by Jude Watson
I see the man’s mouth move. A tall boy, thin as a pencil, looks up. He appears transfixed by his father’s gaze. It is Jonah as a boy, I realize. I see the same blue eyes, but they are glassy with fear. I see that he is holding himself so still that his shoulders ache.
The dread at the table gathers. The other children continue to eat, continue to chew, but I can tell they aren’t tasting their food. They are afraid to stop.
In a gesture stunning in its casualness, the man takes the boy’s plate and sweeps it to the ground. The mother begins to run around the table to get it.
The father stops her.
Slowly, Jonah leans over to pick up the food.
“Meals are bonding time,” Jonah is saying to me. I see him now, grown up, a man. I can’t see the child behind his eyes. “I know, it’s a cliché, bonding, right? But that’s exactly what we do. Share our day and our food.”
He hesitates. “There’s only one rule. You have to stay inside the compound. That’s what the wall is for. It’s for your protection, you see. When I’m not here, I have to make sure you’re safe. But that’s not so bad, when there’s so much to do inside our walls! I think traveling is overrated, don’t you? Now. Let’s meet the others.”
He swipes a card and a door swings back. He waits impatiently for me to walk in, and I take baby steps, afraid of what I’ll find.
It is a long room that ends in double doors at both ends. There are computers set up in different nooks. Sofas and chairs. More books and DVDs. Huge screens fill the walls, projecting images of nature. One whole wall is made up of a waterfall. The waterfall I’d seen in my vision. No wonder it hadn’t seemed right. It had been a projection. The room is unnaturally bright, track lights on the ceiling mimicking a sunny day. It’s so normal it’s spooky.
There are kids here, dressed in jeans and sweatpants and T-shirts. None of them is talking to one another or working together. That’s what’s so strange—the silence. They are in their separate niches. One girl is potting a plant. One is playing with a Game Boy. A boy is reading a book. The rest are at computers. My gaze roams restlessly, anxiously, searching for Emily.
I spot her in a corner, at a computer, staring at the screen, and my heart leaps. At least I have found her. At least I have done that. And she is alive, and looks okay. Relief warms me instantly.
Jonah follows my gaze, then walks over, and I follow. She glances up furtively, then hunches her shoulders. In that quick glance, I try to convey to her to not reveal that we know each other. I’m not sure if she gets it. All I can see in her gaze is blankness.
Alarm clangs inside me.
This is not the Emily I know.
This is the Emily I sensed.
The one who wants to disappear inside herself so she can escape the fear.
“That’s our Nell, always working.”
He touches her, and I can see how she shrinks against the touch of his fingers, long and supple, on her shoulder.
She hates and fears him.
He singles her out. The pressure of that is too much for her.
It is crushing her.
Jonah turns away and takes my arm to bring me to the center of the room. “Meet your brothers and sisters.” There is just the hint of an eye roll from a girl slouched on a sofa, watching TV. She had once been a blond, but now black roots extended three inches into her hair.
Jonah whistles through his teeth. “New member of the family has arrived. Do you remember the procedure?”
Suddenly, the kids move. Even the black-rooted surly girl on the sofa snaps to. They line up, ten girls and boys. Emily is four down from the top. I feel completely surreal, like I’m Maria the nun and Jonah is Captain Von Trapp in The Sound of Music.
As he calls out the names, each girl or boy raises a hand. It is amazing how much they give away by this simple gesture.
“Susannah.” Barely raises her fingers, pushing insolence as far as she dares for me.
“Edwin.” Blond boy, Susannah’s height, jerks hand up, giving me an assessing stare.
“Frances. Our songbird.” Frances nods tentatively. Inside my head, I hear a name. Kendall. This is Kendall Farmer.
“Tate.” Eyes on the ground, nervously lifts hand, bad skin, emotional disturbance he wears like a coat.
“Nell.” Emily lifts her hand quickly, then drops it, not looking at us.
“Hank and Dan, the twins.” Two boys looking nothing alike, raise their hands. They hate each other.
And then the flash comes again. Instead of Jonah, I see his father. In a dim, dark room, children are lined up on their knees. I see the bearded man mouth the names as Jonah does.
“…Ruthanna, Maudie, Eli.”
The twelve children are lined up in a row, oldest to youngest. Fear rises off their bodies like steam. None of them look at their father. As they rise, one of them—maybe it’s Edwin, one of the older children—winces in pain, as though the act of rising hurt him. I think again about the boy I heard screaming in my vision.
And I’m back in the present, in the brightly lit room.
The two youngest, Maudie and Eli, have already started to eye the computers they’ve left.
Jonah spreads his arms. “Family.”
The expressions on the faces of the kids tell me nothing except they want this over with.
I look at Eli, maybe eleven years old, but small and pale. He comes out of foster care. I see the house, crowded with kids. Foster parents who do it for the money. I see Eli sitting in a closet, making his own space there. He has a ball. He has three crayons.
Jonah continues. “Let’s see, Lizbet is between Frances and Nell, so Frances, show Lizbet her bed and help her feel at home. I think she needs a sweatshirt; it was a cold ride. I’ll see you all at supper.” Jonah heads for the door.
I stand in the middle of the room in disbelief. What now? The other kids drift away, but the girl and boy he called Susannah and Edwin come closer, close enough so that we are almost touching.
“That this group must somehow form a family,” Edwin sings in my ear. He manages to make it sound nasty, threatening.
“Forget the names. I’m Torie,” the girl says. “This is Jeff. Castle won’t hurt you if you listen to us.”
“Just do what he says,” Jeff says. “And what we say, too. Then you’ll be okay.”
I look around at the other kids, who are deliberately ignoring me. They are afraid of Torie and Jeff. They are locked in their isolation. This isn’t even close to the family ideal Jonah wants.
I know now why Emily has closed down. Nobody is leaving. Nobody is getting out of here.
There is no hope left in this room.
TWENTY-SIX
Frances-Kendall shows me the layout. The bedrooms are at both ends of the long room. The girls all sleep together in beds lined up like a dormitory. There are no windows, but there is a projection of a Webcam shot of the Sound.
“He checks on us,” she says. “Sometimes five times a night. With a flashlight. So be here.”
I remember the light in my vision, sweeping the bed, Emily shrinking from it, pretending to be asleep. The darkness, and then the light. I hadn’t seen a lighthouse at all.
“If you’re awake, he hates it,” she says.
“Thank you, Kendall,” I say.
She starts. “How did you know my name?”
“Your parents miss you,” I say. “They found a girl who looks like you in San Diego, but it wasn’t you, and they were crushed.”
She works her mouth, sucking in her lip, biting it, letting it out. “Don’t talk to me about my parents. Don’t ever talk to me about them again,” she hisses, and walks away.
Dinner. We line up on benches. Jonah has a chair. The girls had prepared the meal, me included. Jonah had brought fresh supplies from Seattle, and I recognize some of the stores, thanks to Shay. Fresh ravioli. Big loaves of bread from a designer bakery in Ballard. A chunk of parmesan that we grate over the ravioli. Bags of green beans so fresh they snap. It’s e
asy for four of us to make the meal because the kitchen is huge. There are two ovens and a professional stove and every size pot you could want.
I think of how Shay would love this kitchen and feel something so new I can’t identify it at first. I’m homesick.
Jonah takes a bite and pronounces it delicious. We all start to eat.
“We’re finally all together,” he says, looking around. “Now that Lizbet has joined us, the family is complete. Lizbet is our poet. Nell is our soul. Just like Frances is our voice, or Ruthanna makes us laugh.”
Ruthanna keeps looking down at her plate and shoveling in ravioli. A less likely candidate for a laugh I’ve never seen. She’s probably about thirteen. She doesn’t meet anyone’s eyes.
I see her suddenly, in the backseat of a black car, pulling away down a road. She’s younger. I see gravestones behind her. Her mother is dead, but she can’t understand why they’re leaving her. I can feel her grief as keenly as I can feel mine.
She doesn’t care what happens to her here. She is glad that the food is good.
Jonah smiles. His sleeves are rolled up, and he looks like any dad at a kitchen table.
“This is what my father believed, and I believe it, too,” he says, and I realize that he’s directing his remarks to me. “That the family can be a self-sufficient unit. Each of you has your own skill. We can entertain each other. We have artists and musicians and scientists here.”
This gives me my opening. I need to unsettle him. I need to see what happens when I do.
“What we need is a cook,” I say.
The rest of the kids freeze. Jonah blinks at me, as if my words are taking a long time to register.
He smiles tightly. “There is something wrong with the food?”
Torie gives me a murderous look.
“Well,” I say, “it could be better.”
His smile wobbles, then freezes. “I got this ravioli from the best place in Seattle.”
“Really.” I poke at my dish. “It tastes like glue.”
Across the table, Torie mouths something at me. You die.
Jonah stands up. He is shaking with fury. Emily closes her eyes. “I bring you the best! I take care of you! You know that, Lizbet!” he shouts, his face red.
“My name is Gracie,” I say.
“I know that!” he snaps. “Everyone else likes their new names!”
Torie gets up quickly. She removes my plate and takes it to the kitchen. As she moves, she jabs against me, hard, with her elbow.
Jonah’s hand grips his fork. “Well. Supper is not about food. It is about communication and love. We love each other.”
“We love each other,” Jeff echoes. He shoots me a look that eloquently says, shut up, idiot.
Kendall bites her lip and pushes her food around. She is afraid and wants me to stop. She casts a quick look at Jeff, then looks away.
She’s afraid of Jonah, yes. But she’s also afraid of Torie and Jeff.
“Yes, Edwin. Let’s eat.” Jonah takes a bite of his dinner. Everyone starts to eat again.
I take a sip of my water. When Jonah stood up, I noticed something. In his front left pocket, I saw the tip of his swipe card. Of course, he probably keeps it on him at all times. The card works on the locks, but didn’t he also say that he can control everything? Music, heating, security. There has to be a central control. It has to be in his wing of the house.
“This is all new to you,” Jonah says suddenly, turning to me. His anger is gone. “You’ll understand things in time. I was too harsh. I’m never harsh.”
I see his father standing over a young Jonah, shouting, This is what I do for you! I do this for you! Do you understand?
“You do this for me,” I say.
He shakes his head rapidly as if shaking out a mop full of dust. “Exactly.”
I smell smoke suddenly. It is acrid, strong. Yet I don’t cough, it doesn’t fill my lungs, and I can’t see it in the air. I look around, but everyone else is eating.
“I do this for all of you,” Jonah mumbles.
I realize that the smoke is not in the air. It’s in my head. And for the first time I wonder—what happened to the original house?
Jonah said that now we were complete. What came next? There was an end to this, and the only one who knows the ending is Jonah.
TWENTY-SEVEN
I wake up in the middle of the night. I hear the even breathing of the other girls. Jonah could come by at any time; I know he’s already checked us at least once. His visits are random, so there is no way to avoid them.
But I can’t wait any longer. I’ll have to take a chance.
I slip out of bed. Emily’s bed is right next to mine. I put my hand over her mouth. She tries to bolt up, terror in her eyes, but I speak quietly, rapidly, in her ear.
“It’s Gracie. Don’t worry. I just want to talk to you.”
She shakes her head, her eyes fearful.
“Just for a minute.”
“He’ll come.”
“I’m going to get you out of here.”
She shakes her head. “No. Don’t say that. It’s dangerous.”
“Why? Has he done anything to you?”
She turns away. “No, nothing. It’s just that…he pays attention to me. Special attention. He watches me, all the time.”
“I came to find you, Emily. Your mom, your dad…they’re frantic. They miss you.”
Emily starts to cry. I feel her shudders as she tries to keep her sobs inside. I’m actually glad to see her cry. It’s so much better than that blankness.
“It’s okay,” I say, even though it’s so obviously not.
I can see tears on her cheeks from the light cast from the watery reflection on the wall. “I’m glad you’re here. But Gracie…”
“What?”
“Don’t do it. Don’t try to get away. Promise me.” Her eyes are frantic.
“Shhh,” I say, as if Emily were a little girl. “Go back to sleep.”
Torie approaches me the next morning as I’m looking through the bookshelves. I can’t imagine having enough concentration to read, but I don’t know what else to do.
She stands a little too close for my personal comfort.
“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear,” she says. “Keep your mouth shut and you’ll do okay here.”
I shrug. Her gaze is so hostile. Why should I give her ammunition?
Her face is in my face. “Don’t say your real name to him,” she warns, spitting the words out. “Don’t ever do it again.”
Just what I need—to get snatched by a madman and then get bossed around by another girl. “Look,” I say, exasperated, “I’ve been kidnapped by a psycho who makes up crazy rules according to some insane scenario in his head. I’ve got enough problems without having to listen to you, too. Don’t you want to get out of here?”
“Listen up,” she says. “This is a sweet spot compared to where I came from. Most of us here are the same. This is better than home. You’re not going to take it away from us. One of these days, I’ll figure out a way to leave, but until then, I have everything I want here. Just what do you want to send us back to? Our families?” She snorts. “The streets? Keep quiet and don’t make him crack up.”
I’m listening, but I’m also seeing her. Smoking a cigarette on a street corner. Crouching down in the cold. She had been homeless.
I see that things that have happened to her have made her capable of anything. Kendall is right to be afraid of her.
But I also know one thing. I can’t show her my fear. “And what do you think will happen if he does crack up?” I ask. “It’s scary inside his head.”
“It’s scary inside my head. Don’t forget that.”
I see a man, sitting in an armchair, smiling up at Torie. Her hair is shorter and blonder. Her smile is strained. He reaches up and, with his foot, rubs her leg.
The vision derails me for a moment.
“Look,” I say to her, “There’s no telling what he could do to u
s.”
Torie snorts. “He’s a millionaire. He’s famous. What’s he going to do?”
“He’s kidnapped kids,” I say. I can’t believe that she is this stupid. “He committed about a thousand felonies. They can put him away for life. Do you know what that means? He has nothing left to lose.”
Torie looks at me as though I’m the one who’s stupid. “Rich people don’t go to prison. Don’t you know that?”
Jonah approaches us, his hands in his pockets, smiling. “I’m glad to see you’re getting along already.” He looks at me. “You know, there’s a garden. We all planted it. Tomatoes, herbs, lettuce.”
I don’t know what he expects me to say, so I say the conventional thing. “That’s nice.”
“So we have fresh produce sometimes,” he says. “I just wanted you to know that. Sometimes I overreact. That doesn’t mean I don’t love you.”
A small boy lies in a bed, crying.
Sometimes I hurt you. That doesn’t mean I don’t love you. When you do bad things, that hurts me, too. But you still love me, right, Jonah?
“When I do bad things, that hurts you, too,” I say.
Jonah blinks. “Exactly,” he says. “Come and help me pick lettuce.”
I follow Jonah out the kitchen door. It’s good to be outside. The fog has lifted, and it’s a bright summer day, warm enough to be in a T-shirt. I could almost feel hopeful on a day like this. If I weren’t stuck on an island in the middle of nowhere with no way to get off.
Still, the sun is warm on the skin of my arms and my face, and it drains some of the anxiety from my muscles. We walk along the back of the house, and Jonah strikes off on a path between the trees. From here, you can’t see the wall. Strangely, I am not afraid to be alone with him. Not now, anyway. Somehow I know he won’t hurt me…at least, not yet.
“The garden is this way. I sited it so that it gets the most sun. Had to truck in some super-duper soil. You know, Lizbet was the sister I was closest to.” He says this last part quickly, running into the discussion about topsoil, stripped of any emotion, just matter-of-fact.
