The Light: Who do you become when the world falls away? (New Dawn Book 1)

by Jacqueline Brown

  “Which one?” I asked.

  “Both. Your dad is the most anti-God person I know, and it is totally weird that Eli’s a priest,” Josh said, holding on tightly to Blaise.

  “My dad is not anti-God,” I said, feeling defensive, though I didn’t know why.

  “Your dad! Your dad thinks all people who have faith are naïve, brainwashed, superstitious, or stupid, or all of the above,” Sara said in her “don’t try me” voice.

  “No, he doesn’t,” I said, only half believing my own words.

  Blaise frowned and said, “Bria, don’t lie. You know that’s exactly what he thinks. He has told all of us that and he didn’t care that Sara and I were leaving to go to church when he went on and on about why God doesn’t exist.”

  “Okay, fine, that’s what he thinks.” I had heard that and much worse from my father throughout my lifetime. “Eli also said my father and I just disappeared. His parents looked for us and had no idea until yesterday what happened to us,” I said, no longer interested in discussing my father’s religious, or anti-religious, beliefs.

  “That’s kind of creepy,” Josh said.

  “What is?” I asked.

  “You and your dad disappearing. It’s like he kidnapped you or something. Then he told you there was no one else in your life, but clearly these people were in your life,” Josh said, leaning toward the fire.

  “What if he was trying to protect her?” Blaise whispered. “What if the Pages are no good and he didn’t want them to know where Bria was?” Her eyes had widened.

  “What are you all whispering about?” Charlotte said cheerfully as she walked toward the fire. We all jumped when we saw her.

  Without missing a beat, Sara said, “How cold JP’s room is. We don’t want to be unkind, but it was freezing.”

  “I know. Our room was freezing too. Perhaps tonight we will camp out in here,” she said, looking from couch to floor as if trying to figure out where everyone would sleep.

  * * *

  The sun was beginning to shine through the windows. John Paul announced his arrival by hopping into the room like a frog. Quint stumbled after him.

  “Do we have a plan for the day?” Eli asked following his dad into the room.

  “We need to figure out how to cook, and we also need more water to drink and clean with,” Charlotte said. She was wide awake.

  I bet she didn’t drink coffee. She was too awake, too early in the day. Quint, on the other hand, looked half asleep.

  “We also have to get Mom and Dad to leave their house and come stay with us,” Quint said, his words coming slower than he had probably intended.

  “In other words, we have to do the impossible,” East said. She was carrying a sleepy Quinn into the room.

  When Quinn saw her mom she reached out her hands. Charlotte took her tired girl and sat on the hearth.

  “Are you cold, sweetie?”

  Quinn nodded.

  East came and stood in front of the fire. “I held her to me all night, but it was still really cold,” she said.

  “I know. I snuggled with John Paul and Dad all night and we were all still a little chilly. I think tonight we will all be sleeping by the fire,” Charlotte said, petting Quinn’s hair.

  Sara leaned her head next to mine. “I wonder where Jonah is,” she whispered.

  I looked around. He was the only one missing. I shrugged.

  “You think he’s still asleep?” she whispered.

  He didn’t strike me as the sleeping-in type. I shrugged again. Sara bit her lip and looked around. She was so into him. I put my head down and rolled my eyes.

  From across the room, Eli said, “Josh, will you help me grab the cooler from the back porch? Last night Mom put all the food in it that needed to be refrigerated.”

  Josh stood and followed Eli out.

  They returned a few moments later carrying a large cooler, setting it on the floor near the kitchen table.

  “Quinn and John Paul, do you want some yogurt? It might be the last you get for a while,” Quint said.

  “The kids love yogurt,” East said quietly to Blaise, Sara, and me. “This is going to be hard on them. Once it really sets in,” she said, standing to get something to eat.

  “It’s going to be hard on all of us,” I said under my breath as I stood and stepped toward the cooler.

  The cold night had kept the food colder than the lukewarm fridge would have. Casseroles lined the bottom. Other things like yogurt, cheese, and milk were near the top.

  At Charlotte’s urging, Quinn and JP each ate two yogurts. Her worry for them was palpable, though she tried to hide it.

  Looking at her and her family, I knew my father had not taken me from them because they were bad. Rather, it seemed because they were good. They appeared, from my point of view, to be the perfect family. Perfect in the sense of their love for one another. They each put the other’s needs before their own. They exemplified what I thought a family should be. Charlotte, in particular, made me wonder what life would have been like growing up with a mom who loved me, who cared about me, who wanted to spend time with me. I was envious of her kids.

  After breakfast, chores were divided up. Josh and Blaise were to weed the garden and harvest what had to be harvested. With the garden now a primary source of food, its productiveness mattered a great deal more than it once had. East, JP, and Sara were told to do what they could to construct an outdoor oven and start cooking our Thanksgiving feast. The rest of us were assigned to, as East called it, the impossible task of getting Quint’s parents to consent to come and stay at the main house. I was asked to accompany them because, Quint thought the shock of seeing me may confuse them enough to get them to come. After the third time Sara asked me where I thought Jonah was, I started to wonder. He never appeared.

  * * *

  My mind drifted as I rode Talin across the property. There was a path, not quite a dirt road, through the field. A car had driven this way more than once. Eli held the reins as he walked next to us. I had never ridden a horse before. It was soothing. Part of me wanted to tell Eli to let go so I could control her, but I was afraid I was overestimating my abilities. Charlotte rode Fulton next to me. Quint walked in front of us, with a pistol stuck between his belt and his jeans. He had left the hunting rifles at the house with East. I didn’t hear the conversation, but I knew protecting the family was Quint’s top priority.

  Quint, Eli, and Charlotte talked now and then about ways to try and convince Nonie and Pops they had to leave. I heard repeatedly that it wasn’t safe for them to live alone, but Charlotte said that wouldn’t matter to them. Eli suggested the tactic of how much they’d be contributing to the family and how needed they were. Quint stated more than once that if he had to literally tie them to the horses, he’d do it.

  I could see the smoke rising from their chimney, blowing in the wind above the tree line. As we came through the small patch of trees that seemed to separate their part of the land from the rest of the property, a small house came into sight. In a small, screened back porch a woman with curly white hair sat reading, a blanket wrapped around her. She put the book down and walked outside to greet us. An elderly man rolled out onto the porch. Nobody had mentioned he was in a wheelchair. Any sort of difference would have been immediately noted in the world I grew up in. But that was apparently not the case here.

  On the brick walkway that went halfway to the trees, Pops followed behind Nonie. His skin was brown like leather; hers was plump and ghostly white. The lines on both their faces were deep and soft. I never saw those kinds of lines in New York or DC. It was comforting, in an odd way, to see them. To me it meant Nonie and Pops weren’t afraid to age. Unlike so many others I knew they didn’t seem to believe their ideal self existed decades before, but rather, right now.

  Nonie hugged her son and grandson. Charlotte slid gracefully off Fulton. I was afraid to try. I decided to wait until someone offered to help me down, so I sat unmoving atop Talin.

  It was Pops w
ho noticed me first, noticed that I wasn’t East. The shock on his face caught me off guard. I turned to look behind me to see what had scared him so badly, and realized it was me. The twin of my dead mother. Nonie took a step back when her eyes met mine.

  “This is Esther’s daughter, Gabriella. Jonah and East met her and her friends on the highway,” Charlotte said, reaching out to take Nonie’s hand to keep her steady.

  “Jonah and East are home?” Pops said, choking back tears.

  “They made it home while I was here yesterday,” Quint said, also full of emotion.

  “Thank God,” Nonie said, giving Charlotte a hug.

  Pops pulled a white handkerchief from his pants pocket and wiped the tears from his cheeks.

  Soon their eyes returned to me. I felt self-conscious. I wanted to get out of sight. I tried to emulate Charlotte’s graceful dismount and fell hard on my butt.

  Eli rushed to help me up. “Are you okay?” he asked. “That looked like it hurt.”

  “It did,” I said, brushing the dirt from my tunic. I put my head against Talin’s neck. I wanted to hide.

  Nonie walked around Talin and embraced me.

  “We have missed you so much. When you and your father disappeared, it was as if we lost your mother and brother all over again,” she said.

  My head jerked. “My brother?” I said, searching her eyes for some indication that she had not meant to say the word.

  Charlotte came around and stood by Eli. I leaned against Talin for support.

  “Don’t you remember?” Charlotte asked me.

  “Remember what?”

  “Your mom was pregnant when she died,” Eli said, reaching out to take my hand as I slid down Talin and sat on the ground.

  “Pregnant?” I said, staring up at them.

  “Bria, how do you think your mom died?” Eli said, kneeling beside me.

  “A fire. It burned down our house. She told my dad to get me out, but she never made it out,” I said, barely able to get the words out.

  Eli looked at his mom, and then me. “There was no fire,” he said, holding my hand with both of his.

  It was my tether to this world. Without his physical touch, my mind would have fled. None of this made sense.

  “Your mom died giving birth to your brother. Neither one of them survived,” Charlotte said as she knelt beside me on the wet ground.

  Images swirled in my mind. My mother with a swollen stomach, hugging me and laughing. Me, placing a sticker of a gray elephant on a blue wall. Putting my hand on her belly and feeling something hit my hand. My mother laughing at my reaction. My mother in a hospital bed. Her squeezing my hand, telling me it will be okay and to go with Aunt Charlotte. Crying for my mother in Charlotte’s arms. A warm tear, not my own, falling on my cold arm. My father’s face so broken, so altered. Quint, holding me as Charlotte sobbed. Quint, telling me my mom had gone to heaven with my little brother. My mother, lying down. Me, running to her. Touching her. Her skin hard. My father, picking me up as I screamed and fought his stone arms—fought to get back to her. His grip was hard and silent. Crying as my father filled suitcases with my clothes and his, but not my mother’s. Waking up in the car, hearing nothing but the tires against the highway.

  I held Charlotte with all the strength I had. I was afraid if I let her go I would disappear. Stop existing. I didn’t feel real. But Charlotte did. This woman who knew the past that I only had glimpses of. She felt real. For a moment I felt like I did when I was a child, scared of a thunderstorm, being held tightly by my mother.

  Seven

  I stayed in her arms for what felt like hours. She held me closest when my sobbing was most intense and loosened her arms when I was calmer. I felt love. And I cried harder, realizing how much I missed it and for all I had done trying to find it. I cried for my mother. For the little brother I never knew I had. For the realization that there was no way my mother could love me after what I’d done, the choices I’d made. She who had died for her unborn child. I cried as I felt the hatred for myself more than I felt the loss of my mother. With hatred came anger, not at me, but at my father.

  “Why did he lie to me?” I asked, letting go of Charlotte and wiping my face.

  We were alone. Talin stood by me. I felt her breath as she turned her head at the sound of my voice.

  “I don’t know,” Charlotte said. I could hear the confusion and sorrow in her voice.

  “My whole life has been a lie.” I stared into her eyes … searching for something, anything that would explain why he would do that to me.

  Her eyes held no answers. “I know,” she said.

  We sat in silence.

  * * *

  Quint appeared above us. “I’m sorry, but we need Talin,” he said.

  I wondered what I looked like to him, my eyes swollen, cheeks wet.

  I didn’t want her to go; her presence comforted me.

  “Why?” Charlotte asked, irritation in her voice. She seemed to know how I felt about Talin.

  “We turned Dad’s pickup into a sort of wagon. We’re going to use Fulton and Talin to pull it,” Quint answered, picking up Talin’s reins.

  “They’ve agreed to come?” Charlotte asked.

  “Eli and I didn’t give them a choice. To be honest, I think they were both so shocked to see Gabriella that it knocked the stubbornness out of them. At least for the moment,” Quint said, taking Talin’s reins and pulling her toward the side of the house. She fought him for a second and turned to look at me. I nodded my head toward Quint, and she walked away with him.

  Thinking out loud more than talking to me, Charlotte said, “I suppose if there is any good to come out of this day, it’s that they agreed to come. I was so worried about them out here by themselves.”

  “What were you worried about?” I asked, relieved the memories had stopped for the moment.

  “A million things. How would they get water? Food? What if they got hurt? But more than any of that, I suppose I was scared for them, as I am for all of us, about what happens when everyone else runs out of water and food. What happens now, when there is no law, no government to speak of? Our way of life is gone. We can’t let that change who we are, our moral code, but we can’t be naïve and think it won’t change others. Or perhaps it won’t change them; it will simply set them free to be who they have always been.”

  “You’re scaring me,” I said, looking into her eyes. She had seemed so calm and easygoing, but I wondered now if I knew her at all.

  “Tragedies change people. Look at your dad.”

  I winced at the mention of him. I didn’t want to talk about him.

  “He was Eli’s godfather. He was like a brother to us. Quint’s best friend. He loved God, loved the church. Loved us. And he left all of that. He turned his back on all of us. He took you from us. Do you know how long we looked for you? How we prayed every day for you and for him? I never would’ve thought he could do the things he did. And yet he did. So if that’s what someone I know, someone I love, can do, imagine what others are capable of. The reality is that we are all capable of causing the world great joy or great pain. Our choices, our everyday, ordinary choices create who we become and how we are in the world. The great villains of humanity did not wake up one day and after a life of good, decide to commit mass murder. It was their choices day in and day out that led them to those moments.”

  “And yet,” she said, her gaze focused on me, “we have the example of your dad who, day in and day out, chose good, and still he fell. So then, in this moment where the world is redefined, what will happen? How many people who chose good every day before today, will fall? They will fall to save themselves. Fall to save their families. Fall because they have no hope. How many others who have chosen small acts of evil day after day will choose large acts of evil? Perhaps to save themselves, perhaps because they know they can and there will be no societal retribution. Either way, the world just got a great deal scarier.”

  I shivered, not from the cold, but fro
m her words.

  She continued. “We will survive only by recognizing the realities of the world we now live in. I want those I love with me at all times. I want to have eyes on them, to know they are safe. I know that will not always be possible, but having Nonie and Pops with us means not only will I have them with me, but no one else I love will leave to check on them. People knew they lived here alone. It was only a matter of time before someone came to take what they could.” She looked beyond her property, staring into the distance. Staring at some unnamed force lurking, waiting to hurt her family.

  I looked at her and said, “This is a small community, right? There can’t be that much badness here.” I didn’t believe in good or evil. Those words meant that one choice was inherently better than another and my father had explained many times how intrinsic values did not exist. Cultures determined values. I wondered, though, if he was right. Certain things in life, certain choices, did seem to be innately good or evil.

  Charlotte shook her head and said, “It’s not quite small enough that we know everyone. I’m sure it seemed that way to you, but if you go farther east, you will come to an actual town. Go another hour either east or south and you will come to larger cities. It is only a matter of time before people from the towns and cities come into the country looking for resources. We are blessed we live in such a remote part of the country. God only knows what’s happening in the urban areas.”

  My whole body shuddered at the thought of the urban areas. They contained my dad, Sara’s mom, Sara’s little sister, Trent, and countless others I knew.

  Charlotte’s gaze shifted away from my eyes. I turned following her gaze.

  The two horses were connected with large ropes and belts to a red Ford pickup truck. Eli and Quint walked in front of them, holding their reins. Pops sat behind the steering wheel and Nonie sat beside him. Piled in the truck and truck bed were what seemed to be all of their belongings. In actuality, it was probably only those items that were either most precious or most useful. A small metal cage with chickens inside was tied on top of the pile.