The Shelter Cycle

by Peter Rock

  Carefully, he bent one arm behind him and threaded it forward through the makeshift pack’s strap, then swung it around. Loosening the cord through the belt loops, he lifted the baby out. She opened her milky eyes and gazed at him without a sound.

  “That’s her,” Della said. “You had her in there this whole time?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve never held a baby,” she said, stepping back.

  “Here. Careful. Support her head, but don’t touch the top of it. It’s easy.”

  A cold gust blew snow between the gravestones, around their feet. Colville could hear traffic, could see the colors of cars in his peripheral vision, in the spaces between the trees.

  “So I’m supposed to say that I just found her?”

  “You can say that if you want,” Colville said. “See, she likes you.”

  “You don’t want me to tell that it was you.” Della squinted her bluish eyes, pursed her pale lips, then looked down again at the baby and smiled. “I’m going to say I found her right here,” she said.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “That’s kind of true.”

  “It is.”

  “So now I just take her?”

  “Yes.”

  Della turned and walked away, slowly between the gravestones, careful of her footing, out the cemetery’s far gate. Colville watched her go. Would they meet again? It seemed unlikely, yet they had already been brought together, and she was so young.

  Careful not to walk across the graves, he retraced his steps: back onto the sidewalk, toward the motel, where he would gather his things and head north, into everything that would happen. Decrees looped around in his mind, the Violet Flame vibrating higher and faster. He had done so much; he had so much to do. And now, all around him, people. A man tossing handfuls of salt onto his driveway. Two women together, talking at the same time. The mailman again, and more children, walking home from school. As Colville passed, all of them looked in his direction. No one seemed to see him.

  He turned back once, to watch Della, to see if she was still in sight. There she was, a block away, disappearing around a corner. Her pale blue coat, her yellow hat floated along, so bright against the snow.

  Acknowledgments

  Many members and former members of the Church Universal and Triumphant have generously shared their lives with me. The interviews and travels undertaken for this book made it a more interpersonal, bewildering, educational, and emotional experience than anything I have ever written. Some of the people who helped me most would rather not be acknowledged by name, as it might suggest a closer correspondence between their lives and these fictional pages than in fact exists. I understand and respect that, and still I want them to feel my true gratitude and respect for their energy and Light, good humor and patience with me.

  Thanks to Genevieve, Henry, and Christian Lee; to Ian Scott, who shared his electricity; to Cheri Walsh; to Dr. Cathleen Mann, for trust and texts; to the late Kathleen Stanley.

  My book is indebted to the writings of Elizabeth Clare Prophet, Mark Prophet, and many other texts of the church. I also relied on the “Green Books” of the “I AM Activity,” by Godfre Ray King (Guy Ballard) and the survival guides of Tom Brown, Jr. Other important texts included The Art of War by Sun-Tzu and the Boy Scouts’ Fieldbook.

  I am so fortunate to have lived above Paradise Valley during the shelter cycle, and luckier still to have worked for Virginia and Andy Anderson (who taught me the phrase “morphadite son of a bitch,” and so much more). Spending time with Ginny and being back on the ranch these last few years was reason enough to write this book. Thank you. And to the amazing Julie and Hannibal Anderson and their family, always.

  Thanks to Chico Hot Springs, the best base camp a person could ever wish for. And to the Reed College Dean’s Office and English Department, for key funding. All gratitude to Jason Parker for generous and dexterous website assistance. A debt to Trina Marmarelli, for last-minute cartography.

  Jim Rutman, it is difficult to really know what is your deal and how you got this way, but I can only try to express how wisely you punished me, and to wonder at how vast your belief and patience are. I won’t forget. Thanks also to Adelaide Livingston Wainwright at Sterling Lord, student and teacher.

  Adrienne Brodeur, my editor, has encouraged me in friendship and in fiction for fifteen years. Visibly, invisibly. I am all gratitude and so fortunate.

  Much appreciation for the patience, enthusiasm, and intelligence of all at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt for helping bring this book into the world.

  Cara Warner and Ariana Boffey tirelessly and enthusiastically transcribed thirty-plus hours of interviews for me. Necessary.

  At different times, these smart and kind people read (often extremely long) drafts of this novel and told me what they thought: Kate Bredeson, Ben Lazier, Rachel Mercer, Tamara Metz, Amy Smith, Maya West. Thanks, friends. May you pass every test, as Saint Germain would say.

  Here at home, my girls—everything. So grateful to Ida Akiko and Miki Frances, for slowing me down (and sometimes breaking me down), for showing me with their hearts what I was trying to do with my head.

  And I would not be me if Ella Vining were not Ella Vining, every single day.

  About the Author

  PETER ROCK is the author of five previous novels, including My Abandonment, and a collection of stories, The Unsettling. He lives with his wife and daughters in Portland, Oregon, where he is a professor in the English department of Reed College.