mud had leaked into her sneakers, dampened her feet. She would have loved to be somewhere dry and comfortable, anywhere but there.

  But she had promised Father: I never quit. She was going to wipe that smug grin off his face if it was the last thing she did.

  Her gaze traveled from the ramshackle house, to the ground. She noticed ridges of muddy red clay in an intentional pattern.

  “Those look sort of like tire tracks.” She pointed. “Do you see it?”

  “Sharp eye.” Kneeling, Ben touched the mud like a wildlife tracker. After a beat, he looked up at her, droplets of water smearing his glasses. “The tracks lead around the house.”

  They followed the pattern alongside the dilapidated home, around to the rear of the property.

  About fifty yards ahead, at the end of a gravel drive, and nestled within a cove of elms and pines, stood another one-story, A-frame house. The home had white paint, black trim, and a blood-red door. The place was in livable condition; an old green Chevy Blazer was parked nearby on a patch of mud.

  “I’ll be damned,” Ben said, voice tinged with wonder. “We should have looked closer last time.”

  Mallory had to restrain herself from running forward and banging on the door, the warning sign at the gate foremost in her mind.

  “Let’s take it slow,” she said.

  They made their way to the front porch. A tomcat that might have been a stray lurked nearby in the dry shelter of an elm tree, green-eyed gaze following them.

  “Hey, kitty,” Ben said. He clicked his tongue.

  The cat merely watched without approaching them. The feline had a bird’s yellow feather wedged between its claws, a souvenir of a nocturnal nest raid.

  Dark curtains covered the house’s front windows. Mallory didn’t notice any movement from those curtains as they stepped onto the wooden stoop. But it was early in the morning, barely eight o’clock. Martha Taylor might be asleep.

  She didn’t see a doorbell. She knocked on the door.

  The curtain of the window nearest the door stirred.

  “Miss Martha Taylor?” Mallory called, loudly, hoping the woman could hear her despite the marching rain.

  The front door opened—but only a couple of inches. A thick brass chain held it in place. Deep shadows dwelled in the gap between the door and jamb.

  “It’s early,” a woman said from beyond the threshold, but she sounded alert, her voice soft as cotton. “What do you want? If you’re selling religion, please leave now.”

  “My name is Mallory Steele,” Mallory said. “My sister is imprisoned at Sanctuary. Cecil Roberts sent us to you.”

  “Cecil, that coward,” she said, and Mallory heard scorn in her voice that made her wonder what had happened between this woman and the newspaper publisher. “What’s your sister’s name?”

  “They called her Swan,” Mallory said. “But her real name is Elizabeth.”

  Martha closed the door. Mallory swallowed, glanced at Ben. He shrugged.

  A lock disengaged. The door swung open again, all the way.

  A stunning Black woman, tall and statuesque as a runway model, stood on the threshold. She wore a satiny black house dress that flowed to her ankles, and a pearl necklace. She might have been any age between forty and sixty—her dark skin was so radiant it was difficult to be sure, but she wore her hair in luxuriant braids that fell to her shoulders, and Mallory noticed a few threads of white woven in those long strands. She had steel-gray eyes hard as flint; eyes that took in every detail but gave up nothing.

  She also held a shotgun, the muzzle lowered to the floor. From her grip on the weapon, Mallory got the impression that this woman knew how to handle it, too.

  Mallory raised her hands in a gesture of surrender, and so did Ben.

  “I
apologize for coming so early,” Mallory said. “I’m not sure why Cecil sent us to you, either. I only want to get my sister out of Sanctuary. Can you help me, please?”

  “You favor Swan,” Martha said, her eyes softening. “She once told me she had a baby sister.”

  Mallory’s heart pounded. “You knew Liz?”

  “Once upon a time.” Martha smiled, briefly, but it was a sad expression. Her jaws suddenly clenched. “Are you planning to execute Father?”

  “I want to see him brought to justice,” Mallory said. “I think he’s guilty of countless felonies. He needs to be held accountable for them all, in a court of law.”

  Martha wetted her bottom lip with her tongue as if she liked the taste of Mallory’s words. Carefully, she placed the shotgun on a rack beside the doorway and beckoned for them to enter.

  “You asked if I knew Swan,” she said. “I was Father’s first. I knew them all.”

  46

  Inside, Martha Taylor’s home was a modest-sized space, fastidiously clean. It featured hardwood floors, area rugs, and warm, wood paneled walls; vintage furniture, lots of live plants, and Tiffany-style lamps that provided soft light. Mallory didn’t see a television or a computer, but a towering oak bookcase was crammed with hardcover volumes on weighty subjects such as philosophy, psychology, and history. A typewriter sat on a cherry wood desk, a ream of pages stacked beside the machine.

  She noticed an old school turntable, too, atop a side table, flanked by a shelf stuffed with vinyl records.

  The same tomcat they had seen outdoors had hopped onto a windowsill. The window was partially open to the outdoors, droplets of rain sheeting inside.

  Martha invited them to sit on a fabric sofa in front of what looked like an oft-used fireplace. She offered them tea. While she prepared the beverages in the kitchen, Mallory heard Martha talking to someone in a hushed tone.

  “Pardon me, ma’am?” Mallory asked, craning her neck to see into the kitchen.

  Martha didn’t answer, but continued to murmur, dishes clattering. Ben laid his hand on Mallory’s thigh and leaned close to whisper in her ear.

  “I think she’s talking to herself,” he said, his gaze full of concern.

  Mallory wanted to reserve passing judgement. If this woman was “Father’s first,” as she claimed, she was a treasure trove of useful information, and they needed her help.

  She thumbed her digital recorder into “Record” mode.

  “Here we are, my lovelies.” Martha brought a tray into the sitting area, placed it on a coffee table between them. The tea set was fashioned of porcelain, and looked antique like much of her furniture.

  This woman most definitely used to be a Bride, Mallory believed. The obsessively organized home, the elaborate tea service—those were practices that surely been drilled into her at Sanctuary. The wandering feline was the only oddity.

  “I don’t have visitors often.” Martha flicked a strand of braids over her shoulder. “Excuse the mess, please.”

  Mess? Is she serious?

  “Your home is spotless, and thank you for the tea.” Ben sipped from his cup. “What’s the story with the rundown property out front, if I may ask?”

  Martha eased into a flower-patterned armchair across from them with the casual grace of a woman accustomed to occupying the spotlight. She crossed her long, slender legs and arranged her dress over her ankles.

  Mallory noticed that she wore ballerina slippers, like the Brides.

  “That rundown property is the home I used to share with Sherman,” Martha said. “I keep it standing there as a reminder of what I never intend to submit to again. It also serves as a deterrent to solicitors. They assume no one lives here. I don’t even fuss with a mailbox and drive in town to collect the mail I occasionally receive: property tax bills, dividend checks, and the like.”

  Her hands cupped around the tea, Mallory said, “Sherman is . . .”

  “Father gave me to Sherman Taylor. Sherman was once the mayor of Ratliff and a successful businessman in his time, an investor in several companies that pay rather handsome dividends to this day. He died eleven years ago—had a nasty fall down the staircase and knocked his itty-bitty head, suffering a fatal brain hemorrhage. So sad, it was.” She giggled and daintily sipped from her teacup.

  Jesus, she killed him, Mallory thought as a wave of coldness washed over her. She didn’t dare ask, but the woman’s mirthful demeanor convinced her that she had manufactured the man’s “accidental” death.

  Probably with good reason, too. The kind of man who accepted a woman as payment in a business transaction was bound to treat her accordingly.

  “We married, officially, shortly before Sherman’s untimely demise,” Martha said. “Everything passed to me: these twenty-one acres of property, the life insurance benefit, the substantial holdings in his portfolio. His ungrateful, money-grubbing children tried to fight me but failed. Marriage is far more than a mere piece of paper—it’s a contract. Fortunately, one we signed before he passed on.” She giggled, took another small sip of tea.

  “You said you were Father’s first,” Mallory said.

  “Oh, yes.” Her eyes brightened. “It all started with me. I was the blueprint for what was to follow.”

  “You were a Bride?” Ben said.

  “The very first. Such a great honor, to hear Father tell it, like the first African slave to set their eyes on America.” She laughed again, her tone so heavy with sarcasm that Mallory chuckled, too.

  “I was at Sanctuary for a full day,” Mallory said. “None of the Brides speak. Yet—”

  “How am I speaking?” Martha leaned forward and tapped Mallory’s knee. “It’s all a sham, my lovely. Pure theater.”

  Mallory glanced at Ben. He looked at her, too, a frown stitched on his face.

  “I don’t follow,” Mallory said. “One of the Brides, I communicated with her with a pen and paper, she told me that Father surgically removed her larynx.”

  “I bear the scar, too, see?” Craning her head backward, Martha traced her fingers along her slender neck. Mallory saw the faint line of an old incision. “The cut is real, dear. Oh, yes. But it’s only for effect, to reinforce the illusion that he’s stolen your voice.”

  “Are you saying all of those girls can actually speak?” Ben asked.

  “They don’t believe they can speak,” Martha said. “Father’s psychological programming, if you will, runs fathoms deep.”

  “Jesus.” The revelation propelled Mallory to her feet, and she almost knocked over her tea. Martha grinned at Mallory as if pleased at her reaction.

  Mallory paced the floor. She couldn’t grasp the level of mind control required to convince someone they were mute when nothing was truly wrong with them at all. It meant the Brides—including those later exported to men outside the compound—were functioning in a state akin to a hypnotically induced delusion.

  She couldn’t believe it. It was too much to swallow.

  But if she set aside her own disbelief and critically examined the possibility that Martha told the truth—then what?

  Wasn’t it true that cult leaders—not even talking about Father in this case—had a talent for brainwashing their devotees to leave their families and lives behind and conduct themselves according to the whims of the authoritarian ruler? In some instances, that new behavior even included committing criminal acts: the sarin gas subway attack in Tokyo was the handiwork of Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese doomsday cult, and an investigation revealed the cult had stockpiled military-grade weapons and even a damn helicopter.

  Further: how many people identified as Flat Earthers, were convinced the Earth was flat as a chess board despite all scientific evidence to the contrary, that photos taken from space were hoaxes perpetuated and coordinated by nations across the world? How many people believed the members of the Illuminati gathered in cigar smoke filled rooms and secretly plotted international events? How many people wired their life savings to a “lover” they had “met” online and
never seen in the flesh? How many had sent money to an African prince who’d promised to give them a handsome share of a billion-dollar fortune? How many had forwarded emails because Bill Gates was going to reward them for doing so? How many openly believed the various and ceaseless falsehoods trumpeted on social media every day?

  The dirty truth of human behavior: people could be manipulated and conditioned into believing anything, no matter how absurd or detrimental it might have been to their own health.

  Father wasn’t a fool or a charlatan; he was a certified psychiatrist, deeply schooled in the workings of the mind and the tactics of coercive persuasion. He had been sufficiently cunning to target those least equipped to fight back: vulnerable, abandoned young women. He isolated them in his luxurious compound, instilled rigid discipline and rules, forced them to take a “vow of silence,” and topped it off with a fraudulent surgery that left behind a scar those women saw in the mirror every day.

  As much as Mallory wanted to reject Martha’s revelation, it was chillingly plausible, and it made her angry as hell.

  Watching Mallory pace, Martha said, “I spoke again only after an incident with Sherman, shortly before his death. I’m fifty-one years old, can you believe it? I hadn’t used my voice in over twenty years—and now, I can’t seem to stop talking.” She giggled. “Oh, I had to teach myself how to speak again, love, my vocal cords were atrophied, but my goodness, how I love to hear the sound of my voice! I speak to myself all the time, whether Tom is here or not.”

  “Tom . . . you mean the cat?” Ben motioned to the cat lounging on the windowsill.

  “Of course, silly.” Martha laughed. “I also love to sing. I think I’ve developed a formidable soprano. Would you like to hear?”

  As Mallory, still standing, gaped at her, Martha launched into a song. Mallory vaguely recognized it as an aria from an opera. Mozart, maybe? Regardless, Martha had an amazing voice, hitting high notes as veins stood out on her neck and forehead.

  Mallory looked at Ben. His eyes looked ready to tumble out of their sockets.