Those Who Prey

by Jennifer Moffett

  Kara instructs me to sit down beside a girl I’ve never seen before. She’s very small and seems younger than the rest of us. Kara leaves me to hover with the other DPs, including Josh, toward the back of the room.

  “Hi,” I say quietly. “I’m Emily.”

  “Lily—”

  She barely gets her name out before another girl, standing closely behind her, snaps, “Hush! We’re about to start.” Lily runs her hand through her thick, brown hair and smiles nervously. Everyone else sitting in the circle of chairs is solemn and silent while the DPs chat quietly. I look around. After seeing so many amazing places out of my train and bus windows, this dingy room with cracked stucco walls and minimal décor is more than a little disappointing. You’re not here for a five-star vacation. You’re here to save people, I remind myself.

  Will enters at the front of the large room.

  “Disciples,” he bellows. “Emily. Lily. Andrew. Todd. I need you to stay seated in the chairs.”

  Our semicircle is facing a wooden table pushed against the wall. The table is topped with large brown paper sacks, like oversized goodie bags waiting to be collected at the end of a birthday party.

  “Kara. Shannon. Josh. Ben. Please come stand behind your disciple.”

  I watch Kara and the rest of the DPs make their way toward us. Kara whispers something to Josh in passing, making him smile. A pang of jealousy shoots through me. Stop. It’s nothing, I tell myself. We have the whole trip to spend together. I compose myself as the DPs settle in behind us. Will continues: “Now, I want you to blindfold your new disciples.”

  What?

  He hands each of them a red or blue bandanna to place around our eyes. Mine’s red. I breathe in deeply through my nose as Kara ties a knot against the back of my head, securing total darkness. I strain my eyes to peek. I can’t see anything.

  “Now everyone listen carefully, because I want you to understand the importance of your Discipler-Disciple relationship. This is the basis for every single thing you will do on this mission.” I sense Will pacing before us. “Yes, we are here to multiply our ministry and spread the Word of God to the lost souls here in this beautiful country, but each one of you here in this room is also here to advance your personal relationship with God. And we all know the way to accomplish that is by discipling each other.

  “In order to be discipled, you must have a teachable heart and you must have a trusting heart,” he continues. “Disciples, you have to be willing to do whatever your Discipling Partner—DP—advises you to do, without question. Proverbs 3:5 says: ‘Lean not on your own understanding.’ You must not filter what you choose from your DP; it’s all or nothing. A trusting heart will allow you to trust beyond your own understanding. How can you do what’s right if you aren’t willing to fully obey?” His voice moves in front of us, around us, behind us, back in front. Mixed with my exhaustion and hunger, the effect is almost dizzying.

  “Now I want everyone to stand.” He pauses. “Emily, Todd, Lily, Andrew. Your DP will lead you through this next step. Will you accept this test of faith? Will you trust them without question? Will your heart be open and obedient?” Each question ends with the lifted pitch of a revival preacher. He sounds more like the Leader than the Will I remember from my baptism.

  Kara’s hands warm my shoulders as she steers me forward with deliberate effort. I stumble a few times to keep up with her pace. Will continues a steady patter of words as we circle around his voice. It’s like we’re surrounded by him, and he’s closing in. “Trust. Follow. Imitate. Only these actions will lead to being a disciple of Jesus. Your Discipling Partnership alone can guide you to a successful relationship with God.”

  He pauses as we continue moving around him. “Fear. Pride. Doubt. A rebellious heart. All of those things add up to that dreaded three-letter word: S-I-N.” As he hisses the letters, my thighs bump into the table, and I almost cry out. His voice stops. The room goes quiet until Will begins speaking again, this time softly and very close to me.

  “Now, Emily. I need you to put your hands around the outside of the bag in front of you,” Will says, his voice drifting farther away again.

  I touch the scratchy paper with the tip of my finger. Something shifts inside the bag—a living something. I immediately jump back.

  Kara holds her ground behind me, gripping my shoulder. She nudges me back to the table. “You can do this,” she whispers. “The DPs are watching. You’ll be fine, I promise.” I can barely hear her reassuring words even though she’s whispering them directly into my ear. My head is thrumming from jet lag and, now, from fear.

  Will raises his voice, as if speaking to everyone. “Emily? Do you trust Kara without question? Do you trust Jesus to speak through her? Will you accept the challenge He has given you?”

  His provocation hits me with a sudden immediacy, like the moment in a wedding ceremony when a public response is required. I can sense everyone waiting in silence for me to react.

  My hand trembles as I trace the rigid edge along the top of the paper bag. In a quick burst, the thing in the bag strikes my finger. A scream that doesn’t even sound like my voice fills the room. I instinctively lift my throbbing finger to my mouth and taste blood. It feels like everything around me is upside down, and the only thing keeping me up is Kara’s steady hand on my back. I can hear everyone around me stirring nervously. One of the girls lets out a brief, anxious shriek. Will shushes them quiet.

  I fight the urge to rip off the bandanna and yell at everyone, or push someone else to do it. Kara touches my hand and guides it back to the bag.

  “Trust me,” she whispers.

  Her voice is sincere. And I realize I don’t really know her, but something in this moment tells me to fully trust Kara. It’s a sign. I feel the DPs watching me, and I sense the fear of the fellow disciples who were blindfolded. My fatigue gives way to a giddy sort of apathy. What’s the worst that could happen?

  I hold my breath and reach deep inside the bag, slowly this time, and my fear melts away the moment I feel a small mass of soft fur and hear the abrupt mewing sound of a kitten. It reaches for my hand, gripping it with its sharp claws to gnaw on my thumb. As it begins to purr, tears flood my eyes and seep into the cotton bandanna. My heart pounds in a jagged staccato from my chest to my fingertips. I want to fall on my knees and wail.

  Kara gently removes my blindfold. The other blindfolded interns shuffle around silently. The girl, Lily, who sat beside me, is pushing nervously at the air with her hands, obviously unaware of what just happened. Their anxiety is palpable. Josh and Todd—the male interns who could see—are grinning broadly, trying not to laugh and break the carefully orchestrated tension.

  Will barks more instructions as he gives me a quick wink. “Kara, take Emily to her room. Emily, take your bag with you. And remember that trusting your DP is exactly like trusting in God. You will be rewarded with countless blessings. Amen?!”

  “Amen!” everyone answers.

  I follow Kara through a rustic kitchen with a farmhouse door that leads to another courtyard. I carefully pull the kitten out of the bag and cradle it to my chest. It wiggles in my arms as I take slow steps forward, still a bit shaky. The sharp scent of fresh herbs fills the air as Kara steps up our pace. My left foot drops with a crunch into the pea gravel. The warm Tuscan breeze hits my face. I stop to take a deep breath and look at the world around me where multitextured hills slope away from us in every direction. The view is so beautiful it almost looks like a fake backdrop.

  Suddenly Kara stops and takes the kitten out of my hands. She carefully pulls it up to her neck. “I already named it,” she says.

  I hear feet crunching across the gravel behind us. Someone is laughing. “You were so freaked out. It was just made of rubber,” a distant male voice says to someone else. Nervous laughter fills the distance, the kind of laughter that says, thank God the worst is over. I wonder what was in their bag as I notice Kara is halfway down the hill.

  She disappears inside a tiny
stone building with no visible windows other than an open-air rectangle of crisscrossing clay embedded into one side.

  I rush to catch up with her.

  Inside, the walls are stone like the exterior, and I’m relieved to see that there’s one small window on the back wall. A metal bunk bed flanks the wall near the window. Both beds are covered with old, mismatched quilts, and there’s a sink on the other side of the room.

  “This is your bed. Mine’s up here,” Kara says from the top bunk.

  I look around. “Where’s the bathroom?” I ask.

  “At the main house. Or out there.” She points toward the window that frames a small view of the nearby vineyard. Kara stretches out on her bed to play with the kitten. She must have noticed my surprise. “Don’t worry,” she says. “We’ll have a lot more freedom out here.”

  I notice my luggage is neatly stacked at the foot of the bed. “How’d that happen?” I ask.

  “I know. It’s like a miracle.” She laughs. She sounds sarcastic, but it’s hard to tell. “I’m sure one of the guys brought them here for you.” She looks up to gauge my reaction. Did Josh already tell the others about us? Either way, I decide not to respond. I don’t know how close Kara is to him, and I don’t want to say anything out of turn.

  I look at Kara with the intent to scrutinize. Her carefree goofiness makes it impossible. Her hair dangles above the tiny kitten as it leaps up to repeatedly attack it. She giggles. “Dolce says sorry about the scratch.” She digs something out of her pocket. “Here,” she says as she reaches down to hand me a Band-Aid. “This should fix it.”

  I smile. “I like the name.” I wrap my finger, which still stings but isn’t bleeding anymore. I want to like Kara. I know it will make life here a thousand times easier if I do. Already I can tell she’s far more relaxed than Heather. We could maybe even have fun together.

  I want to ask her so many questions. I have the odd sensation that I’ve walked in on a movie set and don’t yet know my lines. I look around for a place to put my things.

  “Where’s the closet?” I ask.

  “There isn’t one,” she says, “but we can share the drawers,” she says.

  I roll my suitcase over to the old wooden chest, unzip it, and begin unpacking.

  “So how did you meet Josh?” she asks a little too casually.

  “Josh?” I try to play it off.

  “He’s the reason you’re here, right?”

  Now I’m on guard. “I guess. He’s the one who invited—I mean, I came here to be a part of the mission.”

  “Are you in looooooove with him?” she asks teasingly.

  The sting of embarrassment triggers a sudden heat across my face. I guess living with Kara isn’t going to be easy. Thankful my back is to her, I fold a cotton top and place it in the drawer. I fold another one before answering. “Does it matter?”

  “Hmmm,” she says, as if pondering with a vague sense of authority.

  Heather and I had our share of awkward confrontational exchanges back in Boston. It was exhausting because Heather was the master of deflection. At least I knew what to expect with her. Starting over with Kara is new territory, and frankly a little scary.

  “So what brought you here?” I ask, hoping to change the subject. I try to hold myself together by refolding all of my clothes and putting them away neatly. This somehow keeps me calm.

  “Me? I didn’t have a choice.” She’s giggles at something Dolce does.

  I’m not sure whether she wants me to ask questions about that, so I don’t. I know better than to make a DP uncomfortable or defensive.

  “If you really want to know the truth, my mother sent me,” she volunteers.

  “So she knows why you’re here?”

  “Yep,” she says. A pang of jealousy hits me. There’s no way my dad would have given me his blessing if he knew the truth about my mission here. And that’s exactly why I’m here instead of there.

  “Is your mother in the Kingdom?” I ask, brushing off my bitterness.

  Kara pauses. “You could say that.”

  I zip up my empty suitcase and start on my backpack, but there isn’t really anywhere else to store my things. Why this so-called house with no bathroom or closet and an open-air section of a wall counts as some sort of reward, I can’t tell. “Can I ask why you wanted us to live out here without a shower or toilet?”

  “I prefer to keep my distance from the others.” She looks at me. “Believe me. You’ll understand soon enough.”

  Her statement seems odd, especially from someone who just asked me to blindly stick my hand into a bag. I don’t want distance from the others. Especially when Josh, the only other person I really know, is one of them.

  “Didn’t you know Shannon from Boston?” she asks.

  “Shannon?” I draw a blank.

  “The girl unpacking the boxes in the courtyard? Lily’s DP.”

  Oh. I suddenly remember Shannon. I saw her at Will and Meredith’s house in Boston the night I was baptized. I try to remember what Heather said about her. I just remember it was critical—then again, anything Heather said about anyone usually was.

  “I may have seen Shannon at a church event,” I say. I close a drawer and look up at Kara. “I think my DP—I mean, former DP, Heather, knew her, but I don’t really know her at all,” I say.

  “Hmm. I’m guessing Heather didn’t like her. Shannon is a trip,” Kara says. “And not necessarily the good kind.”

  “Did you know Heather?”

  “Not really. I’ve heard about her though. From Shannon, actually. She said you took Heather’s spot, which is kind of a big deal. I hear that makes you special.” She smirks at me.

  My defensiveness flares again. “I don’t think that’s true. Heather is more valuable in Boston. She’s the big deal.”

  “Yeah, I heard that one too.”

  Kara’s voice is full of sarcasm. Suddenly I want nothing more than to get out of this villa and away from her—and find Josh. “Will we be meeting up with the others again today?”

  Kara smiles at me, and it almost seems sympathetic, like she feels sorry for me. “I think you should get some rest,” she suggests.

  It’s like her just saying the word—“rest”—has cast a spell on me. My exhaustion overcomes me once again, the small rush of adrenaline from my blindfolded brush with Dolce rushing right back out. I practically stumble over my suitcase as I go to collapse on the lower bunk.

  * * *

  When I come to, my brain begins to sift through recent events as I try in vain to remember falling asleep. I reach down and feel my blue jeans, stale from the train ride. I want to go back to sleep, but clips from yesterday (or is it still today?) begin to replay in my mind, as Kara’s breathing on the bunk above me forms a soothing rhythm. I’m not alone. And that’s comforting. My body is heavy, but my mind is alert. Nocturnal sounds fill the room: leaves rustling, the faint screech of an insect, the swell of the night air. I close my eyes again to let my body drift, hoping my mind will follow.

  Then I hear a footstep.

  I open my eyes and focus on the interconnected springs under Kara’s mattress. I hear it again, this time in a brazen succession heading toward our building. I turn onto my side to lift myself on my elbows. My heart races. I hear someone shift right outside the clay openings in the wall. A shadow passes by. I watch it trail past silently. I look over at the window. It’s closed shut by two wooden shutters connected with a rickety latch. I hear the shutters move. “Hello?” I whisper. I get up and tiptoe to the door. I glance at Kara’s back before leaning outside.

  “Hello?” I ask louder.

  Everything is quiet. I walk all the way around our building, my fingers trailing the bumpy stone exterior and the grid of clay. No one is out here.

  The night is bright and clear. I perch on the nearby ledge and look at the darkened vineyards, the tall cypresses marking the existence of other villas. I watch a colony of tiny bats swooping erratically around a nearby tree. I rub my
arms just as Dolce leaps up right beside me, causing me to gasp. My breath turns shallow and quick. I wonder if someone is watching me, if they are trying not to laugh at the fact that a kitten nearly scared me to death—twice now. I look around again. It’s completely quiet. The distant lights of other villas gleam silently against the night.

  “Stop scaring me,” I say to Dolce, exhaling with relief. She meows at the vineyard. I reach out to scratch her head, but she moves just out of range. I watch her scale the ledge with a languid, knowing stride, then leap down and disappear into a long row of grapes.

  Just Like Family

  Dear Dad,

  Greetings from Italy!

  My flight took forever, but I really enjoyed the train ride. I think Italy has the most beautiful scenery, and Germany is a close second.

  So far, I’m learning a little Italian and seeing lots of churches. All the cathedrals are so amazing.

  The other interns are super nice. Our place has a view of the Tuscan hills, and we even have a cat! I’ve made lots of new friends already. I can’t wait to get my photos developed so you can see for yourself!

  Hugs to Patti and Tamara! Arrivederci!

  Oh, and one more thing. I never knew Italian food could be this good!

  Love,

  Emily

  My stomach grumbles at the last line. Breakfast was a small roll and two slivers of an orange that I inhaled way too fast. “Do you think there’s any more food?” I ask Kara, handing her the letter.

  “Probably not,” she says with a shrug. “We’re under a strict operating budget.”

  “Oh. Well, maybe we could run into town? I can take us to breakfast. I just have to get my documents and money,” I say.

  Her eyes flash a hint of concern before glancing at my letter. “We’ll have to wait until our activities are over, but they’re safer locked in the office anyway. Trust me.”

  I open my mouth, and then hesitate. “Look,” she says, her tone appeasing. “What’s important right now is to show your family that this trip is a positive, life-changing experience.” She folds my letter back and waves it for emphasis. “Happy people at home leave us free to prove our mission is a success. And the sooner that happens, the sooner we’ll have things like better food.”