by Karen Harper
They heard footsteps in the hall, creaking and banging doors, coming closer. They must be doing a thorough search of every room on both sides of the hall.
She put two big boxes on the cot in the corner, took the flashlight from Kelsey and turned it off as they scooted under, Kelsey against the filthy wall, Char tight to her, closer to the outer edge of the bed. She heard Grace sliding under the other cot, but, thank heavens, no sound—except heavy feet in the hall and then the creak of the door to the room. As it opened and a sliding beam of light intruded, then another, Char lay rigid with her finger jammed under her nose. She prayed they could trust the children not to call out, not to sneeze. Lights snaked around them for what seemed an eternity. She heard—even felt—another mouse skitter away. When the men went out, they didn’t close the door.
“Next two floors up, just to be sure, Brother Allen,” a voice called so close that Kelsey bucked and grabbed Char’s arm. Char gripped the girl’s wrist, then hugged her. How much was it going to take to turn these brainwashed children around? Tess might be even better at that than she was. After what Tess had been through as a child, the horror of imprisonment and mental torment, maybe she could really help them—if they got out of here.
“What now?” Grace whispered after a long silence in the hall. “I think they went upstairs, but they’ll come back down pretty soon. What if they close that padlock when they go out?”
“I’ll look out in the hall and give you the all clear,” Char whispered.
“Let’s not wait to tell Master Bright Star we won. We can tell those men,” Kelsey said, crawling out behind Char and sticking close.
“We are going to the playground first,” Char told her. “Because we get more points that way. There are more parts to this game.”
She felt the girl nod as she clung to her. Here she was, Char thought, lying to this child just as Bright Star and his people had ever since she’d been in the cult. But no more time for agonizing now.
“The coast is clear,” she told them. Ethan scrambled out from the end of the cot, but Char had to go back to help Grace. Even in the dark, she could sense that the woman’s strength and courage were flagging. “Are you all right—the baby?” Char asked, praying that they wouldn’t have to deal with premature labor in this mess.
“Yes, I— Let’s go. I was thinking there must be a back staircase, but they’d probably look there first, and we might get trapped. I’m sick and tired of being trapped. Do you think Tess will stay with me when I have the baby?”
“Come on!” Kelsey interrupted. “Just don’t get on the swings and slide then, Sister Grace, if you’re worried about the master’s baby.”
Char gasped. Grace grabbed her shoulders hard and whispered. “All born within starlight are the master’s babies. Don’t judge me, Char. Don’t leave me—us. But if I can’t make it, get them away—to win the game.”
“Don’t talk like that. Kelsey—I mean Sister Kelsey—take Brother Ethan’s hand. We are going downstairs and out toward the playground. I’ll help Sister Grace. Our eyes are pretty good in the dark now, right? I can’t use the light or the other team might see us and win. We don’t want them to stop us before the playground, so shh!”
Like fleeing felons, they crept down the stairs and out into the brisk night air. It felt so good. Grace was faltering, but Char put her arm around her and hustled her along past the graveyard with just numbers and death dates for the poor souls who had once lived here. When they got near the swings that were in the section on the grounds that was now a public park, Kelsey started to run, but Ethan hung back a minute as if waiting for permission.
“How far to your car?” Grace whispered, out of breath. “I—I’m not sure I can make it now.”
“It’s farther than when I thought we were going through the forest. I’ll have you hide here. I’ll hike to it, pick you up.”
“I can help pick her up if she falls, but why do we have a car?” Ethan piped up.
Desperate, Char ignored him. “You can’t stay out here on the swings and slides while you’re waiting,” Char told Grace. “I’ll call Gabe and have him pick us up. He’ll come, be fast.”
“Wait till we tell Sister Martha what we did, that we won,” Kelsey called out to her brother as she climbed the ladder to the curved slide. Ethan stayed tight to Grace, though the whites of his eyes were big in the darkness as he watched Char fish out her phone. She’d seen young, rural Navajo and mountain kids stand in awe of smartphones or tablets. She should have realized that Ethan had been sheltered that way, too.
The boy came closer. The light from her phone screen seemed terribly bright and could make her a target. She hunched over it and noted she had two voice mails and several other calls, but she ignored that and dialed Gabe’s home number.
“Char, what’s up?”
She turned away from Ethan and covered her mouth and the phone. “I’m on the playground at the edge of the asylum with Grace and her kids. She’s running from the compound so I met her, but we came out a different way from where I had my truck. Can you or your deputy come get us—fast? Bright Star has men after us....”
“I can’t believe that you— Oh, yes, I do. Hide. I’ll be there as fast as I can.”
She was pretty sure she heard some muffled cursing, but he was right. They had to hide again. The lights—three of them—were coming down the path they’d just walked, coming fast.
20
“We’ve got to hide in the trees now,” Char said to Kelsey as she whizzed down the slide where Ethan stood at the bottom, looking up as if suddenly shy—or finally aware something was very wrong in his controlled, little world. “It’s still hide-and-seek.”
“But we’ve won now,” Kelsey said, her voice defiant. “Sister Grace promised us this playground. They can’t stop us now, and wait till everyone hears we got this far. But I’m going to tell those men we won’t go back till we’ve had time to play!”
At the bottom of the slide, the girl turned toward the men, cupping her hands around her mouth. Char raced over and pulled Kelsey to her, clapped her hand over her mouth and half dragged, half lifted her away toward the elaborate jungle gym. At least, Char thought, they hadn’t beaten her Lockwood backbone out of her.
Shushing Ethan, Grace followed until zigzagging, jagged lights swept ahead of their path. They jumped back, not going out the other side of the jungle gym, but huddling under the monkey bars. “If they find us here, we lose all our points. You have to keep quiet,” Grace whispered to Kelsey.
Char sensed that this child not only had backbone but a good brain. It was time for a dose of the truth. “Listen to me, Sister Kelsey,” she said, kneeling in front of the girl, nose to nose. “Those men want to hurt us just like they hurt Sister Amy and Brother Paul. Maybe like they hurt Brother Lee, and you know he loved you and Eth—Brother Ethan, Sister Grace, too. Please believe me—right, Sister Grace?”
“Yes. Yes, Sister Kelsey—please! Look, they’ve gone into the woods where we were going to hide.”
Ethan spoke, his voice soft and trembling. “Do we have to go look for them in the dark? I think Master Bright Star and his guards can be mean.”
Thank God, Char thought, little breaks in the hard exterior of these abused kids. “Listen, now. All four of us have to run into those bushes way over there, get behind them. It’s not as good as the trees, but we have to go away from the men. Okay,” she said, not giving them a chance to answer, but planting a fast kiss on Kelsey’s sweaty, dirty cheek. “Let’s go.”
The two kids ran together, while Char helped Grace. They hunkered down behind two small shrubs. Tears blurred Char’s view of the three lights when Kelsey still stuck close to her and Ethan managed to plop himself in his mother’s almost nonexistent lap. Char wasn’t sure they could run farther, even when the lights started toward them again. The men’s voices carried in the wind.
Open lawn lay behind them. They were trapped. How long would it take for Gabe to arrive? Could he get them away from these men if they were caught?
“They’re coming,” Grace gasped, sounding even more out of breath. “Take these two and run, Char. Hide them. You and Tess take care of them. Please!”
“We need to stay together. We can stall for time even if they trap us here, make something up.”
“The games were made-up, weren’t they, Sister Grace?” Kelsey asked her mother. In their panic as the men came closer, they didn’t answer her, but Char put her hand on the girl’s shoulder. She was shaking, but weren’t they all?
“They won’t harm us,” Char told Grace. “Not at first—if you pretend you’ve gone into labor. I’ll be helping you. It will stall and protect us until Gabe can get here. I’ll bet it’s only been a little over five minutes, and he’ll need more time.”
“What kind of labor?” Ethan asked in a whisper as he huddled next to his mother.
“This kind means hard work to bring a baby into the world,” Char told him. “But then everything turns out okay. Grace—what do you say?”
A man cried out. “Here! Over here, behind these bushes, Brother Stephen!” A light beam flicked past, then fixed on them. “All three of them—no four! ‘You do well to heed a light that shines in a dark place, until the daystar arises!’ I feared for us if we didn’t find her!”
A third man ran to join the others. The first two who tried to drag them out fell back when Char shouted at them. “Sister Grace is in labor to have her baby! She’s a chosen one! Get back! I’m helping her. She wanted to have her baby outside the community to be sure it was safe!”
“Is that true, Sister Kelsey?” the third man asked the child instead of Grace.
Char held her breath at what the answer might be. She could hear the high-pitched but distant whine of a siren. But these men still had time to pull them back onto Hear Ye land.
“Of course, it’s true,” Kelsey’s thin voice rang out. “She’s in labor to bring a baby into the world. See?”
Their lights illumined Grace, bent over, clutching her stomach, groaning. “You go fetch the master—fast,” one man said. “Bring help!” They heard feet crunching the snow as he sped away.
Down to two men, but two too many, Char thought, as she put her arms around Grace’s shoulders to help support her. Kelsey, God bless her, hugged her, too.
“Hey,” one man said. “What if that siren’s coming here? What if this outsider called an ambulance?”
“No, it’s Brother Gabe,” Ethan said. “Please don’t hurt us.”
“I’ll just leave her to you, then,” Char said to the men. She needed to get to Gabe. “I’ve got to get help, or she’ll lose the baby! Let me pass!” she cried. “Watch over her until your master sends help.”
“No!” Kelsey cried and clung to the hem of Char’s jacket. “Don’t leave us!”
Despite Kelsey’s weight, Char barreled at the closest man, rolling at his knees, knocking him off his feet. Grace’s scream shredded the air. “My baby! Help me!”
The second man got a hand on Char, swung her around, and she saw he was holding a knife. She tried to pull away, put a hand up to stop him. The siren was piercing now, close. She saw the sheriff’s car, its light bar pulsating with colors. “Wow!” she heard Ethan shout in the chaos. The car’s headlights slashed across her, blinding her—the man who held her, too. She kneed him as Grace screamed again, so loud she almost drowned out the siren.
Gabe jumped from the car “Police! Hands in the air! Now! Do it! No one moves!” he shouted.
But everyone moved. The Hear Ye men fled into the darkness. Grace sat up and, with Char’s help, got to her feet. “We’re over here, Gabe!” Char called. “We’re okay!” It was only when she picked up Ethan to carry him to the sheriff’s car that she saw the man had cut her. Her jacket was ripped, and her hand was bleeding. But it was such a small price to pay.
* * *
At Tess and Gabe’s house, Char and Tess got everyone settled while Gabe phoned his deputy, Jace Miller, to come over, then called Grant and Matt.
“You called Matt?” Char demanded when she heard. Tess had washed her up as if she were one of the kids, then wrapped her hand, cut across the palm, but it was bleeding through the bandage.
“We need support here for the night. I’ve called Dr. Phillips, too, to take care of your cut and look the kids and Grace over.”
“Gabe, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but you wouldn’t have let me go.”
“You got that right. By the way, Matt’s more furious than me. He says you lied to him, said you were home.”
“I had to go alone or Grace wouldn’t have come with me.”
“It’s called backup, Char. You should have had backup, even if we had to hide in the woods. I don’t want Bright Star and his loonies here tonight, trying something. It won’t take him long to find out where ‘his people’ are, and if they know enough to squeal on him, he could be desperate. And, like you said, if he wants Grace’s baby...” He lowered his voice even more. “It is Lee’s baby isn’t it? What’s that you told Tess about the master’s baby?”
“I’m not sure it’s Lee’s. Tess and I will talk to her, but not tonight.”
“If Bright Star’s the father...”
“Could he be prosecuted for rape?”
“Depends on if it was consensual on her part.”
“No way!”
“Look at these people. Look at those kids. Brainwashed.”
Raising her arm, hoping that would stop the bleeding, she told him what she’d heard. “There could be more than rape.” She was whispering, too, though they were in the hall and everyone else was in the living room. “Kelsey overheard Bright Star say he’d find a way to get rid of Lee.”
Gabe’s eyes widened. “Everyone there talks in riddles and generalities,” he said. “Are you sure? A sharp lawyer would take that child apart on the stand, let alone Grace. But I’ll look into it. I’ll make sure Kelsey gets a child psychologist to interview her—and a lawyer for Grace. Don’t you question or prompt either of them, or we could be charged with bias at the least, tampering with a witness, too. We’ll have to find them a safe house, and I’ve got an idea for that. I have to admit, though, as risky as you acted, Tess was thrilled, and she’s looking better than she has in quite a while. Now, would you sit down and rest until the doctor gets here?”
She was not sure she could really rest until Matt arrived. “I’ll be all right,” she insisted and went into the living room. Grace had fallen into exhausted sleep on the sofa, covered with a quilt, one arm flung protectively over her big stomach. Char heard the kids somewhere nearby. Tess had bathed them and dressed them in her socks and Gabe’s T-shirts under his flannel shirts. Ethan especially looked like a dwarf in a huge nightshirt and loose plaid robe.
Char went down the hall and saw the light on in the day care center. Ethan played with LEGO blocks, and Kelsey was painting with watercolors at the easel—painting a star under a strip of sky that ran across the top of the paper, and then a frowning face on the star in black, so all the colors ran. Tess had done some art rehab years ago, so maybe that’s why she had Kelsey painting already. Too bad Gabe had ordered them not to probe Kelsey’s or Grace’s thoughts—or accusations.
“Char, sit down before you fall down,” Tess said. “We told the doctor you’d need stitches, and he said he could do it here as a favor to Gabe.”
“That bad man, Brother Allen, cut her,” Ethan said.
“They were very bad losers,” Kelsey added. “Sister Grace says we won the game.”
“We did indeed,” Char told her and went over to put her good arm around the girl’s shoulder. “So far we did, at least,” she said, glaring at Kelsey’s painting. She was starting to feel light-headed so she sat down
in one of the beanbag chairs to wait for the doctor.
* * *
Matt could have chewed nails. What was Char thinking, taking on those crazy cult fanatics alone. Gabe said she was injured but she could have been killed. She hadn’t trusted him enough to level with him. She’d lied. There was no way to build a relationship on that sort of behavior. He wouldn’t even have come except Gabe said he needed some help tonight to protect Grace and her two kids.
He jerked his car to a stop on the street in front of the Lockwood house and day care center. The sheriff’s car was parked in the driveway and the deputy’s car—with Jace Miller in it—was blocking that. Grant Mason pulled up right behind Matt.
“I’m glad Char got Grace and her kids out,” Grant called to him when they got out of their vehicles. “But she could have been hurt.”
“I heard she is hurt. I’m sure Kate will be upset.”
“Oh, she was when I called her,” Grant said as they hurried up the front walk together. “Upset she wasn’t here to be a part of it. Of course, she would also explain to us the psychological fallout for prisoners, the Stockholm Syndrome and who knows what else. If you want one of the Lockwood women, Matt, you pay a price, but—damn—they’re worth it. At least Kate is.”
He didn’t want a Lockwood woman anymore, Matt told himself, as Gabe opened the front door, shook hands with both of them and brought them in.
“I trust Bright Star about as far as I can throw his entire cult,” Gabe told them. “Thanks for coming. We’ve got a fortress mentality going on for the night. I’ll make us some sandwiches later, and the doctor should be here soon. Matt, Char’s in the day care area with Tess and Grace’s kids. She’s been cut on the hand, and I was afraid Grace would go into labor, but she’s resting.”
Matt was surprised to see Gabe in his uniform, with loaded utility belt on his hip and his small radio strapped on his shoulder. As he walked away, Matt heard him talking to his deputy outside. This was serious stuff. Matt went down the hall toward the front, lighted room, thinking he should walk away from Char right now. But he kept going.
