The Follower

by Nicholas Bowling

  Vivian looked down at her hiking boots and saw she’d trailed dirt into the Sanctuary.

  “Oh,” she said. “Sorry, I’ll take these off.”

  “No, no, please don’t worry,” said Glenn calmly, and he put a hand on her shoulder. “Would you like me to take your coat?”

  “I think I’ll keep it on,” she said.

  Glenn smiled and nodded.

  “Please,” he said, and showed her a bench along the side of the room. Glenn sat opposite her and let his hands rest in his lap and looked at her as if waiting for her to begin.

  “It’s nice here,” said Vivian, and then immediately added, “How do you know my name?”

  “Your brother told me all about you,” said Glenn.

  “He was here?”

  “Briefly.”

  Her heart sank again.

  “Do you know where he went?”

  “I do.”

  “And?”

  “He has ascended.”

  She tensed.

  “Already?”

  “I know! Incredible, really.”

  “But what does that mean? He’s up the mountain, right?”

  He took off his glasses and cleaned them on his robe in a quiet, grandfatherly way.

  “It’s hard to explain. I’m sorry, I know that’s frustrating for you.”

  The young man who had been in the kitchen came over carrying a tray with a tiny teapot and tiny cups and what looked like a plate of communion wafers. He set it down between them on the bench, and Glenn gave him another glowing smile.

  “Please,” Glenn said to Vivian, while the man hovered. “Help yourself.”

  Vivian’s stomach still felt like the inside of a car battery, but she was very thirsty from traipsing all over town. She picked up the teapot and poured herself a cup. The tea was blue.

  “We brew it with lichen from up on the mountain,” said the young man.

  “Thank you, Carl,” said Glenn.

  “Blessings,” said Carl, making a small bow. He went back to the kitchen.

  Vivian held the cup in both her hands but didn’t drink from it. Glenn raised his own cup to his lips and raised his eyebrows over the rim, an expression that Vivian couldn’t quite decipher. The vapours fogged his glasses and he laughed, and Vivian couldn’t decide whether she liked him or not.

  “Look,” she said, “I don’t mean to be rude, but I would really appreciate a straight answer from someone about where Jesse is. I know I’m not one of you—”

  Glenn looked pained by this remark.

  “—but no one wants to tell me anything. I just want to know that Jesse is okay.”

  “I know,” said Glenn. “I know.” He patted her knee in an avuncular way. It was a strange feeling. Almost electrifying. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had shown her any kind of affection. She flinched and he instantly withdrew his hand. “What is it, Vivian?” he said.

  “Someone said that once he’s ascended, he won’t be coming back.”

  Glenn made a shy face and looked into his teacup and said nothing.

  “Why wouldn’t he want to come back?” asked Vivian.

  “It’s difficult—”

  “Please.”

  He looked up again.

  “Because he has found Telos.”

  Vivian winced with exasperation. She suddenly felt very tired again. Too tired to generate the heat of real anger, or anything like it. Besides, Glenn had a kind of diffidence about him that was disarming.

  “Yes, sure, Telos,” she said. “But what does that mean? I just want someone to give me a point on a map so I can go and see my brother and talk to him.”

  “It’s not as simple as that. I am sorry.”

  “Why is it not as simple as that?”

  Glenn took another sip of tea and set his cup down.

  “Do you know anything about Telos, or the Violet Path?” he said. “This is not a test, I promise.”

  Vivian thought. She’d absorbed very little from the book Shelley had given her. The only thing she really remembered was the story of Telos and the Telurians, and John of Telos drifting like a purple phantom around the mountain.

  “A little,” she said. “I’ve read some of this.” She pulled The Violet Path out of her pocket. It was a perfect cylinder now, and wouldn’t unroll properly. She wondered if there was something blasphemous about this. “Sorry,” she said.

  Unexpectedly, Glenn’s face shone.

  “Aha!” he said. “You’ve already started!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you order it from us online?”

  “No, someone gave it to me.”

  Glenn frowned.

  “Your brother?” he said.

  “No, someone from one of the other schools.” Glenn’s frown deepened. “The House of Telos.” It deepened again. “Shelley? She said she knew you.”

  Glenn’s lips parted slightly in the middle of his white beard. Vivian knew straight away she’d said something she shouldn’t have.

  “Shelley?” said Glenn.

  “Jesse signed up to her course ages ago. When we were back in the UK.”

  Glenn held out his hand. “Can I see that?” he said.

  She handed him the rolled-up book. He looked at the back cover and flicked through the pages as best he could and handed it back.

  “Shelley shouldn’t really have given you this,” he said.

  “Oh. Why? What’s wrong with it?”

  “Absolutely nothing wrong with it. It’s the same one we use at the Sanctuary.”

  “Oh. Then why—”

  “Nothing,” he said, smiling again. “Just boring business stuff. Carl?”

  He called the young man over to him again. Glenn stood up and whispered something in his ear, and the man nodded and went over to the stairs and left. Vivian saw him through the triangular window, getting into a pickup truck and driving away. Glenn took another gulp of blue tea.

  “Well,” he said, while Vivian continued to look out of the window, “it seems you’ve already started on the path. That’s good.”

  In front of the window, the two women had started making strange, wide twirling motions with their arms, swinging them from the shoulder, like Vivian had done when she and Jesse had fought as very young children. She brought her attention back to Glenn.

  “Sorry?”

  “If you’re on the path, there’s a good chance you might catch up with your brother.”

  “Catch up? Why can’t I just go and see him?”

  “Your brother made quite an impression on us here,” said Glenn. The women sped up their arm-swinging. They started to hum. Glenn looked at them briefly, like an admiring father, then looked back. “He had a very special energy.”

  “Right.”

  “He reached the Thirteenth Stone quicker than anyone I have known.”

  “The thirteenth stone?”

  “The Violet Path is divided into stones.”

  “Right.”

  “The Thirteenth Stone is the threshold to Telos.”

  “Okay.”

  “So, you see, a First Stone initiate like you can’t possibly follow him, where he’s gone. Even a Twelfth Stone initiate like Carl couldn’t, and he’s just a hair’s breadth away from Oneness.”

  Vivian finally took a mouthful of tea to disguise her expression. It tasted of leaf mulch. The women’s humming was very loud, now.

  “But I’m not looking to follow the path, or find oneness, or whatever. I just want to find Jesse.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes,” she said, and there was a weird lack of conviction in the word. “Can’t you just tell me where to go?”

  “I’m sorry, Vivian. Even if you were able to find Telos, they’d never let you in.”

  “So it is a place?”

  “It is a place, and a time. But also neither of those things.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Not to the uninitiated, no.” He smiled agai
n. “But what I can tell you is that now Jesse is there, he knows a greater peace than he has ever known.” That didn’t sound good. “So,” Glenn added, “I think you can forgive him for wanting to stay!”

  “Can’t I just visit him?” said Vivian.

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Can’t he come and visit me?”

  “I’m sorry, Vivian. Once people ascend to Telos, they tend not to leave.”

  “What, ever?”

  He smoothed his beard with his thumb and forefinger, but didn’t say anything.

  The humming of the two women reached a crescendo, so loud she almost couldn’t hear what Glenn was saying. Then it died away, and the arm-twirling stopped, and they closed their eyes. When they opened them again, they each went and selected a crystal from the collection on the windowsill. They cradled it around their navel and disappeared through a sliding door at the far end of the room.

  “So, I’ve got to go through all this, if I want to see him?”

  Glenn had suddenly become shy again. He smiled and shrugged.

  Vivian looked around the room at the beanbags and mats and portraits of the messianic John of Telos. She could probably grit her teeth and fake it. Besides, it was better to be somewhere like this, surrounded by incense and wind chimes and whale song, than in her motel room smelling the sulphurous drains and listening to the hum of the backup generator.

  She was about to take another sip of tea when she suddenly remembered what Mr Blucas had told her. It didn’t square with what Glenn was saying.

  “I met someone who said he might be in prison. Do you think that might have happened?”

  “Prison? Bless you, Vivian, who told you that?”

  “Just someone who lives in the town. He said something about the ‘big house’, but… I don’t know, I guess he wasn’t all there.”

  “Unbalanced?”

  “You could say that.”

  “Mr Blucas?”

  “Yeah. You know him?”

  Glenn hitched up his robes awkwardly.

  “He was here long before me, but… Poor old Blucas is the only person who’s ever come back from the mountain, you see. He went up there before he was ready. Without the right training. He had a hard time readjusting. You really mustn’t go up the mountain on your own. It’s dangerous.”

  Vivian thought of her brother, blundering around in the snows in shorts and T-shirt. She flushed hot and cold under her many layers.

  “Fine. Sign me up, then.”

  Glenn was delighted.

  “Of course! If you go back downstairs, Annabelle can get you registered, and she’ll give you your initiate’s rod.”

  “My rod?”

  “It is to light your way upon the path!”

  Glenn’s eyes twinkled in a way that suggested his words were precisely in the middle of sincerity and self-mockery. His mouth twitched and he nudged his glasses up, like he always did, by wrinkling his nose.

  “We can get you an updated edition of your book, too,” he said, when she didn’t offer a reply.

  “When you say registered—”

  “Just a bit of paperwork. We’re trying to keep everything above board. Like I say, IRS and all that.”

  “And then what? Are there classes?”

  “Nothing as formal as that. You can drop in when you like. There will always be someone here to learn from.”

  “How long before I might be able to go see Jesse?”

  “That depends on how seriously you want to take it. Jesse did it in two weeks. That was highly unusual. But then you are his twin sister, so your energy is practically identical.”

  “We’re really not that similar,” said Vivian.

  “Oh, that reminds me,” said Glenn.

  He got up from the bench and went to the sliding bamboo door at the back of the room and left Vivian alone with her thoughts. She chewed on a wafer. She hadn’t properly considered the matter of payment. But what else could she do? She wasn’t going to leave Jesse up there, or wait for him to come back drooling and chuntering like Mr Blucas. Besides, she might be able to make her own foray up the mountain, in the meantime.

  When he came back from whatever was beyond the screen, Glenn was holding something very familiar in one hand. It was Vivian’s coat. Although – and Vivian looked down at herself to check this – Vivian was still wearing her coat. And this one looked cleaner. Not hers, then. Jesse’s. Their parents had long since stopped dressing them in matching outfits, but even after that, brother and sister found themselves subconsciously buying identical items of clothing. Vivian found it infuriating. It reinforced every stereotype about twins, when she had always taken pains to prove to everyone that she and Jesse were completely different people.

  “He left it here,” said Glenn. “Before he ascended.”

  He handed her the coat. It was a good coat. Warm and robust and not fashionable at all. She knew why they’d both bought it. It felt bulletproof. She squeezed the padding. It smelled of him. A trapdoor in her belly fell open and it was all black beneath and she fought to close it as quickly as she could.

  “You can give it back to him when you see him,” said Glenn, without a hint of irony.

  “Thanks,” said Vivian. She tucked it under one arm.

  “I’ll escort you downstairs again. You can start this evening, if you like. We’re having an ecstatic dance at sunset.”

  She swallowed hard.

  “I’ll see,” she said. “I’ve still got some stuff to… You know. I’m not quite settled in.”

  “Of course,” said Glenn. “Whenever you’re ready. We’re not going anywhere. Neither is Jesse.”

  He led her back down to the lobby area, where Vivian filled out her personal details on a tablet and accepted the terms and conditions and asked Glenn, after the fact, what would happen with regards to payment. If Shelley had charged seventy-five dollars an hour for an online seminar, she could only imagine what the Telos Sanctuary’s fees looked like.

  Glenn just said, “Oh, we’ll think of something.”

  “But you’ll need paying at some point, right?”

  “Not necessarily. Let’s just see how you get on. Consider this a free trial. Besides, your brother was so generous I think you’re already part of the family.”

  Annabelle went into an office and Vivian perused the gift shop. Lots of picture postcards of John of Telos and the Crystal City, talismans, dreamcatchers, nose flutes, organic soaps, organic teas, organic CBD oils. She was looking at a book on “Indigo Children” when Annabelle came back with her rod, which was just that – a white wooden stick a couple of feet long. There was a notch at one end. Vivian took it and wrapped it in Jesse’s coat.

  “Now,” said Glenn, and clasped her one free hand in both of his, “is there anything else we can do for you?”

  She thought.

  “Well, actually,” she said, “I really need to borrow a phone.”

  Glenn and Annabelle exchanged glances.

  “I’m afraid we don’t have any phones in the Sanctuary,” he said. “They’re a disruptive presence. If you know what I mean.”

  “Oh.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Then, I don’t suppose you could lend me some change? There’s a payphone at the motel.”

  “That thing’s still there?”

  “Yep.”

  “I don’t know, Vivian…”

  “I need to talk to my bank. And my mum. And the embassy, probably. I had all my stuff stolen.”

  “Your bank?” Glenn weighed this up. “Well. I suppose that wouldn’t do any harm. And at least you won’t be absorbing all that radiation from a cell phone. Annabelle, do you want to see if we’ve got any quarters in the float?”

  Annabelle nodded. She opened the cash register, and it practically exploded with hundred-dollar bills.

  6

  WHEN VIVIAN got back to the motel parking lot she pumped five dollars in quarters into the payphone, then sat on her brother’s coat on the concr
ete and called the number for the Lewiston police department. The phone rang for over a minute. While she waited she noticed there was a car in one of the parking spaces, the first she’d seen. It was sleek and black and looked like it belonged to a funeral cortege.

  A man’s voice came on the line. Irritable. It was late afternoon – she wasn’t sure of the exact time – so he probably had one foot out the door. She apologised in her most English accent, but this just seemed to annoy him more. She gave him her name and case number. More minutes of silence, so many Vivian was convinced he’d hung up on her. Then the man returned, breathless. No, there was no news. No, they had not found her effects. When he was about to put the phone down for good, she quickly asked if they knew anything of Jesse Owens. She wanted to check if, despite Glenn’s assurances, he had gone to the “big house”, and asked if there were any recent convictions attached to his name. No, the policeman said, and besides, the Lewiston police department’s jurisdiction didn’t extend as far as Mount Hookey. Vivian asked: whose jurisdiction did it fall under, then, if there was no police station in the town? That was when her money ran out.

  She was digging for enough change to call back when she heard shouting from inside the motel lobby. She put the phone back in its cradle and went to investigate.

  The windows of Cedar Lodge were thick with dust and she could hardly see through them, but she made out the vibrant pink of the receptionist’s jacket and the shape of a wiry man, perhaps in his fifties, looming over the desk.

  “So you’ve been seeing him,” the man was saying. “All this time. Behind my back. Behind all of our backs. Jesus Christ, Judy.”

  Judy protested, “I’m sorry, Shiv! It’s not what you think—”

  “It’s exactly what I think. You’d jeopardise the whole family for your own gratification.”

  “But if I could show you—”

  “Damn right you’re going to show me,” said the man. “You’re going to show me right now.”

  “Now?”

  “We’re going up the mountain. Together. And you’ll tell me exactly where he is.”

  “But he won’t be there now. And – I’m sorry to say this, Shiv, I really am – I do not appreciate the energy you’re giving off right now, and neither will he.”

  “My energy? Jesus Christ. Come on, Judy. We’re going. I want to know exactly where you went on your little date last night. And if the son of a bitch isn’t there, then we’ll wait for him.”