“Did I?”
“You did. I read the report.”
She couldn’t remember doing that. She thought she’d deliberately kept it to herself when she’d spoken to the sergeant, because she thought getting the police involved would scare Jesse off. It had probably been the concussion talking.
“How did you find me?”
“You told the police where to contact you, right?”
“I did but—”
“You’re the only guest at the motel. Wasn’t hard.” “Oh.” She frowned. “So are you here to talk about what happened at Lewiston, or about my brother?”
Husband and wife looked at each other.
“Both, I think,” said Jerome, and impaled another cube of chicken on his chopstick.
The nervous waiter came back and asked her if she was ready to order. When Vivian hesitated Minnie touched her hand and said, “It’s okay, dear, this is on us.” Vivian asked for a bowl of “special fried rice”. The waiter looked pained again, then realised what expression he was pulling, and yanked his mouth up into a smile. He went back to the kitchen and there was the sound of muttering and slamming cupboards. It seemed he was running the whole operation himself.
Jerome leaned forward on his elbows.
“You’re not the first person to come here looking for someone who’s gone missing,” he said.
“I’m not?” said Vivian.
Jerome shook his old head slowly.
“I may be ten, eleven years out of the force, but I still like to keep an ear to the ground, you know?”
“Still sleeps in his office sometimes,” Minnie interjected.
He ignored her.
“In the past few years there have been dozens of people come looking for friends and relatives around here. But under the new sheriff the police just don’t want to get involved. They think this whole town is just bums, hippies, drug addicts, all kinds of lost souls—”
Minnie started shaking her head at this.
“—and far as they’re concerned there’s no point wasting time and money looking for anyone. But there’s something else going on. I don’t know.” He rolled his chopstick between thumb and forefinger. “The cops in Lewiston, they don’t even send patrol cars up here. Like they think this place just looks after itself. Wasn’t like that on my watch. We knew the place was crazy, but that didn’t mean we just forgot about them. You know?”
Minnie sniffed. She wiped an eye with her greasy napkin.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Jerome reached out and clasped her hand.
“It’s going to be alright, Min,” he said.
Vivian looked at both of them, baffled. Jerome turned back to her and continued.
“Fourth of July this year, our son Nathan didn’t come home like he usually does. We found out from one of his old school friends, after the event, that he’d got into this stuff with his girlfriend and he’d come up here. One of the schools, or sanctuaries, or whatever they call them. We haven’t had a single call from him, and it’s been months. Now Nathan, he’s a clever kid. Bit older than you, but not much.”
“He went to Brown!” said Minnie, suddenly.
“He was a real clever kid,” said Jerome again. “He graduated top of his class. He was a lawyer in LA for five, six years. And then… I don’t know. I tried to call in favours at the sheriff’s office in Trinity and Siskyou, but no one wanted to lift a finger. Even old friends. It’s like they were scared or something.”
They fell silent. There was a whoosh of gas igniting from the kitchen, and more cursing.
“So what do you want from me?” asked Vivian. “Sounds like you probably know more than I do.”
“At the moment, yes, I think I probably do.”
“At the moment?”
“Listen: I heard about what happened to you in Lewiston. Like I say, I’ve kept a hand in the department, not that they like it. I know you’re looking for your brother up here. And I know you said you got beat up by some clown with a bell. Right?”
“Right…”
“Look at this.” He took out a pair of glasses from his shirt pocket, held his phone at arm’s length from his face, and typed something with one finger. He scrolled around and then showed her a photo. It was a semicircle of grinning men and women in robes, gathered around a fire. She could see their shoes poking out from beneath the robes – brogues and sneakers and plimsolls. Each of them was holding a decorative handbell.
“Who are they?” asked Vivian.
“It’s one of the communities they have here. This one’s called the Telos Centre for Spiritual Living. But there’s hundreds of them, I guess you know that.”
Vivian couldn’t quite remember where she’d heard that specific name before.
“You think someone was trying to stop me looking for my brother?”
“Doesn’t make sense any other way. How many perps do you think there are whose weapon of choice is a prayer bell?”
Vivian thought about this. She remembered the last words she’d heard, before her cheek hit the dirty linoleum of the bus station waiting room: It’s not him. It’s not him.
“Could be the other way around. Could be they thought I was Jesse, and they thought he was trying to escape. I mean, we are pretty much identical.” She quickly added, “Physically, at least.”
“Well,” said Jerome, “either way, these Telos folks aren’t your friends.”
Then why, Vivian thought, had Glenn welcomed her with such open arms?
“Okay,” she said. “Was that all you wanted? To warn me?”
Jerome was on the cusp of replying when Minnie interjected. “We just want our boy back.”
Vivian looked in her tired eyes and suddenly thought of her own mother, at home, waiting for Vivian to return her call. It had been almost a week. She swallowed another lump of guilt.
“But how—”
“Tell her, Jerome,” said Minnie.
“There’s no point trying to get questions answered from the outside,” he said. “We need someone to sign up with these folks and see just what in the heck is going on in there. Someone to just, you know, go through the motions – ring your bell and pray to the great spirit or whatever it is you do – and see where it takes you. A lot of these websites talk about going up the mountain. I can’t help thinking there’s another place, you know? Where you graduate to.”
“There is.”
“There is?”
“Apparently. It’s called Telos.”
Jerome sat back.
“Huh.” He studied Vivian. “Well, see now, they’ll know I’m a cop so I can’t join. And we’re both too old, anyway. But we were thinking, maybe you could—”
“I’ve already signed up,” said Vivian.
Jerome and Minnie looked at each other. “You have?”
Vivian nodded. “I’m not sure it’s the same one as your son signed up for. But I think they all go in the same direction. It’s a franchise, you know. Like McDonald’s.”
“So you’re already a card-carrying Telurian?” Jerome laughed.
“I’ve got a rod and everything,” said Vivian. “Well, I did have one, but I… Doesn’t matter.”
“And you’re paying for the whole thing yourself?” said Minnie.
That question again.
“Not yet,” she said. “I don’t know how I’ll pay for it. At the moment I’m on some kind of free trial, I think.”
“No such thing,” said Jerome. “They’ll get you to pay up one way or another.”
“I can’t,” said Vivian. “I still don’t have any money. Not since what happened in Lewiston.”
“Nothing at all?” said Minnie.
Vivian shook her head.
“Isn’t there someone you can call? Your mother or father?”
“I don’t want to worry them,” said Vivian, as though her father were still alive. She didn’t want to get into all that now.
“What about your phone? Your passport?”
Vivian shrugged. “I guess I’ve been distracted. I’ll get around to it. I suppose I need to go to an embassy but—” But what? “Well, I’m here now. I don’t want to just abandon Jesse again now I’ve got a lead. Anyway, I don’t have the money for a bus or a train ticket.”
Minnie put her hand on Vivian’s arm again and looked imploringly at her husband.
“Give it to her, Jerome. Poor thing needs a proper meal or five.”
“Alright. I was going to give it her anyway, Minnie.”
“Then give it, there’s no one here.”
He looked over her shoulder. The owner was still clattering about in the kitchen. He produced a brown envelope from his calfskin jacket, which was bundled up beside him in the booth. He put it on a clean bit of the table.
“Me and Min been moving some money around so we can pay someone to take the course. If you’re already enrolled, then… Well, how about you see how far you can get. Stay on it as long as you can, ask some questions. When you find Nathan and Jesse, you call it in.”
“Call it in?”
“He’s being dramatic,” said Minnie. “He means let us know.”
“I can do that,” said Vivian.
The envelope still sat on the table between them.
“Go ahead, dear,” said Minnie. “Take it.”
Vivian picked it up. It felt vulgar to check the contents, but she could tell from the weight and thickness that there must be several hundred dollars in there. A lot of money, but definitely not enough to pay for more than a week of the Violet Path. Not enough to get her to the Thirteenth Stone, or even the Third Stone. Minnie squeezed her arm and gave an encouraging smile. Vivian wondered how much of their combined pensions was in that envelope, then wondered what percentage of her own family’s wealth it constituted. The kind of money her mother might spend on a scarf that she never wore.
“I’ll pay you back,” she said.
“Don’t even think of it,” said Minnie. “You’re the one putting yourself at risk.” She looked at Vivian seriously. “If it gets too much you just stop right away. They stop you thinking straight, these people. A boy like Nathan. Such a smart boy.” She started welling up. “He went to Brown, for goodness sake,” she said again.
The waiter finally emerged from the kitchen and Vivian hid the envelope on her lap. He placed the bowl of fried rice in front of her, hovered for a moment as though expecting a comment, or a tip, and then slunk away. Vivian looked over the dish. The rice was speckled with lots of brightly coloured morsels that looked like M&Ms. She picked out two, an orange one and a green one. They both tasted of chicken.
The rest of the dinner was quiet and awkward. They spoke as if their first conversation had never really happened. They talked about the weather, then Nathan, then about the rest of their families. Vivian kept up the pretence that her dad was still alive, for expediency’s sake. No point getting into it. She told them he was retired, like Jerome, and had worked in finance, and Jerome looked at her and nodded like she was speaking a language he didn’t understand. That was fine because Vivian didn’t understand either.
She finished her bowl of multicoloured rice, and Jerome insisted on paying, and they went out into the street. The waiter almost followed them out of the door, as if, even after settling the bill and putting on their coats, they might decide they wanted dessert after all.
“Well, thank you, Vivian,” said Jerome. He looked up and down the 55. It was still raining. “I hope this works out for all of us.”
“You’re very nice,” Minnie assured her again.
“When you want to get in touch,” said Jerome, “use this.”
He gave her what looked like a small plastic egg with an LCD screen.
“What is it?”
“Pager. Two-way. I prefer to use them. Got a bad feeling about using phones around here.”
“Okay. I’ll figure it out.”
She pocketed it, next to the envelope of cash.
“We’ll see you soon then, I hope.”
“I’ll let you know.”
“Where are you going now?” asked Minnie. “Can we give you a ride?”
“I was actually already on my way to the Sanctuary.”
“Really?”
She shrugged. “May as well.”
“Cedar Lodge not all you hoped for?” said Jerome.
“Something like that.”
“Alright.” He shook her hand. “Well, be safe. Goodnight Vivian.”
“Goodnight.”
He loped off into the night with his wife and Vivian watched them disappear around the corner. Minnie was fussing with her husband’s collar. Vivian found them very sweet, and very sad.
Her coat felt heavy now, with the money and the pager and the handfuls of Jesse’s notes. Her head felt heavy, too. She didn’t move, as if weighed down by some terrible new burden. She was still standing there in the deserted street when the electric shutters of Wing’s began to grind and complain, and then jammed, and the young man who’d served her came out with a stepladder and began jimmying around in the mechanism with a fork.
10
THE TRIANGULAR window of the Telos Sanctuary shone out like a lighthouse through the rain. Vivian climbed the steps and found the door open. Glenn was inside, perched on one of the colossal pebble-chairs, talking with Annabelle. He turned and got up when she came through the door, but Annabelle continued gazing at the spot where he’d been sitting, a half-smile on her face, as if in some kind of blissful trance. Vivian’s conversation with Jerome suddenly seemed a distant thing. The music, the warmth, the scent of the place – it was hard to imagine the Sanctuary as anything other than benevolent once you were actually inside it.
“Vivian,” Glenn said, almost with relief. “We were just talking about you.”
“Really?”
Her face grew hot.
“We were worried perhaps you weren’t going to come back,” said Glenn. He pushed up his glasses in that familiar way and looked her over. He frowned. “Has something happened? You look like you’ve been in the wars, dear heart.”
Vivian looked down and saw that her coat was still smeared with mud from her tumble into the ravine and torn at one elbow. There was the shiny egg on her forehead, too.
“Oh,” she said. “Right. No. I just went for a walk.”
“A walk?”
“Yeah, just up the…” She waved a hand in the direction of the mountain and then stopped, already thinking she’d said too much.
Glenn looked puzzled, or was at least pretending to.
“Up where?”
“Up the road. To the gas station. Someone had been washing their car and I slipped. Onto my head.”
“Slipped onto your head.”
“Yeah.”
“I daresay your mind was on higher things,” said Glenn.
Vivian was saved from her embarrassment by the arrival of three more initiates, who came through the door in coats and robes, the hems soaked and dirty with rainwater. Two of them were young women she’d never seen before. The other was the man from the Mount Hookey Crystal Visions shop, the one who had stared at her while she was putting up posters of Jesse. He stared at her some more now while he took off his mackintosh.
“Blessings,” everyone said to each other, and they bobbed their heads like seagulls. The man from the shop didn’t say anything. The trio went upstairs.
“Do you have your rod?” said Glenn.
“Oh,” said Vivian. “I was going to say. I forgot it. I left it in the motel. Sorry.”
“Don’t tell me you’re staying in Cedar Lodge, too?”
“It was the only place I could find.”
“That’s what Jesse said. Do you like it there?”
“Not really…”
“We couldn’t get Jesse out of there!”
Vivian thought of the locked door to room 29.
“Get him out?”
“There was always the offer of staying in the Sanctuary, but he said he was happy where he
was. Well, not happy, but… You know. No accounting for taste, I suppose.” He chuckled again. “Maybe they do a better breakfast there.”
“I can guarantee they don’t.”
Glenn laughed and did a strange wink, that might have been involuntary. “You know you can stay here,” he said. “Sleep here, eat here. I told you, you’re part of the family now.”
“Really?”
“Of course!”
Vivian thought. She ran her tongue around the inside of her mouth. She’d make a far better undercover operative if she was actually a resident at the Sanctuary. She’d have more opportunity to ask questions. It was also just so very nice here.
“Maybe,” she said, at last.
“No pressure at all.”
“I’ll think about it.”
“Good.”
“What about the rod thing?”
“Oh, don’t worry,” he said. “Plenty of them lying around. Annabelle?”
She came out of her hypnotised state and got up from the big pebble.
“Another rod for Vivian, please.” He turned back to her. “And did we give you a robe? We didn’t give you a robe! Let’s get you disrobed, then re-robed, then we can get started.”
“Started on what?”
“Your first session.”
“I’m not sure—”
“Chop chop!”
“I wanted to ask—”
“Save questions till afterwards!”
“But—”
“The spheres won’t wait for you, Vivian!”
Fifteen minutes later Vivian was sitting cross-legged on a circular mat in the big room. The session was something that Glenn had called “violet flame meditation”. She sat in a ring of ten other initiates, her new rod lying on the floor next to her. She noticed that everyone else’s rods had a jewel affixed to the end. The only light came from the wood burner at the far end and several dozen candles that Carl had lit around the place. The candles were purple, both the wax and the flame.
When everyone was settled, Glenn hit a big bowl of water with a mallet and brought one of the candles into the centre of the circle. Everyone was told to focus on the flame, but Vivian couldn’t help noticing the glances she was getting from the other people seated around her. They knew, somehow. Knew about her meeting with Jerome, knew she was a fraud.
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