The Prophet Calls

by Melanie Sumrow

  Mother clears her throat and nods. “Yes, of course. Please forgive me.”

  The politeness returns to Pearline’s face. “All right then. Your room is this way.”

  Mother lowers her head and follows, trailed by Amy and me. Pearline keeps talking about schedules for the laundry and cooking, and I soon tune her out. I glance into the rooms as we pass. There are at least four beds in each. By the fifth or sixth room, I hear, “Psst.” I stop and hear it again. “Psst, psst.”

  A pair of boys runs past me and knocks into my shoulder without stopping. I rub my arm and look backward.

  “Come here,” a girl’s voice whispers. “I want to talk to you.”

  I back up until I see her. She has light-blond hair, almost white. She smiles. “Come here.”

  I smile, grateful to meet someone friendly and about my age. But when I get to the door, she slams it in my face. Cruel laughter erupts inside the room.

  I knead my lips and turn to find Mother and Amy. But they’re already gone. Most of the doors are closed. Where did they go?

  “They’re in there,” a boy says, peeking out of his room.

  I hesitate and then point to a closed door. “Here?”

  He nods.

  I open the door, and suddenly someone shoves my back, pushing me inside. The door slams behind me, trapping me in the dark. I hear a click. Giggles fade down the hallway. My fingers find the doorknob, but it’s no use. It’s locked. Familiar panic seizes me. My hand slaps against the door. I try the doorknob again and push and pull. “Help.” My heart races. “Help me! Please.” My fingernails scrape the wood.

  In an instant, the door flies open and I fall to the hall floor, landing next to a pair of boy’s shoes.

  “Are you all right?” he asks.

  I brush the tears from my cheeks and quickly look up.

  He’s a little taller now, but his dark hair flops across his forehead like it always has.

  It can’t be him. Meryl said he’s supposed to be in hiding with his family. “Channing?”

  13.

  Awakened by nightmares of slamming doors, tight spaces, and darkness, I can’t really sleep. I carefully edge away from Amy and toss the blanket from my legs, letting my eyes adjust to the unfamiliar room. A slant of pale moonlight streams through the window and touches the foot of Mother’s bed. I check again. Still no trunk.

  I have to get my violin. But where is it?

  The house is quiet. I slip on my boots and tiptoe across the carpet in yesterday’s clothes before moving into the long hallway. I hold my breath as I pass a series of closed doors, snores issuing from some of the bedrooms.

  Moonlight from a small overhead window washes the stairway with a bluish glow. I creep down the steep stairs, careful to hold on to the log walls so I don’t trip. When I reach the first floor, I retrace my steps from the night before, hoping the boys left my trunk by the front door. But it’s not there.

  I clench and unclench my fists and move into the living room with all the pictures on the wall. The fire is down to embers and ashes. The family groupings stare at me. Even though it’s mostly dark, I can still see the pale flesh of the Prophet. I shiver and search the floor. Still, no trunk.

  Out of nowhere, a flash of movement catches my eye. I gasp as a darkened figure comes closer. And then turns on a small lamp.

  “What are you doing down here?” Channing whispers.

  I manage to breathe, slowing my heart. Until I see what he’s carrying. “What are you doing with that?”

  He clasps my violin case to his chest. “Hiding it.”

  “You went through my trunk?” I ask, my voice beginning to rise with anger.

  Channing covers his mouth with a finger, shushing me. “There was a raid a while back,” he whispers. “The God Squad took anything that had to do with music and burned it.”

  My heart sinks. “We had that in Watchful, too.” And then my cheeks heat all over again. “You went through my trunk?”

  “The God Squad will search it in a few hours anyway. You got here so late, I didn’t have time to tell you last night. I was going to hide it and tell you later.”

  “Still,” I say, grateful to him but also suddenly embarrassed, realizing he touched my sacred underwear.

  “You can come with me if you want,” he says, gesturing to the front door. “But we have to go now. People will be getting up soon.”

  I nod, and he smiles before turning off the lamp.

  “Let me grab my coat,” I say, and rush to yank it off the hook and then join him at the front door.

  The chill outside is immediate. My breath forms a cloud in front of my face as I look left and right. “Where’s the guard?” I ask.

  Channing shakes his head. “He doesn’t come back until after sunup. The God Squad almost always stays along the fence at night.”

  We walk away from the house, the snow crunching beneath our boots.

  “I can take that,” I say, pointing to my violin case.

  He stops for a second and holds his arm out straight. I reach for the handle and his hand accidentally brushes against mine. “Uh, sorry,” he says, awkwardly shoving his hand inside his pocket as if he’s cold, even though I can feel the warmth of his hand on the handle. My cheeks flush a little.

  “This way,” he says, and keeps moving toward a grove of tall bare trees. Inside the thicket, pockets of moonlight make the snow glow at our feet. The gray bark on the trees is peeling all around us. “Where are we going?”

  Channing steps over a fallen branch. “The barn’s on the other side of the river.”

  I step over the branch, too. “We’re going to hide my violin in a barn?”

  He stops, one eyebrow raised. “You’ve got a better idea?”

  I press my lips together and shake my head.

  Channing turns and resumes walking. “I’m usually the only one who goes in there. I feed and water the animals. Milk the cows.”

  “Aren’t you worried you’ll get into trouble for helping me?”

  Channing releases a dry laugh. “I’m already in trouble. I thought you knew the Prophet sent me here for reform.”

  I shake my head, remembering how Channing was at school one day and then vanished the next without saying good-bye. When I asked Mother about it, she said the Prophet sent his family to pray for us in the mountains. It didn’t make much sense at the time, but I kept sweet and didn’t press. “What happened?”

  “You mean why did I get sent here?”

  I nod as we continue walking, the snow collapsing beneath our boots.

  “You remember how I was getting sent to Uncle Max’s office a lot before I left?”

  “I remember the bruises,” I say and then shrink inside my coat, knowing we’re not supposed to talk about those things.

  A thin branch blocks our path at eye level. Channing stops for a second and grabs hold, snapping it off in one motion. “Things weren’t making as much sense as they used to.” He starts tapping the trees’ trunks with the broken-off branch as we pass them.

  “Like what?” I ask.

  “Like how can we be the only ones to have all the answers? And why would God create the outsiders just so He can destroy them?”

  I clutch the handle on my case tighter, knowing exactly what he means. I used to feel special that God chose me—me of all people—to be saved. But after everything that’s happened these last few months with my family, and after meeting outsiders who were nothing like I’d been taught, it’s becoming harder and harder to believe everything I’m told.

  “Uncle Max didn’t like it much, so he sent me here for reform at the same time he threw out my dad and sent the rest of my family into hiding.” Channing stops tapping the trees and starts dragging the stick through the snow, leaving a squiggly line between our footprints. “The idea is to work me so hard, I can’t find any time to get into trouble.”

  I lift my violin case. “Looks like you’re still finding time.”

  Channing chuckles to h
imself. “Yeah, I guess.”

  “So where’s the rest of your family?”

  He shrugs. “Don’t know. I think my mother and brothers and sisters are somewhere in the mountains of Colorado.” He shakes his head. “Uncle Hyram says if I keep up the good work, I’ll get to see them again real soon.”

  “That’s great,” I say.

  “Yeah,” Channing agrees. He stops; his eyes go wide. He quickly turns his head. I hear it, too: the crunch of footsteps quickly approaching.

  “God Squad,” Channing whispers, urging me to duck behind a tree. My pulse throbs inside my ears. Channing raises his stick.

  And then I see her blond hair in the moonlight. “Amy?” I say, lowering my violin case to the snow. I run to my sister.

  “Are we exploring?” she asks with a sense of adventure in her voice.

  I nod. “Something like that,” I say and zip her coat. “How’d you find us?”

  She points at the snow, her breath fogging in front of her face. “Footprints, silly.”

  I smile. “You’re the smartest person I know.”

  “Don’t you forget it,” she says.

  “Channing’s showing me a place to hide my violin,” I say, thumbing toward him. “It’s super secret. You want to come?”

  She smiles as I tug her toward Channing.

  When we reach him, he drops the stick he’s still holding.

  “You remember Amy, don’t you?” I say.

  Channing nods. “What are you doing up so early?”

  Amy juts out her jaw. “I’m not up any earlier than you.”

  I grin. “She’s got a point, you know?”

  He looks a little surprised, like he’s never had two girls challenge him. Then he shrugs. “Let’s keep moving then.”

  I retrieve my violin case from the snow and follow them through the grove. “These look like good climbing trees,” Amy says, pointing to the branches overhead.

  “They all look like good climbing trees to you,” I tease.

  “That’s true,” she says as we exit the thicket and reach a wooden bridge.

  Channing cautiously steps onto the bridge. “Careful, it’s icy,” he warns.

  Amy is right behind him, holding out her arms as she keeps her balance. I’m behind her when she squeals, “Gentry, look!”

  From the corner of my eye, I see a streak of white hopping along the frozen river.

  “Wow, even I have trouble spotting those,” Channing says to Amy. “You must have really good eyes.”

  Amy pushes up her glasses with a nod.

  Channing lifts a finger. “Do you know what kind of rabbit it is?” The rabbit continues to hop along the river, leaving small prints in the snow, until it disappears in the brush.

  “A white one?” Amy answers.

  Channing and I smile at each other.

  “That’s true for now,” he says, “but in the summertime, he’s brown.”

  Amy looks doubtful.

  “It’s true, he’s a snowshoe hare. His fur turns white in the winter. It’s camouflage to protect him from predators.”

  “Now that’s smart,” Amy says.

  Channing nods. “Very.” He points to the place the rabbit disappeared. “I think his house is in there somewhere.”

  “Ooo,” Amy says, clapping her hands together. “Can we go find him? Please.”

  “Later,” I say. “We need to hide my violin first.”

  Her disappointment is obvious, but she soon nods and follows Channing the rest of the way across the bridge.

  We reach the other side of the river, where it has been mostly cleared of trees. The snow is thicker here. My legs sink with each step as I struggle to keep my violin out of the snow. More and more ice crystals stick to the outer layer of my socks and chill my ankles.

  Overhead, clouds ease across the moon; a shadow slips across the barn that sits a ways off from where we walk.

  “Look at the lines,” Amy says, pointing to a set of tire tracks cutting through the snow behind the barn. The tracks curve and cross in the open field between the barn and the woods beyond.

  I stop short while Channing and Amy continue to waddle forward and scan the trees in the distance. When I squint, I spot a metal cattle gate blocking a narrow road that cuts through the woods, and then a black truck parked next to the gate. It must be the truck that left the tracks. My grip tightens on my violin case. God Squad.

  I’m about to tell Amy to stop when Channing looks over his shoulder. “It’s not them.”

  My sister spins around. When she notices I’m not following, she runs toward me, the snow crunching with each footfall. Amy pushes her glasses up her nose. “You okay?” she asks and then follows my gaze to the truck. She gasps.

  “It’s not them,” Channing repeats as he nears. “It’s the truck Uncle Hyram has me use for chores.”

  I eye him, unsure.

  “You know, for moving bales of hay and chopped logs. Getting gas for the equipment.” He shrugs. “That sort of thing.”

  I gesture toward the gate. “And the road?” I ask, worried the God Squad could be hiding in the woods.

  Channing quickly shakes his head. “The road is impassable this time of year.” He smiles reassuringly. “Don’t worry, I do this every morning. We’re the only ones out here,” he says, and resumes his march toward the barn.

  Amy tugs on my coat sleeve. “I’m sure it’s fine if he says it is.” She follows him.

  “You sure?” I ask, but neither of them answers. They’re almost there.

  I take a quick breath and hurry to catch up to them. We enter a corral, where horses probably graze in the summertime, and wobble side to side in the enveloping snow, inching toward the barn.

  Channing slides open the door and gestures for us to go inside. But it’s too dark. My body tenses.

  “You first,” I say, my voice wary.

  He enters the darkness, so dark it swallows him in an instant.

  I can hear him walking across something loose, like hay. There’s a tiny spark of light from a match, followed by the smell of sulfur. And then a lantern flickers, breaking the darkness and lighting the freckles on Channing’s face. He moves across to the other side of the barn and lights a second lantern. And a third and a fourth before he blows out the match.

  Amy runs inside toward a pair of milking cows. “Wow. Look at them!”

  “You don’t have to stand out there,” Channing says, and I realize I’m still standing frozen—literally frozen—in the threshold.

  Once inside, I shut the door, allowing the warmth to surround me like a thick blanket. My skin tingles as it begins to defrost.

  Channing tears off his coat and hangs it on a hook by the horses’ stalls. “So why are you so afraid of the dark?”

  “I’m not afraid of the dark.”

  “You sure?” Channing says, tilting his head. “You were pretty upset when they put you in the closet last night, and just now, you wouldn’t even come in until I lit the lanterns.” He opens a plastic garbage bin that’s full of oats. “I figured you were afraid of the dark.”

  “It’s not the dark,” I say, my jaw tight.

  He takes a shovel full of oats and dumps them into a bucket, hanging the bucket of feed on a post where the horse can reach. “Then what is it?”

  Amy pats the neck of one of the cows.

  Sweat dampens the back of my neck. “Can we talk about something else?” I ask and place my violin case on a bale of hay before removing my coat.

  To my surprise, he nods and turns to Amy. “Would you like to feed them?”

  My shoulders relax; Amy nods excitedly.

  “Okay, that’s this blue bin over here,” he says, opening the lid on another container. “I’ll put some in their pen in a minute, but you can start feeding them by hand while I finish with the horses.”

  Amy forms a shovel with both hands. She pushes her fingers into the feed mixture and draws out her hands, dropping bits of grain across the ground as she walks over to
the pair of cows. “Here you go,” she says, and the first one begins to eat from her hand, its thick tongue slobbering all over her.

  She giggles, and I can’t help but laugh.

  “That tickles,” she says.

  Channing returns to the horses’ feed. “You’re doing great.”

  “What can I do?” I ask.

  Without looking at me, Channing says, “You can play for us.” He shovels another bucketful of grain.

  “But I’m not supposed—”

  “To play,” he says, finishing my sentence. “I know, but don’t you miss it?”

  “Do I miss it?” Not as much as I miss the rest of my family, but almost. “What if they hear?”

  Channing shakes his head. “Don’t worry. We’re too far away. They won’t.”

  “But what if they come—”

  “I already told you I’m the only one who comes out here.”

  Amy’s hands take another dive into the feed bin. “I miss hearing you play,” she adds as she carefully moves over to the second cow, bits of grain slipping through her fingers. “It might make our work go faster if you do.”

  Channing nods with a sly grin. “I agree. Instead of standing around doing nothing, I think it would be of help if you’d play for us. You know ‘idle hands are the devil’s workshop,’” he says, quoting the Prophet, but in a way I’d never heard before: in complete jest.

  Shocked, I laugh and then quickly cover my mouth.

  “Please,” Amy says.

  My heart beats with possibility. “If-if I did play, what would you want to hear?”

  “‘Swallow Tail Jig.’” Amy wipes cow spit across her dress. “Definitely.”

  I shake out my hands and move over to my case, opening it. The honey-colored wood gleams in the low light of the lanterns. Before I can change my mind, I wrap my fingers under the neck and pull it from the velvet. I tuck it under my arm and pluck the strings, turning the pegs to tune each one. Then I grab the bow and place the violin under my chin.

  Suddenly, I feel whole again. Like an arm I’ve been missing for months has been sewn back on.

  I place my bow on the string and hear Tanner’s voice in my head: Remember, key of D. Good, clean bow strokes.