The White Lily

by Susanne Matthews

  “Yes, they do,” Harriet answered. “You know, Lilith, Faye is putting up a brave front, but this interview is going to be hard on her. I know it’s police business and Rob won’t give me any details, but is it really necessary? Faye’s been through so much ...”

  “Believe me, if there were any way to spare her this, we would, but lives, including hers, depend on making sure Jacob understands what life in the New Horizon cult is like now. He’s got to make the right impression on those people tomorrow.”

  “Doesn’t he know? He’s that man’s brother.”

  “Jacob left that life eighteen years ago. Things were different then. I’m sure Rob won’t let Faye get too distressed.”

  “You’re right, of course. I’m just being an overprotective mother, but the thought that I might have lost her ... The food’s ready.” Harriet placed the last of the takeout cartons on a large tray. There had to be enough food here to feed a dozen people. “Can you carry the tray?”

  Lilith nodded and followed Harriet into the dining room. She’d make sure the guys outside watching her back got something to eat, too.

  • • •

  Jacob watched Lilith place the tray full of white cardboard takeout containers on the table. It had been a long time since he’d indulged in American-style Chinese food. Harriet handed him a plate and his choice of a fork and knife or chopsticks. He chose the chopsticks. Lilith sat in the chair next to his and smiled.

  “I suppose Chinese food is nothing special to you,” she said, reaching for a fork and knife.

  “On the contrary. I love the stuff that passes for Chinese food here. It was Andrew’s favorite, too. We had it at least once a week when we lived in Canada. Believe me, if you go to China, it’s nothing like this. There are eight different types of Chinese cuisine on the mainland and another five in the surrounding region. American Chinese is in a group of its own.”

  “Well, I can’t use those things,” she said, indicating the chopsticks. “I either get food all over the place or starve trying to pick up one grain of rice at a time.”

  “It takes practice. If we order Chinese again, I’ll teach you.”

  “So you’re definitely going to stick around for a while?” Faye asked, interrupting their conversation.

  “Yes, I’ve canceled my flight and extended my stay indefinitely at the hotel. I’ll need to pick up more clothes, but that’s easily done, and since Trevor insists I stick close to Lilith, maybe she can help me choose something appropriate.”

  “Ha! Don’t take her anywhere near a shoe store. You’ll regret it.”

  Lilith tossed a fortune cookie at Rob, and he laughed. “Lilith can get a little crazy when it comes to shoes.”

  “Then, perhaps I’ll use that to induce her to come with me.”

  “You’ll regret it,” Rob said in a singsong voice that made them all laugh. “I haven’t seen her in the same pair of shoes since she arrived here.”

  “A woman can never have too many shoes,” Faye said. “Stop picking on her.” She slapped her husband, and Jacob envied their love and camaraderie. “Rob and I have tickets for a preseason Bruins game in a couple of weeks. Maybe you two could come with us. Tom and his wife are coming along, too. I’ll bet it’s been a while since you’ve seen a hockey game.”

  Jacob grinned. “I’d like that. I watch a lot of footy—Australian Rules Football. I watch hockey quite often on the telly—don’t miss a game during the Olympics. Who’s a contender for the cup this year?”

  The dinner conversation touched on a lot of different topics, including whether or not the Bruins, Patriots, Celtics, and Red Sox would win the coveted prizes in their various sports, crocodiles, koala bears, and kangaroos. While Australia had its share of dangers, it was also an incredibly beautiful place, and Jacob shared the wonders he’s seen in the outback as well as on the Great Barrier Reef. He talked about surfing and snorkeling as well as mining and prospecting. He explained about melon and fruit farming and why he planted rosebushes in his vineyards. Not only did the flowering shrubs attract bees, they served as an early warning system for insects that could harm the grape vines. They’d almost finished eating when Faye turned to him, and Jacob noticed that while she smiled, there was wariness in her eyes.

  “So, Jacob, I guess it’s time for me to sing for my supper. What would you like to know?” Faye asked.

  Jacob swallowed the piece of Kung Pao chicken he’d just put into his mouth and smiled at her, wishing he could don one of those disguises Lilith had mentioned, although Faye didn’t seem as distressed by his appearance as he’d thought she might be, and he was grateful for that. It would make this ordeal more bearable for both of them.

  As much as he needed to know how his uncle had bastardized his grandfather’s ideal society, he didn’t look forward to it. Lilith had been thorough in her briefing on the Harvester case. He wouldn’t have believed he could feel worse than when he’d read about it yesterday, but seeing those pictures, reading those notes had left him nauseated.

  Faye stared at him questioningly, but there was no hostility on her face. Maybe it was because most of her memories of his twin were with his mountain man look, as she’d called it. Jacob wasn’t a hairy guy. He could go two or three days without shaving and most people wouldn’t even notice. It would take him at least a week to get that scruffy look that seemed to be so popular these days. He’d never looked as rugged as James had in those photos, not even after he’d come back from his last three-month walkabout.

  “I appreciate your willingness to talk to me, and I don’t want to distress you unduly, but as Trevor told you, this may be our only chance to derail the Prophet’s plan. I need to meet with the prisoners tomorrow and somehow convince them to trust me. What can you tell me about your time with them?”

  “Rob told me he’s your uncle. I find that odd since Jimmy never referred to him that way.” She set down the chopsticks she held and took a drink of water. “He talked about him as if he’s some kind of god.”

  “And I find it impossible to think of him as some kind of prophet or messiah, although the name Harvester suits him. He was always trying to add to his following. As for godhood, I don’t think God had as much to do with him as Satan might have.” Jacob was unable to hide his disdain. Uncle or not, the man revolted him.

  “I agree.” Faye sat back, the remaining food on her plate forgotten. “With this ankle, I’ve had a lot of time to think about my stay in the stable, and I’ve been going over the notes I made when I was debriefed. In a way, it was no better nor worse than being in nunnery, prison, or in a Middle Eastern sultan’s harem. We each had our own cell, communal showers and meals, and time in the exercise yard. Our uniforms consisted of old-fashioned clothing—I actually had to make a set for myself using a treadle sewing machine. I’ll probably never wear yellow again—that’s the color dedicated solely to wives. Their society is color coordinated. You don’t need to know names, just status. I’m convinced the reason was to dehumanize and depersonalize you. If you wore blue, pink, green, or yellow, you were a mare. The women in charge wore black and were referred to as Mother. Your last name and whatever past you had were left at the stable door, and speaking of your previous life could cost you several lashes. Those who waited on us were clad in gray or brown.”

  “So it’s a caste system. I assume pink or blue denotes the sex of the child they bore?”

  “It does. The women who were poisoned were wrapped in blankets the same color as the one they’d have had on their beds. In my group, Ruth wore blue, but Mary and Elisa wore green because they hadn’t had their babies yet. The worst part of being in the stable was the sense of isolation. Even though there were others nearby, you couldn’t speak to them. You were alone for much of the time. And then, of course, there were the brainwashing sessions. ‘Foolishness abounds in the heart of a mare, but the rod of correction shall drive it from her,’ is the memory verse I was given to study my first day there. As horrible as it is, I can’t get the damn thing
out of my head. Believe me when I say they thoroughly enjoyed punishment, and while that rod of correction was a nasty thing, it was a mild form of discipline compared to some of the others. I actually had to wear a mob cap to cover my hair, since cutting a woman’s hair was a form of humiliation.”

  “During the Second World War,” Lilith added, “they shaved the heads of French female collaborators to shame and identify them. This would be the same.”

  “My uncle would like that. He enjoyed embarrassing people and doling out punishment, but he preferred whips.”

  “Those who see themselves as masters still do. James threatened to have me whipped if I kept blaspheming as he called it. I tend to be outspoken, and their lifestyle didn’t suit me in the least. My first day there, I was kept in solitary confinement for asking too many questions. You do know they’re all insane, don’t you?”

  “My uncle certainly is, and I’m beginning to think James must’ve had a screw loose as well to go to the lengths he did, but the others may have been drugged into compliance.”

  “They tend to do that a lot, too. What kind of drugs?” Faye asked, looking directly at her husband, the unspoken “you didn’t mention this” apparent on her face.

  “Tox screens just came back since they weren’t priority. Mostly peyote—mescaline—and THC from marijuana,” Rob said, obviously trying to placate his wife. “He might’ve used scopolamine on them, too, but we didn’t check for that. Mescaline is a bit like LSD, so under the right circumstances, they’d trip out and think the hallucinations were messages from the Creator. They’ve pretty much come down from it now, even the older ones who’d have been taking it the longest.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Faye said. “No one has the right to undermine a person’s will like that.”

  Jacob didn’t miss the look of fear and then righteous indignation on Faye’s face either.

  “Well, drugs or no drugs, they’re definitely brainwashed,” Faye added with conviction. “Some of them actually believe being treated like a horse is a privilege. Little Annie is only twelve, and she’s training to be a good mare. It’s gross. I hope the deprogrammers can set those kids straight.”

  “Didn’t any of the women resent being treated like that?” Jacob asked. “The older ones would’ve remembered what it was like before my uncle took control.”

  “If they did, they wouldn’t dare say anything. In the new order, silence is a virtue. Women don’t speak unless they’re spoken to, and even then, they can’t speak their minds. Speaking out of turn can get you a smack or two from the rod of punishment—it’s a riding crop by the way, and stings like the dickens.”

  “The men struck you?” he asked, horrified.

  “Not the men. Mother Kate. She was a lovely old battle-ax who wore numerous hats. She was our jailor and midwife as well as our teacher. The woman could be kind and gentle when it suited her. She spent hours reading out of the manifesto and the mares’ code of conduct, then questioning us on it. I only gave one wrong answer. A rap across the knuckles with a wooden dowel makes you pay attention in class.”

  “Mother Kate is dead,” Rob added. “She was the one with the cyanide capsule in her teeth.”

  “I’ll bet she was Kate Colchester, my uncle’s wife. She was a strict disciplinarian. Were there any others? A woman named Ellie, perhaps?”

  Faye shook her head. “The only names I ever heard were Mother Kate and Annie. She was my personal servant, my ostler. She cleaned my stall, saw I had fresh water, towels, and blankets. Essentially, we were treated like prized brood mares—well fed, kept clean, and exercised, but basically caged animals.”

  “So you didn’t really get to speak to the other women.”

  “Only the others there considered mares. I got the impression that we were the elite, almost like royalty. I didn’t see any women my age other than the ones imprisoned with me. Everyone else was either well past thirty-five or under sixteen. There must be younger women somewhere; where did Annie and the other servant girls come from otherwise? The only children in the nursery there were those belonging to James or Peter.”

  “How does the hierarchy work?”

  “According to the manifesto, the Prophet rules over everything. Surrounding him is his council of Elders, and after that, there are the Chosen, the men who will lead groups of worthy brethren, that’s how they refer to themselves, after the Great Burning. Each Chosen has an extended family, basically the people who do all the work, and a foursome, and I can assure you the title has nothing to do with a round of bridge or golf.”

  “What is this foursome then?” Jacob asked.

  “It’s a breeding unit within a family. Each Chosen has one wife and three concubines—it’s all very Old Testament biblical. Think Abraham or Jacob. The handmaids or concubines serve the wife and service the man. There’s some kind of bonding rite performed just before the baby’s born, making it such that all the children belong to the wife even if she doesn’t give birth to them. The unit remains that way until one of the women doesn’t conceive in her fertile period, dies in childbirth, or asks to be released. Once a woman leaves, she’s replaced so that there are always four women. Jimmy claimed to love me, but there’s no love involved. It’s ownership and subjugation, and in his case, misplaced obsession. All those women were chosen specifically because they resembled me. The Chosen keeps his mares on a three-month cycle, fathering four children a year. I assume you know what being released means.”

  “Yes, I do. Lilith explained that quite clearly. It’s a euphemism for poisoned and disposed of. You know, polygamy wasn’t practiced in the commune when I was there. In fact, I find that aspect one of the most confusing things. There was a shortage of women in the commune after the fever.”

  “Well, they found a surplus somewhere, and I don’t think getting them from outside was the normal way of doing things.”

  Jacob stood and paced. How in the hell could people think this way? He’d read the Old Testament and never once thought to swive four women and call them his horses. He was pretty damn sure his mother wouldn’t have put up with that either.

  “Are all the women kept in stables or just the ones designated for my brothers and cousins?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. There might be different stables where other women are kept, but our location was a temporary one. We were getting ready to move to the Promised Land. If Rob and the others had been any later, they’d have missed us.” Faye shuddered, and Rob reached for her hand.

  “Babies and children are housed in a separate location. I never saw the nursery, but Ruth did since she went there twice a day. Amalie, Peter’s wife, I think spent time there each day as well.”

  “You mentioned Peter. I didn’t realize he’d been there. Did you ever see him?”

  “No, but he, his foursome, and the other members of his family left the farm the afternoon before the rescue. Peter’s foursome was very different from mine.”

  “Different how?” He couldn’t see his levelheaded older brother falling for all this nonsense. Peter had been away at school when Jacob had left New Horizon.

  “Those women weren’t outsiders, but they weren’t from New Horizon either. They were brought up accepting this as a normal way of life—the clothes, the rules, even the shackling. Amalie believed it was for her protection and that of her children. To her, polygamy and this caste system was the norm. Those women, even the handmaidens, acted as if being someone’s mare was a great honor.”

  Jacob frowned. The world his uncle had created was an abomination. He stopped pacing and sat beside Lilith again.

  “You’ve mentioned the Promised Land a couple of times,” he said. “Are we talking about a real place or some biblical ideal?”

  “It’s a real place. I saw a relief map. It’s a valley surrounded by rugged, snow-capped mountains. There’s a river running though it that widens into a lake near the center. At a guess, I’d say it’s someplace in the Rockies, but I can’t imagine where. They were building s
even villages within the area, one for each family. The only thing I can add is that it’s colder there. We were knitting heavy shawls, and some of the women were weaving heavier blankets. The second dress I was supposed to make was wool, not cotton. Maybe it’s in the northern states.”

  Faye went on to describe a typical day, quote a few more rules, and cite more verses. It was Orwellian doublespeak at its very best, words and meanings changed to suit his uncle’s purpose. He knew the Prophet wasn’t the first person to interpret the Bible to suit himself, but he couldn’t understand why no one had stood up to him and tried to stop the nonsense before it escalated. Drugs made more and more sense.

  When Faye yawned, Rob called an end to the debriefing, and everyone prepared to leave.

  “Thanks for talking to me,” Jacob said. “I know it wasn’t easy. I’m sorry you had to go through what you did. If I could undo it, I would.”

  “You’re a good man, Jacob. I’m sure your experience at your uncle’s hands wasn’t any better than mine. Just because you’re related to those men doesn’t mean you’re like them. Rob told me that you’ve offered to relocate the captured brethren. He thinks Mary, Elisa, Ruth, and I should leave the States, too, until you capture this bastard.”

  “It’s not a bad idea. The four of you could go to my house in Melbourne. I have a housekeeper there who’d love having someone to spoil.”

  “I’ll admit the idea of spending the winter there instead of in Boston has some appeal, but I’d be worried about my mother and Rob. He won’t leave.”

  “Yeah, but if you did, I could concentrate on the work instead of worrying about you,” Rob said. “And I’m sure Harriet could go along, too. I know you want to stay here, honey, but think of the baby.”

  Faye pursed her lips, and Jacob sensed she was annoyed with her husband’s attempt at emotional blackmail.

  “I’ll let you work that out,” Jacob said, turning to Lilith. “You look worn out, and since you still have to take me to the hotel, we’d better go.”

  “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ve had enough coffee to keep me from falling asleep at the wheel.”