After I’d secretly adorned Mae’s room in flowers earlier, Isaac and I went out for fro-yo. Hanging out with my old friend and knowing that things were going to resume normalcy soon, I finally started to feel like myself again.
I’d gotten home around eight and did a quick sweep through the house. Everything was according to plan. Mae’s backpack was in the kitchen but she wasn’t anywhere in the house.
Before I’d closed the door to my/her room, however, I had caught a glimpse of something on my bed: the necklace. The half-heart pendant I had lent Mae now sat on my bedspread—a parting gift from Mae, I assumed. I almost felt bad for what I had done, but I stopped myself. This needed to happen.
Mom’s scream right now coming from the second floor was exactly what I’d wanted.
“You okay?” I yelled up.
“Mae? Is that you?” Mom called as she hopped down the stairs on her good leg. She’d been bad about using her crutches, mostly just holding them and jumping around on her noninjured foot. Dad was out and had taken Dani to Helen’s field hockey game a few towns over.
“What’s up?” I asked, looking up at my mom—with impressively effortless nonchalance, I thought.
“Oh,” she said, disappointed at seeing it was just me. “Have you seen Mae?” Desperation cracked her voice.
I shook my head innocently. “No. She was hanging out with Sebastian after school and then he dropped her here after that. Why, she’s not here?”
“Her backpack is, so she must have come home. But there’s…” Mom’s voice trailed off as she looked up toward Mae’s room. Her face was stormy.
“Maybe she went out with Dani, or Dad. I wouldn’t worry about it,” I added. I wanted to give Mae plenty of time to get away. Far away. I had even thought to leave her the number for a taxi and a handful of twenties for the ride, hoping she’d assume they were also from the cult.
“Dad took Dani to Helen’s field hockey game in Perkville,” Mom informed me.
“I’m sure she’ll be back soon,” I assured her. Mom might have been injured, but that didn’t stop her from attempting to pace.
“This is not good. And they knew it was a bad time of year for her.”
“What do you mean by that?” I asked, starting to feel like something was going wrong.
“It’s the full moon—their harvest moon.” Mom hobbled over to the window and peered above the trees. “This is going to destroy her,” Mom worried.
“The harvest moon is bad for Mae?”
“This is when her sister died! Last year on the full moon,” Mom nearly yelled.
I froze. My mom hadn’t yelled at me in ages. It made me feel even worse than I’d felt with her ignoring me for the last couple months.
Mom must have seen the scared look on my face because she softened. “She was very close to Amelia, and to have something like this happen on the same day … Anniversaries are always a fragile time.”
I’d had no idea it was the anniversary of her sister’s death. I felt bad about the timing, but I had to stay on task. Mae needed to not be with us anymore, and this was the best way I could think to have that happen.
My family was falling apart; I was going to make it right.
“Mom, I’m sure it’s all going to be fine. Maybe she misses her family and just wanted to go home,” I assured my worried mother.
This was exactly what I’d wanted. The white roses had triggered Mae to go back to the cult. I couldn’t believe it was happening. Only, now that it was, it didn’t feel so great.
Mom stopped her crutch-pacing. “I’m going to get her back.”
“Are you serious?” My eyes bugged at Mom. Not only was she on crutches, if the cult really was dangerous, why would she go near these people?
“I’m going to get Mae.” Determination set into Mom like a plague.
“Mom, you can’t go to Tisdale,” I attempted to reason. “It’s a cult!”
Mom pulled out her cell and dialed.
“Plus, you’re on crutches!” I added, trying to use logic, which clearly was nonexistent to my mother at the moment.
“Peter, it’s me,” she stated into the phone. “Mae is gone. I’m going to find her. Call me when you get this.”
Dad being at Helen’s game sitting in loud bleachers meant that he would probably not have heard his phone—if he even had the ringer on. And he was the worst at listening to messages. Also, Perkville was at least an hour away, so even if he did get it, it would be a while before he got back to Remingham or made it to wherever Tisdale was.
“She cannot return to her abusers!” Mom declared. “I won’t let it happen, Jules.” She grabbed her coat.
“Mom, you can’t even drive. How are you going to get to Tisdale?”
She looked at me. It dawned on my brain what she was thinking.
“You want me to drive?” I balked. This was crazy. “There isn’t even a car to take,” I added. “You don’t have a new one yet and Dad’s out.”
“We can take a taxi,” she spitballed.
“Isn’t it like an hour away?”
Mom looked back at me.
My mom going to Tisdale to go after Mae was the last thing I wanted to happen. But having to drive her there on crutches was even worse.
“Stacy!” Mom blurted. “Go ask if you can borrow her car.”
“Mom! You know she can’t keep a secret. Do you want everyone to know you’re driving off on crutches to rescue Mae from a cult?”
“What about Isaac? Can you call him?”
“You want his aunt to drive her car over here and let us borrow it?”
“Do you have a better idea?” she asked.
“Yeah, how about not go chase after a girl from a satanic cult. She’s going to get us killed!”
Mom looked at me and shook her head. “I’ll do it myself.”
“Mom, you can’t even walk!”
But there was no talking her out of it. Mom had become a woman on a mission. She hopped to the coatrack and grabbed a parka, ignoring my logic.
“Why don’t you just stay here? Dad will be home later and then you guys can call the police. They’ll take care of it.”
“Detective Nelson!” Mom pulled out her phone and dialed again, zipping up her jacket.
“Mom, you’re acting crazy. Why don’t you just sit down for a minute—”
She ignored me, speaking into her phone. “It’s Dr. Mathis, please call me. Mae went to Tisdale and I’m going to get her back.”
She pocketed the phone, making sure the ringer was on high, then turned to me. Resolve was fastened to her face.
“Mom, why are you so obsessed with Mae? You have to tell me what this is—”
“I was abused, Jules!”
The revelation knocked the wind out of my lungs.
I stared at my mother.
“I’m sorry to—tell you like that.” Mom sank down onto the arm of the couch.
“My father … was not a nice man. He … hit me. And he hit my mother, and my brother.”
“Uncle Albert?”
“Yes,” Mom said of her off-the-grid sibling, who lived in Portland, Oregon, I think.
“My father drank a lot of alcohol. He’d get drunk and beat us. It was very painful, in so many ways…” She paused a moment, then took a breath. “He’d done it since I was little, so part of me just thought it was normal. But as I got older, it got worse. The beatings became harder, and more frequent. My body was always covered in bruises.
“One day,” she went on, “things got really bad. My father had beat me so hard I couldn’t walk, and I had to stay home from school. I begged my mother, please take us away! We can’t do this anymore. My mother was terrified to leave him—he’d kill us if he found out, but I knew what he was putting us through was already killing us.
“So my mother finally caved. One night, after my dad had passed out, she stole his keys and took my brother and me, and we left in the middle of the night. We drove far away from him and never looked back. We stayed in cheap mo
tels for a while, then finally settled in Remingham.”
“Did he ever come after you?” I asked, dumbfounded by hearing all this.
“Yes. Once. After Helen was born, I started working at the hospital. He found me there. I was a resident, and was working with a patient. He started to attack me, right there on the hospital floor, telling me it was all my fault. I had ruined his family. Security came and threatened to arrest him on sight if he ever came around again.” She paused. “I never saw him after that.”
Silence fell. My tsunami of emotions had swallowed my thoughts.
“I’m sorry to tell you all this, Jules. I just—it’s hard for me to see someone get hurt like that, you know?”
I looked at my mother, feelings welling in my eyes. I nodded in understanding.
After a moment, I finally managed, “I’ll call Isaac.”
CHAPTER 45
I CONCENTRATED ON THE ROAD. I DIDN’T DRIVE often—it made me nervous, thinking about moving thousands of pounds of metal down asphalt at high speeds. Plus, everything my mom had told me was reeling in my head. I felt so sad for her that she’d been hurt like that. I felt protective too, like I never wanted anything bad to happen to her again. I wished she hadn’t had to go through all that. And I also admired her for going through such hardship and coming out the other side.
I could now see—my mother wanted to save Mae the way she wished someone had saved her.
“It’s not on the GPS,” Mom informed me. “The exit. I’ll tell you where to get off.”
“Cool.” I nodded.
Isaac’s aunt’s minivan was much older than our cars. She didn’t mind coming over and letting us borrow it. She was taking an online course to get her accounting degree, so she said she could study from our house, no problem.
We drove the rest of the way listening to the tires speed across the asphalt. After we had driven past about an hour of cornfields, Mom advised, “It’s coming up.”
She kept her eyes peeled as we passed a few exits for other towns.
“There it is.” She finally spotted it on the right. “Turn here.”
I glanced at the side of the road where she was pointing. At first I couldn’t see where she meant. All I could see was a narrow area between the thick trees.
“It’s just dirt.”
“That’s the exit,” she directed.
I quickly swerved to the right to try to make the passing “exit.” The tires thumped as they hit the textured bumps that warned we were at the edge of the road. The car skidded, hitting earth.
I stared at Mom, catching my breath from the Formula One driving I’d just pulled off.
“How did you know that was there?” I wondered. Had she been here before? Or had Mae told her?
Not answering, she kept her eyes focused ahead.
“Follow the path. And watch out for deer,” she warned.
As I navigated the car down the bumpy, remote road, adrenaline pumped to my palms, which tightly gripped the wheel. We trailed the road as it veered out to the forest’s edge into a clearing.
Beyond lay a small, isolated farm town. Rows of rustic houses, with a few barns and a silo clumped on the outskirts. Farmland sprawled beyond the town. I caught a whiff of manure.
Mom and I were in Tisdale.
“Turn off the lights,” Mom advised.
“How will I be able to see?”
“Turn them off, Julia.”
Mom never called me Julia. I could tell she was scared. She and I had come to a cult town of known violent offenders with absolutely no backup. All to save the girl who had ruined my life.
“Pull over here.” Mom pointed behind the largest barn.
I eased the car to a patch of dirt next to the wooden structure, red paint peeling off the side.
I looked around as I left the engine running. The place was desolate, and here we were alone in the dark night.
“Mom, maybe we should go home.”
“I can’t let her go back, Jules.”
In the moonlight, I could see that Mom’s eyes were wide with fear. Saving Mae was something my mother had to do.
And I had to help her.
“Okay.” I nodded, killing the ignition. “What’s the plan?”
Mom looked out the windshield. The gigantic moon shined above us.
“They’ll all be in church, since the moon is full. I’ll go in and find her,” she determined.
“Mom,” I protested. “There’s no way I’m letting you hop around this town on crutches.”
I took a deep breath. I had caused Mae to come back here. This was my mess—I should be the one to clean it up.
“I’ll get her,” I declared.
“No! Jules. I can’t let you do that—”
“I’ll be able to move more quickly on my own. Just let me go find her, and I’ll bring her back. Then we can get away from this creepy-ass town.”
Mom wasn’t happy about it, but she didn’t have much choice. She looked at me. “I’m so sorry for bringing you into this, Jules. I shouldn’t have done that. I just—”
“It doesn’t matter now,” I interrupted. We needed to get Mae and get out. “Where’s the church?”
“I’m not sure exactly, but the town is only a few streets. It’s probably the biggest building.”
“I’ll find her,” I confirmed, hoping that I actually could. “Is she going to be, like, in a trance or something?”
Mom’s face was grave as she admitted, “Possibly. But here’s what you have to tell her: Amelia was not her fault.”
“Her fault? She thinks she had something to do with her sister’s death?”
Mom didn’t want to get into it. “We don’t have time, Jules; you have to hurry.”
She was right. “I’ll call you if I can’t find her.”
“They block reception,” Mom informed me.
I remembered that Mae had told me the town wasn’t into technology. I didn’t realize that meant there was no cell coverage or wireless signal. That was barbaric.
Leaving the keys in the car, I opened the door and climbed out.
“Be careful, Jules!” Mom warned with a whisper.
I nodded and eased the car door shut, venturing into the town on my own. The moonlight was bright, lighting my way past the barn and a silo.
Up ahead were rows of small houses—it looked like about four or five streets’ worth. The darkened houses were made of wood and looked like they had been built a long time ago. Even though this place was mostly dirt roads and old buildings, the town was clean, organized, quaint—eerily perfect. Like Stepford meets Little House on the Prairie. It looked like it actually might be a nice place—minus the small fact that it was a cult.
Walking among the deserted streets, I noticed that there were no street signs. I guess if you belonged there, you knew where you were going. This was clearly not a place for people who didn’t belong there. People like me.
Above the rooftops a few blocks away, I saw the steeple to the church. It looked normal, except on top I noticed that the cross was—
Upside-down.
A shiver swept down my spine. I had to get this over with quickly.
I made my way down the dirt roads, realizing another creepy thing: not only was no one out, besides a few tractors and delivery trucks over by the barn there weren’t any cars. No one was able to get into this place.
Or out.
I followed the empty roads toward the church, figuring everyone in town—probably a couple hundred people or so—must be there.
As I got closer to the building, I could hear singing. It sounded like a hymn or something. I turned the corner and saw a large white structure. The church was the largest building in town, a few stories high. A handful of white passenger vans were parked in front.
Stepping onto the creaky porch of the church, I headed for the double doors. The hymn continued—a simple melody sung by men at the lower octave, and women above.
The thick wooden doors were heavy. I pulle
d the handle of one and quietly cracked it open. Warm light spilled out from inside. I looked in and saw rows of pews filled with people. I didn’t want anyone to see me, so I leaned back and replaced the door.
I moved around the corner of the building to see if there was another way in. There was a side door, which led inside to a curtained-off side area of the chapel. I didn’t see anyone looking, so I slipped in.
The curtains were actually drapes, which hung up to the rafters. I hid behind them. The red velvet smelled musty and strangely comforting, reminding me of my grandmother’s vintage clothes in the attic.
As the hymn continued, I carefully peeked around the corner of the curtain into the church.
The large space was lit by candles and contained rows of wooden pews. Men sat on the right side of the aisle, and women on the left.
The men were dressed in dark clothes, mostly black. Heavy coats, with hats on the seats next to them. The women wore thick dresses in mostly brown, with a few gray and black mixed in. Some of them wore bonnets. They looked like they were out of the eighteen hundreds or something, like the Amish. I could see on some of the people nearer to me that they wore crosses around their necks.
Squinting, I could just about make out that the crosses were upside-down.
The observer in me wanted to pull out my phone and take pictures, but I didn’t dare.
Up at the front of the room on a platform, a few older men stood in front of the congregation. They wore long black robes and black hoods.
These must be the elders Mae had told me about.
Behind them was a large upside-down cross.
The hymn started to crescendo, as the people singing put all their might into it. I couldn’t make out the lyrics. It didn’t sound like any hymns I’d heard before. It kind of sounded like they were saying Ave Maria. Then I realized it wasn’t Maria they were saying.
It was Satana.
The melody started to slow down as the song came to an end. As the last strains echoed up to the rafters, the congregation took their seats.
While they settled, I scanned the backs of the women’s heads, searching for Mae’s black hair.
The priest-type people at the front stepped across the platform, getting ready for the next part of the ceremony. Besides the creaking ancient floorboards, the room became pin-drop quiet. Everyone in this congregation was extremely well behaved.
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