Ring of Years

by Grant Oliphant

  Tethys (on screen): Hello, boys and girls!

  They (arranged as they are now): Hello, Tethys!

  She: Are you ready to play?

  They: Oh yes, Tethys, yes!

  She: Good, because today we’re going to play a special game.

  They: Yippee! Which one?

  She: It’s called, Let’s Drown Ourselves. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

  They: It does, it does!

  She: All right, then, let’s play!

  They: Yay!

  The image fades as Katie continues speaking. “If you’re watching this, my children,” her taped incarnation says, “It’s because my fondest wish has finally come true. It is a wish so special, I never shared it even with you, a wish about the girl who is with you now. And if you don’t mind, I’m going to start by speaking to her. Is that okay”

  Heads nod, and there are calls of, “Yes. of course, absolutely.”

  As if on cue, Katie says, “Good, thank you,” and redirects her gaze straight at the camera, so that she appears to be looking directly at Natalie in her spot on the couch. A deep, penetrating stare. Her eyes ore a soupy green, the color of the sea on a cloudy day, and Natalie finds herself getting lost in them. The longer she looks, the more Katie seems, maybe not alive, but present. Totally, utterly, captivatingly present. The illusion is disturbingly real.

  “Natalie,” she says, “My precious, darling Natalie. How you must hate me right now.”

  Without thinking Natalie becomes the one talking back to the tape.

  ‘“Wow, there’s a safe guess.”

  Onscreen, Katie makes a burbling noise, then collapses forward in a loud, hacking cough that shakes her body violently. In front of Natalie heads turn to shoot her recriminating glances, as if she caused Katie’s spasm. She wants to remind her fellow viewers that it happened days ago, whenever this tape was made, but realizes she’d be wasting her breath. To them, this is no mere image on tape; this is their beloved Tethys.

  When the coughing fit passes, Katie winces one last time, wipes her mouth with a saliva-reddened cloth, then smiles weakly at the camera. “You can understand my sense of urgency,” she says. “Not much time left. Just enough to do the right thing. That’s what I want to discuss with you now. I want to talk about doing the right thing.”

  “Like kidnapping?” Natalie shoots back.

  “Listen, please!” Sara commands.

  ‘‘I’m sure you feel coerced right now,” Katie continues, almost as if she heard Natalie’s reply. “And I understand, I really do. But I want you to understand that the girl was necessary, that all of this was necessary, because you don’t know your own heart. You haven’t for a long time—a very, very long time.”

  The slow rhythm of Katie’s sandpaper voice scrapes gently at Natalie’s resistance, breaking it down. To her, Katie isn’t just a kidnapper; she is a clue to her own past. And as Katie’s words turn to that past, Natalie is drawn into them. She listens, rapt, to the rest of the tape.

  * * *

  “Years ago, you and I shared the privilege of living with a great man, a prophet, a seer. He taught me everything I know about the universe and our place in it. He taught me everything worth knowing about love and about people. And he would have taught you, too, but he never had the chance . . . at first. because you were too young, and later, because you were taken from him. And he, from you.

  “There are those in this world who cannot stand goodness, Natalie, who cannot stomach wisdom, who hate the thought that maybe someone who looks just like them might be in touch with a holiness they can’t even begin to comprehend. They hated Father, despised him in their guts, because he reminded them of how small and stunted they really were. So they came with their guns and their tanks and their lies, and they tried to kill him, to execute him, to wipe him and all those who believed in him from the face of the planet.

  “And you know what? He expected them to succeed. I know that now. I didn’t then, but I do now. He expected them to succeed, because it was necessary for him to be sacrificed so that the world might know of his teachings and embrace them. In their own evil way, his assassins would be doing the work of the universe.

  “But something went terribly wrong. Father couldn’t leave any of his followers behind. He loved us too much to leave us alone with the jackals and the wolves. But I was out of the house when the evil ones attacked. I insisted on going, on taking Father’s place as ambassador, which was pride, hubris. A mortal sin that I have paid for every day since. But I wasn’t alone. You survived, too—also the result of sin. If only you had trusted Father more, if only you had shown him the love he showed you all those years. you wouldn’t have reacted with such fear to his simple raising of a weapon. And then, instead of being knocked aside as you were, you would have been lifted up along with the other children, just as I, too, would have been lifted up if I had stayed. Instead, Natalie, we were left behind. My pride and your fear cost us paradise. And yet, Father, because of his immense love for us, stayed with us. Despite our unfaithfulness, he stayed.

  “But that’s not how it should have been, is it, Natalie? You and I shouldn’t have survived. I’m sure that not one day, not one hour, has gone by when you haven’t asked yourself why you were left behind. why you aren’t right now with your mother and sister in paradise. I’m right, aren’t I, Natalie? Every hour of every day, you hear that question ringing in your ears. You feel the ache in your heart, the emptiness inside, and you wonder.

  “I know I do. You shouldn’t be embarrassed. It’s what happens when you’re not where you’re supposed to be. It’s what we feel. But it doesn’t have to be that way. The damage we did can be undone. Really. It can be undone.

  “But how could I tell you all this in a way that you would hear? You didn’t want to hear from me. You didn’t want to know the truth.

  “Natalie, despite everything, I was fortunate in at least one respect. When this nightmare began, I was already an adult. Father’s teachings were firmly inside my heart, and no one could strip me of my loyalty to him. But you were just a child, just a young and foolish girl, easily misled, easily brainwashed, easily used. They filled your head with lies about Father, about what he did and said, and those lies became your reality. You learned to hate him, and along with him, me.

  “But, Natalie, that hate was so misplaced, so terribly misplaced. You need to know that Father didn’t kill your sister. For all that you might want to believe that, he didn’t kill her. You did, through your mistrust. Father never betrayed you—you betrayed him.

  “I know that’s hard for you to hear, but it’s important for you to know the truth. We have both sinned against him, and now it’s time for us to atone for those sins. We need to make ourselves right with him again.

  “And it’s so simple. All we have to do is repay the debt we’ve owed since that horrible day. We owe Father his freedom back, his life, and he can’t have it as long as we’re here. We have to give that to him.

  “That’s why Selena was necessary. If anything was going to bring you to your senses, it was her, a girl very much like the sister you abandoned through your faithlessness those many years ago. If there was any good left in your heart, any good at all, you would try to find her, to prevent her from having to make a sacrifice that was rightly yours to make. And in case you didn’t, then, well, at least she would be here to take your place.

  “But we don’t have to worry about that now, because you’re here. Your heart has led you home. I’m so happy about that, Natalie. And angry as you might feel right now, I guarantee you that will pass.

  “Thirteen years ago I visited you in the hospital and made you a promise while you slept, that this terrible mistake would be set right. That promise has now been kept. Our suffering is over, and Father will finally be free to join his children in a better place. I can’t wait to hold you in my arms again. You can thank me then, and I know you will. I absolutely know you will.”

  * * *

  Natalie stares
over the heads floating in the space between her and the television. The room seems to be spinning around her, a slow, meandering spiral like the accidental path of a hurricane. From somewhere out in the swirl, Katie is cautioning her followers that since Natalie doesn’t fully know her own heart yet, she still might resist them, in which case they will have to use force to make her do what’s right.

  “The last one,” Natalie says softly when the tape is done and Katie’s image has been replaced by snow again. “That’s me, isn’t it? I’m the last one. I’m the one who had to be liberated.”

  Sara beams. “Exactly.”

  Natalie laughs, weakly at first, then with growing force, a deep, shoulder-shaking, borderline hysterical laugh that intensifies the already screaming pain in her head.

  “God, I’ve been such a fool,” she says when the laughing subsides and with it the pounding inside her skull. “The whole idea that you’d let me get away with just promising not to testify against him—what was I thinking? You don’t want my promise, you want me. That’s the deal, isn’t it? A fair trade, my life for the little girl’s?”

  “Your salvation for the girl’s freedom,” Sara answers righteously. “Just like Tethys said.”

  “Just like Tethys said,” Natalie repeats absently. How could she have missed it? How could she ever have interpreted the deal otherwise?

  That’s when she realizes it: she never really did. Deep in her heart she knew it all along. She isn’t that naïve, that gullible, that idealistic—she knows how the world works and the prices it exacts. If she wanted to save the girl, she was going to have to sacrifice herself. Not Stephanie, who was already gone, but herself. She knew it from the start.

  She just hadn’t wanted to admit it to herself. She isn’t sure why. Maybe because it felt too easy, like a guilty pleasure, like being given what you’ve always wanted and calling it a sacrifice. Maybe because she felt unworthy of a second chance.

  And that’s precisely what Aunt Katie has orchestrated for her—the real second chance she’s always wanted. The chance to exchange her own life for Stephanie’s, albeit through a surrogate.

  She recognizes the perversity in that. Katie didn’t do this for her—she did it for Ralston. And for herself. She was insane and still under his thrall, and the deal she’s offering is the work of a lunatic. But the essential logic of her offer remains: this time, Natalie can be the one to take the bullet.

  Do what’s right.

  That’s what this is about. Katie hasn’t persuaded her that Ralston is innocent or that he deserves her death as the ticket to his freedom. He can rot in prison and then in hell as far as she’s concerned, and she’s quite confident that, once free, Katie’s cherished Father will be enjoying life on terra firma for a while rather than rushing off to join his erstwhile flock in Atlantis or wherever they all ended up.

  But that’s not what matters. She has no power over those things anymore. Her sole remaining power is over the fate of one girl, one small child. And this time, she intends to make the right choice. To do what’s right.

  “Don’t worry,” she says reassuringly to the Guardians, who have assembled around her with faces filled with loving, murderous intent. ‘‘I’m not going to fight you. Just bring the girl here so I can see that she’s safe. Do that and I’ll go to Atlantis with you.”

  We’ll all go together, she thinks. And the world can be rid of the whole sorry, godforsaken lot of us.

  * * *

  Sara sends Peter upstairs to get Selena and everyone else outside to prepare for their trip. “Go ahead and get in the van,” she tells them. “We’ll be out soon, won’t be long.”

  Natalie tries not to shudder at the mention of the van.

  A minute or two later, Peter returns carrying Selena in his arms. She doesn’t look anything like the happy, smiling girl in the photograph at Marida Latham’s house. Natalie thinks she is more ghost than child—her pale arms like wispy cords wrapped around Peter’s thick neck, memories of limbs more than the genuine item. She is clinging to Peter the way children do when they’re tired and frightened and just want to go home where it’s quiet and safe and familiar. Face down in his shoulder, the occasional furtive glance, dark eyes peeking out to see who else is in the room, she is a pretty girl, drained of prettiness by terror.

  Seeing her cling to Peter this way, Natalie immediately thinks of Stephanie, of the feel of her sister’s arms around her own neck years ago. She wonders what Stephanie saw in her last furtive glance before Father’s gun went off and her own sister held her up to be its victim. Just the question makes Natalie sick; she guesses it would kill her actually to know the answer.

  Do what’s right.

  This time, she thinks; yes, this time.

  “Selena,” she says softly.

  The girl buries her face deeper into Peter’s neck.

  “She doesn’t want to talk to you,” he says. Natalie is surprised by the hostility in his voice. He obviously doesn’t think much of Natalie, and he’s obviously protective of the girl.

  Which could be good or bad.

  “It’s all right, honey,” Natalie says, standing on her wobbly legs and stroking Selena’s fine, soft hair. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  With a violent shake of her head, the girl shrinks away from Natalie’s touch. “Go away!”

  Undaunted, Natalie holds out her arms. “I’d like to hold her, if I could,” she says. “Please. It would mean a lot to me.”

  Peter pushes her hands away. “She only likes me.”

  “Peter!” Sara hisses. “That’s rude.”

  “I won’t make her do something she doesn’t want to,” Peter replies.

  Natalie backs off. “Okay, all right, don’t get upset.” She goes back to stroking Selena’s hair. It feels so much like Stephanie’ s, so much like long ago. “You’re a very pretty girl, you know that?” she says. “Just like your mother.”

  It is, of course, the right button to push. Finally, Selena’s head lifts away from Peter’s shoulder and her young, intense eyes hold Natalie in a steady gaze. “You know my mother?”

  “I do. She asked me to help find you.”

  “She did?” Her face lights up in a bright surprised smile, and she peers up at Peter. “Did you hear that Peter? She’s not a bad lady—she came from my mom. My mom’s looking for me!”

  Peter nods—coldly, Natalie thinks. Selena turns back, her face suddenly animated. “Peter’s taking me home,” she adds excitedly. “Is that why you’re here, so you can help him?”

  Puzzled, Natalie looks into the stony eyes of Selena’s protector. They tell her nothing except that he’s unhappy, desperately unhappy. And that for whatever reason, he hates her. “I guess,” she answers. ‘‘I’m here to take your place.”

  It’s the little girl’s turn to look confused. “My place?’’

  “It’s a long story,” Natalie tells her. “What matters is that you get to go home and see your mom again. Sound good?”

  “Yes!”

  Natalie holds out her arms again, and this time Selena practically leaps out of Peter’s embrace and into hers. Natalie, eyes closed, buries her face in the girl’s hair, nuzzles against her skin, feels the weight of her arms against her neck—hungrily, breathing her in, absorbing her, desperately trying to capture every sensation in its minutest detail. She wants her final thoughts to be of this, memories of what might have been. “Stephanie,” she whispers.

  “I’m Selena!” the girl protests.

  “It’s okay, I know.”

  “Who’s Stephanie?”

  “My sister. You remind me of her, that’s all.”

  “Oh. I guess that’s all right.”

  “Thanks.”

  Thanks. Natalie thinks it’s the most sincere expression of gratitude she has ever given. Thanks for letting me save your life, thanks for giving me this one moment, this precious gift.

  When she opens her eyes again. Sara is standing next to her, wearing a smile that has turned from ple
asant indulgence to anxious impatience. “We have to go,” she whispers.

  On Natalie’s other side, Peter glowers furiously at her. That’s when she understands: he’s jealous. He wants to be Selena’s hero; not just one of her heroes, the only hero, the sole object of her affection.

  And that she knows, is never good.

  * * *

  “We’re not leaving her,” he declares.

  “What?” both Natalie and Sara exclaim at once.

  He grabs Selena and pulls her roughly from Natalie’s arms. “I’m not leaving her,” he shouts, turning on his heels and striding away.

  Both women run after him. “Have you totally lost your mind?” Sara demands. “Didn’t you hear Tethys?”

  They pass through a kitchen and out the back door into a nighttime version of the yard Natalie remembers from her memories of butterflies. Off to the left is the barn—a bit more rundown than she remembers, and smaller in the way that things seen in childhood inevitably shrink over time, but very much the same barn. She can almost imagine her father emerging from it with his net and his jar and his smile full of death.

  Trap the girl in the jar, she thinks, and watch her die.

  Muted light streams through the barn’s open doors. Parked just inside is a van identical to the one she saw on television as she was standing in the hallway of Maureen’s mall. That image fills her mind, of men scrambling about as the van came dripping up from the dark water. It will be like that again, she guesses. A different lake, a different van, but the same scene, played out in much the same way.

  New shoots in old wounds.

  The group from the living room has relocated en masse into the van’s windowless back. They smile when they see Peter and Sara heading toward them; some even wave, like passengers leaving on a cruise. That’s when Natalie notices the handcuffs. They are all, every one of them, chained to the cargo bed. A shudder comes over her—this is not a group that leaves room for second thoughts.