The Children of Red Peak

by Craig DiLouie

  “Ow,” she said, though it was a relief.

  The words poured out of her in a flood. Shepherd Wright’s new rules, the constant work and school, no talking allowed at the communal supper, Mom forcing her to stay in every evening to study her Bible, everybody acting so serious, losing control and ending up with her mouth taped shut… The rest dissolved in bawling as a week of frustration poured out.

  The bell clanged, calling the Family to worship. The Reverend raised his hand. “I think I get the picture. I’ll get it squared away as soon as I can.”

  “Thank you,” Beth sobbed.

  “If you were my little girl, we’d have a serious talk, and there’d be no need for the tape. But you’re not my girl. So until we get this sorted out… Understand?”

  She put the tape back on, good and tight.

  “Good girl. It won’t be long.”

  “Reverend?” Emily placed her hands on the window. “Where did you go, sir? Did you see a miracle?”

  “Honey, I talked to the Spirit,” Jeremiah said.

  She goggled. “You did?”

  “I sure did. You know what he told me?”

  The girls shook their heads.

  A grin filled his wide face. “He said to get ready. Now hop in the back.”

  Emily climbed onto the pickup and helped Beth get in. They’d barely settled among the camping gear when the old Ford lurched forward along the dirt road.

  “Wow,” she said. “Wow! Can you believe it?”

  Beth was glad for the tape now. She wasn’t sure what she believed. A miracle in the desert. A sign of the end times. What did it mean? There was a big difference between the end is near and the end is here. What did “get ready” mean? She’d been getting ready her whole life.

  “Look at all this stuff.” Emily reached into an open toolbox and raised a black marker. “Hey, come here.”

  Beth wagged her head.

  “No smiley faces, I promise.”

  Another wag.

  “I’m your friend. Have some faith.”

  She leaned forward with a groan. Cupping Beth’s face to hold it steady, Emily scrawled something on the tape.

  “Mm?” said Beth.

  “I just wrote, ‘I love you, Deacon.’ ”

  She squealed.

  “You do!” Her friend went into a mock swoon. “ ‘Oh, Deacon! I want to kiss you and marry you and make babies—’ ”

  Beth elbowed her. “MMMM!”

  Emily laughed. “Just trust me, okay? I’m trying to get you out of Dodge.”

  The truck stopped in front of the Reverend’s cabin. He got out and walked around to the back. “Down you go. Come on, I’ll help you.”

  Still giggling, Emily took a flying leap at him, as if skydiving. The Reverend caught her and brought her in for a soft landing.

  Then it was Beth’s turn. He grabbed her by the waist and gave her a breathless twirl before setting her down.

  Jeremiah chuckled at whatever Emily had drawn on her face. “Off you go before you get in even more trouble.”

  The girls dashed to the Temple while the bell rang. The Family flowed inside, filling the air with their excited babble as word spread of the Reverend’s return. Beth spotted Mom and Daddy waiting for her outside the Temple doors.

  Emily stopped to give her a hug. “Didn’t I tell you everything would work out? Didn’t I say it would all be perfect in the end?”

  “Mm,” Beth grunted. It wasn’t perfect yet.

  As she approached the doors, Mom inspected her face with a frown. “You can take that off for worship.”

  Ripping the tape off again, Beth looked down at it and read, Sorry, Mom.

  They went inside and headed to their pew.

  Daddy put his arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her head. Then he whispered: “No, I’m sorry. Here, give it to me.” He crumpled it into a ball and thrust it in his pocket. “Never again.”

  The Family settled into their pews, still babbling as they waited for something to happen. Beth and Emily were the only ones who knew the Reverend had found a miracle. She kept it to herself. For once, Mom wouldn’t be the first to know.

  Beth wasn’t that sorry.

  The doors crashed open. Dressed in his black blazer and a clean gray tee, the Reverend stomped up the aisle reaching for Heaven and declaring, “THANK YOU, JESUS, FOR THE CHANCE TO SERVE YOU.”

  The room burst into applause.

  He strode to the altar and wheeled. “This is a celebration of the coming of Christ, so why aren’t we celebrating? Where are my players?”

  Mrs. Price warmed up the organ as those who wished to play took the stage and one by one joined in. Soon, Deacon was grinning over his guitar, Emily and her mom rattled tambourines, a red-faced Shepherd Ford blew his harmonica, and Mrs. Blanchard waved her arms as she led the joyous singing.

  Across the seething mass of people, arms raised in exultation, eyes clenched tight, mouths spoke the angelic language or sang, feet tapped or danced. Already the Living Spirit was active among them, leading Mr. Preston to rave in tongues, while Mrs. Diaz, seized by prophecy, screamed that Jesus was coming, the sky was opening, he was in the clouds. Next to Beth, Mom jerked and twitched in otherworldly spasms, while Daddy did an awkward jig, as if square dancing with himself. Beth clapped along and waited for the Spirit to come, but it didn’t.

  Today, she just couldn’t let go.

  “Yes, Lord,” Jeremiah called out. “Come, Jesus.” Then he flung his arms wide and howled, “Wait! Hold it! Stop the music!”

  The congregation faltered in confusion. He’d never interrupted the Spirit before. Usually, hymns didn’t conclude so much as peter out from exhaustion.

  “It’s never boring, is it?” While they all chuckled, the Reverend went on, “That’s because we worship God’s way, with love and joy, an open door inviting Jesus to join us in the pews, and a room full of beautiful and fine people ready to take him back to their homes. I’m sorry to stop it. I had to stop it. I stopped it because I am bursting with good news. Bursting. But first, I need to talk about how things went while I was gone.”

  He bowed his head as if in silent prayer. When he looked up, he was a different man, the loving smile gone and his eyes blazing a bright blue. “I’ll just say this. We worship God every day, and we do it with joy and love, not fear.”

  His eyes swept the congregation and settled on Beth, making her shiver. “If we must suffer, though, we do that with joy too. That’s what being a Christian means. I’ve always believed if your faith comes easy, you’re doing it wrong.”

  “Amen,” someone said to fill the ensuing silence.

  Beth wished she had enough tape to cover her entire face.

  The Reverend’s smile returned. “Now let me tell you about the miracle I saw.”

  The crowd sucked in its breath.

  “As you all know, God judged us worthy to raise enough money to buy some neighboring land, enough to start work on cabins for twenty new families. One of our new arrivals came to tell me—Joe, are you out there?”

  An old man waved from the pews.

  “Joe told me about a miracle he saw while hiking in the mountains. No, not a ‘You didn’t eat your pie? It’s a miracle!’ ” More laughter. “No, sir. This was a bona fide miracle, a once in a lifetime miracle, which I thought maybe, just maybe, could be the sign we’ve been waiting for. So off I went on a pilgrimage.”

  The Reverend hopped onto the altar and sat on it. A few people gasped in the pews. It was exactly the kind of thing he’d do. Scandalous, but reminding them altars and churches and rituals didn’t matter, only God did.

  “Red Peak,” he went on in a quiet voice. “Mountain of the Great Spirit, the Natives call it. On the western side of Death Valley.”

  His eyes took on a dreamy cast as he recalled the journey. “You drive up 395 to a little town called Medford, dry desert all around, and then you keep going because you’re still not there. You go up a dirt road into the Inyo range, and yo
u get out and walk through the scrub, and then you find a mountain with a flat top the color of blood. You’re still not there, no, you’re not even close. Because you still have to make the climb, on foot, in the withering heat. The first summit is a false one. So is the second. Then you reach the crown…”

  His eyes burned like blue coals now. “A massive stone sitting right in the middle of all that flat rock. And behind it a wood cross, older than old, planted tall off to the side of this natural altar. There, I was privy to mysterion.”

  The crowd oohed.

  Mysterion. A word from the Greek New Testament. A mystery denied ordinary men but understood by the godly. God’s counsel, hidden from nonbelievers and delivered only to the righteous chosen.

  Jeremiah sprang back to his feet, producing a flurry of cries.

  “There was no burning bush! Not for this servant. There was a burning cross! The cross burst into flame, angry and spitting sparks. It burned but was not consumed. I fell to my knees, but it was not enough. I pitched onto my face and hugged the earth, but it was not enough. I howled, I pleaded, I begged for mercy. That’s when I fell to my heart, dear friends. And…”

  He went quiet again for a long time.

  The congregation remained rock still. Beth held her breath.

  The Reverend said, “The Spirit talked to me in a clear, loud voice.”

  Mom sobbed. “Oh, my dear Lord.”

  “He said—” His voice cracked with emotion. “He commanded, ‘O Man, deliver your tribe unto me in this place, for now is the time of purification. The time for the worthy to cross the black sea and ascend to the sacred place.’ ”

  “Praise God!” someone called out.

  “That was what he said. ‘Deliver your tribe unto me!’ The time is now!”

  The congregation leaped roaring to its feet, arms raised and fists clenched and eyes gaping as if trying to glimpse paradise through the steepled roof. Lifetimes of faith and prayer and supernatural hunger poured out all at once in an alarming clamor. They’d won the lottery, the ultimate lottery, and they’d won it all. They’d won eternity. The Spirit roamed among them, possessing them with its fury.

  Beth alone remained sitting on her pew, crying tears lost in the clamor.

  The ascension, he’d called it.

  The world would die, only to be reborn.

  Just as she would with it.

  Then she laughed, a loud, cathartic squeal.

  Emily was right. There was no fighting this. Nothing really mattered, not when faced by the sweep of such colossal divine events.

  Beth had been raised her whole life to wait for this to happen. She was one of the chosen few. And the time was now.

  She would ascend with the Family and live forever.

  Forever, in paradise.

  “ ‘DELIVER. Your TRIBE. Unto ME!’ ”

  Beth leaped to her feet as the Spirit grabbed hold. Tearing at her hair and dress, it shot through her with a piercing scream of pure love and primordial terror.

  9

  REGRET

  Beth flew back to Santa Barbara, not so much pursued by remorse as taking it home with her like a souvenir.

  Everything in its proper place, she thought. Everything.

  The words were more prayer than motto at this point, Pandora fretting over the box she’d opened, undoing decades of expensive therapy. Her recollections of last night remained hazy at best, flashes of a breakdown during the party.

  James Chambliss had rescued her before she destroyed her reputation. He’d made sure she got back to her room, acting the perfect gentleman. He’d left his card, on which he’d scrawled, We need to reconnect soon. It’s important.

  He didn’t miss her as a lover, she knew, but he’d never gotten over being inside her head.

  This morning, she’d stumbled through her panel with a crushing hangover. As a depressant, alcohol plummeted serotonin levels, resulting in plenty of self-loathing.

  No wine for you until tonight, the nice voice murmured in her head.

  “If that,” she murmured.

  And no more prescription opioids ever. What were you thinking?

  Well, it’s like this, she thought. I wasn’t thinking.

  For the flight, she’d brought aboard a massive coffee, while a bottle of Gatorade waited in the seat pocket. Her brain throbbed in her skull. California sunshine flashed along the wing, too bright.

  And now everybody knows what you did, the mean voice lashed out. There was no stopping it today.

  “They were too busy doing it themselves.” Her mouth like cotton no matter how much water she drank. Her bowels rumbling.

  The businessman sitting next to her glanced up from his laptop. “Excuse me?”

  “Sorry,” Beth said. “I was just talking to myself.”

  “Been there, done that.”

  She turned to the window before he could take their exchange beyond small talk. She was right about last night. The behavior she’d seen some of her esteemed colleagues engaging in was far worse than anything she did.

  Which was fine for them. She was different. She was supposed to have her shit together.

  What about David?

  Plenty of regrets there. No big ones, though. The more Beth considered it, touching him had been a homecoming of sorts, warm and real and substantial. What touching Deacon again would be like.

  Odd, how something bad could feel so correct. Even now, she felt strangely energized and peaceful following her freak-out, despite all the self-loathing.

  She’d once wanted things. She’d once had faith that could move mountains.

  As the Canadair Regional Jet descended into Santa Barbara, Beth thought about the man who fifteen years ago had put her on the path of faith’s alternative.

  As a member of the Family, Beth was used to living under an open sky, close to nature. Now her world had shrunk to plain boxes coated in institutional green or white paint, her day similarly constricted into activities monitored by psychiatric nurses.

  As for the Family, five still remained on the Earth, the only part of her new life that didn’t give her painful vertigo. The rest had ascended a month earlier.

  Left behind, Beth gazed through the wire mesh covering the rec room’s windows into sunshine, wondering why the world was still here. A world that had become colorless since the Spirit abandoned her.

  At night, she dreamed of red fire until her screams woke her.

  During the day, she still cried, and once she started, she couldn’t stop.

  Dr. Klein had a stocky build and salt-and-pepper beard and wore a stodgy tweed suit. Even after numerous sessions, she didn’t trust him. He wasn’t a believer, which made him a sinner. Worse, he was Jewish and had rejected Jesus Christ as the Messiah. Beth often said she’d pray for him, intending it to sound cutting, but he only said, Thank you. When she said he was bound for Hell, he shrugged as if to say, That’s fine for you to believe, but not for me. When she told him about the apocalypse, he gestured toward the barred window. Outside the lion’s den, the Earth was still turning.

  Gripping the little cross she wore around her neck for strength, Beth had declared that he could never understand her because he wasn’t one of the chosen. He’d replied that was less important than her understanding the horrible things that had happened to her so she could process them.

  What happened to Mom and Daddy.

  No, Beth couldn’t process that, not yet, maybe not ever.

  Arguing with Dr. Klein was far more interesting. The psychiatrist fascinated her. He appeared immune to her beliefs, which made him an odd mix of monster and superhero. Statements that used to elicit amens and gasps in the Family succeeded only in producing one of his frustrating shrugs. She was Jacob, wrestling with the angel. He was always in control, sitting relaxed in his leather chair, his body language open and nonthreatening. She envied him.

  One day, he showed up to their session with a book, which he thumbed to a bookmarked page and read aloud:

  The ligh
tning and thunder

  They go and they come:

  But the stars and the stillness

  Are always at home.

  Beth sat on the old couch facing him across the coffee table with its white box of generic tissues.

  “What’s that mean?” she asked.

  “What do you think it means?”

  “God abides,” she answered without thinking.

  The psychiatrist removed his glasses and cleaned them with one of the tissues. “That’s a fair interpretation. How would you interpret it in regards to your life?”

  “How would you?”

  She enjoyed turning his questions back on him.

  “I might interpret the poem to mean that big events, sometimes bad events, happen to us, but we can take comfort in remembering the calming things that remain. If I were in a storm, I might gain some peace in that.”

  Beth found this intriguing, producing a brief tug-of-war between playing this new game or sticking with the old.

  “Read me another one,” she said.

  He returned the reading glasses to their perch and thumbed through the book. “George MacDonald wrote that last poem. It’s called ‘A Baby-Sermon.’ Here’s one by Stephen Crane you might find meaningful.”

  He read:

  If I should cast off this tattered coat,

  And go free into the mighty sky;

  If I should find nothing there

  But a vast blue,

  Echoless, ignorant—

  What then?

  The words coalesced into a feeling that stirred her in a deep place. She imagined her mother flying through the Temple, a bizarre and unsettling image.

  She turned away and said, “It means whoever wrote that is a sinner.”

  “Now I think you’re deflecting,” Dr. Klein said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “You don’t want to feel certain things, so you redirect everything to the beliefs you were raised with or to our psychiatrist-patient relationship.”

  “How did you figure that?” she said.