The thumping in her heart traveled to her head, pounding in her temples. She didn’t want to choose a gun, but she couldn’t disappoint the people who heralded her as a prophet, the ones she was supposed to lead. “I guess this one.” She picked up a shotgun that looked like it was made for a child and adjusted the strap uncertainly over her shoulder. Even through her jacket the metal was cold as death, a reminder of how out of control things had gotten, how much easier it would have been to speak up before it came to this. Before it turned into a war.
The room broke into spontaneous applause, and Daphne felt chilly sweat dapple her forehead, her mouth go dry.
“Now what?” Pastor Ted turned to her, and she realized they were all looking at her, waiting for her to speak. To lead.
“Okay.” She gulped hard. “We believe that Janie’s with the Children of the Earth, up at the Vein. We go up there, and we go in together, as a group. But . . . we talk to them first. We try to talk to Janie, to let her know how much we love her. That we’re her community. That we’re here for her.”
“What if she doesn’t want to come?” someone asked.
“Then we take her.” The words sounded harsh and ugly in her ears. “Floyd and Doug and Pastor Ted, you’ll be the ones to do it. Take her by the arms, put her in the car, and take her home. And be careful; The Children of the Earth have powers. Luna, the one with the dreadlocks, can get inside your head. But I bet if we’re all in it together, we’ll be too much for her.”
The room filled with angry murmurs.
“When do we open fire?” someone shouted. An appreciative roar went up in response, along with loud cries of agreement.
“We don’t,” Daphne said curtly. “The weapons are just for show. We shoot only in self-defense, only if our lives are being threatened.”
She ignored the disappointed rumblings and turned abruptly, stomping toward the door. “Now let’s get going,” she commanded. “We don’t have a lot of time.”
The makeshift army followed her up the stairs and into the sinking sunlight. She watched from Floyd’s rearview mirror as they piled into a phalanx of church vans, weapons slung over their shoulders, boxes of ammo tucked into their pockets or strung in belts across their chests. The mountains loomed in the distance, dark and silent sentries standing guard over the valley.
“I never imagined it would come to this,” Floyd said quietly. He started the truck and led the convoy down the road and up into the hills, his fingers a bloodless white on the wheel, the twin rifles resting in his lap. “I know the tablet said there would be a battle, but I guess I didn’t think it would be this . . . literal.”
Daphne stayed silent, the words shifting uneasily in her gut. None of this felt right, but neither did losing Owen. She couldn’t lose Janie, too.
The Vein’s sign glowered down at them, red and ominous atop its towering twin poles. Just looking at it made Daphne feel sick and lost, angry at this place and these people for robbing her of those she loved the most. She ran a hand down the length of her gun and wondered, just for a moment, how it would feel to fire it right between Luna’s eyes, how it would feel to end this for good. The thought was almost too tempting. Without Luna, the Children of the Earth would have no leader, no direction. They’d go back to wherever they came from, confused hippies roaming the earth. All it would take was one well-aimed bullet . . .
She yanked her hand from the gun. Killing people couldn’t be the answer. It couldn’t be what God wanted.
Could it?
One by one the church vans pulled in after them, and the Christian youth disembarked, silently adjusting their ammo belts and loading their weapons.
“Ready?” Pastor Ted approached Daphne, a grim determination in his eyes.
She nodded, a desert of fear drying her throat. “Yes,” she whispered.
With Doug, the Peytons, and Pastor Ted at her side, and dozens of armed Christian youth at her back, Daphne approached the front door and pushed against it.
It didn’t budge.
“Weird,” she said, foreboding settling in her stomach. “It’s dusk—they should be open.”
Already the sky was gunmetal gray, blue cirrus clouds clustered over the mountains.
“Try again,” Pastor Ted encouraged her.
Daphne pushed once more, grunting as her shoulder slammed up against the metal.
Still nothing.
She pounded on the door with both fists, the noise echoing through the silent parking lot. “Is anyone in there?” she called. “Janie? Owen? Luna?”
Only silence answered her.
“Okay.” She took a few steps back and raised her gun reluctantly to her shoulder. “I guess we’re doing it this way.”
She squinted at the lock and took a deep breath, her pulse skittering like the wings of a dragonfly. Then she squeezed the trigger.
The shot exploded in her ears, the force propelling her back so that she tripped over her heels and almost landed ass-first in the gravel. She caught herself right before she lost her balance entirely and stood panting and sweating, staring at the smoking hole in the door, right next to the lock.
“What the hell?” she looked around to find Uncle Floyd smirking quietly.
“Never shot a gun before, have you?”
She wiped sweat from her forehead. “We used pepper spray in Detroit.”
“Pepper spray doesn’t have a kickback.”
“Let’s try this again,” she muttered. The crowd held their breath around her, waiting for her next move. Any one of them probably could have shot the lock out on the first try, she realized—they’d been training down in the church’s shooting range, and Doug and the Peytons had grown up hunting. But this was her plan, and she knew they would wait for her to get it right.
This time she expected the kick. She aimed the gun at the lock and steadied her hand, squeezing her finger on the trigger and letting her body absorb the power of the blast. There was the scrape of metal disintegrating and an acrid cloud of smoke, and then the door swung open.
Adrenaline took over as she shouldered the gun and pushed her way into the club, her family and community a solid mass at her back. So that was how it felt to shoot a gun and hit a target, to lead an army. It wasn’t pride, exactly—more like pride’s dark and brooding younger sister, a sense of accomplishment laced with uncertainty.
This was for Janie, she reminded herself.
She stepped across the threshold. The moment her eyes adjusted to the darkness, her heart sank. The Vein was deserted, lights off and chairs stacked neatly on tables.
The Children of the Earth were gone . . . and they had taken Janie with them.
24
JANIE STEPPED OUT OF THE van and onto the mountaintop, the wind making the delicate fabric of her gown cling to her legs and billow out behind her, a sail in the sea of falling darkness. The landscape around her was stunted, ravaged. Little vegetation could grow at this altitude, only small, twisted evergreens and gnarly-rooted scrub.
It was almost time.
She was a rock in the stream of Children of the Earth flowing around her, dredging objects she didn’t recognize from Aura’s van. She looked out across the jagged peaks of the Savage Mountain Range and down the length of the valley to the few sad, stuttering lights that were Carbon County. From the faraway mountaintop the town that had been her world looked insignificant, a postseason string of Christmas lights coiled and forgotten in someone’s garage.
Abilene and Freya swept across the ground, digging their heels into the ashen soil to carve the sacred circle, a circle that would hold them all, with Janie in the middle, the newest initiate, the chosen one.
She’d prepared for this ritual, meditating with Luna and Ciaran, fasting until her body felt as clean and light as the stem of a feather. That morning her Earth Sisters had bathed her in rose water and rubbed her down with spicy, pu
ngent oil, kneading it into her flesh until her muscles sang with pleasure and her skin gleamed. They danced and chanted around her, led by Abilene’s throaty, bluesy alto. They braided her hair with wildflowers and painted her hands with henna designs so tiny and elaborate it looked like the brushes had been made for dolls.
“Are you ready?” Ciaran’s voice was like the kiss of hot bathwater on her winter-chilled skin.
“Yes.” She was more than ready. She wanted to feel the earth move through her feet and stardust settle in her hair the way Luna had described. She was ready to become one of them, one of the Children of the Earth.
It was almost time.
He stood before her and took her hands. “You know you don’t have to do this.”
Warmth coursed through her at his touch, but when she looked in his eyes, she saw concern. He was always thinking of her, always putting her first. She knew that the ritual would be powerful, and that afterward, nothing would be the same. She knew it was a decision that, once made, she could never unmake. She knew that it meant renouncing her friends and family, the life she’d always known and the world she’d always been a part of, forever.
She rose on her tiptoes to brush her lips against his. “I want to do this.” Her breath made mist in the chilly mountain air. “I want to be with you. With all of you.”
Ciaran’s eyes darkened. “But,” he began. His grip on her hands tightened, and he leaned in closer to her, his voice low and urgent. “Janie, there’s something I need to tell you—”
“It’s almost time.” Luna materialized at Ciaran’s elbow, and his lips clamped shut, his eyes glazing over in her presence. Luna had piled her hair into a towering crown held in place with massive steel clips, and she wore a halter dress of red and gold Indian brocade that ended at the tops of her thighs. Bronze gauntlets circled her wrists, held in place by rings around her middle fingers.
She placed her hand on their clasped palms, gentle but firm. The edge of her gauntlet was sharp and cold against Janie’s skin, and she felt a flicker of unease somewhere beneath the layers of calm that had calcified inside her during her days with the Children of the Earth. Something wasn’t right in Ciaran’s tone of voice, the dark cast of his eyes, and the sudden, cold kiss of metal on her skin.
“Janie,” Luna said, her gaze holding and penetrating her, the softness of her name on Luna’s tongue snuffing out her whisper of unease like a candle, leaving only the memory of smoke. Ciaran’s hands dropped limply to his side, and he drifted away, joining the bustling swarm of his Earth Brothers and Sisters. He left Janie and Luna alone, two women who would soon be sisters.
“Janie,” Luna said again, and Janie nodded. The fasting made her slow to react sometimes, made her head feel full of clouds. “Are you ready to do your part?”
“Yes,” she said.
The slow flame of a smile spread across Luna’s face, and embers danced in her eyes. “Then let’s do this,” she said.
The cold bronze of her gauntlet warmed in Janie’s hand as Luna led her past the van and into the center of the circle. Thirteen pairs of emerald eyes followed their progress, and she gazed back at them one after another: Gray and Kimo, Aura and Arrow and Silas and Orion and Cheyenne, Freya and Abilene. Heather looked stunned, as always, like she still couldn’t quite believe what her life had become, and Owen’s eyes twinkled with curiosity, drinking in this still-new way of life. Off to the side, not part of the circle but paying close attention, little Charlie gazed solemnly at her through chocolate-colored eyes. He had come to them seeking shelter when his father disappeared, Luna had explained, and they had taken him in and made him one of their own.
Finally, her gaze found Ciaran, and she realized with a small shock that he was crying. Maybe they were tears of happiness that she would finally become one of them; his empathetic nature made him sensitive that way. Or maybe it was the beautiful solemnity of the ritual, the silence that descended upon the circle as Luna lit a candle and held it aloft, touching its tip to the unlit wick of Owen’s next to her and waiting for him to pass the flame in turn, creating a circle of light that glowed and flickered in the gathering darkness. The sun was a scarlet kiss sinking fast behind the mountains, leaving lipstick smears in its wake, and Janie felt her own eyes grow damp, the granite-heavy power of the ritual stirring her blood.
Circles of candlelight danced on their faces as Luna led them in a series of oms that resonated across the mountain peaks and vibrated at their feet. The sound lingered in Janie’s chest as Luna began to speak, her voice low and hypnotic.
“Tonight, we call upon the Gods of Fire.” The candlelight caught her beneath the chin, casting long shadows over her face. “We call upon them to burn this town to the ground, to right the wrongs we have done to this land, and to serve justice to those who scarred our planet in the pursuit of greed and riches.”
Drumbeats began from the edge of the circle, slow and steady. Janie felt her heartbeat recede to their rhythm, felt it carry her pulse. Her body no longer belonged to her but to them, the drums and the night and the Children of the Earth.
Luna opened her mouth and began to chant.
“Gods of fire, hot and swift,
Bring your flames to heal this rift.
Heal the scars carved in our land
By mankind’s cruel and greedy hand.”
The chant picked up strength as it moved around the circle, mouths yawning open as the drumbeats gathered speed and the words gained momentum, voices bouncing off the stone mountain peaks and echoing back to Janie’s ears.
Still holding their candles, the Children of the Earth began to slowly circle her, their feet a heavy counterpoint to the climbing tenor of their voices. Wind whipped their hair and flung candlelight across their faces, and she felt their energy enter her and fill her with a pulsing, dancing warmth.
Their eyes began to glow, green beams that moved hungrily over her body and set her skin aflame. She was candles and smoke, kindling and heat, a living embodiment of fire. And soon, soon she would be one of them.
Luna stepped forward, a hoop held before her in both hands. A dozen steel spines protruded from it, the ends wrapped in rags that glistened darkly with fresh, wet fuel. Her eyes stayed on Janie’s as she approached, crouching low with each step like a cat hunting her prey, holding the hoop between spikes so that it circled her waist, ready to spin into orbit.
Her boots left soft prints in the snow.
“Now,” she whispered. Janie could smell the fuel rising from each soaked rag, a scent as rich and metallic as blood. Moving as one, the Children of the Earth advanced, still chanting, the threads of their voices weaving a thick web. They held out their arms, each touching a flame to the gas-soaked rags on Luna’s hoop.
Her wicks devoured the flames. Janie gasped as they sucked oxygen hungrily from the air, capering like demons to surround Luna in a circle of fire. Through the haze of heat she saw Luna’s mouth open in laughter, her eyes glow with glee. She had never seen Luna so happy, so alive, as she grasped the hoop and bounced it up and down, making the fire expand into Chinese lanterns in the air.
“Gods of fire, hot and swift,
Bring your flames to heal this rift,”
The Children of the Earth linked arms and danced around her in a circle, clouds of snow swirling at their feet. The flames of their candles had grown bigger and brighter, as if touching them to Luna’s hoop had fed them. They glowed with white-hot light, too bright to look at yet too beautiful to look away.
As bright as the flames burned, Janie couldn’t take her eyes off of Luna, the crown of dreadlocks on her head and the feline smile on her face. Their eyes locked and, with an ecstatic laugh, Luna released the hoop and sent it whirling around her waist. The sudden rush of air fanned the flames until the dozen became one, a wall of fire rising between them, laced with sapphire threads of pure heat.
The fire spoke to Janie i
n whooshes of air, in the hungry crackle of flame burning swift and pure. It beckoned to her, spoke of a world where there was only pure energy and ever-burning life, where there was never any fear or hurt or pain. She had heard this voice before, fire speaking to her in flaming tongues, urging her into its world. She had seen this dance before, the dance of flame eating flame, of fire leaping and twirling and cartwheeling high into the sky. And she had been ready to join it.
It was the night of baby Jeremiah’s funeral, when she and the rest of the townies had gone up to Elk Mountain to drink and forget. That night she’d danced closer and closer to their raging campfire, dancing away her grief and her pain and ready to join the blaze when it beckoned, to be its partner in this world and the one beyond. She had reached out her hands, ready to go to it, the heat entering her body as the candlelight did now, the light filling her until it spilled from her feet and she writhed like a wild woman being consumed from the inside out. She had been ready, willing, to join her life with the fire’s and leave this cold, hard, unlit world behind. Only Doug had stopped her, yanking her away with brute force, throwing her to the ground and screaming at her the way the world screamed and her heart screamed and her womb screamed in its emptiness, in the shock of life being ripped from her with a pain that would never completely go away.
Doug wasn’t here to stop her now.
The hoop whirled inches from her face, a vortex of flame that blocked out the rest of the world.
“Gods of fire, hot and swift,” Janie chanted, the words sparking from the place inside of her where desire burned hottest. Heat flashed through her legs until she was stomping in time to the drumbeats, until she was no longer Janie but a ball of whirling energy, the keeper of the flame.
The chant and the heat moved through her, and, oh, it felt good! It felt right the way being a slow human plodding through the world had never felt right, the way putting her son in a hole in the ground when she should have been holding him to her breast hadn’t felt right. Fire flickered in her blood, and flame replaced her heart, and she was ready now to dance with the fire from this world into the next, to let it carry her to the place where Jeremiah had gone.
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