Malignant gray clouds grumbled in baritone timbre from the peak of Mount Horning. The hawk cried again, circled in one last long arc, then rushed against the face of the mountain and dived. It flapped its wings, slowed, and came to rest in its crag nest, invisible from sight. A flash of lightning vaulted across the tortured sky and serrated the tops of the clouds with a parry of electricity as erratic and unpredictable as the thrust of a madman’s dagger.
“We’d best be heading back,” Fallon said. He watched as the mountaintop disappeared beneath the irritated clouds. “Looks like it’s going to pour.”
A fat droplet of rainwater christened Virgil’s neck as he leaned over. “You grab the rifles,” he said. “I can manage the tools by myself.”
He slipped his hammer into his belt, lifted the wire stretcher to one shoulder, the sledgehammer to the other. Together they walked up the hill. In the distance they could see the others preparing to seek shelter from the oncoming thunderstorm. Blessing was playing hide-and-seek among billowing sails of tablecloths, bedsheets, shirts, pants and linens as her mother fought against the roiling wind and splattering raindrops to remove the items from the laundry line.
“Boo!” Sky teased as she pulled down a bed sheet. Blessing laughed with glee every time she was discovered, then ran further down the clothesline only to be enveloped by another wind-shorn hiding place. With the last sheet pulled down and the game finally over, Virgil heard Blessing cry out.
“Mommy, look! Daddy’s home!”
Virgil tossed the tools to the ground, dropped to his knees, spread his arms and said, “Three... two... one!”
Blessing ran as fast as her little legs could carry her, then threw herself into her father’s open arms in a revelry of high-pitched laughter.
“Gotcha!” Virgil laughed. “Hi baby,” he said. “How’s my angel?”
“I’m fine, Daddy. I helped Mommy take in the laundry.”
“Helped? Really? It looked to me like Mommy was doing all the work out there.”
“I was supersizing.”
“You were what?”
“Supersizing.”
“You mean supervising.”
“That’s what I said. Supersizing.”
Virgil laughed. “Come on, baby. Let’s get you inside before it pours. What do you say, King of the Mountain?”
“Okay!”
“All right. Climb aboard!”
Virgil leaned over as Blessing squirmed her legs around her father’s neck and laced her fingers under his chin.
“Ready?”
“Ready!”
“Okay. Up we go!”
Virgil picked up the tools at his feet and wrapped his arms around his daughter’s legs, balancing her on his shoulders as he stood.
“Prophet wants to have a meeting tonight,” Fallon said as they walked toward the compound. “Says he has some important news we need to hear.”
“Did he say what it was about?”
Fallon shook his head. “No. Just that it was important. And that we all need to be there.”
“What time?”
“After supper. In Communion Hall, around nine.”
“All right. I’ll tell Sky.” Virgil motioned to their Brethren brothers and sisters still tending to the fields despite the ominous thunderhead rumbling above. “Perhaps you can tell the others.”
Fallon grunted his acknowledgement, then walked off toward the fields. They had said more to each other in the last five minutes than they had all day, which was fine with Virgil. Something about Fallon always made him feel uneasy. The man was not physically overwhelming, nor did he possess an intimidating presence. In fact, the opposite was true. Fallon was weak in appearance, with a jaundice look that stretched itself over a frame of skin and bones. But it was his eyes Virgil found most unsettling. They were cold, caliginous. Earlier, while Fallon held the fence post in place for him to stretch and staple to it the last section of wire, Virgil had to break his gaze. Looking into his eyes was like staring into a soulless entity, darkly gifted, absent of emotion, and capable of fulfilling the blackest acts.
As Virgil dropped his tools outside the doors to the supply room, Blessing scrambled down from her father’s shoulders and ran to her mother.
“Did you finish the fence?” Sky asked as she set down the clothesbasket and tied her long blond hair into a ponytail.
“Yep. Every inch.”
“And I suppose Fallon was his usual mix of effervescent personality and irresistible charm?”
Virgil nodded. “If the man ever broke a smile, I swear he’d shatter into a million pieces.”
Sky wrapped her arms around her husband. “Be careful around him, okay? Don’t ask me why, but I don’t trust him. Not at all.”
“I know what you mean,” Virgil replied. “We were out there since sunrise, and the only time he spoke to me was when I spoke to him first. That’s plain strange.” Virgil shrugged. “Maybe it’s just me. Prophet doesn’t seem to have a problem with him, so I guess he’s all right.”
“Now that you mention Prophet, has he seemed a little different to you recently?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s just that for the last two weeks, other than leading us in prayer at supper, he hasn’t so much as left his room.”
“So?”
“That doesn’t strike you as a little odd?”
Virgil shrugged. “What Prophet does with his time is up to him, Sky. He doesn’t owe us an explanation.”
“I suppose you’re right. I’m probably just overreacting.”
“You have a habit of doing that, you know,” Virgil teased.
“Very funny,” Sky replied.
26
AS THE BREWING storm grumbled a last-minute warning, fierce raindrops hammered down around them, each droplet drumming off the ground harder and louder than the last. Virgil and Sky watched as the others ran to the adjoining buildings for shelter while Fallon walked through the field behind them, taking one slow step after the next, as though the rain would not dare to be bold enough to soak him to the skin. Or perhaps, Virgil thought, the idea of having to expend energy to run for cover from the now torrential downpour was an utterly foreign concept to him.
Set a half mile in from the main road, the Brethren compound was comprised of six large buildings spread over several acres. Three served as sleeping quarters for the eight families, although they could easily have accommodated eighty. The fourth building was used to house supplies, farming implements, and general-purpose tools. It had been decided by Fallon, and agreed to by all, that the fifth building would be for Prophet’s exclusive use; a token of thanks for his guidance and leadership. The last and largest of the buildings, with its floor-to-ceiling windows, many of which still suffered broken panes of glass, was named Communion Hall. It was here that they would gather with their families for breakfast in the morning and dinner in the evening. Pack lunches were prepared at breakfast to ensure a more productive day. Daily work assignments were given out after breakfast along with the lunches: a simple fare of fruit, raw vegetables, a sandwich, and a bottle of water. Breakfast was served promptly at six o’clock in the morning and dinner at eight in the evening, with thirty minutes of prayer following each meal. Restoring the buildings and cleaning up the property was proving to be a long and arduous task. Virgil had often thought that the decrepit buildings should simply have been torn down and rebuilt. Instead, he and the others endured the drafty windows and boarded up doors, preferring to look upon their new home as a work in progress, knowing whatever they needed to do to make it livable they would, because they would do it together, unlike the outside world, where nothing was done for the good of the many but only selfishly to benefit the few. Amid amber wisps of trampled grass and wildflowers, a broken artery of crumbled asphalt connected the buildings. It too would eventually be repaired. They could put up with cracked roads, broken windowpanes, and boarded up doors for the time being. They had discovered the true value of the land was not
in the buildings, but in the earth upon which they stood. The soil had proven to be a fertile tract, perfect for growing vegetables. Selling part of their harvest in town at the farmers’ market, they used their profits to pay for whatever supplies were needed, including purchasing the building materials required to make repairs to the property. Yard goods and farming implements were acquired from a nearby Quaker community who understood their need for self-reliance and offered them whatever they required in exchange for their crops. With a little instruction from the Quakers, some women came to realize a previously undiscovered talent for knitting and sewing and would spend days each week perfecting their skills by making simple clothes, quilts, and bed covers. Their abundant crop yields also bought them lumber from the local mill. When the fields were not being worked, the men turned planks of wood, studs, doweling and nails into bunk beds, window and door frames, banquet tables, chairs, furniture, shelves, and storage cabinets. Lacking electricity, kerosene lamps were mounted on walls and placed on tables in the common room of each building. The responsibility for the lighting of the lamps at dusk and the extinguishing of their flames in the evening was a duty assigned on a rotating basis. This week that duty fell to Virgil.
Sky had taken Blessing inside to bathe and change her as Virgil made his rounds between the buildings, lighting each lamp as he went, setting their wicks to a warm, radiant glow. Soon, each building was aglow in the orange-yellow cast of welcoming lamplight.
His task completed, Virgil left Communion Hall and walked back to his building. The waning chroma of the harvest moon painted the wet asphalt a glimmering topaz. The day had been long and hard, and Virgil was thinking only of spending the rest of the evening with his wife and daughter. Walking past the building that served as Prophet’s residence, he heard angry voices through the cracked glass pane in the second-story window. Ghostly silhouettes glided about the room. Virgil stepped into the shadows at the foot of the building and listened to the conversation. Others were in the room with Prophet, and for reasons unknown, their presence made him feel uneasy. He waited and listened. The voices became clearer. He recognized them immediately. The first was that of Fallon. The second was Prophet’s sister, Cassandra.
“What about the girl?” Prophet asked.
“She’s an unnecessary risk!” Fallon yelled. “Can’t you understand that?”
“No, she’s not,” Prophet replied calmly. “Not anymore. Her past life means nothing to her. This is the life she now knows. I see no reason for you to concern yourself with her.”
Virgil looked up. Lamp-cast shadows swirled about the room. Floorboards creaked under the weight of phantom footfalls.
Cassandra spoke. “Think about what Fallon is telling you, Joseph. Maybe he has a point.”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“For God’s sake, Cassandra,” Fallon yelled. “You better talk some sense into him, because it’s obvious that I can’t!”
“Calm down, both of you!” Cassandra said firmly.
Having retreated to neutral corners, the shadows stopped moving. A hush fell over the room. Virgil pressed his back against the wall, as though the sudden infusion of silence had the supernatural power to pour out of the crack in the window, trickle down the side of the building, manifest itself into a pool of brilliant light and reveal his presence.
Cassandra continued her mediation.
“I understand how you feel, Joseph. If I had been through what you had, I might have done the same thing myself.”
“She poses no threat to us,” Prophet said angrily. “None.”
“You don’t know that for certain,” Fallon countered.
“We have nothing to fear from her, Fallon. If we did, I’d know it. You’re getting yourself worked up over nothing.”
“Is that so? Then how do you explain this?”
A dull thud. Something fell. Virgil couldn’t see into the room. He could only hear the dampened sounds and muted voices emanating from the animated shadows above.
Prophet picked up the folded community newspaper from the table beneath the window where Fallon had tossed it.
“What is it?” Cassandra said.
Prophet feigned disinterest, then handed the newspaper to his sister, “Just a picture taken at the University campus.”
Cassandra opened the paper and examined the photograph. She looked puzzled. She turned to Fallon. “A reporter took a picture of us handing out a few pieces of paper,” she said. “What’s the harm in that? No one was named, and no one spoke to the press.”
“It’s who they photographed that’s important, not what they said,” Fallon replied.
“What do you mean?”
Fallon snatched the newspaper out of Cassandra’s hands. He stabbed an accusing finger at the picture and pointing to a girl in the background handing a leaflet to a passing student.
“That’s Amanda! Damn it, Prophet! I thought we agreed she would never take part in recruiting missions. We’ve had a hard enough time concealing her identity. As far as I’m concerned, you should have killed her after you killed her parents. If the police or the FBI recognize her picture, we’re in for a world of hurt. And trust me, it’s all going to fall on you. They’ll start looking for her again. Only this time they won’t stop until they find her, because they’ll know for certain that she’s alive. And they will find her. That means they’ll find us, and I’m not about to let that happen!”
27
VOICES COMING FROM the distance.
On the approach.
Getting closer.
Virgil remained cloaked in the shadows. He tried desperately to remain calm and not panic and run. The building grounds that surrounded him were bare, altogether devoid of shrubs or trees, and offered no place to hide. Remaining statue-still against the side of building would do nothing to hide his presence. He had to take a chance, to step out of the shadows and into view. Surely they would recognize him, and naturally they would want to strike up a conversation. What if they did so within earshot of Prophet’s window? Virgil knew if he had been able to hear the dimmed conversation through the cracked window, they would be able to hear him as well. What if Prophet or Fallon, worried their discussion had been overheard, came to the window? They would want to know who was outside and how long they had been standing there. They would suspect their secret was no longer safe. It wasn’t, of course. Virgil would have to tell Sky what he had overheard tonight. He needed her rational mind to help him think this through and make sense of it all. Where Virgil’s decisions in life were unreliably dictated by emotion, Sky’s were ruled according to the calm, collected tenets of unbiased logic.
Virgil chose his steps carefully. He crept alongside the wall until he had made his way to the corner of the building. Challenged now by the near absence of moonlight and the unaccustomed terrain beneath his feet, he stopped and peered around the corner.
No one in sight.
He knew he could make it sight unseen to Communion Hall with a quick sprint. He could let himself in through the unlocked back door, come out the front, and no one would be any the wiser. He heard the voices, growing louder now, as they approached the road in front of Prophet’s. Their arrival was well timed. It would provide him with the misdirection he needed to make good his escape.
He wanted to run, to take advantage of the marginal window of opportunity that had presented itself. Instead, fear rooted his feet to the ground.
Movement within the building again.
The resumed creaking of floorboards.
Descending.
Someone was coming down the back stairs.
Virgil tore free of the emotional snare that anchored him in place and raced across the grounds to Communion Hall.
Thirty yards…
Lamplight from the back door of Prophet’s building illuminated the ground behind him. He picked up his pace, desperate to outrun the light and remain cloaked in the allied darkness of night.
Fifteen yards…
Closing on Communion
Hall, he heard the creaking of unoiled hinges as Prophet’s door fell shut.
Mere feet away…
As he raced around the corner of Communion Hall, Virgil was blindsided by the black wall of night. He tripped over a pile of discarded lumber carelessly stacked at the back of the building. Pain gripped his leg mid-flight and exploded from his shin, as though it had been severed at the knee. He crashed to the ground, drew his wounded leg tightly to his chest, and rolled on his side until his back met the safe refuge of the wall. He bit down and ground his teeth to displace the writhing pain that racked his body. He released the pressure of his hand against the wound, then rolled up the leg of his jeans to examine the cleave in his skin. The gash was narrow and deep but appeared to be a clean cut. If he could get back to his room quickly before the bleeding began, Sky could treat it with a basic first aid kit, even stitch the wound if necessary. Right now, however, keeping out of sight was his main priority. He had fallen hard over the woodpile, his wounded leg evidence of that, and no doubt the clattering of the falling logs would have been heard. As his eyes slowly adjusted to the waning light of the moon, he noticed a thin strip of plastic used to hold the stacks of wooden planks together during transport from the mill laying on the woodpile. He wiped the band with his shirt, placed the plastic strip above the wound, and tied it tightly until he could no longer feel the pain in his leg. Using the wall for support, he struggled to his feet and tested the ability of his injured leg to support him. Slowly, he transferred his weight from his right foot to his left and took a tentative step forward. His gimp leg buckled at the knee. He clawed at the building as he fell, clutched a rusted metal downspout for support, then slumped to his side as a second wave of pain erupted from the wound. He pulled up his pant leg and assessed the damage. The plastic band which he had tied securely in place to reduce the circulation of blood to the wound had shifted as he lost his balance, slid down his leg, and lodged itself in the open gash. Blood poured freely now. Its warm sticky ooze coated the narrow plastic strip. He tried to grip the plastic and manipulate it free of the wound. Instead, it slipped in his wet fingers and cut deeper still. The makeshift tourniquet had proven to be useless. Virgil grimaced as pulses of hot pain radiated from the wound. Finally, he untied the plastic strip and threw it aside.
The Vanishing Page 8
