by Piper Lennox
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “He does.”
We spend hours talking. When I ask why she didn’t leave when I came back for her, she tells me everything. The lies they fed her that took her years to see through, and how she thought staying was the only way to keep me safe.
She tells me about the church, or what’s left of it; when more people ran away, and so many ex-members started sharing their stories, Barton panicked. Those who remained were packed up and shuttled to New Ground, a much smaller compound in Ohio.
The odd thing, Mother says, was that this new compound was the closest the community ever came to what she was promised: a place of hard work, but great love. The council no longer existed. Rules relaxed. The members truly felt like a family.
“Everyone said New Ground really was a chance to start over. That it was perfect. And in a lot of ways…it was.” She hesitates before tucking my hair behind my ear, the opposite side that Van touched. “But not for me. Not if I didn’t have you.”
I lean into her palm and shut my eyes against the fresh tears. “Why didn’t you leave? Not when I came back; I understand that part, now. But when he moved Unity Light to the new compound, and there were no fences...why would you stay, if you saw it for what it really was?”
Without meaning to, I draw away. Anger bubbles from someplace dark I don’t like thinking about.
“I told you I’d wait. Remember?” My legs carry me across the room. Being near her hurts too much. “Through the fence that day? I told you I’d changed my name, and that I’d make sure you had some way to find me when you were ready to leave.”
That was why I’d put myself online, yet kept myself detached from as many people as I could: so when she was ready, she could track me down and know it was safe. She wouldn’t have to be afraid of new people. It would just be me and her, like always.
It was all for her. All for the day she’d finally make herself climb, drop, and run, just like me.
But she didn’t. Even now, a moment I’ve spent years waiting for, didn’t happen because she wanted to find me. It happened because of Van.
Mother is silent while I shout and pace. She stares at the tissues in her hands and, when I’m done, nods. But she still doesn’t speak.
“Did you fall for it?” I blurt. It’s not my final question, but it is the hardest to ask.
“When he called himself a messiah,” I go on, walking back to her, “did you truly believe him? I know you didn’t. Maybe you wanted to believe him, just because you always had...but I know what I saw. You had doubts, just like me.” My hand stabs into the center of my chest, and I know the anger is reaching its brightest, hottest peak before it dies back to an ember. “So why didn’t those doubts win?”
Mother wipes her tears with her fingertips and stares out at the buildings across the street, not me.
“I did have doubts,” she whispers, “but yes, I believed some of what he said.” Her eyes snap to mine. “Like that he’d come after you personally, if I left. Not the council, because that didn’t exist anymore. Not canvassers, or elders...but himself. I believed that completely.”
“Why? He never went after the others who left. Why me?”
Mother worries her lip between her teeth. “He always felt you belonged to him, Juni.”
“To the church, you mean.” My heart pounds again. “That’s what he always said. That you were raising me, but I belonged to the community.”
“No,” she breathes, voice cracking. “To him.” Her gaze trips its way back to mine. “He was your father.”
The muscles in my legs lock up. I press the heels of my palms into my eyes and shake my head, over and over, trying to erase this moment.
Trying so hard to unlearn what I think, deep down, I always knew.
“And Rebecca?” I manage, seeing us side-by-side as children, like a photograph that never actually existed. Our blonde hair and dimples. Almond-shaped eyes that matched Barton’s perfectly, camouflaged only by the fact the color matched our mothers’.
“I believe he was Rebecca’s father, as well,” Mother whispers, “but her parents….” She trails and fidgets with a fresh tissue.
“When I joined Unity Light, before Crown Plains existed,” she says, “the teen girls were sent on ‘spirit journeys,’ with older men as our chaperones.”
“Spirit journeys,” I repeat numbly. I’m afraid to breathe. My lungs feel sprained. “Like retreats?”
“A little. But longer. Less…accountability. We stayed in cabins somewhere in the woods for weeks at a time, fasting and praying, listening to Reverend Barton’s sermons. They were so beautiful, back then.”
She smooths her dress and draws a breath deep enough for the both of us. “At night, the men came into our rooms to lie with us, kiss us…. They were supposed to bring themselves to the brink of temptation, then resist going any further. Barton called it ‘testing.’”
Bile inches up my throat. “They did that at retreats in the Main House, too.”
Horror flashes on her face as she looks at me. “Did anyone ever—”
“Kissing,” I explain quickly. “That was as far as they’d go.”
I almost laugh now, knowing the real reason those men would rush out of my room if I kissed them back. I’d scared them. Threatened them with temptation and failure of their stupid, disgusting tests.
“They always told us the retreats were to strengthen our spirits,” I mutter.
“No,” she says. “Only for the men. If they resisted going too far with the girls, the reverend praised them at group confession. If they didn’t…they were sent on hikes without food or water.
“But of course, the reverend never spoke up in confession.” Her eyes darken. In them, I see wrath I didn’t know she was capable of. “He never admitted that he’d taken his own test, and failed.”
“He came into your room,” I whisper, “and he…?”
“Yes. And I let him.” Tears spill to her chin. “I was so young…so lost. I thought I wanted it. I thought…I wanted him.”
My words compete with nausea. “It wasn’t your choice. You weren’t old enough to make it. And he would’ve done it regardless.”
I know this without a shred of doubt in my heart. Reverend Barton took whatever he wanted. He was a monster.
And the scariest thing about him was that he used to be a man. Handsome, charming…promising help to a lost soul with nowhere else to turn.
“I know that now,” Mother says, jaw stiffening. “But for years after that, I blamed myself. I was too ashamed to ever speak out. Which was exactly what he wanted.”
“Why didn’t he treat Mrs. Hostetter the way he treated you?”
“He had deniability with her. No one spoke up in confession that they’d lain with me…because no one but the reverend had. But Mr. Hostetter confessed he’d failed the test with Rebecca’s mother, so when she got pregnant, everyone assumed the baby was his. Maybe she did, too.”
Finally, her eyes come back into focus. “But when you and Rebecca were toddlers, I noticed too many similarities to keep denying it. You were both Barton’s daughters.”
I think my knees have locked. The room feels too small and large all at once.
“Is that….” My breath comes in shallow sips. I don’t want to ask more. I want to run away from her story. I think I want to run away from her, just so I can block out the details forever.
But I know I can’t. I’ve already tried that, and I know it never works.
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Is that why I was chosen?”
“I think so,” she says softly.
Instantly, I think of the baby boy Barton replaced me with as his successor, and the baby five years later who replaced him. All of us had hair like the sun. Dimples like tiny craters.
The cruelty and unfairness chokes me. My mother was made to atone for the life of single motherhood Barton brought upon her. Punished for sins she didn’t commit.
But so was I. I had to escape the life she brought me
into. Then I spent years crafting a new life for us, waiting for her.
The coal of anger sears through my stomach again.
“Okay.” I force my legs to move again, pacing a wide circle all the way around the room. “Let’s say you believed he would come after me, then, because of that. Because he was my….”
The word crimps my throat shut.
My father.
Funny: out of all the names Barton ever made us call him, this one sickens me the most.
“What changed?” I motion to the closed door. “Why did you leave now?”
“When the team that Sullivan hired showed up,” she says, steadying her voice, “I had just heard that Salvator—”
“No.” I point at her. “Don’t call him that. Don’t ever call him that.”
With a hard, startled blink, she corrects herself.
“—that Barton…was in the hospital. Heart attack. At first I assumed it was just a rumor. Those were always going around at Crown Plains, so why not at New Ground? But then I overheard his assistant talking to someone...and found out it was true.”
A look of relief paints her face, even though a twinge of shame—taking so much joy in another human’s pain, no matter how much he deserves it—appears with it.
“I took the horse out to the road and told myself I was going to leave. This was it, I was finally going to do it. If he was sick, or dying, I knew he couldn’t come after you. I knew you’d be safe.
“But then I got to the mailbox...and something stopped me.” She shakes her head at herself. “I don’t even know what. Fear, I guess, that the news wasn’t true, and they were just testing us. This feeling like—like I was betraying the people who saved me. Confusion, because I had no clue where we were or where I could go.
“So I got off the horse, and I got the mail...and I prepared to go back inside.”
A lump replaces the anger in my throat, because I know exactly what she means. I’ve felt it.
Yes, I ran to that fence. I climbed, and I jumped.
But I still remember that moment in the shadows of the South Building, when I froze and thought, Should I stay?
“Barton didn’t even need to build a fence around the new community,” she whispers. “He knew if he stayed in our heads, and broke us enough...we’d build our own.”
She shuts her eyes tightly, but starts when she feels my hand close over hers. I squeeze, to show her I understand. She squeezes back, to show me she’s grateful.
“Then,” she finishes, lifting her chin and swallowing, “the people Van hired showed up beside me. They asked about you.” She brings my hand to her mouth and kisses it, holding it in both of hers when she smiles. “Whatever fence I’d built for myself, it came down. Just like that. I knew it was no coincidence they were there, right when I needed someone to push me.”
“No such thing as coincidences,” I tell her, a soft but heartfelt echo of what she always told me.
I almost topple into the apartment when the door opens.
Juniper laughs as I right myself, stumbling. It’s been hours; my foot’s asleep, and the rest of me almost followed suit.
“Do you want to come in?” she asks, and leads me in by my wrist before I can answer.
Which is fine, because the only one I’ve got is “hell, yes.”
Allison hugs me and says she’s going to talk to Clara and Georgia downstairs for a while. Suddenly, Juni and I are alone. This wasn’t part of the plan.
All I planned for, in fact, was getting Juni in the same room as her mom, and that she’d either bail or boot me out when the reunion ended. I prepared myself for both.
But looking at her now, with all her makeup cried off and the most exhausted, beautiful smile on her face I’ve ever seen...I know I can’t let her leave. Not without me.
She lets me hold her face, stepping close until I swear I feel her heartbeat right up against mine. As soon as I lean down to kiss her, she presses her finger to my lips.
Slowly, I nod and draw back. A little more waiting won’t kill me.
“Here.” I take her hand and pull her to the bedroom.
Allison prefers the sofa; she feels safest when she can see the front door at all times. That’s Item One on the agenda when she finds a permanent therapist—but, in the meantime, her refusal to sleep in here proved very convenient for my plans. Wes and I spent over an hour building the bed, lugging in a mattress…and hanging string lights all across the ceiling.
Juniper flicks one of the bulbs that trails down the wall to the outlet.
“Dangerous,” she says. It takes me a solid minute to realize she’s imitating me.
“Eh,” I shrug, “I’m coming around on these things. Hanging them up was a bitch and a half, but I couldn’t think of a better way to decorate your room.”
“My room?” she asks, but shakes her head with a smile, like she doesn’t know what else she should’ve expected.
She studies the nightstand, where I carefully placed her copy of The Phoenix Seer, before sweeping her eyes across the web of bulbs and wire. I still prefer real stars. The kind you’d see out in North Dakota, not New York.
But right now, this is the best view I could ask for.
“Why did you do this for me, Van?” She motions to the room, but I know that’s not what she means.
“Call it atonement.” I get close again and touch her earring with my thumb, spinning the fake jewel in the fake starlight. “Telling you I was sorry wasn’t enough. I had to prove it.”
I bring my forehead to hers. The scent of her almost hurts my lungs, I breathe her in so fast and so completely.
“But it wasn’t to win you back.” My mouth hovers near hers until it feels like every cell is buzzing. Waking up from a long, numb sleep.
“You changed me, Juni. I’m not the guy you left in North Dakota.”
Sniffling, she gives a self-deprecating kind of eye roll. “Which time?”
“Either. But especially this last one.” Gently, I pull my lips across hers. It’s not quite a kiss.
More like the careful, testing sweep she did to me all those years ago in the farmhouse, when she thought I was asleep.
“We know each other’s stories now. Being with you, and then losing you...it showed me what I needed to fix if I wanted mine to have a happy ending. And the only way to repay you—to restore that balance—was to do whatever I could to make sure yours got one, too. That’s why I found her for you.
“But everything that happens after tonight?” I hook her chin in my fingers when she looks away. “It’s our story. And I’m not letting it end here.”
Finally, I kiss her.
Not a light touch or slow graze of skin, but an actual kiss. Deep, fast, and real.
“I love you.”
I say it against her mouth, before the kiss is even finished. Before she can give an answer about whether or not she’ll stay, or before she falls asleep and wakes to find all the magic in these little lights gone…I need her to know.
My wrists tingle. She’s tracing the letters of my names with her thumbs, keeping my hands on her face as though I’d ever want to let go.
“All right,” I tell her, “showed you mine.”
Slowly, her hands move to my chest. Her fingertips dance across my heart, like she’s tracing its shape. A big, deep inkblot only she can make sense of.
“I love you, too,” she whispers.
She smiles through her tears as she grabs my tie and pulls me down, pressing her lips back to mine.
Epilogue
Four Years Later
“Ready?”
Every inch of my skin sticks to this chair. Especially my wrist, all the way to my elbow, as the tattoo artist holds it still and turns my hand the right way. Who knew forearms could perspire?
My other hand squeezes the life out of Van’s. The crowd laughs, most shaking their heads in disbelief. I can’t believe I’m doing this, either.
Not the tattoo, per se. Not even the fact I’m getting it, my ve
ry first one, in front of virtually everyone Van and I know.
It’s what I’m getting, and where.
“You guys are crazy.” Wes bounces Hal against his shoulder and steps closer to see, until Georgia shoos him out of the frame: she’s filming every last wince I give, declaring this “Insta gold.”
“You’re stuck with me now, babe.” Van waggles his wrapped finger at me. He went first, getting a solid black design that I’m starting to think was the smarter choice. Quicker.
But when I look down to check the artist’s progress as he wipes away some blood, I decide mine is perfect too.
It’s a braided band with, instead of a center stone, a small and simple circle. A reminder that everything connects, and nothing is an accident. Van jokes that it’s a tiny skateboard wheel.
Mom winds out of the crowd, I assume to cluck her tongue disapprovingly. It’s not the tattoo she dislikes, just the idea that my wedding ring will forever be embedded in my skin. A beautiful stain that will never wipe clean.
“It’s so...permanent,” she said, when we told her there would be no ring portion of our ceremony: just an announcement that, instead of a First Dance, we’d be doing what Van called “First Ink.”
“Isn’t that the point of marriage?” I’d quipped.
Now, though, her disapproval’s faded. She even smiles when the artist pauses to let her look.
“It’s better than I expected,” she says, after a beat. “But I still think it’s strange.”
“Glad I’m not the only one.” Sterling sidles up to steal a look for himself, freeing Van’s sister’s hand when she squirms. Annabelle watches the needle carefully, then asks me if it hurts.
At least, I assume that’s what she asks. It’s hard enough to understand a three-year-old in the best of conditions. Add pulsing music and a hundred people talking at once, and it’s almost impossible.
“It does hurt,” I tell her, smiling at the chocolate fondue stains already on her flower girl dress, “but...the way tattoos hurt. Painful. But not real pain.”
“Wow,” Van says, when the artist politely asks our audience to disperse because they keep blocking his light, “who needs a sweetheart table? All we gotta do is stay here and keep getting tattoos. The entire reception will line up to give us shit over it.”
