Halcyon

by Rio Youers

  Given Edith’s history, the only people Martin could talk to about her were Shirley and Calm Dumas. Calm had given the Lovegroves her telephone number after her visit in May (a decidedly simpler method of contact than candlelight and telepathy). Martin had called several times since Laura’s death.

  “Edith says she can’t remember the shooting,” he said the last time they spoke. “But she streamed it—saw it happen. It’s in her mind somewhere. I think that’s why she’s so withdrawn.”

  “Sheltering herself from wicked streams is one thing,” Calm said. “She can’t run away from reality, though. She has to confront her fears and deal with them. That’s how we grow.”

  “How can I help her?”

  “You make her feel as safe as possible. You show her love and happiness.”

  “I’m struggling with my own emotions,” Martin said. “It’s not easy showing happiness when I don’t feel it myself.”

  “Love will lead you, Martin. And take comfort in knowing that Edith is spending less time in her garden. If she were going deeper, I’d be very concerned.”

  Flint Wood High reopened its doors on Tuesday, September 4. The press was there to mark the occasion, filming students as they ascended the front steps. The mother of one of the victims shouted, “Leave us alone!” into one of the cameras, and hit Autumn McKenzie from Fox 29 News with a bottle of water. A fracas broke out.

  There were no news cameras at Frederick J. Sayles Elementary across town. The students arrived and went to their classes without incident. Edith Lovegrove was not one of them. She got out of bed on time, got washed and dressed, ate breakfast, but then froze at the kitchen table. Her eyes were glazed and unresponsive. “Hey, baby,” Martin said, gently shaking her shoulder. “Come on out. It’s time for school.” When he spoke to Edith’s principal an hour later, he explained that Edith needed more time. “She’s incredibly fragile. Seeing her like that might upset the other students.” Edith’s principal said he understood completely, and gave Martin the name of two excellent counselors.

  Shirley had gone willingly—if gloomily—to St. Mary’s. By 11 a.m. she’d been sent home for telling one of the teachers to go fuck herself. She was sent home again at the end of the week, this time with a two-day suspension, for fighting. “I can’t make any exceptions for Shirley because of what she’s been through,” her principal said when he met with Martin. “That would set a damaging precedent.” Martin agreed that the correct course of action had been taken, and promised to have a serious talk with Shirley.

  He did. It was a conversation that started out with raised voices and devolved into tears. They hugged desperately, with Martin, lost in darkness, trying to find some light to share with his daughter.

  “It’ll get easier,” he said over and over. Such a bullshit, clichéd thing to say, and spoken with maybe 10 percent conviction. He hoped the strength in his arms compensated for the platitudes spewing helplessly from his mouth.

  He woke early Saturday morning to find that Shirley wasn’t home. He wondered if she’d snuck out late and hadn’t come back. Fighting to maintain his composure, he called her cell phone. No answer. There was a list of names and numbers pinned to the refrigerator: Edith and Shirley’s closest friends—the people they’d most likely be with when not at home or school. He started at the top and worked his way down. Nobody had seen Shirley, or knew where she was. Getting desperate, he broke into Shirley’s email and searched for clues.

  Nothing.

  Edith was in the basement. The TV was on but she wasn’t watching it. She sat on a beanbag eating a cold Pop-Tart, staring into space. Her skin was pale and her eyes lined with sleeplessness.

  “I need you to call Shirley,” Martin said to her.

  “Call?”

  “Whatever it is you do—when you contact her telepathically.” Martin inhaled sharply. “Do it. Tell her to come home.”

  “Oh.” Edith took a bite out of her Pop-Tart. “I haven’t done that for a long time. I don’t even know how anymore.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s like a muscle.” Her eyes rolled slowly toward him. “It gets weak if you don’t use it.”

  Martin curled his hands into fists, counted to three, then relaxed them. “Try, Ede. Please … just try.”

  She placed her half-eaten Pop-Tart on the puffed-up side of the beanbag, closed her eyes, lowered her head. Martin shuffled his feet and waited. After a minute or so, she picked up her breakfast and continued eating.

  “Well?” Martin asked.

  “I can’t do it,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter anyway.”

  “Why not?”

  She looked at him blankly. “Because I know where she is.”

  * * *

  Martin was familiar with Barrow Farm—the eyesore on the western edge of town that multiple land developers had unsuccessfully attempted to buy and turn into tract housing. It was owned by a retired Kentucky businessman who intended to sit on the property until he died, then bequeath it to his seven children and let them fight over the scraps. At ninety-four years of age, this was likely to happen sooner rather than later, and with the new Onondaga Mall offering retail and employment opportunities in the area, those scraps might be notably larger.

  “Stay in the car,” Martin said. “I mean it, Ede.”

  He’d parked deep in the yard, not far from the barn. Edith slunk all the way down in the backseat and assured him she wasn’t going anywhere. Martin got out of the car and walked in the direction Edith had indicated, stepping around a rusted, overgrown trough, then over the desiccated corpse of some long-dead creature. High grass swayed in the field beyond. Martin pushed through it. A red-tailed hawk circled directly above, its wingspan dark and wide.

  He had no trouble finding the well. It drew Martin forward, its darkness—and it was a dark place—like a center of gravity. It had obviously drawn Shirley, too; she sat to one side of the clearing, knees pulled to her chest, arms looped around her shins. Her new black hair shimmered in the clear morning light.

  “Edith has her special place,” she said by way of explanation, looking at the well’s crumbling brickwork. “This is mine.”

  The cover—several weather-beaten boards—had been removed. Martin peered into the well. He didn’t want to get too close; like any precipice, it had an inexplicable attraction.

  “I miss you,” he said, sitting close to Shirley, but not too close. It was important to give her space. “Both you and Edith. Even when you’re home, you’re not really home. It sometimes feels like I’ve lost all three of my girls.”

  She glanced at him. He saw the emotion in her eyes.

  “Things will never go back the way they were.” He shook his head. “But we have to believe they can be good again. Not just better than they are now, but good.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “I try to,” he said honestly. “Some days it’s not so easy. But I do believe this: that it’s not the end of everything, and it is the beginning of something. Whatever that something is … that’s up to us.”

  Shirley shrugged.

  “And it can be good.”

  “But you can’t stop your heart from aching,” Shirley said. “I know that now. You can distract it for a while. Maybe even a long while. But twenty years from now—fifty years—the pain will still be there.”

  “And other pains,” Martin added, scooching a touch closer. “Other pleasures, too. That’s how we live, Shirl. The alternative is to give up. And that’s really no alternative at all.”

  A warm breeze pushed through the clearing, making the tall grass dance and the blackberry bush rattle. Several small birds were stirred into flight. The elms marking the border of Barrow Farm showed yellow in their leaves. Fall was coming, and that was good, Martin thought. Summer had been hell.

  “My therapist wants me to explore my darkness,” Shirley said, wiping moisture from her cheeks. “You know—find the root of it. This place wants me to give it up.” She leaned ove
r her knees, her eyes locked on the well. “I think it’s feeding on me. Like a vampire. It won’t be happy until I throw myself in.”

  She reached out. Martin took her hand and held it like he’d never let go.

  She said, “I have so much darkness to give.”

  * * *

  Something Nolan had said at Banjo McCoy’s stuck with Martin. It floated into his mind in his bleakest hours, and shimmered when he lay awake at three in the morning and everything else was dark: Most people stay for a couple of years, then return to their old lives. They use Halcyon as a kind of reset, and that’s fine.

  Martin picked up the phone several times over the next few days and twice dialed Nolan’s number, but hung up before the connection was made. He kept waiting for the promise of Halcyon to fade, for it to appear more like a fantasy than a solution. This never happened, though. If anything, it intensified—became this glorious, healing utopia in his mind. And then one night, his heart aching and his eyes burning with tiredness, he crept into Shirley’s room to find both girls sleeping together, Shirley with one hand placed on the small of Edith’s back. And that was all it took—the sight of them together, his girls, his life, finding comfort in the most primal way.

  I can do that, he thought. I need to do that.

  If there’d been space in the bed, he would have crawled in beside them, folded his arms around them both, but there was not, so he huddled on the floor and slept awkwardly but somewhat peacefully, and woke close to dawn with a clear head and a knowing heart. He went downstairs, grabbed his cell phone from where it was charging on the kitchen counter. He dialed Nolan’s number. It rang three times and went to voicemail.

  “Hi, Nolan, it’s Martin Lovegrove. We met a couple of months ago at Banjo McCoy’s…”

  He paused, but it wasn’t hesitation. Quite the opposite. His mouth quivered, almost a smile.

  Let’s reset, he thought.

  He took a deep breath and said very clearly, “Do you have room for three more?”

  14

  Valerie considered herself a people person. The islanders called her Mother Moon in part because she edified them with stories about the Glam, but mostly because she made them feel safe and special. Like any good mother, she offered comfort when they most needed it, and hope when it all seemed lost. “You truly live up to your name,” Garrett Riley had once said to her, not long before he’d killed more than two hundred young Americans in the second-deadliest terrorist attack on US soil. She recalled how he’d sometimes frolic, like a lamb, in her company, and how he made mewling sounds, again, like a lamb, when he suckled on her breast.

  The secret was to begin with their hearts—to offer compliments and kindnesses, make them feel exactly how they wanted to feel. The heart was a durable muscle, but gullible. Best of all, it provided a shortcut to the mind, which was where Valerie did her most notable work.

  And of course, desperate people were the easiest to control. This was Halcyon’s artifice: a community of broken, shapeable individuals, looking to tether themselves to something they could believe in. And for as long as she had these damaged souls at her disposal, she could scratch the Society’s itch.

  They could scratch hers.

  She was not, however, superhuman; for every Garrett Riley or Glenn Burdock she was able to influence, there were three or four others she could not. It didn’t matter how disillusioned they were, or how desperately in need of harbor, she just couldn’t find a way in.

  Case in point: Angela Byrne.

  “We’re returning to the mainland. To our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

  Angela had come to Halcyon four years ago, a thirtysomething church pianist, chubby as a piglet, broken down the middle. Nolan had found her praying in the True Light House of God after her husband had been killed in a Manhattan subway shooting. “She’s lost faith in her country but not in her god?” Valerie had asked when Nolan gave her the rundown. “She’s too religious. Potentially damaging. I’ll never reshape her.” And Nolan had admitted that yes, she was religious, but she was also wealthy. “You may not get her mind,” he’d said. “But you might get her money.”

  Nolan, to his credit, had been absolutely right.

  Angela stood in front of Valerie now, forty pounds lighter (that’s what a daily dose of fresh air and not breakfasting at Applebee’s five mornings a week did for you), hands knitted demurely beneath her bosom. Doris Travers stood just behind and to her left. Paula Wetlow was on the other side.

  “He’s calling us home.” Angela unlinked and spread her hands, indicating herself and the other two women.

  “I see,” Valerie said. “That is unfortunate.”

  There had been a wall around Angela from the outset, with God perched atop it embodying salvation. Neither Valerie—at her most motherly—nor Glam Moon could compete. This was a problem, not because Valerie wanted Angela all to herself, but because religion wasn’t welcome on Halcyon. “It engenders a passionate difference of opinion,” Valerie offered by way of explanation. “Conflict, in other words, which is exactly what we’ve come here to escape.” The main reason—although she couldn’t tell Angela this, or anybody—was that she needed the islanders to share her belief in the Glam. A select few would be called on to do dark and terrible things, and they had to know there was something at the end of it for them. It was challenging enough to instill this level of faith, without God sticking His holy oar in.

  Angela didn’t outwardly defy her. She simply couldn’t leave God behind. He was a part of her soul, just like the Glam was a part of Valerie’s. She would’ve been gone long ago if not for her regular donations to the community. Halcyon was largely self-sustaining, but it had certain dark interests. There wasn’t a black market in the world that would trade a crate of C-4 for a sack of turnips.

  Valerie needed Angela’s money.

  “I know you’re disappointed,” Angela said. “But our minds are made up.”

  Valerie smiled even though all of her facial tissue was primed to rage. She put her hands behind her back so the women couldn’t see how they trembled and flexed.

  “Doris,” she said. “Are you sure about this?”

  Angela was a lost cause, but Doris Travers might not be. Valerie remembered how she’d arrived on Halcyon, empty of hope and soul. She’d found purpose, though, and strength. Halcyon had been good for her—a ladder when even the most meager of things seemed out of reach.

  “Jesus came to me in a dream,” Doris said. “He didn’t say anything, but pointed south across the water, and a heavenly light shone from the tip of his finger.”

  “Amen,” Angela said.

  “Paula?” Valerie turned to the woman on Angela’s right. “Are you ready to say goodbye to Halcyon? I believe you once called it your true Eden.”

  “I did,” Paula agreed. “But as much as I love it here, I never believed in Glam Moon. I do believe in God, though—”

  “Amen.” Angela again.

  “—and I’m ready to be His servant. Also, I miss my kids.”

  Valerie turned away from the women before the smile crashed from her face. She walked to the front window of her cabin and looked out. A beautiful view, with flickering trees to the east, their leaves beginning to turn, and the meadow directly ahead. She saw Jordan Little, the only child on the island, playing Frisbee. Ainsley Moore and Alyssa Prince carted produce to the storage barn north of the orchard. Alyssa was laughing about something, the sound carrying on the wind.

  “It could be argued,” Valerie said, “that you’re doing God’s work here. You live humbly, without sin or excess. You share your food and your warmth. If you believe in God, you have to believe He’s here, not on the mainland, which still burns.” She turned around, smiling again. “Seems to me that’s where the other guy hangs out.”

  “All the more reason for us to spread God’s love,” Angela said.

  Oh, Angela. An answer for everything.

  “And where was God when your husband was shot on the train to
City Hall?” Valerie couldn’t resist this bitter retort. Not that it mattered; these dumb bitches had made up their minds. “Remember how close to suicide you were afterward? Did God put that bottle of sleeping pills in your hand? And Paula, this God you believe in … where was He when your daughter was raped and murdered? Absent, I suppose. Just like He was absent at the trial, when one of the perpetrators walked free.”

  Paula burst into tears.

  “And Doris. Sweet Doris.” Valerie’s smile broadened—a grin now, teeth showing. “Jesus came to you in a dream. But did he come when you needed him most? Did a heavenly light shine from the tip of his finger when that thug put a bullet in your son’s skull?”

  “Stop it,” Angela said.

  “Did God take you in? Did He give you harbor?”

  Doris started bawling as well. She and Paula supported one another while Angela looked on, her eyes narrow and hard. Valerie drew a deep breath, aware that the mask she’d worn so securely, and for so many years, had slipped just a little. From outside came the satisfying thonk-thonk-thonk of somebody chopping firewood.

  “It’s your life, ladies.” Valerie said a moment later, when the air had cooled by three or four degrees. She took a box of Kleenex—one of the small luxuries from the mainland that she couldn’t do without—from the table next to the sofa and handed it to Doris, who took two and passed it on. “I would never stop you from following your heart, but I need to make sure your heart’s in the right place.”

  “My heart is with God,” Angela said.

  “Amen,” Paula said, and trumpeted a wad of snot into her Kleenex.

  Valerie nodded. She took the box from Angela and walked it back to the table, also home to a small wooden lockbox. She tapped the top of it with one fingernail.

  “When people tell me they want to return to their old lives, I always offer to show them the watch. A few of them have taken one look and been reminded of schedules, deadlines, and grind. They feel their blood pressure rising at the thought of being caught in traffic, or having to rush to make a meeting or catch a plane. They look at the watch and see the antithesis of freedom, and suddenly decide they don’t want their old lives, after all. So I extend the same invitation to you now, ladies, in the hope you’ll reconsider.”