Beyond the Cabin

  “Josh,” Saul said, too loudly again. “You can’t get aw—“

  “Saul,” Penelope said from the adults’ table. Her voice cut through the low hum of conversation.

  I glanced at her, realizing all the adults were sitting and that everyone was at the kids’ table. I watched Saul as his face lit up. But I knew what was coming and had to hide my smile. Only an idiot didn’t know what that voice meant coming from Penelope.

  “Sit down,” Penelope said. “Show some respect.”

  Indignation painted Saul’s face bright red. “But—“

  “We are trying to say Grace, Saul.” Penelope’s eyes hardened. “Sit.”

  Saul sat. I couldn’t help but toss a glance his way. He glared at me and swore under his breath.

  What a dummy.

  * * *

  By the time Monday rolled around, I felt like I was going to start climbing walls and throwing dishes. It seemed like my fingers would only stop looking like albino raisins from breakfast clean-up right when I had to start doing dinner clean-up. I couldn’t wait for the library trip after school, although I knew there was a chance that I wouldn’t be able to go if Miriam remembered my punishment.

  After breakfast, I went out to the porch to get some fresh air. All the voices during breakfast and both Luke and Saul being complete turds during clean-up had made me feel like breaking something. I inhaled the morning air and felt like I could almost see it infusing every nerve and muscle in my body, shoving out frustrations and bringing calm.

  I headed inside, but stopped at the base of the stairs. Was somebody crying? I crept toward the sound but realized that looked bad, so I walked normally.

  I stopped in the kitchen doorway. Joan and Mary were talking quietly, Mary’s face wet with tears. They looked up when I appeared in the doorway. Mary immediately turned her head away.

  “Oh Joshua,” Joan said. “Could you give us a minute, please?”

  “Uh, sure.” I wanted to ask if Mary was okay. I didn’t know if that would cause suspicion. Screw it. I shouldn’t care. “Is everything okay?”

  “Please give us a minute,” Joan said, her voice slightly tinged with anger.

  “Okay, yeah.” I turned quickly and made for the living room. I wished I had a book that I hadn’t read yet. I plopped on one of the drab, olive-colored couches and waited, hoping I could figure out what was going on. Maybe I could talk to Mary on her way to classes. I remember how two days ago she had been crying. What was going on? I hoped Joan wasn’t being awful to her. But I had a feeling that Mary had actually gone to Joan for help, especially considering the way they had been talking when I first saw them in the kitchen.

  This feeling was confirmed a few minutes later when Mary and Joan came out of the dining room, Joan’s arm around Mary. Relief filled me when he saw that Mary’s face was dry and clear.

  “Thank you, Joshua,” Joan said.

  I nodded, catching Mary’s eye. She smiled at me.

  So everything was okay. I smiled back. I wondered what was happening, although at the same time I knew it was none of my business. I wished I had been able to listen in to the conversation they’d had, but then felt guilty at my curiosity. I knew I shouldn’t be so curious, but I couldn’t deny how much it had hurt for Mary to be so short with me the other day.

  As I got up to follow them up the stairs to classes, I heard Joan say, “…come and go for a couple of days.” I continued walking. What did that mean? I told myself to quit it. None of your business, dummy.

  Mary made a detour to the bathroom in the hallway as I walked past. Miriam was already waiting in our classroom, which was bigger than the one for the little kids. Except for Mary, I was the last one in. I grabbed my usual chair in the circle that Miriam had no doubt, as usual, made somebody else arrange. With Luke on my right and David on my left, I realized I needed to change my spot. But there was no way to do that without causing a stir of some kind. If I had gotten here early enough, I could have made Saul and Luke pair off and I could pair up with Mary.

  Focus class proceeded as usual after Miriam lectured Mary about being punctual. We started with the Acceptance step, with Luke doing his best to make me laugh whenever Miriam’s attention was somewhere else.

  “Ethan. Settle down. See David and accept him.” Miriam stood behind David, looking hard at Ethan. Who was four. For Pete’s sake. “Any feeling of laughter should evaporate in a feeling of total calm and acceptance.”

  Ethan stayed silent, looking up at Miriam with fear-saturated eyes.

  I let my thoughts wander as I stared at Luke, blinking lazily and totally disconnecting from the stupid step.

  The day continued boring as Algebra class tried to kill me after biology lulled me nearly asleep. But as soon as Penelope called an end to Algebra, I jumped up and made for the classroom door.

  “Fifteen minutes,” Penelope called as the others followed me out. She didn’t need to remind us. Everyone knew the routine for our Monday library trips. I grabbed my backpack and shoved all of my library books into it, then headed down the stairs as fast as I dared. I ducked outside and into Blue before Miriam could see me and tell me I was grounded. I clambered to the back seat and sat low, just in case.

  Mary was the next one in. She climbed into the seat in front of me and turned around with a grin. “Aren’t you grounded?”

  “Only if she remembers,” I said.

  “And if she does?”

  “I’ll tell her I forgot.”

  She laughed. “Selective amnesia?”

  “Nope.” I met her eyes and deadpanned. “A simple lie.”

  “Nice.” She laughed again. Man, I loved that sound. Every time she did it around me it was like I’d swallowed some moths or something that got stuck in my throat. But without the grossness. “I hope that works.”

  “Me too.”

  Sarah and Rachel chose that second to tumble into the long van, both still chewing the usual after-school snack of toast and butter. Mary brushed crumbs from Sarah’s cheeks as the two little girls took their places next to Mary on her bench. I couldn’t take my eyes from Mary’s hand after that. She had been so gentle and naturally—what was the word?

  How would it be to have her touch me like that? Or anyone do that for me?

  Not with crumbs of course.

  Before long, everyone had gotten in the van, with Luke and Saul filing up the rest of my seat.

  Penelope was last, like usual. But as she started up the van, the front passenger door opened and Aaron climbed in. She glanced at him, not seeming surprised at his presence.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Coming along today?” Penelope asked.

  “Yeah. Need to figure out some code stuff.” Aaron tossed a glance back at the rest of us. He met my eyes and raised his eyebrows in greeting. I did the same. It had been strange the last few nights, having Aaron up on Mal’s bed. We’d talked more in the last week than we had in probably years, mostly about books of course. I still couldn’t believe he didn’t read fantasy. How do you live without heroes and swords and magic?

  The drive to the library only took fifteen minutes, and I was at the shelves with an empty backpack less than a minute later. Why did they limit the number of books I could check out to ten? Couldn’t they make an exception for me, since I always had everything back in a week?

  I poked through the fantasy section, looking for a complete series, or a few of them. A title caught my eye and I grabbed the book, studying the cover. A huge warrior stood behind a crouching, darkly shadowed guy who looked like a ranger. Next to them was a thick dwarf with a massive battle-axe. I dropped the book in my bag and grabbed the second and third of the trilogy. I checked the author name. Salvatore. Cool name. I had a feeling these would be awesome.

  I found a few more books and looked for somewhere to sit to start reading. Some of these people took way too long to pick their books. I almost always ended up with a solid twenty minutes to get started on my first one.

  Spotti
ng the computer desks, I realized that the library had made something easier. I slid over to them and glanced around again. Penelope was nowhere to be found. Aaron had disappeared too.

  I logged onto the computer with my card and opened the Internet. I typed in the same thing that Aaron had to get to a search engine and then, with another check to make sure nobody was watching, typed “Fundamental Faith in God” and hit Enter.

  My results showed up in a long list. I spent the next few minutes reading and checking my immediate surroundings to make sure none of the kids or Penelope came near me. As I read about the history of the cult I was in, I felt like some kind of plant was growing in me, pushing my insides toward my skin. Scientology? What was that? And I’d heard the word ‘schism’ before, but I didn’t know that the Faith had gone through one. Did any of the other kids know any of this stuff?

  Suddenly I felt like the computer screen was sucking me in, taking over my entire vision. A month and a year had caught my eye. May. The year I was born. A coffee shop in Chicago with a magazine being printed and published by the Fundamental Faith in God, which had arrived in Chicago the year before, newly re-formed. Then the name Miriam.

  Holy crap.

  I was born in Chicago.

  Maybe my father was still there.

  Chapter 26

  I looked up at the knobby rafters. I really needed to find something to finish the roof. I blinked a few times; my eyes felt like they were stretched out and dry.

  No surprise when you stay up all night reading. But how do you put down a book like that? I’d opened it almost as soon as we’d gotten home and had only put it down for dinner and clean-up. Mary came and read on the porch last night and we had maybe said two words to each other. All I remembered was her giggling at how I couldn’t stop reading.

  I dragged my attention back to the cabin. I had wanted to pick up the next book in the trilogy, but had felt like I needed to kick in a wall or two as well. Which meant I needed the cabin. It had only taken a minute to slip into the woods without being seen after classes ended.

  I looked around the interior of my small house. I still had a hammer, but would need nails if I was going to use wood. I also had a hand drill, one of the old-style, along with a couple of handsaws, a screwdriver for some strange reason, and some putty knives. That reminded me that I needed to figure out how to make a better mud mixture that I could use in the cracks between the logs. Daylight was clearly visible through the logs.

  A light. I would need a light too, if I covered up the roof completely. For now, that was the only light source in the cabin, unless I brought a flashlight. Maybe I could find an oil lantern or something in one of the old, run-down outbuildings. I doubted that, simply because I’d been exploring those buildings for something like eleven years so I didn’t think I would have missed an oil lantern.

  Maybe I could make a window. The more I thought about it, the more I wondered why I hadn’t thought of that before.

  Getting to my feet, I assessed the walls, trying to figure out which one would be the best for a window. I decided to put the window in the wall that faced more or less west, which was the one opposite the wall that had the door. That way, I would have sun shining through it, even later in the day, which was when I was usually at the cabin.

  I picked up the hand drill. Setting it firmly against a knotted log, I held the drill part with one hand and cranked with my other hand. The drill bit into the wood, shavings slowly falling from the hole I was making.

  Within a few minutes, beads of sweat formed at my hairline. The exertion felt good. But my hands were already tired. I was going to have to make a few of these holes before I could connect them and then fit the handsaw in. On the next hole, I tried to put my weight behind the drill to see if that would help it go faster.

  It did. I spun the crank, the handle heating up in my hand. Four holes later, I mopped at the sweat on my brow. Now to connect the holes and see if the saw would fit.

  The screwdriver. I picked it up, remembering why we had this thing in a cabin with no screws. The chainsaw. Mal had needed the screwdriver to keep the chain tight. I grabbed the hammer and used the screwdriver like a chisel, chipping out the wood left between the holes I had drilled.

  The bits broke away in tiny shavings. The drill, once it had gotten started, seemed to have little problem getting through the wood, as long as I put my weight behind it. But the logs were between six and eight inches thick, and there was quite a lot of wood left to chip away.

  I stopped and took a deep breath. I was going to make this window. I might not finish it today, but this was my window. I set the tools down, wiped my sweaty palms on my shirt, and got back to work. The effort and movement felt like they were infusing me with strength. Sweat rolled down my face and back. When was the last time I’d done anything like this?

  Building the cabin itself. Hauling the logs after cutting them and shaping the notches. Months ago. With Mal. I slammed the hammer onto the butt of the screwdriver; did it again. Power flowed through me as the screwdriver chewed through the log. Tangy pine scent filled my nostrils.

  Up went the hammer, then down. Again and again. Each blow sent a vibration through me, connecting me to the earth and the tools, the cabin and the air. Tingles coursed from my arm up to my neck every time I lifted the hammer. My eyes stung from the sweat. My breath came fast. I slammed the hammer onto the screwdriver. I grunted with the blow.

  Each impact brought another grunt. Then a growl. Soon I was shouting with each blow, fury erupting from every pore. I was a volcano. My eyes stung as lava-like sweat poured down my face. Strength flowed through me. I was mighty, terrible. Every blow strong enough to bring down a tree, a house, a cult. Nothing could stop me. I slammed the hammer onto the screwdriver again. Tasted the sweat on my lips. A breath exploded from me, making me shake. I shouted, but not with a blow.

  I shouted again, my hands suddenly empty. My legs lost their strength and I dropped, shouting, screaming my throat raw, a blast of magma exploding out from deep inside of me. Tears mixed with my sweat. Shakes, then sobs, pushed from inside me with the force of tanks. Unstoppable. Unending. Memories and Mal’s name swam through my brain, jumbled and ragged.

  I couldn’t catch my breath. My arms were jelly, my stomach a burning pit.

  I tried to stop the tears, tried to stop screaming Mal’s name over and over. I tried to breathe, but only managed a hiccup. I felt the dry earth of the cabin floor beneath me. Felt bare, helpless, alone. Why me? Why had I been left alone?

  I curled so tightly into myself that I thought I might break. Alone. I was alone. Mal had left. Then he was taken. Stolen. Murdered. For a thousand more days, maybe more, I would be alone. Alone in this cabin. Alone with the memories of a brother who got himself killed. Alone with twenty other people living in the same house.

  Empty. I was empty and alone.

  * * *

  I didn’t know how long I lay there on the cabin floor, but I knew that if I tried to stand, I would fail. Every part of me felt jittery and empty. My eyes felt crusty and swollen. My stomach muscles hurt. My ribs ached.

  I realized I was shaking. The dirt under me suddenly felt frigid. I pulled myself into a sitting position. I looked around the cabin. It was as empty as my life felt. If cabins could feel, if they could talk, would this one say it was lonely, despite being surrounded by its oldest friends? Probably.

  I shook the thought away. “But you’re not alone,” I said, patting the wall I leaned against. “You’re all I have left, really. Left of Mal at least.” Although I felt embarrassed at what I had just done, I couldn’t help but think that it was a good thing only the cabin had seen me like that. “Maybe it was good,” I said, a hiccup breaking through the last word. “But I can’t do that again. I have to stay strong.”

  I nodded to myself. Despite the exhaustion and shakes that still ran through me, I felt like I was a dirty river bed that had been cleaned by a fresh rain. Refreshed. Spying the handsaw, my mind leapt back t
o what I had been working on. I still wanted a window and I still had time to work on it today.

  I picked up the saw and slid it into the slot I had made. Plenty of space.

  I shoved the saw forward, then yanked backward. Wood dust gathered in a small but growing pile at the base of the wall. New sweat beaded on my forehead. The work felt even better now.

  When I had a cut about eighteen inches long, I realized I should have thought this through a little more. “Should have planned around the logs,” I muttered.

  “Making a window?”

  The voice made me jump. I spun, leaving the saw stuck in the cabin wall.

  Aaron stood at the door.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Are you making a window?” Aaron asked again.

  What is he doing here? “Uh, yeah.”

  Aaron looked around the cabin. He nodded, pursing his lips. “That’s a good idea. It’ll give you more light when the sun sets.”

  Could Aaron read minds? Maybe he was just smart. Must run in the family. “Yeah. That’s what I was thinking.”

  We stood there, looking at each other. Finally, Aaron spoke. “Do you want some help?”

  “What are you doing here?” I wished I could control my mouth better. Why do I have to be such a jerk?

  “I thought you’d be here.”

  “How did you know about this place?”

  “Mal told me. He needed some help getting it planned and I found some tips on the Internet.”

  What? Mal had told Aaron about the cabin? I didn’t want to believe it. I had thought this was a secret place for only me and my oldest brother. Then Esther showed up and now Aaron was in on it?

  I didn’t know what to say next. I almost didn’t trust myself not to come off as more of a jerk, no matter what I said. Besides, Aaron was my brother. Maybe it was okay.

  “So do you want some help?” Aaron asked.

  No. I want to be left alone, thank you very much. I stopped, trying to find where that thought came from. Do I really? A second later, I knew the answer.