Black Widows

by Cate Quinn

  In a corner is a broken-open safe, which sits in a sea of typewritten documents. I pick a few pages up. Lists of names, dates. None of them make a great deal of sense. Likely they’ve already been picked over for evidence. The marriage records.

  I let the papers flutter to the floor.

  Then I notice something on the wall. A bronze plaque that wasn’t there when I was hiding in this room. I walk toward it. The plate commemorates some of the Prophet’s wives and children who died in a flash flood.

  My fingers trace the names. Four women and two kids were swept away in their car a little after the Prophet was jailed. No one quite knew how they should be commemorated, so I guess this was a temporary measure. When the Prophet was first imprisoned, it was generally accepted that God would strike down the prison walls fairly soon.

  I read the names of the deceased on the plaque once, then twice. My eyes stick on one name.

  Margaret “Aunt Meg” Ambrosine, first wife to the Prophet.

  I can’t quite believe it.

  Aunt Meg died almost eight years ago.

  Chapter Ninety-Two

  Emily, Sister-Wife

  I can see by Carlson’s expression that he wants me to leave it all alone now. Like he was hoping showing me the Kirker’s Diner tape would mean I started suspecting Rachel or maybe even Tina.

  I start pushing the keys, and after a moment, Carlson asks if I’d rather tell him and he’ll type for me, so we do it that way.

  The page I found before flashes up. A Mother’s Truth. Aunt Meg’s blog.

  “There.” I point after the title rolls up. “Click that one.”

  Carlson does. For a few minutes, we both sit there looking at it.

  It’s a badly written page about how Aunt Meg categorically did not murder sinners who left the Homestead. Specifically, fifty or so escapees who former Homestead folk accuse Aunt Meg of “vanishing.” She also refutes any claims of abuse or the jurisdiction of any court to convict her husband, since he is a “living saint on earth.”

  The next page is full of this creepy stuff. Like basically saying everyone is a liar except Aunt Meg and the big-shot men who ran the Homestead.

  Carlson clicks on a link marked “Evidence.”

  There are pages and pages of typed-out scripture, basically saying the Bible agrees with thirteen-year-old girls being married. Aunt Meg also has this whole section dedicated to crappy pictures of signatures. These are from testimonies Aunt Meg has written out in loopy writing, worse even than mine, saying the so-called victims of abuse at the Homestead are liars. At the bottom, she has the victims’ own parents sign it as “nothing but God’s truth.” Then she posts it.

  I kind of stand up when I see that. Like I want to tip the computer screen over. Carlson is sitting all jaw clenched, fists balled.

  “Makes you want to kill someone, don’t it?” he says, lifting his eyes to me. “Sure are some evil people in the world.” He breathes out a sigh. “Sure you want to keep looking?”

  I make myself sit. I need to do this, for Rachel.

  Cagney wouldn’t let her emotions get the best of her.

  “What about that one?” I point to a link marked “Clearing My Name.”

  A bunch of text loads up, and Carlson sorta whistles under his breath.

  Aunt Meg has listed other things she’s been accused of and reasons why she is innocent. In particular, she refers to an accusation by a “son of perdition” named Jacob Walt.

  “What’s a son of perdition?” I ask Carlson.

  His lips get even thinner. “It’s what they call the young boys who were brave enough to leave,” he says. “Basically means you’re worse than even us gentiles, ’cause you knew the truth and chose to reject it. You’re goin’ to out-and-out hell. Great many of ’em turned to drugs. Or the construction trade. Not much else they could do. You know those boys got put out to work at age twelve for their so-called Prophet? The Homestead undercut every other construction company in the area, ’cause you can’t compete with workers who get paid in God’s glory, right?”

  I read some more. Jacob Walt apparently spoke to a local newspaper, back when the cult was raided. Aunt Meg has pulled his quote directly.

  “A lot of babies born on the Homestead have deformities, meaning they won’t survive the year,” Jacob has told a journalist. “On account of the close relations there. It’s more or less normal for a baby to have a cleft palate or a clubfoot or heart problems or breathing difficulties. Parents with a great many children hand the ones who aren’t gonna make it over to Aunt Meg to take care of. And when I say take care of, I mean take care of. As in the baby cemetery got a lot bigger.”

  I stab a finger at the screen. Carlson is sitting totally motionless, like he can’t quite believe it, reading and rereading, his lips moving.

  “Says right there,” I say. “If the families couldn’t cope, they took the babies that weren’t born right to this Aunt Meg person.” I put my fingers into quotes, like I’ve seen him do. “To take care of them.”

  I feel outright nauseous. The idea of those tiny children, struggling to breathe.

  “Well,” says Carlson finally. “I guess that would explain the list of missing names with special baptisms.”

  “This would make her a murderer, wouldn’t it?” I say. “What if Blake found something out? I mean, maybe Rachel told him or spoke in her sleep or something? What if he went out there and took a look around? Discovered a secret cemetery full of baby headstones and reached a conclusion on his own?”

  Carlson nods, then clicks on a few more links. Then he silently taps on the top of the screen.

  “Check the date of the last blog post,” he says.

  Shoot.

  The last entry was eight years ago. Aunt Meg Ambrosine hasn’t been active online in almost a decade.

  I’m suddenly really tired. Like all my hopes just got snuffed out at once.

  “Satisfied?” asks Carlson. “It’s a dead end.”

  “What if…what if Aunt Meg is hiding out somewhere?” I say.

  Carlson just shakes his head. “I told you already, she straight-out vanished. We checked her out. She’s not at Waynard’s Creek. Hasn’t visited her Prophet husband in years. My guess is she skipped the state. Holed up in one of the safe houses and tried to start a regular life. Maybe she did those things they accused her of, maybe she didn’t. But she hasn’t been in Utah this side of eight years, I can tell you that.”

  I process this. “So you’re just gonna send me home?” I swallow.

  “We’ll be charging you for obstruction of justice most likely, but that doesn’t come with a necessity to detain. So yeah, we got an officer who can drive you back in the morning. Unless there’s someone who can pick you up now.”

  I need to get back before they question Rachel. I need to get to the ranch.

  “Tina…” I begin.

  He shakes his head. “Tried her already. Phone’s off. Tina’s gone dark. We’ll keep calling, but…”

  I process this. Guess Tina didn’t manage to stay clean after all.

  An idea occurs to me. Someone to give me a ride. Problem is I really, really don’t want to call her. I take a breath. Time to swallow my pride.

  “How about Blake’s mom?” I ask. “Could you try her?”

  Chapter Ninety-Three

  Rachel, First Wife

  I sit down. Just right down on the musty-smelling carpet. I can hardly bear it.

  Aunt Meg died in that flood? She’s dead? All this time, I pictured her as alive. Meeting with Blake. Telling him my secrets. I can’t quite get straight in my mind what it all means.

  One thing I do know for sure—all those little graves. The basement morgue.

  Aunt Meg got away with it.

  No, Rachel, I tell myself. She’s in hell.

  Hell isn’t enough. She
was the Prophet’s favorite. Lived in luxury while the rest of us half starved.

  And what about those children denied proper treatment? How many disabled babies went into that basement and came out in shoeboxes? I think of all those women, sagging under the weight of their huge households, desperate.

  A secret cemetery. Little mounds. You helped me before.

  The children not born right. Even if they go to heaven, how does that make up for the torment she caused them in life? Despair is so overwhelming I feel like my heart is going to cave in. All those innocent souls put on earth to experience nothing but suffering and an early grave.

  It’s happening right now. Even as I sit here, someone, somewhere is hurting a child.

  What kind of God could allow that?

  I can’t stop thinking this is all Tina’s fault. She’s the one who made me remember. She’s the one who caused me all this pain.

  I get up, my legs shaking. It’s the darndest thing. I’m seeing, but I’m not seeing. All I can think is I need to get back out into that grand hallway. I need to get to the statue of the Prophet.

  I go down the stairs into the marble lobby, reach it, and…I just scream, I guess. Birds outside the open door take flight. I hammer my fists into the white stone and kick with my feet.

  I slap and smash and then pick up a chunk of rubble from the ground and strike it into the face. I grasp it in both hands and slam it into the nose and the mouth, again and again.

  “By the power of Jesus Christ,” I gasp, “By the power of Jesus Christ! I command you to leave me alone!”

  I push my hands against the statue and heave, but it doesn’t move. I try again, sobbing.

  All the strength seeps out of me. I fall to my knees, looking up at the familiar face. Its nose is broken.

  My nose, I think, despair washing through me. We have the same nose.

  The rock is still in my hand. Boxes are opening in my head. I start walking back toward the car.

  I can’t see the police on the road yet, which means they’re likely taking the corner around the mountain. Then I pull out, driving for the road out the police don’t know about. I need to drive back to the ranch.

  I remember now. I remember everything.

  Chapter Ninety-Four

  Rayne Ambrosine, Age 15

  I’m in the schoolroom, putting the books back, when the pains start. I don’t know what they are, but I have an idea they are because of what had happened with cousin Frank.

  Put, put, put.

  There is a strange sound. I’m wondering where it’s coming from. That’s when I realize a steady stream of blood is dripping between my legs onto the linoleum floor.

  I watch as the pool gets so big the noise changes to like a splattering. I’m frightened now. I’ve been expecting God to punish me, but I’m not ready to die. I start wailing, and my older cousin Ardeth comes racing in, eight months gone with her second baby and red-faced from running.

  “Oh sweet Jesus!” She takes me by the shoulders. “Rayne, you didn’t. Tell me you didn’t? Your mother’s gonna kill you!”

  Ardeth was married already. I guess she knows what a miscarriage looks like.

  She helps me out back so no one can see, gets me sitting down with a wad of cloth to hold between my legs. Then even though she’s pregnant enough to drop, she sets off at a flat run out the door to get help. That scares me most of all.

  Next thing I know, men are showing up, crowding around me. The Prophet is there too. I have never seen him so close by.

  “She’s not a bad girl,” Ardeth is telling them. “Please, Uncle Ambrosine.”

  “You did the right thing,” he tells her. “Don’t you fret now. We’ll take it from here.”

  They carry me what feels like a very long way over bumpy ground, silent and grim-faced.

  I watch the ground, black and split open, realizing I’m drifting in and out of consciousness. I wonder if they might just dump me on the wrong side of the perimeter fence, an outcast.

  Instead, we reach a building I’ve never seen before. A corrugated-iron kind of thing.

  As they near the entrance, the men drop me to stagger forward, a hand under each of my armpits, half dragging me through the door. A great trail of blood follows behind.

  “Megan!” the Prophet shouts. He sounds nervous.

  A woman emerges who I’d only ever seen a ways off in the Homestead, standing by the Prophet. She has her hair all brushed up in a high crown. Her eyes widen when she sees the puddle I’ve made.

  “Bring her in.” She gestures to a bed. “You’ve been a bad girl,” she says, shaking her head as she pulls on green latex gloves. “You’re hemorrhaging,” she adds.

  I groan and lean over. The pain is white hot, circling my pelvis.

  When the men have gone, she loads up a syringe and pushes it into my arm.

  “It’ll be over quickly. Better you don’t feel it,” she says. “Lord knows you’ll suffer enough when you’re married.”

  A golden feeling of warmth floods through me. I feel euphoric, light as air. The pain has gone. I smile as my legs are put into stirrups, drifting away. In my dreams, I’m kissing a cute boy I know from the schoolhouse. Then I wake up, and something is happening downstairs. That’s when I see the Prophet, leaning over me, frowning.

  “Why is she making noises like that?” he asks Aunt Meg.

  I hadn’t realized I’d been making noises.

  “It’s the morphine,” she tells him. “She doesn’t know what she’s doing. With miscarriages, it can feel a little like husband and wife relations.”

  That’s when I feel something cold slip free of me. They both sorta boggle, looking at something in between my legs. Aunt Meg recovers first.

  “I’ll get a box,” she says quietly.

  I fall asleep watching her carry away the blue shoebox, toward the door of the basement.

  When I wake up again, I’m so hot I think I must be in hell. My sheets are soaked through with sweat.

  The bloodstained prairie dress is at eye level.

  “You’ve got an infection,” Aunt Meg tells me. “Placenta didn’t come all the way out. That’s why you smell so nasty down there. I’m gonna try to extract what’s left, but it’s gonna hurt. Not much can be done about it. He doesn’t want you to have any more morphine. Thinks it’s God’s will you should suffer for your sins.” She shakes her head, doesn’t look at me. “I’m gonna give you a mix of what pain relief I can,” she says quietly. “But it’ll make your head a little strange. Okay?”

  I must have passed out, because the next thing I know, I’m lying next to Melissa. She’s telling me not to fret. All the girls in the clinic have either miscarried or had stillborn babies, she tells me. The Prophet doesn’t want the wider community knowing.

  “He’s protecting the others,” she tells me, her sea-green eyes wide. “Doesn’t want them to know how some of the babies turn out.”

  We both look across the room. Aunt Meg is leading a girl toward the basement.

  “She’s one of His wives,” Melissa explains. “It’s one of the Prophet’s secret ways. Leads back to the house.”

  That’s when I realize there is a way out through the basement.

  Chapter Ninety-Five

  Tina, Sister-Wife

  I’m gettin’ an idea what it must have been like to be Rachel. The first wife. Here at the ranch barefoot and alone, with nothing but a million miles of desert and a man who comes back at sundown. Maybe I would have tried to get some company too.

  I look around the small farmhouse. The tiny couch we all crammed onto, listening to Blake’s ideas on scripture. He had a way of talkin’ to all of us where you just felt what he was sayin’ was only for you. Like he could see your soul or somethin’.

  Eve was Adam’s companion. His helper. His comfort. His friend.

 
; Tears are running down my cheeks. I climb up the creaky little ladder to what counts as our second story. Like a loft with three separate compartments, one larger than the others to fit a double bed, and a narrow walkway connecting them all at the front.

  I pull open the door to the master bedroom, which is thicker than the other two—a secondhand find of Blake’s after Rachel mentioned the noise. Inside is a double bed, touching the wall on two sides, and a bedside table where Blake kept my underwear and other private items.

  Eve was the temptress. The fallen. The seduced.

  I look at that bed for a long time. When I go back down the ladder, I have this real peculiar sensation, like I’m one of those Rubik’s Cube games and someone has switched my feelings all around into different places.

  Eve gave in to her desires. She tasted forbidden fruit. But Adam never gave up on her, though she cast them from paradise. He protected her and loved her always.

  I can see us all, clear as if we were back there. Hanging onto Blake’s every word. He had such conviction, I’d always promise myself to do better. Believe deeper. It never quite stuck.

  At sunset when we heard his car approach, Rachel would start smoothing down her clothing, ready to greet him at the door. I’d get that butterflies feeling. Emily got twitchy, like she didn’t know where to sit. Then he’d come in the door, and the house would just explode with this feeling. Like we’d all been filled up.

  But there was always something missing too.

  I wander to the pantry, open the door. As expected, it’s filled with neat and pretty jars. There are sweet corn and green beans, zucchini and carrots. There’s a selection of gray-looking meat. Cheap cuts. Shin and brisket, collar and skirt, all labeled and arranged by type.

  I push around at the back looking for jam and jelly, since I have a sweet tooth, but can’t see anything. The lower shelf is higher and contains all the large three-gallon jars. These are filled with potatoes and sugar beets. High-calorie choices, and I notice she’s arranged them four at a time. One each.

  Love for Rachel flushes through me. All this time, I was kicking against her being controlling and repressed. The whole while, she was quietly storing enough food for all of us when the apocalypse comes. Not complaining, just loving us all in the best way she knew, without asking anything in return.