The Children of Red Peak

by Craig DiLouie

  “There’s Mrs. Chapman,” Beth said. “Let’s ask her what’s happening.”

  Their teacher was a hawk-faced widow with gray hair and sharp eyes. They called her the prophet behind her back, as she was always making predictions about what their lives would be like if they listened to her or didn’t.

  “The Reverend left,” she told them.

  “What? Why?”

  “You’ll find out when I do. You kids should find your parents.”

  The Family flowed into the Temple. Beth threaded the press of bodies until she located her parents. “Is the Reverend really gone?”

  Daddy smiled at her. “Hey, honey. We’re about to find that out.”

  “He’s gone,” her mother said. “I have it on good authority he packed up his truck and drove off. Just up and left.”

  Of course Mom would know. “He’s coming back, though, right?”

  “If he doesn’t, things are going to change around here, mark my word.”

  They took their seats in their usual pew. Emily gave her a little wave as she passed in the aisle, but Beth barely responded with a nod. Things might change? What was that supposed to mean?

  She didn’t see a need for anything to change. And she hated that her mother appeared to be happy it might.

  Dressed in their black jackets and hats, the shepherds sat on high-backed wood chairs arranged on each side of the chancel, facing the congregation. It was the first time Beth didn’t see Jeremiah Peale up there, beaming and filling the room with excitement. The absence jarred her further. Worship was her favorite time, seeing the entire community come together in the Temple for worship, music, and to receive the many gifts of the Spirit. Here, she could pour out all her problems and worries in a seething flood and become filled with Jesus’s strength and love. She’d surrender her body and mind to the Spirit and dance and sing and explode, and then leave energized with the kind of faith that could move mountains.

  The Spirit felt far away right now, an unsafe, unsettling feeling.

  Shepherd Wright rose and raised his hands for quiet. Bowing his head, he began a prayer, which Beth dutifully recited along with the rest of the congregation.

  “Amen,” he said. “I am honored to stand among you to tell you that Jeremiah will be away for some time to investigate an important spiritual matter.”

  The crowd stirred, waiting for details, but none came.

  “In his absence, he entrusted the shepherds to guide the Family. He made us all promise we would run a tight ship.” Wright had crossed the stage to stand behind the pulpit, a visual cue of who was really in charge. “There will be no idle hands while he’s gone. We will work harder, fight harder, and love harder for the Lord every day until the Reverend returns.”

  Enthusiastic nods from the congregants, a few scattered amens.

  “There will also be some new ordinances to clarify the true path,” he added.

  Beth shifted uneasily in her pew, wondering what that meant. In an instant, the world, already off-kilter, seemed to shift again under her feet.

  The farm flourished in California sunlight. Under a bright blue sky, the moist, warm soil sprouted life across the green fields. Beth and the other children worked the lettuce rows, ferreting weeds from the dirt and dropping them into buckets.

  “Yes, Jesus loves me!” they sang. “The Bible tells me so…”

  The singing tapered off as they wilted in the heat, dead tired.

  Beth didn’t mind hard work. She’d always taken pride in contributing. For as long as she’d lived here, she provided helping hands every morning except Sunday, the day of rest. She weeded, peeled potatoes, churned butter, cleaned the chicken coop, watched over the little ones, and did myriad other jobs.

  Late afternoons and weekends were for play, however, always had been at the farm. Until Shepherd Wright changed the rules.

  “You guys are babies,” Wyatt said. “It’s only been a couple days.”

  “I don’t hear you singing,” Angela said, which made Josh laugh.

  “ ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child,’ my dad always says.” Mr. Cornell worked in the slaughterhouse and scared the kids with his scowl, though he favored the belt over the rod where his unruly son was concerned. “A little discipline will do you good.”

  Angela held up a clod of dirt and crushed it in her hand to watch the crumbs fall. “Our mom would never hit us. I’d like to see her try.”

  “She just yells,” David chimed in.

  “Mine never hits me either.” Deacon grinned. “That’s why we turned out nice.”

  Wyatt snorted. “Bunch of whiners is how you turned out.”

  Beth spotted a yellow-flowered dandelion and dug deep to remove the taproot along with the plant, all while casting a sidelong gaze at Deacon. Dressed in dirty shorts and a T-shirt, skinny arms tanned by the sun, he knelt in the soil and inspected a worm cupped in his hand.

  “Got a new friend there, I see,” she said.

  “Yeah. He’s a quiet little guy.”

  “What are you going to name him?”

  A lopsided smile appeared under the tangled mop of brown hair. “Moses.” He gestured toward Wyatt with the worm. “Let my people go.”

  “I’ll bet you could turn water into whining,” Wyatt said. “I should show you the rod myself one of these days. Toughen your backside up a little.”

  Deacon chuckled. “ ‘Water into whining.’ That’s actually a good one.”

  “This all isn’t so bad,” Emily said.

  Beth snorted. “Are you kidding?”

  “We’re all together. What’s the big deal?”

  “It sucks. For one.”

  Emily shrugged. “Good things come to those who wait. The Reverend will be back. Until then, all we have to do is say yes sir, no sir, and do what we’re told.”

  Beth hoped Emily was right this time, because the wait was suffocating her. Last night, at supper, Mrs. Chapman sat with the children to enforce their silence. The grown-ups could talk, though they did so in hushed tones, as if afraid to laugh. Shepherd Wright’s church was more God-fearing but far less joyful than Jeremiah’s. This unsettled Beth less than the speed at which the transformation occurred, as if it was something they’d all secretly craved for a long time.

  Deacon returned Moses to the dirt. “You’re free.”

  “Why’d the Reverend leave, anyway?” David asked.

  “He went camping,” Wyatt said. Rumor had it the Reverend had loaded his truck with camping gear before he’d left. “The man needed a vacation.”

  “All by himself?”

  “Why not? Not everybody’s scared of everything like you, dumb-dumb.”

  Angela gave him an icy stare and raised her clenched fist. Wyatt grinned and blew her a kiss.

  “What if he doesn’t come back?” David said.

  “He’s coming back,” Emily assured him.

  “But how do you know?”

  “Don’t you think he would have said goodbye if he wasn’t?”

  Unless Shepherd Wright forced him to leave fast, Beth thought but didn’t dare say aloud.

  The bell clanged across the fields. The sound energized the kids with a second wind. They sprang to their feet and marched toward their cabins to wash.

  “The shepherd didn’t say anything about what we do after supper,” Beth said. “I’ll meet you guys at the trailhead. We’ll go to the stream.”

  “I want to go to the Loop,” Wyatt said.

  “We don’t have time. The trail, then?”

  Everyone agreed. They’d have some time to themselves.

  Ahead of her, Josh glanced at Angela and took her hand. Looking around in alarm, she wrenched from his grasp. Beth grunted as they parted, as if she was losing something herself.

  After supper, Mom darned socks on the living room couch while Daddy studied his Bible in his easy chair. Mom was prattling about Mr. Cornell and the way he stared at Mrs. Durham—he doesn’t even hide what he wants! Her husband’s only been dead six
months, and him! He’s married! Sitting at the other end of the couch, Beth gazed out the window with longing. She’d bided her time, waiting for the right opportunity to ask to go out. With twilight on the way, it was now or never.

  “Daddy, can I go out and play with my friends until bedtime?”

  Mom kept on darning her socks. “Not tonight.”

  Daddy removed his reading glasses with a smile. “Sorry, honey.”

  He always called her their miracle baby, God’s answer to their prayers when they couldn’t conceive. For as long as she remembered, they’d had an unspoken deal. She followed the rules, and Daddy doted on her in return.

  “I worked all day,” she said. “Plus school. Why can’t I go out?”

  He attempted a conciliatory smile. “Just be patient—”

  “When Jesus comes back,” Mom cut in, “how do you want him to find you? Working hard to be a better Christian would be my guess.”

  “The Bible says to eat, drink, and be merry,” Beth said.

  Daddy frowned, trying to recall the passage until Mom gave him a knowing look, as if sharing an inside joke. “The Book of Ecclesiastes.”

  “Oh. Right. It’s not a bad passage.” He chuckled. “Words to live by.”

  Mom pinned him with her stare. “Are you serious?”

  He went back to his Bible. “Never mind.”

  Let it go, Beth told herself, but couldn’t. She was tired of how unfair her world had become, and her pious mother had grown increasingly irritating over the last year. “Maybe I should ask Shepherd Wright.”

  Mom’s lips flattened into a stern line. “We’re your parents. But while the Reverend is gone, the elders make the rules, and we must abide them.”

  This had nothing to do with the shepherd. This was just her mother being controlling. Mom valued order above everything. Which was one reason why she was such a gossip—she had to know everything so it wouldn’t surprise her.

  Beth’s narrowed gaze crossed the living room into the kitchen. The cabin seemed to shrink until it became a jail cell. The whole world had become stunted and stifling. Outside the farm, kids attended enormous schools and wore nice clothes and had cell phones and didn’t have to work all day. They went to the movies and chatted whenever they wanted and explored the wide world together. Right now, that world was looking mighty appealing.

  At the same time, she couldn’t imagine leaving the farm. For over three years, she’d felt safe and loved here. She just didn’t want anything to change. This made her unfair treatment all the more bitter and galling.

  “This is supposed to be good.” Beth’s voice broke as she fought tears. “It shouldn’t be mean.”

  “It is for your own good. You just don’t understand that yet.”

  “We love you,” Daddy told her. “You have to trust us. Your mother decided, and it’s final. Just be patient—”

  “Do you actually think I’ll go to Hell if I hang out with my friends? Do you?”

  “Elizabeth—”

  “All my life,” she shouted, “you’ve been letting me do just that while telling me Jesus loves me. Now you’re saying he didn’t love me all this time?”

  They’d raised her with Christian love, but this was different, this was living a certain way because of fear.

  “I don’t know what’s gotten into you,” Mom said, “but I don’t like it, and now’s not the time for it. When the Reverend…”

  She winced, as if she’d said something scandalous.

  Beth leaned forward. “What? What about the Reverend?”

  “We’re not talking about the Reverend, we’re talking about you.”

  “Just tell her,” Daddy said.

  “She’s not ready.”

  “What are you talking about?” Beth asked. “Ready for what? Tell me.”

  “She’s old enough,” Daddy insisted.

  Mom set down her knitting with a sigh. “The Reverend went to talk to God.”

  Beth guffawed. “What?”

  “This is not in the slightest bit funny.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said, bewildered now. “I just don’t understand.”

  “One of the new arrivals told Jeremiah about a mountain where he’d seen a miracle,” Daddy said. “The Reverend took it seriously enough to go look for himself.”

  “He thinks it may be the sign we’ve been waiting for,” Mom added. “Do you understand what that means?”

  Trembling, Beth stood. “Oh.”

  The apocalypse.

  She bolted for the door.

  The end of the world.

  “Elizabeth!” her father called after her.

  Sobbing, Beth ran across the commons. The distant woods were dark with twilight. Her bare feet slapped against stones, each footfall sending stabbing pains into her soles. Her father’s cries echoed behind her, and then she disappeared into the trees.

  She’d been raised to believe it was coming. The end times, the end of days. That’s why they’d built a community in the wilderness. They’d come here to make ready for Jesus’s return and prove themselves worthy of his mercy.

  She’d never expected it actually would happen.

  But what if?

  If Jesus returned, she’d never grow up. She’d never enjoy everything the world had to offer. She’d never know what it’d be like to kiss Deacon on the lips.

  Lord, if they all went to Heaven tomorrow, would she have to obey her mom forever and always, stuck at the same age? How did it work, exactly?

  It wasn’t fair. It shouldn’t happen now, like this, when she was on the cusp of adulthood and finally gaining control of her own life.

  She shivered in the chill. Around her, the bugs started their nightly song.

  “Hey!” she yelled. “Emily! Deek!”

  Nobody answered.

  “Anybody?”

  She’d missed them, and now they were gone.

  And she was in big trouble.

  She’d gained her freedom from her stifling parents, and she’d have to pay the price. Might as well stay out for a while, whether she had company or not, if for nothing else to delay facing her mother’s anger.

  Instead, Beth hurried back home, suddenly afraid the world might end while she was gone. That it had already ended, and everyone had left without her.

  Wearing her best Sunday dress, Beth strolled with Emily along the dirt road that cut through the fields and wound through the wilderness all the way to Babylon.

  “You said nothing ever bothers me,” Emily said. “It’s not true. Plenty of stuff bothers me. The Reverend being gone, and these dumb rules, and Wyatt’s a jerk, and I have a crush on Dave that keeps me up at night. I just don’t let it get to me. You want to know my secret?”

  Beth said nothing because of the big square of tape covering her mouth.

  “Oh, sorry,” Emily added. “I forgot.”

  “Mm-mm,” she said, hoping it sounded enough like a yes.

  After running away from her parents, she’d come back to plenty of yelling and punishments. Time after time over the following days, Beth had tried to put her feelings into words, only to fail. How could she explain wanting to gain Heaven, but not so soon? Her longing to break away from her family, while staying a part of it?

  In the end, her mother’s condescending sniping got her good and riled, and she’d discovered eloquence in telling Mom to screw herself.

  That was last night. This morning, she had to wear the tape like a scarlet letter, marking her as an Unruly Child. Now everyone would see her with it at worship. She hated feeling like an outcast, but she’d wear it like a badge of honor out of pure stubbornness.

  There should have been an extra commandment to listen to your kids.

  “It’s weird talking to somebody who doesn’t talk back,” Emily said. “I have to admit, though, I kind of like being able to do all the talking. Does it hurt?”

  Beth shook her head. Not physically, anyway.

  “You should draw a smiley face on it. If you want to ma
ke your mom really mad.”

  Beth chuckled, hmm, hmm, hmm, fighting back laughter.

  “The thing is, none of this really matters,” Emily explained. “That’s my secret. In the end, we’ll be with God, so why sweat the small stuff? Why sweat anything?”

  Beth could think of a lot of reasons to sweat but wasn’t able to say them. She believed, but she didn’t share her friend’s simple, rock-hard faith. If Emily wrestled with the big questions, she never showed it.

  In the end, Beth didn’t care. She was simply glad someone was talking to her. She’d made everyone except Emily and Deacon angry. Her other friends were annoyed because her rebellion had made their parents extra strict.

  “Especially now,” Emily went on. “If the Reverend found a miracle and this is really the end, why would I care if I churn butter instead of play? That’s what Jesus meant when he said turn the other cheek. He was saying the slap doesn’t matter. He was saying the slap isn’t even real. Think about that.”

  “Mm,” Beth said.

  If she could talk, she’d tell Emily she no longer believed the apocalypse was coming. She’d say the Reverend wouldn’t find a miracle out there in the desert mountains. The world would go on as it always had.

  That was the thing about rebelling. Once it started, it kept going.

  Emily shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe if you say you’re sorry…” She frowned into the distance. “Somebody’s coming.”

  Beth turned as a truck emerged from the oaks, bouncing on the ruts and kicking up a rooster tail of dust and stones.

  Emily grinned. “He’s back! Hallelujah, he’s back!”

  Beth’s smile strained against the tape.

  The truck growled to a stop next to them. The morning sun burned orange on the dusty windshield. Jeremiah Peale sat behind the wheel, his tanned, muscular arm draped out the window. His windswept hair hung tangled over his forehead.

  “You girls headed to worship?”

  “Yes, sir,” Emily said.

  The Reverend eyed Beth’s face. “I guess I missed some drama.”

  “Beth and her mom had a fight. They—”

  He raised his hand. “You can take that off, dear. Tell me what happened.”

  Beth pulled at the tape, but it didn’t want to release its grip on her flesh. Her eyes watered. She pictured putting a whole roll of it over her mother’s mouth. Clenching her eyes, she wrenched the rest of it from her face with a searing rip.