Beyond the Cabin

I tried, but couldn’t get into my book. The chair needed a cushion or two; the slats of the back seemed to be digging into my shoulder blades. I shifted but couldn’t find a good position. But of course I couldn’t get up right away. I didn’t want Mary and Luke to wonder why I wasn’t staying to read. I didn’t want them to think about me at all.

  Finally, I got up. Muttering, “Tired,” I pushed my chair back next to the other chairs on that side of the porch. I stretched and faked a yawn, sure they could tell I was acting. I went inside and got in bed. Stupid night. The day needed to be over anyway.

  Chapter 22

  Friday was exactly like any other day, except for the endless lines I had to do after school was over. I’d spent the morning working on them too, knowing I had to use every second of free time if I was going to finish them by Sunday. By the time dinner rolled around, I felt jittery, like I needed to run or shout or just do something. But I had to keep at the stupid lines. As I ate dinner, I decided I would skip reading tonight and burn through a bunch of them. I felt like I had a chain trapping me in the ancient house, a prisoner to a ridiculous punishment for something I never did.

  Joan helped Mary again with the dishes. I tried not to let my frustration with the day boil over, tried to channel the anger into doing the dishes faster. But as I scrubbed at some chicken that seemed welded to a pan, I suddenly had a vision that burst the bubble of energy I was tapping. I saw myself in the big old house, surrounded by adults with no clue and kids with no hope.

  Endless days of pots and dishes and a plywood schoolroom. Miriam’s long, pale face self-righteously preaching the doom of the world we lived in. Eternal Prayer Circles. Focus class every morning until I died.

  Unless I got out of here, I would be stuck in this stupid cult, surrounded by the same pine trees, hearing the clink of the beggars counting their money, going to Prayer Circle every day and sitting through Celebrations every Sunday. Nothing would ever change. With Mal around, things hadn’t seemed so—pale. So lifeless. And even with Mary suddenly becoming a person, even a friend, rather than just one of the girls I never spoke to, I suddenly found that I didn’t care.

  What was there to care about? I had four, no—three years and 20 days, until I turned eighteen. Over a thousand days of the same thing, the same people, the same damn dishes.

  I stood at the sink and felt heavy. My legs were tree trunks, anchored in the floor. I imagined my feet were sinking into the laminated kitchen floor, leaving deep impressions that I would step into every day.

  Suddenly I couldn’t stand the sight of the long, curving faucet. The scrubber felt like torture in my hand; I dropped it into the water.

  I was done. I wouldn’t do this anymore. I had to get out.

  I drained the rinse water. Somebody else would have to finish the job, because I was done. I had to get the hell out. A thousand days of this was too much. One more day was too much.

  Get out to where? I’d been through this a couple of days ago. I couldn’t leave; I wasn’t even fifteen yet. Besides, I had nowhere I could go. Plus, if I didn’t finish the dishes, I’d get in trouble.

  Not if I left, though, and actually got away. I couldn’t get in trouble if I wasn’t around.

  I watched the soap-filmed rinse water disappear down the drain. The drain made a sucking noise, as if it was taking a greedy drink.

  I couldn’t go. I had to finish these dishes. What else could I do?

  Not a damn thing.

  I looked over my shoulder at Mary and Joan, standing side by side. Joan was talking and laughing while Mary washed quietly.

  I wondered if Mary felt the same way, if the other boys had the same feelings. What about the grown-ups? Did they think they were doing some big thing, sequestering themselves in this huge house? How could they think that separating themselves from the world could make any difference in it?

  I didn’t care. The adults didn’t care about me and I didn’t care about them. They could go on begging for money every day for the rest of their lives and I wouldn’t care. They could have a heart attack in the airport for all I cared. But you could bet that I wasn’t going to end up like that. Not a chance. I’d be gone as soon as I could finish my preparations to get away. Maybe I could celebrate my sixteenth birthday somewhere else.

  That was all I could do. I turned the rinse water back on, my mind emptying as the sink filled. Dishes, school, Prayer Circles and Celebrations. Every day and week the same thing. The same people. I imagined the deadening images were invisible water flowing out of my ears. If I didn’t get out of here this next time, I would have to wait until I was eighteen. Three years and ten days.

  In a blank haze, I finished the dishes. As I turned away from the sink, I tried not to think about how I would be right back in the same place in the morning, and then again tomorrow night.

  I swept my gaze around the kitchen; once again Joan and Mary had finished before me. I wished I could feel surprise that nobody had come to help me with the huge job of cleaning the pots and adults’ dishes. But the truth was that nobody cared. It was like living in such close quarters made everybody live in their own little world where they couldn’t be bothered by anybody else.

  I darted into the pantry and grabbed two cans. On my way up to the classroom, I deposited them in my backpack. Every day a little closer. I’m getting out of here.

  The wood stairs to the attic schoolroom creaked and bent slightly under my feet as I went back up to work on my lines. The door on the right, the one to the smaller kids’ schoolroom, was closed, but I heard voices. I turned into my classroom, assuming the little kids were in there playing, like Mary had told me they did.

  I sat at my desk, reaching for my notebook and pen. I glanced at my right hand, my middle finger. There was a lump of callous there. I rubbed it with my thumb; it was hard and smooth.

  One thousand and fifty to go. If I did one per minute, I would be done in seventeen hours. Give or take. I knew I was going faster than that. I figured I had about an hour and a half before I had to be in bed. “An hour and a half. Gonna get two hundred and fifty done.” I looked around the classroom. Unless there were ghosts there, nobody was listening.

  An hour and forty minutes later, I stopped. With all the numbers I was skipping, I had maybe seven hundred to go.

  I’d be done tomorrow.

  Chapter 23

  I wished I could teleport to somewhere else. Kentucky maybe, since there were horses there. Would the people in the Faith even miss me?

  Of course they would. One less kid to control and make miserable would piss them off.

  To hell with it. I was going to get this done. And I was going to do it now, no matter how long it took.

  After yesterday’s work I had seven hundred lines left. Seven hundred. I knew Miriam had already forgotten. She probably didn’t even think I could get these done.

  Just because they controlled my life didn’t mean they could control each moment I lived.

  I ran to the classroom and got to work, letting the sound of my pen fill my head. A hundred lines later I switched to a new notebook. Twenty lines later my pen died. Again. I scrabbled around my cubby but couldn’t find one. I snagged one from Saul’s cubby and got back to work. Time to get this done.

  “How’s it going?”

  I snapped up to the voice, jumping a little. Mary stood in the doorway. I glanced down. “Four hundred left.”

  Her eyes widened. “You’ve written 2600 lines already?”

  I felt a smile stretch my lips. “Well, something like that.”

  It took her a second, but she must have remembered what I’d told her that night after school. “Oh. You’re gonna get done today?”

  “For sure.”

  She stood there. I felt like she might have been wondering what to say next.

  I lifted the first notebook with so many of its pages curled by the stupid lines. “I had to get a new notebook.”

  “Wow.” She leaned on the door jamb. “I can’t believe how many sh
e gave you.”

  “Yeah.” I glanced down at my paper. So close.

  “Well,” Mary straightened. “I don’t want to keep you from your important work.” Her soft smile made my heart skip.

  I snorted and turned back to my notebook. “Right. Important stuff here.” I stared at the paper.

  Why not? There was no way Miriam was going to notice.

  I looked up as she turned back to the corridor. “Mary, wait.”

  She faced me again.

  “You want to help?” I said.

  Her face lit up. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But what about the handwriting thing?” She walked toward me.

  “Just write messy.” I tore a few pages with numbered lines from the notebook.

  “Are you sure? You’re not going to get in trouble?”

  I thought about that. “I really don’t think she’ll notice. But I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

  “Such a gentleman.” She held out her hand. “Give me those.”

  “So you seriously want to spend part of your Saturday writing my lines?” I studied her face, her round, soft cheeks and chin. Why did she even like me, in whatever way that she did? It couldn’t be my overbite.

  She met my gaze. “Why not?”

  My heart seemed to disappear from my chest as I stared into her eyes. When it came back, it pounded hard enough to move my shirt. I swallowed and handed her the pages. “Thanks.”

  She sat at Luke’s desk and pulled a pen from his cubby. “What’s the line again?”

  I recited it to her while she laughed aloud.

  “That is completely ridiculous,” she said.

  “It is ridiculous in a very perfect fashion,” I said.

  She burst out laughing again. The sound filled the room, feeling like it was knocking boredom out through the seams in the wood. I wanted to make her laugh all the time.

  “It represents ridiculousness in a perfect fashion,” Mary said, looking down her nose exactly like Miriam did.

  “So true.” I shook my head, laughing with her again. How had I never known Mary was so cool and funny? I needed to be that funny and cool.

  As we bent to the lines, I felt my face relaxing and realized I’d been grinning like a crazy man. I felt like she was too far out of reach, so I scooted my desk back a little, watching her from the corner of my eye. She slid Luke’s desk forward. The closer she got, the more the feeling of comfort inside me grew. It was like how it felt when I was reading, or outside in the woods.

  What I guessed was an hour later, I ran out of pages with numbered lines. I sat up and watched her write. She was going fast, but it looked like she still had two or three blank sheets of paper. I reached for them.

  She straightened and put her pen down, shaking her hand. “I can’t believe you did so many. It hurts!” She said it with a smile, obviously not wanting me to think she was complaining.

  I grabbed two empty sheets of paper. “Well, you could get a band-aid.”

  “And you could write all of your lines yourself,” she said, her voice low. Her mocking glare made me catch my breath and I had to turn away for a second.

  I squeezed my pen, trying to settle my pounding heart down. “You really don’t have to do this.”

  “I’m out of books.”

  I looked at her face and saw her joking smile. “Ah. I understand.”

  An hour later, I dropped my pen and turned to Mary. She was sitting there, watching me. Tingles shot from my scalp to my neck. “What?”

  “You’re kind of slow.” She pointed at her full pages.

  “Am I? I think I just wrote three thousand lines in a week.”

  “No,” she flipped through the papers. “You wrote less than two thousand eight hundred. Because I wrote two hundred for you.” She handed me the pages.

  I took them and put them in order and tore all of the other scrawled-on pages out of my notebooks. “I can’t believe you actually did that,” I ripped more pages. “But thanks. A lot.”

  “You’re welcome.” Her voice bounced as she jumped from the desk. “First lines I’ve ever written.”

  “Say what?” I tried to straighten the huge pile of pages, but totally failed. Leaving the notebooks on my desk, I led the way to the door. I was going to take these to Miriam right now.

  “I’ve never had to do lines.”

  I stared at her. “What? Everyone does lines.”

  “Lines are for when you get in fights.” Mary flipped her hair and bobbed her head to one side, fluttering her eyelashes. “I don’t get in fights.”

  “Or you don’t get caught.”

  Her eyebrows lowered. “No, I don’t get in fights. Fighting is stupid.”

  I opened my mouth to retort, but had nothing. “Yeah. You’re right.” We got to the stairs and I let Mary go down first.

  “You might try the whole not fighting thing,” she said, her voice bobbing up toward me.

  “But what if I like this huge callous on my finger?”

  “Hey, if you want freakish fingers, keep fighting.” She stopped on the second-to-last step and turned. “But seriously, don’t, okay?”

  There went my heart, disappearing again. “Okay. And seriously, thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.” She reached the landing and glanced over her shoulder at me. “Maybe I’ll see you on the porch.”

  I stood there for a long minute, watching her walk toward the stairs to the living room, knowing my mouth was half open. My cheeks felt like someone had taken a torch to them and sweat seemed to be coming from everywhere.

  “Yeah.” I kept my voice to a whisper. See you on the porch.

  As I crossed the landing, an idea hit me. Too late! “I should’ve written her a message. Like, ‘The Fundamental Faith in God is a ridiculous excuse for a religion.’ She would’ve never seen it,” I said to myself. “Too late.” Maybe next time.

  Except I couldn’t fight. Mary didn’t want me to. And I knew I shouldn’t.

  I found Miriam in her office, like usual. After knocking and hearing her call for me to enter, I went in. She was just sitting there, doing nothing. I wondered briefly what she was always doing in here, but realized I didn’t care.

  “Here,” I said, putting the stack of pages on her desk.

  “What is this?” Miriam asked, raising her eyebrows.

  “The lines.” She had forgotten. But if I hadn’t done them, she would have remembered and chewed me out more and probably given me even more.

  “Of course,” Miriam said. She picked up the papers. Flipping quickly through the loose pages, she said, “Three thousand. Good.” Then, deliberately meeting my eyes, she leaned over and dropped the pages in her trash can.

  I controlled my fury, fighting to keep it off my face. The Acceptance step, Josh. Use it. I had known she would do this. I had known.

  “What have you learned, Joshua?” she asked.

  I thought fast. What did she want to hear? “I need to control my temper and be respectful.”

  Her eyes didn’t leave my face. She sat like that for a long time, looking quietly at me.

  I knew better than to ask if I could leave, so I waited, keeping my eyes fixed on a spot about an inch above her head.

  “Correct,” Miriam said finally. “Remember that.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “You may go.”

  I turned quickly and left. A week wasted and she had thrown it in the garbage. Of course.

  I passed through the living room, reaching for the ornate stair railing. No, I hadn’t written three thousand. I figured I had written around twenty-five hundred, maybe less. And I had gotten away with it!

  The smile at my victory faded as I remembered that I had still written well over two thousand. I shook the thought off. “It’s the little things,” I said to myself.

  I’ll take anything I can get.

  Chapter 24

  My ink-fume clogged nose cleared up fast as I sat on a porch chair.
>
  I stared toward the cabin, hidden deep in the woods. Still grounded, I didn’t want to take any chances by sneaking off.

  What the cabin needed was a roof. I let my thoughts wander. Before long, they returned to the chair I sat in. Same one as on the day of the fight with Saul. I hoped his guitar wasn’t actually broken. Had it actually cracked?

  Picturing that day, those minutes on the porch, I wished some of my science fiction books were true. What I wouldn’t give for a time machine. All I’d had to do was leave, ignore Saul. Or even let him sit there.

  Would it kill me to be nice sometimes?

  I leaned back and put my feet on the white, chipped railing. I felt like I could taste the world; imagined that the wind was filling my head with something like purity.

  I woke up when the cars carrying the beggars rumbled up the driveway. It seemed darker than it should be. I glanced around. I had kind of thought Mary was going to come out and read, too. Had she come out and seen me sleeping?

  What time was it, anyway? I followed the beggars into the house. Every one of them looked exhausted, and I could have sworn that Ezekiel and Laura looked pissed off. They walked close together, talking quietly to each other. I craned to hear them as I stopped in the living room.

  Ezekiel was saying something about an anniversary. Then they were out of range and I didn’t want to get roped into getting dinner on the table. I wondered what he was talking about, but then noticed the time. Nearly six. Great. Miriam had obviously told the beggars to stay out longer to reach their goals when they’d called in at four. Which always meant a later dinner.

  I headed up the stairs, wondering what everyone else was doing. I figured Luke was out on the island, or holed up somewhere else doing who knew what. Saul had to be sitting somewhere hunched over a drawing of a tree, or learning a song about a rabbit.

  Maybe Mary was reading in her room.

  That gave me a thought. Maybe Mary had a book that I hadn’t read yet. I remembered that she had been behind me in the series, but maybe she had some other books. It was worth a try. If that didn’t work, I could reread one of my library books.