by H. D. Gordon
On the flip side, now more than ever, I was essentially trapped.
Fae noticed me looking over at the dresser and must have guessed what I was thinking. “Oh, I hope you don’t mind,” she said, her eyes never leaving me as I changed clothes, “but the keys to all the vehicles always go on a hook in Father’s house. With so many of us living here, there’s always the potential that there will be an emergency, and if all the other vehicles are taken, we might need to use yours to get someone to the hospital or something. The nurses in our infirmary are great, but they’re no doctors. I didn’t think you’d mind.”
I forced my lips to curve up in a smile. “Nuh-not at all.”
After I changed, Fae walked me down to the bathroom at the end of the hall and waited outside the door while I took care of business. I brushed my teeth and washed my face, not looking into the mirror because I was afraid if I saw my reflection, the mask I was currently wearing would slip and all the things roiling inside of me would shine through. The time for second thoughts had passed. Right now, I needed to keep the smile, and wear it well. I was pretty sure my life depended on it.
When I was finished, Fae and I headed over to the Family Building, where we’d had the dinner the night before, and where the daycare was also apparently held. As we walked, it didn’t escape my notice that Fae was limping a little. I thought back to last night, and wondered just what had happened before she’d returned to our room in tears, but knew better than to start asking too many questions too early. I needed to tread very carefully here; as carefully as someone walking through a mine field.
Fae pulled a banana and yogurt from the bag hanging over her shoulder and handed them to me. “Breakfast is at six every morning, including weekends. I managed to snag this stuff for you today, but if you want to get your fill, you’ll have to get up earlier and get to the cafeteria on time. Lunch will be at eleven-thirty, though, so that should hold you over until then.”
I thanked her and began eating the banana as we walked. She continued to give me a rundown of the day’s schedule, and as I listened, it became clear there wasn’t really any free time. If I was to get all my new “chores” done, there would be very little time for me to investigate what was really going on at the ranch. Not only that, but the schedule left little time for sleep. It was my first day, and already I was exhausted. If I didn’t get more sleep soon, I would start having trouble thinking clearly.
And since my mind has always been my biggest, if not my only, asset, that was obviously a problem.
We’d reached the Family Building, and Fae held the door for me as we entered. We walked through the cafeteria, which was empty, save for a few people cleaning the tables and floors, and came to a door I hadn’t taken much notice of the day before. It was the same off-white color as the walls, and tucked in the back corner of the large room.
Before opening the door, Fae caught my arm. “Oh, I forgot to tell you. Madge can be kind of…harsh sometimes, and she wasn’t exactly happy about being transferred out of childcare, so just ignore her if she acts all bitchy to you.”
I nodded, because I didn’t know what to say to that, and Fae opened the door. It led into a short hallway with two more doors. Fae pointed to the one on the right. “That’s the bathroom,” she said. “It’s right across from the children’s room, so when one of the kids needs to go, we leave this door open so we can make sure they don’t wander off. Otherwise, this door stays closed. Got it?”
My stomach twisted. “Guh-got it,” I said.
Fae smiled and opened the door to the children’s room. I was nervous as I stepped inside, and when all the little faces in the room turned in our direction, my heart skipped a beat. Whatever resolve had slipped away from me this morning, it returned to me tenfold now.
The room looked like any other daycare, but something was off, and I couldn’t decide what it was. The walls in here were painted bright, cheery colors, and the ABC’s hung over the chalkboard, where a picture of a rainbow was drawn. Posters of various cartoon characters and large wooden crosses hung on the walls, and boxes of toys were arranged neatly in the corner. Several little tables with matching little chairs were placed around the room, and almost all of the seats were filled with small children, who were all sitting quietly at the tables, drawing pictures. Upon closer inspection, I saw that most of them had drawn crucifixes, and some of them had even added crude depictions of Jesus hanging from the crosses. It took effort to keep my lips from twisting at this. I had nothing against religion, but the dying Savior hanging on a cross, drawn in crayons by children’s hands was somehow grotesque.
I pulled my eyes away as Fae summoned over the man and older woman who were also in the room. I assumed they were Troy and Madge, and when Fae introduced them, I saw I was right. By the look Madge gave me, I saw that Fae was also right about Madge not being happy with me. I sighed internally. It seemed I’d already made an enemy.
Madge mumbled “nice to meet you” and left the room before I even had time to respond. Fae rolled her eyes and then winked at me. I smiled, and found the more I had to do so, the harder it was getting.
“Don’t worry about her,” Troy told me, noticing the exchange. He leaned forward so only Fae and I could hear, not that the children seemed to be listening. They appeared abnormally absorbed in their drawings. “She’s not really great with the children, anyway,” he whispered.
One side of Fae’s mouth pulled up. “See? Told you.”
Troy laughed heartily at this, and like Fae, I came to the conclusion that there was just something likeable about him. He was probably in his mid-thirties, with light brown skin and perfectly straight teeth. He was kind of a large man, with an athletic build and deep black eyes. For the tiniest moment, before Troy said goodbye to the children and left, he looked at me and something passed behind those dark eyes that seemed to bear some significance, but I couldn’t put my finger on what that might be.
I wasn’t sure why, but I decided Troy was someone I needed get to know better, so when he asked if he would see us at lunch, I told him that would be great before Fae could respond. When he was gone, she turned to me with a knowing look, and my heart stalled.
“He’s cute, huh?” she said, raising her eyebrows.
I breathed a silent sigh of relief and shrugged, letting my lips turn up in a small smile. “I-I-I didn’t nuh-notice,” I said. I would need to be more careful with my interactions.
Fae laughed and rolled her eyes again. “Right,” she said. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to the children.”
Fae pulled me to the front of the classroom and clapped her hands. All the little heads in the room looked up, and my eyes fell on the little girl I’d seen at the dinner yesterday, the one who had been staring at me while everyone else had been staring at the reverend. She was a cute little thing, with honey brown hair that reminded me of Emily, a child I’d known long ago, and big eyes that were a shocking shade of green I didn’t think I’d ever seen before. Her little head tilted as she looked at me, but I didn’t miss the way her hand was still moving over the page on which she was coloring.
“Children,” Fae said, drawing my attention away from the little girl. “This is your new teacher. She will be helping with lessons and watching over you from now on. You may refer to her as you do the rest of us, as ma’am or as teacher. Sound good?”
All of the children nodded, and in unison, said, “Yes, ma’am.”
I had to consciously keep my eyebrows from raising at this. I’d sensed something off about this room, and now I realized that it was not the room itself, but rather, the children inside the room. They were too…robotic. Almost like little adults. A bit of anger swirled in my stomach at this. The adults who had willingly, if unwittingly, gotten themselves into this situation were one thing, but to brainwash such young children was nothing short of disgusting.
Fae handed me a packet as thick as a dictionary. “Here,” she said. “I’ve taken the liberty of putting all of the lessons you’ll b
e teaching down on paper, and marking the times when you’ll teach each one, so all you have to do is follow the schedule, and read from the packet. In fact, it’s time for another lesson now. I’ll do this one, so you can see how it’s done. I’m sure you’ll pick it up fast.” She gave me that Hollywood smile and lowered her voice. “For some reason, I get the feeling there’s a lot more going on in that head of yours than you let on.”
I swallowed and shrugged again, not sure what to make of that. I had a feeling that it was another one of the warnings disguised as a compliment I seemed to keep receiving.
Fae called all the children to sit on the carpet in the center of the room. They all replaced their crayons and colored pencils in the baskets at the centers of the tables and pushed in their chairs, making their way to the carpet in an oddly orderly fashion. As they did this, Fae asked me to collect their drawings and place them on the teacher’s desk.
I did as I was asked, relieved that my participation in indoctrinating young minds would not begin just yet. I’d taken a quick peek inside the packet Fae had given me, and it was full of various bible quotes and passages. Except, from what I’d seen, the words “The Lord” and “God” had all been replaced with the words “The Father”.
My thoughts were cut short as I came to the paper of the little girl with the shocking green eyes, and my heart stopped dead in my chest as well. I stared down at the picture, drawn in all black colored pencil, and for a moment, I was no longer standing in the childcare room at The Family Ranch.
As I stared down at the girl’s drawing, I was somewhere else completely. Somewhere I had been once before, in a vision.
I was standing on a road to nowhere.
Chapter 42
Fae
Despite the fact that Fae had a lot going on in her head, Father had tasked her with keeping a close eye on the new girl, Joe, and Fae took all of her tasks seriously. So, when Joe paused in collecting the children’s drawings, Fae noticed, and she stood from her chair and hurried over to see what had made Joe react that way.
When Fae came to stand beside her, and asked what was wrong, Joe nearly jumped out of her skin. Fae had to use effort to keep her eyes from narrowing, and she looked down to see what Joe had seen. Fae picked up Madison’s drawing and stared at it for a moment as well because she couldn’t help herself. This would make the second drawing the little girl had done of an expertly depicted road that led into darkness, and for whatever reason, it freaked Fae out a little bit, though she never would have admitted it.
Fae looked over at Madison, who was sitting on the carpet with the rest of the children, the only child that was not facing forward, but had turned her head around instead and was staring back at Fae. The girl was just a little thing, but the striking green of her eyes seemed to be pinning Fae to where she stood. She had never seen an eye color quite like Madison’s. She looked over at Joe now, who hadn’t moved an inch nor spoken a word, and was still staring at the paper in Fae’s hand. Now that she was thinking about it, she’d never seen an eye color like Joe’s, either.
Something was going on here. Fae could feel it. She had no idea what it was, but she was sure something was amiss.
Father needs to know about this, Fae thought, goose bumps breaking out over her arms now as she continued staring down at the drawing. Children her age can’t make drawings like this. They don’t possess the dexterity. Something is going on here, and Father definitely needs to know about it.
On the heels of these thoughts, other things passed through Fae’s head that seemed to be on a looping track in her mind lately, no matter how hard she tried to suppress them. The smell of Father’s breath as he laid himself on top of her, the way his fingers had slipped beneath her blouse and squeezed her breasts hard enough to hurt, the sound of his grunts as he pushed himself into her and the repeated whispers he breathed into her ear. I’m doing this for you, little bird. I’m doing this for you. All for you.
She had a thought then that scared her. Maybe Father didn’t need to know about Madison’s peculiar artwork so much as he would want to know about it.
But if he finds out…if I keep this from him and he finds out…if it comes back to bite me…
Fae pulled her eyes from the drawing and looked over at Madison again, who was still staring back at her. For several short moments that seemed like an eternity, Fae just couldn’t decide what to do.
(I’m doing this for you, little bird. All for you.)
Still looking across the room at the little girl with the green eyes, Fae thought, I sure am, and then she crumpled the drawing into a ball and tossed it in the trashcan before her better sense could get hold of her and she changed her mind.
Joe didn’t say anything about this, and for that, Fae was glad. Later, when the children returned to their parents at the end of the day, Fae would dig the drawing out of the trash and burn it, because she would find that it called to her throughout the day, as if trying to make her retrieve it and show it to Father, like she should have in the first place. Several times, in fact, she went to do just that, but was always stopped at the last minute when the memory of Father taking her would come back with terrible clarity. Only after Madison’s drawing was burned, did Fae feel a little peace.
Fae was still loyal to Father. Fae would always be loyal to Father, but she just couldn’t bring herself to mention the drawing. If she mentioned it, Father would surely want to speak with Madison alone.
She couldn’t let that happen, because Madison was still just a little bird. And Fae knew firsthand how much Father loved his little birds.
Chapter 43
Joe
By the time lunch rolled around, I was all but starving. The banana and yogurt I’d eaten at six-thirty that morning was not close to enough, especially since I’d been running on high energy all day, both mentally and physically.
It wasn’t that the day’s “chores” were particularly difficult, but working with over thirty children all under the age of eight could certainly test one’s stamina. I wasn’t sure how Madge, the mean old lady I’d replaced at the daycare, could have possibly kept up with all these children. I had yet to turn twenty-two and I was having a hard time, though it didn’t help that I’d gotten very little sleep the night before.
Several times, I found myself grinding my teeth to suppress another yawn, but when Fae finally announced that it was time to eat, I suddenly felt wide awake. I’d been listening to my stomach growl for the past two hours, and since I was eighty-nine percent positive that the mass poisoning wouldn’t happen today, I was ready to tear into whatever food they gave me. I’d even take a glass of that Kool-Aid from last night while I was at it.
Careful now, a voice in my head whispered. Let’s not forget where we are and what’s going to happen.
I hadn’t forgotten. I was just tired and hungry, and the minor headache I’d woken up with was beginning its tryouts for the major leagues and performing well. Luckily, the children seemed just as eager to get to the cafeteria, and they lined up at the door quickly and quietly as soon as Fae told them it was time for lunch.
Fae was at the head of the line, and asked me to bring up the back and make sure none of the smaller children wandered off on the walk out to the main room which served as the cafeteria, where we’d had dinner last night. I did as she asked, watching as the children stood straight-backed with their hands at their sides and their faces forward. As Fae began leading them out into the hallway, each kid stuck out his or her hand and took some sanitizer from the automatic dispenser on the wall, rubbing it in as they followed neatly behind their teacher.
My head tilted as I watched them. I’d never seen children behave the way these kids did. It was just one of the many things on my list to ponder, though. Some of my more immediate concerns were the fact that I hadn’t seen Kayla all day, and had no idea how she was taking what I’d told her last night. And of course, there was also the drawing. Not my drawing, but little girl’s with the green eyes. Madison’s draw
ing. I’d made note of her name when Fae had addressed her in class.
This latter thing was what had been occupying my fuzzy mind all day. I kept waiting for a moment alone with the little girl, for Fae to step out of the room to use the restroom or something, but the opportunity never came up. Fae was watching me like a hawk.
Then again, I wasn’t sure what I would even say if I’d had the chance to talk to the little girl alone. I supposed I would ask her if she ever saw things before they happened, but if she said yes, then what? Pat her on the head and tell her to buckle up, sweetheart, because you’re in for a rough one?
It was all just too much on a few hours’ sleep and an empty stomach. For now, I would ride things out and see if I could figure out a plan to divert the scene in my own drawing from happening. As long as I was allowed to keep working in the children’s center, if worse came to worst, I could always just knock Fae unconscious and do my best to sneak off with the kids when the time came; hide with them out in the cornfields or something. And based on the way I seemed to be drifting further and further up Crap Creek, it might just come down to that.
