Fearless

by Sarah Tarkoff

  “Nothing,” I said, as innocently as I could muster.

  Macy was not appeased. “Why are you always hanging out? Every day, he posts another picture of you guys at some coffee shop in the Village or something.” Indeed, not long after I’d graduated, Zack had told me he was moving to New York, to an apartment a few blocks from NYU. For work, he’d said. What he hadn’t said was what I already knew—his “work” was keeping tabs on me.

  With Macy, I played dumb. “I thought he was trying to be a good big brother to you, being nice to your friends.”

  I could practically hear Macy’s eyes roll through the phone. “Trust me, Zack has never once worried about being a good big brother to me.”

  “That’s not true!” I insisted, knowing just how wrong she was.

  “I’m just saying, I’m not the one he’s getting ice cream in Central Park with.”

  I wondered how Zack had explained our strange relationship. “Did you ask him about it?”

  “He was weird about it, too!” she said, accusatory.

  “I’m not being weird about it.” I was totally being weird about it.

  “You’re totally being weird about it!” And then, with the kind of disgust only Macy could manage, she asked, “Do you have, like, a thing for him or something?”

  “No,” I said definitively. “No way. There is no way I would ever date your brother.”

  Which was . . . mostly true. I knew what he was. I knew why he hovered around me. I assumed he wasn’t actually interested in what I had to say, beyond sifting for clues that might interest Prophet Joshua.

  But . . . in the same way time was forcing Jude to slip away from me, it was pushing me toward Zack. While consciously I could never be interested in someone who was so obviously my adversary, the more we hung out, the more it just felt . . . easy. We both loved the same ramen spot downtown; he liked teasing me when I was frustrated waiting for the train; I knew exactly which faces of mine would make him laugh. And even though I couldn’t truly be myself around him, I was growing comfortable with the role I was being forced to play. If I had to be Boring Pious Grace all the time anyway, I somehow didn’t mind being her around him.

  Which was lucky, since the ride back to New York City was a long one. “How’s your dad doing?” Zack asked, as he always did. Apparently, Joshua had an interest in checking on his clerics as well.

  “Good.” I tried to keep my answers as short as I could.

  “Still dating Evil Stepmother?” he teased.

  I smiled a little. “She’s not evil.” In the decade since my mother had died, my dad had never dated seriously. But now, all of a sudden, this Samantha woman was everywhere. She ate breakfast in our kitchen; she sat next to me at our worship center on Sundays. I’d been excited to escape many people by going to college, and Samantha was at the top of the list.

  It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with her, at least not outwardly. But something about her just rubbed me the wrong way. My mother had been fiercely witty, captivating, wickedly smart. And Samantha was . . . fine. She was nice, in a perky way, but she was entirely bland. She lacked my mother’s empathy, her depth, her insightfulness. And while it bugged me that my father would settle for someone so obviously inferior, there was also something about Samantha’s bland cheerfulness that seemed . . . sinister, somehow.

  Though when I related all this to Zack, it was that last bit he seized on. “Sinister?” he teased.

  “You know what I mean,” I grumbled. “She’s just so happy all the time. No one’s like that in real life. She’s putting on an act, and at some point, the facade’s gonna lift, and my dad’s gonna get hurt. And he doesn’t deserve that.”

  Zack seemed touched by that. “It’s sweet that you care about your dad that much.”

  “He’s all I’ve got,” I said honestly.

  “You’re going with him to Johannesburg next month, right?” My father had been selected to speak at a theological conference in South Africa, the most important religious gathering of the year. Prophets and gurus from all over the world, giving sermons to a stadium packed full of the most devout of believers. This was where Proclamations and Prohibitions were made, where religious policies were set. It was the biggest honor my father would likely ever receive. And I was skipping it.

  “I haven’t decided yet,” I evaded. “I want to, but I’m worried about getting behind in my classes. And, you know, my extracurriculars.” I tried to hint that it might be work for the prophet keeping me away. But the truth was, it had been heartbreaking just listening to my dad’s sermons at our worship center every week, knowing what I knew. Surrounded by a whole stadium full of blissful ignorance, I was certain I’d blurt every secret I held out of sheer frustration.

  “But you have to go,” Zack protested, echoing what my father had said a thousand times. “I’m sure he needs your support.”

  I shook my head. “Your sister’s going with him, as a cleric-in-training. She’ll carry around his notes and stuff.” Since her near-death Punishment last year, Macy had tagged along with my father and his junior clerics everywhere, devoting herself to being devout.

  Zack, however, was not assuaged. “My sister? She’s an organizational nightmare. You should go just to keep her away from your father’s notes.”

  “Macy’ll do fine,” I said, laughing.

  Zack grew concerned—for once, it seemed, not as a monitor, but as a friend. “Seriously, Grace. This is a once-in-a-lifetime thing. He’ll be devastated if you miss it.”

  “I know,” I relented. He was right. “I’ll try.” I’ll drag my feet until the tickets are too expensive, that was really my plan.

  “You’re lucky to have him. A parent who’s, you know, wise and stuff.”

  I thought of Zack and Macy’s parents, who were lovely in their own dotty way. “You mean your parents aren’t wise?” I teased him.

  “My mom’s sermons about why she’s always right and my dad’s always wrong would be . . . enlightening in their own way, I guess?”

  We both smiled at the thought. I wondered what my own mother’s sermons might have been like, if she’d ever been able to give one. Somehow in my gut, I’d always assumed she would have handled this strange new world better than my dad. That like Dawn, she would have figured out the truth and been strong enough to fight against it with me. Thoughts like that made her absence feel even starker.

  “Your dad, though . . . he’s the real deal,” Zack insisted. “It always feels like he knows the right thing to do.”

  I’d once thought the same thing. My father had always been my source of all knowledge about right and wrong. I knew if I followed his advice, I could solve any problem. At least, until six months ago, when I first encountered a whole mess of problems he had no idea how to handle. And now I was navigating without a compass, hopelessly lost.

  But I couldn’t tell Zack that. “I wish there was someone who always knew the right thing to do,” I lamented.

  “Besides the prophets, you mean,” Zack said, a challenge in his voice.

  “Of course,” I said, catching myself. “I mean, you know, normal people. People you could talk to in real life.”

  “Me, too,” he said. Then, after a moment of consideration, he joked, “I guess you’ll have to become better friends with Prophet Joshua.”

  The thought chilled me, but I laughed. “Dinner parties with the prophet?”

  “I bet they’re a riot.”

  I searched for a subject change. “Or who knows, maybe you’ll be the next prophet after Joshua. Great Spirit could pick anyone, right?”

  Zack snorted. “I’m pretty sure Great Spirit’s got better options.”

  When Zack and I emerged at Penn Station, I stopped to marvel at the skyscrapers—I still wasn’t used to how tall New York was, how small yet alive I felt here. I hadn’t spent much time in big cities before college, and it was exciting to hear all the strangers around me chattering away in unfamiliar melodic languages, moving like a river in a
n impressionist painting—each person a colorful dot that added up to a breathtaking whole. Even trapped here with Zack, this city made me feel free.

  Over the next few weeks, I tried to focus on school, on keeping my cover, and on catching up with my new class: History of Native American Religion with Professor Irene Hernandez. A small lecture, just two dozen students in a musty classroom, leaning in to hear the professor’s low voice over the rumble of traffic outside.

  I initially expected it to be the same rote, Universal Theology drivel. But as Professor Hernandez spoke, I was intrigued by her lecture on the etymology of the term “Great Spirit,” and whether its current usage as a catchall for the spiritual force behind all religions was respectful, given its original meaning as a more subtle, ethereal, decidedly not Judeo-Christian higher power. The whole discussion was fascinating: dissecting the meaning behind religion intellectually, rather than blindly reciting what we were told. But I had a feeling it all would sound heretical to Prophet Joshua. I could tell why I’d been asked to investigate this woman, at least.

  After my third class, I decided to stop by Professor Hernandez’ office and try to learn more about her. I wanted to get her alone—whatever I discovered, I needed to keep it to myself, so I could decide what information to pass along to the prophet. I walked a few steps behind her, watching her trade jokes with an upperclassman, looking for some kind of easy entry to the conversation and finding none.

  As he peeled off and she headed into her office, I braced myself. This was my moment. But before I reached her door, I was cut off by a girl I recognized as another student from class—a tiny thing with frizzy brown hair and a pink ZTB sorority bag slung over her shoulder. “Professor Hernandez?” Her voice had a slight accent I couldn’t quite place.

  Professor Hernandez looked up, recognizing her. “You’re the girl with all the questions in my . . . Native American Religion class, right?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Aviva.”

  The professor gave the girl a warm smile. “Aviva, right. You have more questions, I imagine?”

  The fast-talking, intense Aviva certainly did. “The Universal Theology says that all religions are equally valid ways of accessing the divine. I don’t see how using the term ‘Great Spirit’ negates any of the validity of the religion it came from. Me thinking that ‘Great Spirit’ means one thing doesn’t prevent someone else from believing it means something else.”

  Professor Hernandez nodded thoughtfully. “Of course it doesn’t. But if, say, the word ‘Yahweh’ was used to describe a completely different kind of higher power, a kind that contradicted the historical Jewish tradition, I think former Jews might have some similar concerns.”

  “I disagree,” the girl said. As she argued her point, I lurked in the doorway, trying not to draw attention to myself. It was then that I noticed something sitting on the desk right behind Professor Hernandez: a picture. A wedding picture, of two smiling women in poofy white wedding dresses. One was the professor, of course. But her arm was wrapped around someone I knew well.

  This wasn’t just any random educator. Professor Irene Hernandez was Dawn’s wife.

  4

  I realized I’d never given much thought to Dawn’s personal life. She’d never offered details, and like the self-absorbed teenager I was, I’d never asked. But here, apparently, was her wife—and it was my job to investigate this woman for Joshua? My heart began to race as panicked thoughts swirled through my mind. If Joshua suspected Irene, that meant he might soon be onto Dawn as well. And Jude. And even me—the stakes were suddenly sky-high to protect this woman.

  “I’ve heard that former Muslims consider it an honor that words from their culture have moved into wider use,” Aviva rattled on. “‘Cleric,’ ‘prophet’ . . . why would ‘Great Spirit’ be any different?”

  “It has to do with the way those words are used,” Irene told her. “‘Cleric’ and ‘prophet’ didn’t fundamentally change their meanings when incorporated into the lexicon of the Universal Theology. ‘Great Spirit’ did.”

  “It’s meaning didn’t change, it just expanded . . .” Aviva insisted, but the professor interrupted before she could finish.

  “Why don’t you come by during my office hours tomorrow and we can discuss some more?” Professor Hernandez was impossibly polite as she told this girl to get lost.

  Aviva put on a smile so broad it could only be fake. “Sounds great.”

  She turned to leave but seemed surprised to see me waiting a few feet behind her. Disconcerted, Aviva took a step back, knocking a pile of papers and notebooks off the professor’s cluttered desk. “I’m so sorry!” she cried out, and the three of us stooped to pick them up.

  “I hate to toss you girls out, but I have work to do,” Professor Hernandez said, doing her best to hide her annoyance.

  “I understand,” Aviva answered apologetically. She turned to leave, and I realized I had no choice but to follow her out, immensely frustrated that this girl’s chattiness and clumsiness had cost me my moment to confer with Dawn’s wife.

  I dragged my feet, trailing behind Aviva as we exited the building. Once the girl was out of sight, I doubled back to Professor Hernandez’ office, where this time, she was less polite about brushing me off. “I’m sorry, I really don’t have time . . .”

  “Are you married to Dawn?” I asked her bluntly, my voice hurried and hushed.

  She was suddenly on guard. “How do you know Dawn?”

  I stepped into her office, and she closed us both safely inside. “I work with her. And . . .” I pulled the green square from my pocket, the one to identify I was with the prophet.

  “You work with Joshua.” Her voice held a deep well of fear.

  “I was sent to investigate you. They’ve heard about the kinds of things you say in your classes.”

  A rueful smile spread across her face. “Dawn will just love this.”

  “Excuse me?” I asked, suddenly realizing how stupid I’d just been. Walking up to this woman and admitting who I was, outright. What if Professor Hernandez was a plant I’d been led to by Joshua? An elaborate ruse to trick me into outing myself? If so, I’d just given myself away as a double agent. Panic surged through me.

  “She’s warned me a thousand times to be more careful,” Irene continued, and I breathed a sigh of relief as she went on a tirade against Dawn. “But I told her, my lectures have always been like this, even before I met her, even before I knew the truth. No one ever complained, even after the Revelations. Wouldn’t it be more suspicious to change my entire teaching style at the drop of a hat? Wouldn’t holding myself back be a clear sign to the prophets that I suddenly have something to hide?”

  “It’ll be okay,” I tried to reassure her. “I’ll tell Joshua whatever Dawn wants me to tell him. You’ll be safe. She’ll make sure you end up somewhere safe.” I was certain Dawn would protect her own wife, at least.

  Irene seemed less certain about that, as she moved around her office, packing things up. “She’s barely able to protect herself lately.” Irene’s pointed words left my legs feeling wobbly; her fear was bringing my own right to the surface.

  I jumped as Irene started tossing the contents of her desk on the floor, frantically searching for something. “SHIT.”

  I so rarely heard anyone swear, the word itself rattled me. “What’s wrong?” I asked nervously.

  Irene was tearing the place apart. “There was a purple folder here, with all my lectures. Transcripts, going back years. I swear, it was just here. Have you seen it?”

  I scanned the room as she searched, but I saw no sign of the folder. And I was pierced by a horrifying realization. “What if I wasn’t the only one sent to investigate you?”

  Irene quickly put it together, too. “You mean that other girl . . .”

  “Aviva. What if she’s working for Joshua, too?” Or with that accent, more likely a prophet from some other country. And it looked like she’d already stolen what she needed to arrest Professor Hernandez.
I was too late.

  5

  “What do we do?” I asked Irene, but Irene was busy panicking, pacing the room in despair.

  “Dawn is going to kill me . . .”

  “She’s going to save you, it’ll be fine,” I said, trying to calm her down, and trying to calm the dread swelling inside my own stomach. If Aviva reported Professor Hernandez’ heresy, and I reported nothing was amiss, would Joshua suspect me of being a double agent?

  “What if Dawn can’t save me? We’ve had so many friends disappear . . .” Her words hinted at a kind of danger Dawn had been shielding me from.

  I thought fast. Could I steal back whatever information Aviva had before she turned it in? Watching Irene frantically pawing through her desk drawers, I had a feeling she wasn’t the type who would stand up well to torture. If she was taken, it might be only a matter of time before Dawn and everyone working for her fell, too.

  “Call Dawn, tell her what happened. She’ll make a plan to get you to safety.” Professor Hernandez nodded, clearly relieved that someone else was giving her direct instructions. “I’ll find that girl, I’ll get your lectures back, and we’ll figure out the next steps from there.”

  Having a plan seemed to reassure her, at least. But as Irene and I parted ways, I realized I knew very little about this Aviva person. I could find her on social media, but it’s not like her Instagram account would list her dorm room or class schedule. And waiting until Dr. Hernandez’ next class would be too late. Unless . . . I’d seen Aviva carrying that pink sorority bag. Could I track her down in sorority housing?

  With a little help from the online campus directory, I found the building that held ZTB. It was just one floor in a massive skyscraper, nothing like the sorority houses I’d seen in the movies. With a glance up at the ZTB banner hanging from the tenth-floor windows, I slipped in behind a pizza delivery guy.

  The walls on the tenth floor were plastered with pictures of smiling young women doing fun, pious activities. My heart ached a little as I passed them: this was exactly the life I’d always imagined for myself at college—being part of the perfect clique of pretty people. These happy, carefree sorority girls reminded me of who I used to be, the kind of person I could never be again. But, I reminded myself, they weren’t who I wanted to be anymore.