by S. F. Kosa
I don’t sleep. A restless anxiety has me in its teeth. My suitcase sits across the room, packed for a week, seven days to save my own life. In a few hours, I leave for Bend.
I sit up in the dark and slide off my bed, wincing at the ache in my back. I pull the storage box from underneath and dig through neatly folded blankets until I find it. Every time I’ve moved in the last two decades, I’ve almost thrown it away. I’ve sat on different floors next to different beds, wearing different clothes and different haircuts, staring down at it and wondering if I should get rid of it. But I’ve kept it every time, telling myself it’s good to have one tiny piece of proof that it really happened. Proof that I survived. Proof that I’m the one in control now.
But it’s also a reminder of everything I did.
Miles is right about the bad math. But he’s also wrong. There weren’t two survivors, not in the end. There was only me.
Thinking of her, my chest aching, I pick up the meditation stone. My eyes close at a flash of memory: our clutched hands, laced fingers holding on, the stone nestled tightly in the tiny space between us. About the size of my palm, the stone is unexpectedly warm, as if it, too, harbors memories of approaching flames. As if it, too, knows exactly how it feels when they reach you.
I once believed this stone was the key to everything. I clung to it at night, keeping it under my pillow, hoping to channel visions up from the deep, the insightful words and perfect thoughts that might finally, finally prove my worth.
I really believed it might.
I trace my fingertip along the primitive symbols: a triangle for the great mountain, Damavand; two parallel, curved lines and two intersecting ones forming the shape of a beak; and a crest to symbolize the ancient bird Simurg. Signs of triumph and strength, they were meant to act as beacons. The rock itself, rigid and strong, was the touch point, amplifying the power, the connection, the clarity of whatever the deep consciousness was communicating.
If you believe in that kind of ridiculous, generic, new-agey, appropriating gobbledygook, that is. I heave myself to my feet and carry the stone into my bathroom. It’s like approaching a high dive—hesitating is doom. I toss the rock into my wastebasket, where it lands silently amid crumpled tissues and threads of floss.
I can only hope getting rid of the rest of my past will be that easy.
Chapter Five
The Retreat, near Bend, Oregon
December 24, 1999
Before Christy put on the blindfold, she caught Arnie’s eye. Stooped in the way of a guy used to hitting his head, he stood near the window, casting nervous glances through the crack in the curtains. “I see a fire through the trees.”
“Quit trying to cheat,” Christy said.
Eszter, their mentor for the initiation, had brought them to this dorm and instructed them to focus and prepare. Then she’d passed out the robes and blindfolds and told them to leave their street clothes in a pile to be taken back to Portland, where they could be washed and reused by whoever came to the house. Gil would be managing the place, now that the rest of them were living at the Retreat.
Now Eszter touched Christy’s shoulder. “Curiosity isn’t the same thing as cheating.”
Arnie pulled the black sleep mask down over his eyes. “How far is the walk?”
“This is the first part of a journey that will carry you through the rest of your life,” said Eszter. “How far do you think it should be?”
Eszter sounded so peaceful, but she already knew what was coming—Darius had named her back in February. Over the past few weeks, Eszter had been Christy’s rock. Her friend. She’d told Christy the whole story of how she became an Oracle, how she’d had to leave home because her stepfather wouldn’t leave her alone, how she’d tolerated it for two years because she hadn’t wanted to leave her little brother in that house, and how she’d finally felt like it was a choice between leaving and killing herself, even though leaving felt like a kind of death too. It had made Christy cry; she missed her own brother so much it was a physical pain in her chest. She was amazed at how much she and Eszter had in common, how Eszter knew what it was like to be used, to turn to the person who was supposed to protect you, your own mother, and have her be too absorbed in her own life to do a single thing. Eszter knew what it meant to survive. And she knew how it felt when someone really saw you, when someone actually seemed to care. Even though it had only been a few weeks, Christy realized now what a gift it was.
It had felt so normal, like being at a slumber party, cots scooted close, stories whispered in the dark as the women around them slept. Eszter had even confided her before name, and it had only seemed fair that Christy reciprocate. It felt oddly relieving, like she’d handed over a heavy weight. Before Christy pulled her blindfold down, she reached over and squeezed Eszter’s hand.
Eszter squeezed back. “Darius invited you here for a reason. Trust it,” she whispered.
Christy and Arnie and Marie stood in their bare feet, naked beneath their loose, handmade robes, blindfolds secured, waiting to step out into the frosty night. Arnie fidgeted next to her. As Gil drove them south from Portland that afternoon, he’d peppered them with all kinds of questions, just like he always did, only he didn’t have his notebook with him for once. Eszter was right—he was a good listener. And maybe Eszter had opened the floodgates too. Christy had revealed more about herself than she ever had.
Even Arnie, usually quiet, had actually opened up a little. Before he’d gotten carsick, he’d told them that he’d been hooked on meth before the Oracles saved him. Just like Eszter found Christy, Darius himself had found Arnie under the Burnside Bridge on a frigid night last March, and he’d taken him to a diner for eggs and coffee. Then he’d taken him to the Portland house. Gave him chores to keep him busy, teaching him how he didn’t need to tweak to feel good, that everything he needed was right there, with them. Now he was clean and ready for the next step, and he couldn’t wait.
Christy touched her fingertips to the swath of black cloth and felt the domes of her own eyeballs beneath. The last few weeks were a dream she didn’t want to wake up from. She wanted to appear as peaceful as Eszter, so everyone would know she belonged with them, but the dark had always made her nervous.
“Why do we have to be blindfolded?” asked Marie from somewhere behind her. She sounded so whiny and spoiled, but that figured. Her daddy had money, which Christy knew because Marie couldn’t seem to stop bitching about how oppressive it had been and how she’d heard about this group from a friend and actually sought them out to get away from her family. As if that made her special. Christy suspected that the poor little rich girl was only doing all this—renouncing all material stuff, donating her bank account—to piss off her dad. Ever since they’d met two weeks ago, Christy had been waiting for someone to call Marie out for being there for all the wrong reasons, but it hadn’t happened yet. Maybe tonight.
“We’re going to run into a wall or something,” Marie continued, making Christy want to punch her. “I don’t see why this is necessary.”
“It’s necessary because they think it’s necessary,” Christy snapped. “It’s not like anyone forced you to be here.” She couldn’t believe Darius had chosen Marie to come. But then again, some people were probably wondering why Darius had chosen Christy, so she shouldn’t complain.
Eszter began to rub her back, murmuring for her to focus on her own journey. Christy shut her mouth, her cheeks burning. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, poking at the blindfold again.
“It’s scary to be deprived of the sense you depend on most to navigate in this world,” Eszter replied. “It could make anyone feel on edge. But have your eyes served you well so far? They’ve led you to people and things that looked good but brought you nothing but pain.” Eszter gave Christy’s shoulder a gentle squeeze. “The blindfold helps you begin to see with more than just your eyes.” She sounded so much more patient than Marie d
eserved, like Marie’s attitude didn’t bother her at all. “Both in this world and beyond.”
Arnie coughed. Eszter guided Christy’s hands to his shoulders. “You okay?” whispered Eszter, close to her ear.
“Yeah,” she murmured, though she wished she’d eaten something earlier this afternoon when they’d arrived. When they’d gotten out of the van after the four-hour drive from Portland, a guy named Basir had been waiting outside the dining hall with fresh bread, hot and soft. Marie had scarfed a slice and Arnie had wolfed down three, but Christy had been too nervous to eat.
Now she felt a little faint, but maybe that was good. Maybe it made her more open, more able to approach the deep consciousness. As long as she didn’t fall over or stumble. She wished she knew exactly what would be expected, what she’d have to do. At the Portland house, they meditated as a group every morning and evening, and though she’d found it boring and strange at first, it was kind of peaceful once she’d gotten used to it, though she still worried she wasn’t doing it right. Tonight, she wanted to be poised, to convince the rest of them, and especially Darius, that he’d made a good choice. Gil had warned her that not everyone turned out to be a good fit.
She felt Marie’s hands close over her shoulders. “Lucky,” said Marie. “You get to be in the middle. Probably warmer.”
“Maybe you should have worn a few extra layers of underpants,” Christy said.
Eszter stifled a giggle and nudged Christy with her elbow. “I’m trying to be serious here,” she whispered.
“Maybe I should have layered up,” groused Marie, oblivious to their inside joke. “My ass is going to fr—”
“As I open this door,” said Eszter abruptly, loud enough to shut Marie’s mouth, “fix your mind on your life up until this point. Imagine it hanging off you like the deadweight it is. As you step over the threshold, shed it—your past, all that crap you came here with—so that you can be reborn. Feel yourself get lighter with each step toward the light. Arnie, put your hands on my shoulders. Let me lead you to your new life.”
With a rush of frigid air, Arnie jerked into motion. Christy gripped his bony shoulders as Eszter led them outside. Pine needles pricked at the soles of her bare feet. The cold clamped onto her bones, and her teeth began to chatter. She was used to real winter; she was no stranger to chains on tires and waist-deep snowdrifts. But though Oregon was warmer, it was late December and she was barefoot, no gloves, collarbones exposed by the wide neck of her one-size-fits-all robe.
Arnie stopped abruptly, and she ran into his back. Marie stiffened behind her. “Are we there yet?” Marie whispered.
Arnie disappeared from beneath her hands, and Eszter murmured for her to be patient. Christy stood there, shivering while her eyes focused on a glow just on the other side of her blindfold.
“You’re nervous, but you don’t have to be,” said a voice coming from only a few feet in front of her. This was the voice that had convinced her this was where she absolutely needed to be, and hearing it again made her heart drum. “Tonight is a celebration,” said Darius. “You’re being born all over again, this time as your true self.”
She clasped her hands together and squeezed to discharge some of the jittery energy. She’d spent the last few weeks trying to find the angle of this too-good-to-be-true offer—and hadn’t yet found one. Aside from Marie, everyone she’d met was nice—like, really nice. They’d treated her as if she were family, but not like the family Christy had before. Better.
Please let this be real.
“We already know you belong with us,” Darius continued. “There are no silly high school cliques here, no dead-end jobs or mindless distractions, no abusive parents or boyfriends. There is only the deep consciousness, and our sole purpose is to help one another get closer to it. That’s why we wear these silly robes!”
All around her, she heard a soft ripple of laughter.
Darius was chuckling too. “When I first received the wisdom of the robes, Gilgamesh thought I was insane.”
“It’s true,” said Gil, his voice coming from somewhere to her right. “And I was like, dude, we are going to have to buy a lot of fabric.”
The people all around them laughed again.
“The reason for the robes is to remove the needless distraction of worrying what you look like,” said Darius. “Comparing yourself to others. Trying to stand out. That’s not why we’re here. We’re here to reach enlightenment through connection to the deep consciousness. Your vanity doesn’t matter here. Your fear and anxiety don’t matter here. Time has no meaning here. The only thing that has meaning is your commitment to the journey. Sometimes the path is smooth. Sometimes it will tear at your bare feet, and only the strength of your conviction will carry you through. What matters now is that you make the choice to travel on this path with us. That choice is yours alone.”
Hands closed around Christy’s arms and guided her a few steps to the side. “On your knees,” Darius said.
Christy’s knee-jerk reaction was to refuse. It wasn’t the first time someone had said that to her, and what came after always left her feeling empty and sick and awful. But then she reminded herself that no one here was going to hurt her, and she was supposed to be demonstrating her trust and purity of thought. So she obeyed, gingerly kneeling on the spongy ground. Everything here seemed covered with at least two inches of those darn pine needles. Her fingernails dug into the backs of her clasped hands.
“I have been fasting and meditating for the last day in preparation for your arrival,” Darius said. “Waiting for the right names to come to me, the true names that you were always meant to have. Whether you accept that truth is up to you.”
She angled her face toward the light, the crackling warmth of a fire nearby. She fought the urge to crawl closer to it. Instead, she remained still, waiting for her new real name. All the crap that had happened up until now, she would cast it off along with the name her mom liked to screech when she was eyeball deep in a bottle of Jack. The one a few of Mom’s boyfriends liked to whisper into the dark of Christy’s room after Mom had passed out.
“You are Tadeas,” Darius said quietly. He was on her left, speaking to Arnie. The liquid depth of his voice calmed the shivers for a moment. “You are a gift given by God. Do you accept this name as your own?”
“I do,” said Arnie, except he wasn’t Arnie anymore. Tadeas, she told herself. She wanted to call him by the right name from now on.
“Do you discard your old name and all that was attached to it—the mistakes, the lies, the pain, the toxic relationships, the indulgences and addictions—in order to embrace your true purpose?”
“Yes!” shouted Tadeas so enthusiastically that a few people around them giggled.
Even Darius sounded amused as he asked, “And do you accept that you are on a journey to touch the deep consciousness? Do you promise to devote yourself to that journey, body, soul, and mind?”
“I do,” said Tadeas.
“Do you accept me as your guide along this road we are traveling together?”
“I do!”
“Welcome our newest oracle as a brother,” said Darius.
“Welcome, Tadeas.” The voices came from all around her, so many of them, solemn and steady. “Welcome to the Oracles of Innocence.”
She’d imagined some sort of weird ritual, what with the naked-except-for-robes and the blindfolds and the fire. Eszter had said it was against the rules to reveal what the initiation entailed, so she’d been ready to endure a night in the wilderness or whatever hazing they dreamed up if it meant she could have a place to belong. Everyone was so nice that she’d figured it wouldn’t be that bad—at least, not bad enough to make her crave another night at a shelter or another day hustling on Burnside, trying to forget she was alone, unseen, unloved…and pretty much always had been until a few weeks ago.
But it had just been a few questions! A f
ew questions, and Tadeas was in the club.
She heard him getting to his feet and the percussion of congratulatory slaps on his back. She heard him laugh, strained as if he was also crying, and Eszter murmuring to him, saying that a release of emotion was natural.
Darius moved on to Marie, who was apparently on her right. He named her Fabia, which he said meant “lovely bean.”
She could hear the what-the-hell in Fabia’s voice as she accepted her name. But Fabia was kind of bean shaped. Stripped of her rich-girl clothes and wearing robes just like everyone else, she was nothing special, and maybe Darius knew that.
Christy bowed her head and told herself to keep a straight face. Fabia accepted her new name, answered all of Darius’s questions, and was welcomed by the group.
Without warning, the blindfold slid up and off, and the world blazed into her vision again. She was kneeling in a clearing, in the middle of a bunch of people, maybe forty or so, most of whom she recognized from the Portland house, all friendly faces. They were all standing except for Shirin and Ziba, two skinny, old ladies sitting on lawn chairs near the stone-encircled fire. Everyone wore the same beige, homemade robes as the new initiates, though some had belted them with a length of twine. The jigsaw bark of ponderosa pines surrounded the group; the trees’ high canopy offered them only a tiny patch of starry night above.
Octavia, her long, blond braid dangling down one shoulder, smiled at her as their eyes met. Gil stood at the edge of the group, his robe layered over the T-shirt and jeans he’d worn on the drive down—unlike the rest of them, Gil was driving back up to Portland in the morning. Christy had wondered why he wasn’t going to live on the compound, but it had seemed nosy to ask.
Eszter was sweating near the fire, her gaze riveted on Darius. Ladonna and Kyra stood closer to the trees, both of them with hands on their pregnant bellies, which weren’t quite as huge as Octavia’s, but close.
A few other strangers stood in the clearing as well. She had no idea what they saw when they looked at her. A skinny dropout with wary eyes? A naive, young thing, a blank slate to scribble on? Or maybe, just maybe, a girl and nothing more. A little sister. A new friend.