“And take this sickness that’s spreading out there. Don’t get me wrong, I do think it’s the Brethren’s will and that it was bound to happen, but how long do you think it’ll take for them to put the blame for it on us? Like we somehow found a way to poison them? Make us look bad? Think about it. We know that it’s an answer to prophecy, but they’ll spin it as some kind of planned attack. It won’t be hard to make it look like somehow Pioneer arranged it, will it? How long do you think it’ll be before the sheriff’s deputies show up here to raid us again even though we don’t have guns anymore or any way of producing the salmonella that they keep mentioning? You don’t think that they could plant evidence to the contrary while they dig around our barn and trailers? Don’t you see? They don’t want there to be any Brethren. They don’t want there to be a prophet like Pioneer. If they acknowledged the truth, then they’d have to admit that they’ve been wicked. They don’t want to be doomed, so you know what they’ll do? They’ll spin a bunch of lies. And the other Outsiders will believe them. They see our shaved heads and our fasting and praying not as proof of our devotion to our beliefs, but as proof that we’re crazy. They can’t understand that Pioneer is our family and that we will support our own in times of trouble. Cancer patients’ families have been known to shave their heads out of support when their loved ones go through chemotherapy and lose their hair. No one calls them crazy or mindless or dangerous because of it. Just because we do it symbolically to protest Pioneer’s being in jail doesn’t make us strange.”
Mrs. Brown makes a noise of agreement in her throat. She’s done braiding my hair and has banded it off at the bottom. It lies in a weighted line along my back. I’d forgotten how it felt when it was done up this way. There’s something strangely comforting about it, familiar and calming.
“They’d rather make us disappear and destroy what we’ve built. They want to separate us from one another and make us weak. If they can manage to do that, then it’ll be easy to convince themselves that their way is fine. A-okay. They can justify all the damage they do each and every day to one another because they’ll make us look so much worse than they are. You’ve been to their schools. You’ve seen them in action. Tell me, do they treat you and the others with kindness and respect? Or do they constantly look for ways to hurt you with their words? I think if you look past the surface, you’ll see that any kindness they might have showed you was calculated.” Jack’s face pops into my head. “Tell me, when the sheriff and the others started getting sick, did you really decide to come home all on your own or did they tell you to leave?”
Taylor. It seems impossible that he knows this, that he’s guessed something I never even saw coming. She told me that she wished I’d never come to live with her family. Her mom didn’t try to make her take it back or defend me when Mrs. Dickerson came after me right after that. Were they only being nice to me because they had to for the sheriff so he could keep an eye on me or something? And what about the poisonings? Is it possible that some of the Outsiders could’ve done it to make us look bad, like Mr. Brown’s saying? Mrs. Dickerson and her group hate the Community and want all of us out of town. Some of them were at the restaurant too. I can’t remember if all of them were sick. Could some of them have done it? Suddenly it seems possible.
“There now. You’re seeing it, aren’t you?” Mr. Brown beams at me, and Mrs. Brown squeezes my shoulders and kisses the top of my head. “It’s a lot to take in, isn’t it? They put a lot of questions in your mind and so, so many doubts, but I promise that by the time we leave this barn today, you’ll be back with us all the way.”
Recentering is what we call time spent focusing on the Brethren and their will for us. Pioneer always felt that the only way we could be certain of our path is if we spent time clearing our minds so that they would be emptied out of all of the worldly things that might disrupt our concentration and make hearing the Brethren’s thoughts—sent through a million or more miles of space—impossible to hear. Usually we do this all together, the entire Community gathered and focused, like an antenna on what the Brethren are transmitting. Pioneer led a lot, but Mr. Brown and Mr. Whitcomb did it sometimes too. Still, I’ve never been asked to do it like this with just him, his wife, and me.
Mr. Brown takes the laptop and places it outside the door. He has me stand up. Mrs. Brown takes the chair and folds it up, leaning it against the far wall. She puts her hand over mine and Mr. Brown does the same with my other hand. We stand side by side. Their eyes are closed. I can’t quite get myself to close my own.
Mrs. Brown peeks at me. “Close your eyes.” It isn’t a request. I squeeze them shut immediately. I can do this. Just because I do what they say doesn’t mean I have to believe it.
“Breathe. In and out. Nice and slow. That’s it. That’s it.” Mr. Brown’s voice is low, rhythmic, and sure. Beside me, Mrs. Brown pulls in a long breath and gradually lets it out. The air whistles a little as it rushes out of her nose. I fight the urge to laugh. I know they won’t like it if I do. Plus I don’t want them to start over. Recentering has always felt a little like being stuck in a sleep that I can’t totally wake up from. I lose track of time and everything goes all fuzzy, like somehow I’ve been underwater. It isn’t painful or anything, but I’ve never fully liked it either.
We stand still and breathe for so long that my feet start to hurt and I have to shift from one foot to the other. One breath in. Exhale. Another breath. Exhale. Mr. Brown drones on and on and on, chanting the words Pioneer always used in our recentering sessions.
We clear our minds.
We open our hearts.
We wait to receive your message.
A blank page for you to write on.
What you tell us is the truth.
What you command we will obey.
Show us the way.
Mr. Brown nudges me and I begin to say the words with him, over and over. It isn’t long before our voices blend, before the beginning of the chant becomes indistinguishable from the middle or the end, an unbroken chain of words forever circling in my head. I can’t concentrate on anything other than saying the words.
It goes on and on like this. I have no idea how long we chant, but eventually my voice feels hoarse. I look up once to find that somewhere along the way Mrs. Brown was replaced by Mrs. Sturdges, Julie’s mom. I never even felt Mrs. Brown’s hand slip from mine.
We clear our minds.
We open our hearts.
We wait to receive your message.
A blank page for you to write on.
What you tell us is the truth.
What you command we will obey.
Show us the way.
At some point Julie’s dad brings in a space heater and cranks it up to high. Soon it’s hot in the tiny room. The heat seems to weigh down the air, makes breathing in and out without coughing or gasping harder and harder. I want to stop, but every time I shift in place or begin to stutter my words, the others support my elbows, and chant louder.
They begin to walk me around the room, circling so tightly that I begin to feel dizzy and ill. Still, we chant and walk, chant and walk. I can’t open my eyes at all anymore because the dizziness is overwhelming. Eventually I feel Mr. Brown’s calloused palm slip away and be replaced by another. It must be later in the day now. Shadows and bursts of weak sunlight flash across the insides of my lids, making the dizziness worse. I sag against whoever’s holding on to me now, stumble every few feet as we make our way around the room again. I need to stop. I’m so thirsty and I want to lie down. I need to be able to take a moment to think, but they just keep moving me around the room.
We clear our minds.
We open our hearts.
We wait to receive your message.
A blank page for you to write on.
What you tell us is the truth.
What you command we will obey.
Show us the way.
It’s dark now. I open my eyes to candlelight and nothing more. I can’t see much of the room
at all. “Believe the words you’re saying, Lyla. Don’t just speak them. Let go, let go, let go.” Mr. Brown is back. Maybe he didn’t leave in the first place like I thought? I feel confused. My head is pounding.
I start the chant again, but my throat hurts so much. I need to stop. I want to stop. They won’t let me. I start to beg them. “Please no more, no more. I need to sit down. I don’t feel well.”
“You’ll feel better once you let go. That sick feeling, all the disorientation? It’s the Outsiders’ lies polluting your system. We need to purge it.”
I’m so tired. It feels like forever since I’ve slept. I lick my lips, but even my tongue feels dry. I’m so thirsty. I would give just about anything to get a drink. I croak out the words and they sound brittle and whisper-soft. I try again, my face crumpling with the effort. The hands holding me up tighten on my elbows, and my arms throb. “I am a blank page.…” My throat closes up and hot tears roll down my cheeks. “What you tell us is the truth. What you command we will obey. Show us the way.” I start to cry.
“Good. That’s it, that’s it!” one of my helpers yells excitedly, and I have a little hope that they’ll let me stop soon. I don’t know what I’ve done exactly to convince them that I’m recentering the right way, so I just throw myself into it, give the last of my energy up and shout the words, tears streaming down my face. “Show me the way!”
“Once more,” they demand in unison, and I say it again with them.
We clear our minds.
We open our hearts.
We wait to receive your message.
A blank page for you to write on.
What you tell us is the truth.
What you command we will obey.
Show us the way!
I feel the desperation building in me. I’m so thirsty.
“Thatta girl,” Mr. Brown says soothingly. “Your mind is clearing, can you feel it?”
I want to stop more than anything and the only way for that to happen is if I agree with what he says. “Yes. Yes!”
“Then I think you’re ready to hear the truth and accept it,” Mr. Brown says.
I have no idea what he means, but I’m so happy to be able to stop walking, to be able to stop chanting, that I don’t care. I just want to rest.
They help me to the floor so that I’m sitting with my back against the barn wall. To my left the rusty shears make a clattering sound against the wall as I cross my legs and rest my head against the rough, scorched boards there.
Mr. Brown hands me a mug with some cold water in it. I guzzle it down and ask for another.
“Not just yet,” he says, but not unkindly. “Let’s give that a bit to settle in your system first.”
He leaves the room and so do the others. For the first time in hours—maybe almost a day—I’m alone. I rest my head on the wall. I’m still so dizzy. It seems to be getting worse now instead of better. And my eyes. Every time I try to focus on something, I see a halo around it. The room seems to dip and roll under me, making me feel like I’m floating on top of the ocean. I don’t like it, but I can’t think of a way to make it better. Should I lie down? My brain feels sluggish. I don’t feel right. It’s not just the chanting, it’s something else. Fatigue, maybe?
Mr. Brown comes back in and crouches down beside me. I feel his thumb press my eyelid, move it up. He studies my eyes. “It’s working,” he says.
“What’s working?” I try to say, but I’m not sure that I actually say it. I start to laugh. Nothing’s funny and yet I can’t stop giggling.
“Feel better, Lyla?” Mr. Brown is smiling.
“You didn’t give her too much?” Mrs. Brown looms over me. Her chin shakes as she talks and I laugh harder. I never realized how funny she looked before.
I start to drift. It’s like my brain’s on pause and I can see and hear, but none of it makes any sense. I don’t know what’s happening. They’re still talking at me, making me walk. Then somehow Pioneer’s there—or he’s on a TV screen—I’m not sure which.
I can hear his voice. Over and over he says the same things. He talks about Marie and how she died. Over and over and over again. At first it doesn’t sound right, not like how I remember, but then it’s like the more times he tells me what happened, the more I can see it the way he says it happened. I thought that he killed her, but now when I try to remember I see her pulling the knife across her own neck. I see Pioneer crying over her, trying to stop the bleeding with his hand. I start to cry.
I was convinced that Pioneer was a criminal, that he killed Marie, and that the sheriff was the good guy, that Cody really loved me. But now I have no idea what to believe anymore. And I’m tired, so, so tired of trying desperately to figure it all out. I can feel myself wanting to let go of it all.
“You want to believe me because deep down you know it’s true. No matter who you meet or where you roam, you are one of us. It’ll never feel right anywhere else. You’re mine, Little Owl. You will always be mine.” Pioneer says it over and over and over again.
Things start to fade around me, go black, and still I can hear him. “Mine, you’re mine.…”
Someone nudges me in my side with their boot and I come to. My head hurts. There’s a TV in the corner of the room and Pioneer’s on it. He’s preaching about the Brethren. I rub my eyes.
“Come on,” Mr. Brown says.
I stand up, my legs all loose and rubbery. I keep hiccupping, letting out a sob with each one. I’ve cried so much that my eyes feel sand-blasted and raw. Mr. Brown holds my arm to keep me from falling over. I’m so hungry and sick and thirsty. I look around, try to figure out what time it is, how long I’ve been in the barn, but my eyes are still so blurry and it hurts to focus. Mr. Brown leads me to another room, the one that was locked when I came into the barn before. There’s nothing in it. It doesn’t seem right, but I don’t remember why. Jonathan’s standing in the corner. He’s holding a gun in his good hand. I struggle to pull free of Mr. Brown, but he holds me tight. I don’t understand what’s happening. Are they going to shoot me?
Mr. Brown makes me lie on the ground. I keep looking over at Jonathan and the gun. The ground is hard and cold and itchy with hay. Mrs. Brown comes in carrying two tall orange buckets. She sets them down and then goes back into the hall and gets two more. She makes trip after trip and all the time Jonathan stays in the corner, cocks and uncocks his gun.
“Wh-wh-what’s happening?” I whisper.
Mr. Brown walks over to the buckets. He picks up one and then stands over me with it. Drops of water fall on my chest and neck, slide over my chin.
“You’ve been bad, Lyla. You betrayed us. You aren’t worthy to be in the Community anymore.”
I’m confused. I thought he believed me. I thought that Pioneer told him to take me back.
“But you can be. If you show that you’re worthy.”
“H-h-how?” I ask.
“By taking your punishment and recommitting yourself to Pioneer.”
Jonathan leaves the corner and drops to his knees beside me. He holds the gun to my head, slides the end of it against my temple until it nestles into the space just above my cheekbone. I start to whimper, I can’t help it. I don’t want to die. He pulls the trigger and there’s an empty clicking sound. I sob and my whole body shudders.
“There are bullets in the gun, Lyla. The only reason you didn’t die right then is because the Brethren jammed it. They want you to believe again. Can you do that? Can you believe?”
I’m crying so hard that I can’t answer. Jonathan holds the gun up to my temple again. I let out a wail. “I believe, I believe. Please, I believe.”
“It’s not enough. You have to accept your punishment, to understand why it is necessary, Lyla.” Mr. Brown is still looming over me, the bucket swaying slightly in his hand.
That wasn’t it? I start to shake; my body is practically convulsing it’s trembling so hard. “Accept it, Lyla.” Mr. Brown nods at Jonathan and he cocks the gun again.
I pul
l in a breath. “I was wrong. I should be punished.” I want to scream for help, but it won’t do any good. No one’s coming to save me, not this time.
Jonathan puts the gun down and grabs my head. I can feel his bandages on my cheek, soft and smelling of medicine. He holds my head straight so he can look into my eyes. “Little Owl, huh? I wonder if your neck would snap as easily as that barn owl’s.” Some very distant part of my brain cries out at his confession. He was the one in the tree outside Taylor’s room. At least I think that’s what he said. I blink hard and stare into his eyes, blue like Pioneer’s and Will’s. It was him. He killed the owl, and now he’s going to kill me.
“That’s enough!” Mr. Brown yells. “Hold her down.” He tips the bucket. Water pours over my nose and mouth and eyes. I sputter and accidentally breathe in. I strain upward trying to get out of the bucket’s path, but Jonathan is holding my head, keeping me down. Water floods my lungs and I cough, but this lets more water in. The water keeps coming and coming. I can’t breathe. They’re drowning me with a bucket of water. I try to stop coughing, to hold my breath, but it’s hard because all my body wants to do is get rid of the water in my lungs. Then suddenly the bucket’s empty. I gasp and cough and retch. Water pours from my mouth onto the floor.
Mr. Brown waits until I stop coughing and then he grabs another bucket. Over and over he makes me agree that I need punishment, all the while telling me that I deserve it, that it’s the only way for me to cleanse myself of my sins. I thought I could do this, fake my way back into the Community, but I was wrong. I feel like the rational part of my brain is floating away on a current of well water that tastes like dirt and iron.
Astray (Gated Sequel) Page 21
