by Sheena Kamal
Trust doesn’t come easily to me, never has. Growing up in the system, you learn from an early age that trust is a delicate thing. It’s a give and take. It’s more intimate than love because it’s based on respect. You can love someone you don’t respect, but trust and respect go hand in hand. You can’t have one without the other. I have never told Leo how important it is that he trusts me, even to the extent that I’ve told him a truly outrageous story of being poisoned at a racially harmonious commune and he simply believes me without question or challenge. That’s something money can’t buy.
Some part of me wants to share all this with him, to tell him how much it means to me, but the reason he’s here on Salt Spring is because he’s battling with his emotions. I can’t talk to him about trust because it might make him think of the man in his life he’s starting to lose trust in. It’s probably for the best. I’m not great at talking about this, anyway. It’s enough, for me, that I feel it. I hope he feels it, too.
“I’m not sure what’s going on,” I say.
“But you’re worried, I can tell. Is it about Trevor?”
“I don’t know. He doesn’t like Vikram but I don’t know why.”
“It could be that he resents Vikram for replacing his father.”
“Could be.”
“That’s a tough position for any kid to be in. My parents got divorced when I was around the same age and I resented them both for it for a long time. Hard feelings for the new man in a boy’s life is normal . . . unless you think there’s more of a reason to be worried. Catch any signs of abuse?”
I shake my head. Nothing I’ve seen can be considered abuse but, then again, I haven’t seen all that much. Yet. “I’d love to talk to those people who actually work the farm. They’ve been isolated, but that doesn’t mean they’re stupid. Someone might have seen something.”
“So that’s the plan, then? I show up for the yoga retreat, see what I can find, and you try to get to the farm workers?”
“We’ll see if they’ll talk to me.”
“The girl you saw earlier said something about needing the job, so they might be closemouthed to keep their employment. If they’re undocumented or being processed for refugee claims, the only thing they’re more scared of than losing work is getting deported. It could be a pressure point.” He hesitates. “I’m not comfortable scaring people who just want to work.”
Neither am I. I’ve been desperate for work, too. “I won’t threaten them.” I might not have to. People often draw their own conclusions. But there’s no use borrowing trouble tonight.
“Okay, all we’re really looking for is something that shows this is an unsuitable environment for a child.” He pauses, scratches the stubble on his chin.
“What is it?”
“The name Vincent Sharma. I’ve heard it before and it’s been bothering me since you mentioned it. How about you try to get some sleep and I’ll do some digging?”
“You’re not tired?”
“Not even a little bit.”
I’m usually the night owl in the operation, but I’m not fully recovered from yesterday so I don’t protest too much. I pull the covers over my head and fall into a deep, untroubled sleep, while Leo taps away at his laptop.
When I wake, it’s morning.
Leo is curled up on the carpeted floor with a pillow tucked under his head, snoring lightly. The window is cracked open and I can smell the sea, even from here. It’s a pull I can’t resist. A walk down to the harbor calms the now familiar nausea I’m once again feeling. The ocean gives me no answers today, but the view almost makes it worth the ferry ride I took to get over here. Almost. Maybe existing on pie at my age isn’t such a great idea, but I don’t regret it. It was excellent pie, well worth the ten dollars I’d paid for it. The information I’d gotten from the woman at the stall was worth it, too.
Despite its reputation Spring Love Farm doesn’t seem to be all that popular here on the island.
I bring coffee and breakfast sandwiches back to the room. Leo is already awake and dressed. “Where are we at with Vikram Sharma?” I ask.
“Nowhere. Found one woman named Elizabeth Rathburn, who wrote about seeing the light at a Spring Love retreat and swears by his therapy. Besides that, I can’t find a thing on him. No social media, no news articles. Nothing under Vincent or Vikram. I emailed Sebastian to see if he remembers anything.”
“What did he say?”
“No response yet.” Leo looks away. I don’t bring up the fact that Seb is usually always connected to his phone, because Leo already knows that. That Seb hasn’t responded during the night he has spent away from his partner . . . it doesn’t look good.
But Leo clearly doesn’t want to talk about it, thank God. “Okay,” he says. “It’s best we’re not seen at Spring Love together, so how about I go first and you follow this afternoon?”
“Sure. They might make you hand over your phone, so be prepared.”
“Here, you better take this.” He hands me a compact digital camera with a powerful zoom lens. For most of our work there’s not much we don’t do on our phones, but if we need better-quality photos, we bring out better equipment. Especially for infidelity cases. People like to see the close-ups on those. Infidelity and sometimes child custody—when it comes to loved ones, they want to see the goods.
Before he leaves, he gives me a sad sort of smile. “If they don’t let me into the retreat, I’ll hang around and see what I can find.”
“Good luck today.”
“You too, Nora.” He pauses at the door. “You know, it’s crazy that you’re only now working on your license. You’ve been good for the company. I’m glad to have you around . . . okay, I’m done making you uncomfortable now. Let’s get this job over with,” he says, grinning suddenly.
It’s nice of Leo to say all that but I have a bad feeling about this plan, and about Spring Love in general. I keep quiet, though, because the last thing we need right now is to give in to doubts.
Leo’s right, the sooner we get this job done, the better. For everyone involved, but especially for Trevor Barnes, the ten-year-old boy with so much sadness in his eyes it is almost unbearable.
Chapter 9
I don’t hear from Leo by noon, so I head away from town on foot. Before packing up, I’d noticed he’d left his phone charger plugged into the wall, so I made sure to put it in my backpack, which I stash at the inn’s luggage storage.
It doesn’t take much walking for the sweat to cover me completely and dust from the road to settle in the creases of my eyelids and tangle with my eyelashes. The afternoon sun is high in the sky by the time I finally manage to hitch a ride to Alive Farms and walk toward Spring Love. About midway between the two farms, I duck through a gap in the fence and approach Spring Love through the woods. The forest immediately closes in on me. The shadows from the trees cast long, reaching fingers, sending welcome frissons of coolness over my heated limbs.
In the shade of the trees, and growing in the damp moss underneath fallen logs, I see clusters of mushrooms growing. Seemingly innocent. Magic mushrooms, I have learned, are only magical because of the psilocybin they contain. A potent psychedelic. In addition to the mushrooms, I also spot some poison oak scattered through these woods, as well.
In just a few hours this morning, I have attempted to become something of an Internet expert on the classification of poisonous plants, with limited success. I’m pretty sure about the oak, but I’m just guessing about the mushrooms. I make sure to take photos, but as the shadows deepen I head toward the main compound with greater urgency, thinking how easy it had been for them to poison me if these woods were their source. I wonder if someone had walked into this forest as soon as Vikram had spotted me to collect a sample of a toxic plant. Poison, they say, is a woman’s weapon, but I personally blame Vikram for no reason other than his lies.
I watch the compound. Dusk falls late here this time of year, so there’s still some light out. Cheyenne, Vikram, and Wanda are noticea
bly absent, but I do see Kelly, the cook, moving from the schoolhouse to the kitchens.
Taking a chance that the workers are still in the fields and the others are up at the yoga retreat, I slip around to the side entrance of the main building, careful to keep away from the kitchens. Again, I’m struck by how empty this place is, that for a commune it isn’t very communal. During the initial tour, Vikram explained this building was separated into the sleeping areas for men and women who didn’t live in one of the yurts, with the huge dining room being the main focus, and the kitchens toward the back.
But there was a door he’d passed straight by, which is what I head toward now. The door is locked, but it’s nothing I can’t get through. It takes me under a minute with the slim lock-pick kit from my back pocket. I put the picks back and enter the room quietly. It’s an office, simply furnished. The framed certificates on the wall announce that Wanda Washington is, in reality, Dr. Wanda Washington, and that she is a registered psychologist.
Well, hell. I know the job market is tough, but psychology to farm management is a bit of a stretch. There are no appointments in the leather-bound book by the phone, but the desk is full of paperwork pertaining to running Spring Love. Wanda seems to be in charge of it all, her handwriting on everything from invoices to deposit slips. I go back and look carefully through the leather book. There are no appointments, true, but every month, three days are blocked off. This month, the three-day block starts today. So, once a month they have a yoga retreat—but it’s not marked as such, and they don’t answer phone calls about it, either.
The phone rings, as though I summoned it. The ring startles me into answering, if only to make it shut up. “Hello?”
“Hi, is this Spring Love?”
“Yes, can I help you?”
“Yes, my brother Gary went over to your yoga retreat today. Can I speak to him?”
“No, I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
“Please, it’s important. He left his medication at home and I need to know if he needs me to bring them for him.”
“What medication?”
“It’s for his depression. He’ll know which ones I’m talking about. But he also left behind his multivitamin, too, so I guess I could also bring those?”
“Okay, I’ll pass along the message.”
“Is there a way you can get him on the phone? I was able to check in with him the last time he was there.”
“No, we don’t disturb participants of the retreat while they’re . . . in session. But I’ll make sure he gets the message.”
She’s not happy about this. “What’s your name?”
“Wanda Washington,” I say, before placing the receiver back on its cradle.
By the time I make it outside, I’m more confused than ever about Vikram-Vincent and Wanda. Nobody here seems to be who they say they are.
Through the dining-room windows I see the community’s kids gathered with Kelly and the schoolteacher, Shoshanna. Trevor is sitting at the far end of the table. He’s not alone, but he might as well be. There’s something about the solitude in this kid that eats away at me. A few clicks of the camera later, and I’m on my way down the path to the barn. Based on my first and last night at Spring Love, I know the workers will wait until the others have cleared out to access the kitchen.
Nobody pops out to stop me, even though I keep expecting it. This is a working farm. The path down to it shouldn’t be this silent. When I get to the converted barn, I see why. There is no one here. The same side window I’d peeked through a couple nights ago is still cracked a bit. I open it further and hoist myself into the bathroom, feeling the very lack of human presence as soon as I enter. A cursory search tells me the building has been separated into two sleeping quarters with about six cots in each and another bathroom at the opposite end of the building. There’s little privacy to be found in these living quarters, but maybe the people who stay here aren’t meant to stay long enough for it to matter.
It’s possible they’re supposed to be a source of transient labor but the speed with which these people have packed up is impressive. Maybe they’d been forced out sooner than they’d expected, which would explain why the girl who shoved me had that heavy backpack with her. And she’d clearly believed that it was somehow my fault.
From the emptiness of this barn, from its lack of soul and air of abandon, I see these workers are only meant to support the illusion of a farm. Just like the bare minimum Vikram and Cheyenne had done at the farmers’ market. An illusion. A charade. But why?
There are no answers here.
I leave the same way I came in, careful to crack the window just the way I found it. When I turn, a small, thin figure is waiting for me. We consider each other in the deepening shadows of dusk, Trevor and I, until he relaxes his shoulders and moves a few steps closer.
“What are you doing out here?” I ask softly.
“I saw you watching me from the dining room.”
“Well, you better get back before someone misses you.”
“No one will. Everyone thinks I’m watching movies with Frank and his dad. We usually watch at least two.”
“And Frank and his dad don’t know you’re supposed to be watching movies with them, huh? Where’s your mom and Vikram?” I ask.
A sly look comes over his face. “I’ll show you if you teach me to play the guitar.”
I think seriously about leaving right now with Trevor, delivering him to Ken and letting him sort it all out with Trevor in a safer place. But I have no proof that something wrong is happening here, nothing but a feeling, a glimpse at a boy’s face when he looks at his mother’s new man. No matter how much I want to take Trevor away, I need to show Ken Barnes something other than shadowy photos of an empty barn.
This might be my one shot at getting it.
“Deal,” I say, holding out my hand. He shakes it solemnly, his small hand bony and strong in mine.
“We gotta go this way,” he says, heading to the woods.
Trevor leads me using a path that only he can see. When I go back to Vancouver, Leo and I will hand over photos that may imply these woods are dangerous for children to be in unsupervised, but that won’t be the truth. Trevor knows this place, where to place his feet exactly to avoid making noise. How to walk sure in a forest. How to be quick. I lose all sense of direction as darkness falls around us, but I feel no fear, just a building curiosity.
“Who’s your favorite guitar player?” he asks.
“Sister Rosetta Tharpe.”
“A girl?”
“You got a problem with that?” I ask. He shakes his head solemnly. “Who’s yours?”
“I don’t have one yet.”
“That’s okay. You been practicing?”
“Not so much, but I will.”
I smile at the promise in his voice.
We keep walking. It hasn’t been that long, I think, but the dusk somehow feels endless. It’s darker here in the woods, but I can still see. I sense light, winking at me through the tree cover. Several short, halting steps take me out of the woods, and in the clearing is a two-story lodge, shining brightly at us, the exterior of it lit up by LED bulbs. There are lights on inside, but no movement can be discerned beyond the heavy vertical blinds. Four luxury cars and the Spring Love pickup are parked on the gravel road leading to the building. I’m getting my bearings again. This isn’t the main road to the compound, so it must be a private entrance—one that is noticeably absent from the drawn map of the property on the Spring Love website.
It’s getting darker by the minute. There is, however, enough light on the cars to take several quick photos of the license plates. Leo, who I haven’t heard from all day, might have already gotten this information, but it can’t hurt to be thorough. When I turn back to Trevor, I find him looking from me to the camera. “What’s that for?” he asks.
“It’s for work. Hey, how do you get in this place?”
He takes me around back and shows me the private staircase lea
ding to an apartment suite. The key is under a rock, which I would have found in seconds even if he hadn’t shown it to me. “Mom says to only use this if there’s an emergency.” Which means she wanted him to always have easy access to her.
“But you come here all the time.” I see it in his expression, by the way he looks down and scuffs his shoes into the dirt. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell. I’m going to go inside to see your mom. Do you want to come with me?”
A strange look comes over his face. He shakes his head.
“Okay, I’m going to go in for a few minutes, but I want you to wait for me. Will you do that?”
He nods.
“Don’t leave without saying goodbye,” I say.
“What’s your number?” he asks, pulling out a cell phone.
I laugh. “Where did you get that?”
“My dad gave it to me. He said to keep it a secret.”
“What’s the number?”
“I don’t know, only my dad calls me on it.”
“You can have mine.” I put my number into his phone and call it so his number is recorded on mine, as well. “Here, just in case something happens out here and you need to talk to me. I’ll be right back, okay?”
“Okay.”
I wait for several minutes after he leaves, wanting to make sure he’s far enough away before I open the door. Whatever is in there, I know it’s the source of that odd look that came across his face. Trevor knows where his mom goes when she disappears for the three days Wanda has marked off on her calendar because he has made it his business to find out. But he clearly doesn’t want to see it again.
I’m about to find out why.
Chapter 10
I walk through a small, chaotic apartment full of scarves, healing crystals, and rock lamps glowing amber. It smells of incense, but the scent is mild enough that it doesn’t really bother me. The hardwood floor is clean and beautifully varnished, with meditation pillows scattered through the room. It’s clear this is someone’s private sanctuary. Someone annoying, obviously. The kind of person who sits on the floor—not out of poverty, but in an attempt to be one with their surroundings. A person who meditates and lights incense. I have a feeling this room is Vikram’s but there’s nothing overtly masculine or feminine about it. How very Zen.
