The Night We Burned

by S. F. Kosa

  She jerked at the sound of Octavia’s groan from the front of the hall. Her gaze followed the sound right up to the altar, the place where Darius often lay and allowed them to put their hands on him, the place where they’d laid hands on old, gray-skinned Shirin last night. Parvaneh cringed at the memory of Shirin’s face, her papery skin and dusky lips peeled back in pain as all of them touched her and meditated, stones clutched to their chests or pressed to her bony frame. Eszter had told her that Shirin had been diagnosed with bone cancer and was going to die soon, which meant that she was as close to the deep consciousness as a newborn. Ziba was the same, only a different kind of cancer. People that close to death could channel messages up from the deep consciousness for the rest of them because their souls were so close to joining it.

  Now Octavia was on the altar, very much alive, naked and slick and trembling. Darius had his hands on either side of her head, his thumbs pressed to her sweaty temples. Her eyes were clamped shut, and her hands were clawed over the sides of the altar. Kazem stood between her legs, his solemn gaze riveted there, his hands on her knees. Tadeas held one of her hands but was facing the back wall like he couldn’t bear to look at her, which might have been true. He puked at the drop of a hat.

  Several of the other men—Mir, Parsa, Vahid, and a few whose names she was still learning—knelt behind Darius on the steps to the altar. Vahid was grasping Darius’s heel, and the others had their hands on Vahid’s back, always channeling the power and the spirit. Behind Kazem knelt Zana and Roya and Laleh, Goli and Beetah, and, to Parvaneh’s shock, Shirin was there, too, gray faced and grim in her wheelchair, her skeletal fingers clutching at Beetah’s shoulder as the younger woman held hands with the others and Goli clutched at Kazem’s calf. His cheek twitched as she tightened her grip, fingernails digging in.

  “Eszter, Fabia, Ladonna,” Darius said without taking his eyes off Octavia’s face. “At her shoulders.” He instructed a few of the others to stand on either side of Octavia’s legs. Within a few seconds, Parvaneh stood at the base of the steps alone. She shifted her weight from foot to foot, her skin hot and her head throbbing.

  Octavia let out a whimper. “I’m too tired.”

  “She’s close,” Kazem said. “A few more pushes.”

  Darius lowered his face over Octavia’s. “Focus on the consciousness, not the weakness of your body. Can you feel it? The new soul approaching?”

  Octavia arched and screamed again. Parvaneh’s eyes glazed over with tears. She had no idea what she was supposed to be doing. All the others seemed to know; they had their places, their stones, their roles. Even Fabia and Tadeas, who were as new as she was, had places of honor at Octavia’s side.

  “Parvaneh, stand by Kazem.” His voice startled her out of her brooding. She rushed up the steps, nearly tripping headlong into the altar. The smell hit her, shit and blood and sweat. She glanced at the smeared mess on the altar between Octavia’s legs and understood why Tadeas had his back turned.

  “That is a gift from the deep consciousness—a new soul, a new pathway. Don’t look away,” Darius said firmly. He’d said it to Parvaneh, but Tadeas immediately turned to face Octavia again, focusing on the swell of her belly.

  Everyone else was staring at Parvaneh, setting her teeth on edge. “Did you hear him?” Parvaneh snapped at all of them. “Don’t look away.”

  Darius let out a bark of laughter that was cut short by a wrenching shriek from Octavia and a squelching sound from between her legs. The tiny body slipped free with a rush of fluid. Parvaneh gasped as Kazem lifted the baby, a giant, pale raisin on a thick, greenish string, and plopped it onto Octavia’s belly. She began to sob.

  Parvaneh took in the fuzz between the baby’s tiny shoulder blades and the swirl of dark hair on its head. She couldn’t tell if it was breathing. It certainly wasn’t crying. She swallowed, and this time, it didn’t taste bitter. It tasted metallic—the taste of fear.

  Kazem poked Parvaneh in the arm. “Take this.” He handed her a pair of surgical scissors.

  “But I don’t—”

  “Do exactly as I say.” His voice was so deep. His eyes were calm. He explained what she needed to do.

  “Will it hurt them?” she whispered.

  Octavia laughed, weak and tired. “Nothing can hurt me right now.”

  Darius kissed her forehead. His hand was on the baby’s back as the child let out its first complaining squawks. The others were meditating like their lives depended on it—Fabia was rocking back and forth, and Tadeas was chanting, “I feel it! I feel it! I feel it!”

  Parvaneh felt nothing except the desire not to screw this up. She had been chosen to cut the baby’s cord. This seemed important, and Darius had chosen her. If she did everything right, a stone had to be coming her way soon. Especially when Darius said, “This moment, we bring the new soul fully into our world and sever her connection to the deep consciousness with the understanding that she is a gift and a link to the core of being. I know all of you can feel that power pouring into you. Channel it into your stones.”

  The others clutched one another, clutched their stones, cried and murmured and swayed.

  But Parvaneh had no rock. Instead, she had scissors.

  The whole world shrank to that few inches of twisted greenish white and Kazem’s rumbling, low words. “Between the clamps. Right there. Don’t be afraid of it. Go ahead.”

  She grimaced as the blades sliced through the tissue, as the blood seeped from the severed ends. The baby girl began to cry in earnest, and Parvaneh blinked at the child’s froggy face and gummy mouth.

  A few seconds later, Kazem handed her a steel roasting pan full of blood and cord and something beet red and spongy. “Take it to the kitchen. Basir will be waiting.”

  The others were still in position. Meditating. Basking in the moment. Darius was whispering in Octavia’s ear while she brought the baby girl to her breast. In their own little world. And Parvaneh…she was the errand girl, she realized. This wasn’t a special purpose; it was the job of an outsider. She turned away quickly, nearly sloshing the contents of the pan down the steps of the altar.

  Nostrils flaring at the iron-sharp smell, she made for the doors at the back of the meeting hall because the only other door was at the front and it led to Darius’s private space. Still carrying the hope that her obedience would bring a meditation stone, she carefully shouldered one of the doors open, then nearly fell as it abruptly swung wide.

  She staggered, blood splashing, coating her fingers. “Shit!”

  “Isn’t that a bad word?”

  With a startled cry, she spun around and saw that the person who had pulled the door open only came up to her waist. With blond hair and huge, solemn eyes, he stared up at her.

  “I guess it is,” she admitted.

  “Why did someone invent bad words if no one is allowed to say them?”

  “Hi, Xerxes. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

  He stood on his tiptoes, craning his neck. “What’s in the pan?”

  Parvaneh looked down at its contents and then held it a little higher. “I’m supposed to go to the kitchen.” She really didn’t want to know why.

  “You’ll have to wake up Basir,” said the boy. “He’s fast asleep. I went in there to get a snack and he didn’t move.” The child took a bite of a hunk of bread squished in his little hand.

  Parvaneh snorted. “Stealing midnight snacks from the kitchen?”

  “Everything here belongs to everyone, so that means it all belongs to me, and that means I’m not stealing,” the boy said through a full mouth. He peeked around the edge of the door, and his expression softened from defiant to vulnerable in the shadows. “Is she okay?” he asked quietly. “I heard her crying.”

  “Oh! She’s fine,” Parvaneh said quickly, taking a few steps toward the mess hall, a double-wide trailer on the other side of the big clearing. She was a
cutely aware, no matter what everyone said about how they were all parents to the children, that Octavia was actually this child’s mother. He fell into step next to her as she tromped across the clearing, his robe flapping around him, the too-long sleeves dangling over his hands.

  “Are they talking to the deep consciousness? Did you hear its voice?” he asked as he kept pace with her.

  “I—I’m not sure, actually.”

  “How can you not be sure? You heard it or you didn’t.”

  “I might be kind of deaf,” she said. “But I’m trying.”

  “I’ve never heard it, either,” the boy replied. “Don’t feel bad. What’s your name?”

  “Parvaneh.”

  “So it’s your after name?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Xerxes is the only name I have. But some people have more than one name.” He gave her a once-over. “You look like you had another name.”

  She laughed. Fabia had been right—this kid was something, but in a good way. He reminded her a tiny bit of her younger brother, how his brain was always whirring. She wondered if he ever thought of her now, if he’d realized she wasn’t coming back. “How can you tell I had another name?” she asked quickly, pushing down a pang of sadness.

  “You look like how Izad looked when that black snake crawled out of a log and his eyes were like this.” Xerxes looked up at her and made an exaggerated fearful face, his eyes popping and his mouth wide.

  “I don’t look like that!” Actually, maybe she did right now, carrying a pan full of bloody muck to the kitchen, of all places. “Not all the time at least.”

  “And it took you a second to remember what your name was just now.”

  “Shouldn’t you be in bed?” she asked as they reached the mess hall door.

  “I’m not sleepy.”

  “It’s better if you’re in bed now, though.”

  “Why?”

  She gave her best Eszter-like answer, smiling as she thought of how her friend always seemed to have the perfect words for the moment. “Because all the adults are very busy with the birth of our new little soul. That’s their job, and it’s a big, hard one. But you have an important job too. You need to go to your bed and think good and loving thoughts, and in the morning, everything will be back to normal.”

  His brow furrowed. “If I think good and loving thoughts, will they come true?”

  “Not always, but it doesn’t hurt. And I think your thoughts might be pretty powerful right now. I think you could do a lot of good.”

  He seemed intrigued by the idea. “Okay. Then I’ll see if it happens the way I want.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Will you come play with me tomorrow? I’ll tell you about my thoughts.”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Okay! Bye, Parvaneh. Ask Beetah to make you a new robe.”

  Parvaneh watched him scamper toward the children’s dorm, bemused by the boy’s strange mix of maturity and complete naivete. She looked down at the front of her robe. Her stomach clenched, and she gagged. Then she pushed the door to the mess hall open. “Basir!” she shouted.

  “What?” came the reply. “What is it?” He poked his head out from the kitchen, flicking the lights on in the dining space. “Oh.”

  “It’s a little girl,” Parvaneh said as he came forward and took the pan from her.

  “Ya think you spilled enough?” he snapped, looking from the front of her robe to the pan. “And it’s already starting to clot!”

  “What are you doing with it?”

  “I have a great chili recipe.” He rolled his eyes when she grimaced. “Ah, quit that. You won’t know the difference from beef, and it’s a way for all of us to have a little piece of the consciousness.”

  And Parvaneh had just shown she wasn’t ready or worthy. Again. She swallowed back her disgust. “I’m sorry. I didn’t understand.”

  He shooed her away. “Go change. You done good,” he said gruffly. He pivoted and headed back to the kitchen, closing the door behind him.

  Suddenly exhausted, Parvaneh sank onto one of the dining benches. Her robe was slowly going stiff in the cool air, her fingers sticky, her hair worming its way from the head covering and slipping into her eyes. She had no idea what time it was and little idea of what had happened over the past hours. But as she thought of the little boy with all his questions and the knowledge that he wanted to play with her tomorrow, she couldn’t help but smile.

  Chapter Eight

  Bend, Oregon

  December 10, present day

  I spend the afternoon doing something I’ve avoided over the last eighteen years: I research the Oracles of Innocence. It’s one of those keep-your-enemies-close kinds of exercises, rubbing up against memories that make my scarred legs tingle and my palms sweat. Miles is trying to track down the unaccounted-for victims, including the two possible unknown survivors. It’s six people and only Oracle names to go by, but if I know Miles, that won’t save me. So instead, I go in a different direction.

  As excited as Miles is about those who might have survived the fire that night, there never were just three. What about all those kids?

  I don’t want to think about them. One in particular. But all of them are adults now, and implausible as it seems, one of them could have killed Arnold Moore. Are they still anonymous? Do they know who they are? Can I get Miles to bite?

  After several fruitless searches, I hit the lottery. It’s an article in the Quest, the newspaper of Reed College, and it begins with the headline “Fiery Beginnings: The Children of Darius.”

  On December 15, 2000, the Oracles of Innocence cult compound in Bend, Oregon, went up in flames, taking 35 souls with it. Three individuals, the only known adult survivors on the property that night, went to jail for crimes related to the deaths of their fellow cultists. There were other survivors of the catastrophe, though, and 20 years later, they are only just now realizing who they really are and where they came from.

  I pause. Blow out a breath. I can feel the small, limp body in my arms, smoke-scented, flaxen hair tickling under my chin, the only softness in my world that night.

  I squeeze my eyes shut and remind myself that this is what it takes to save my own life.

  The night of the fire, as town and county firefighters waged a desperate battle with the flames, police officers discovered the children just before the blaze spread to their cabin. Twelve children, some only a few months old, others toddling around, just old enough to ask for their mothers, nearly all of whom, unbeknownst to them, were already dead.

  That night, each of the youngsters was taken to St. Charles Hospital in Bend. Several were treated for smoke inhalation and dehydration. After that, social services took over, trying to find emergency foster homes. It could have been the end of the story. With their confidentiality protected and their last names unknown, with DNA still being collected from the charred corpses of their likely parents, these little ones began lives very different from those they had experienced from birth. But now all of them are in their third decade of life, and some of them have started to find one another.

  The words hit me like a punch in the chest, and I read on as my heart pounds.

  Somewhere on the internet, in a chat room that remains confidential to all but those invited in, the Children of Darius have formed a new family of their own, comprising individuals fathered by the cult’s notorious leader, Stephen Millsap, a.k.a. Darius. Says one of the group’s members, who asked to remain anonymous to protect his privacy, “My mom told me I was adopted when I was 16, and when I was 18, I told her I wanted to find my birth parents. That’s when she told me who I was, and it hit me like a ton of bricks, knowing my parents were dead, that they were members of this cult.” This kind of story is typical of a Children of Darius member, though feelings about the cult and its leader vary.

  As
the twentieth anniversary of the cult massacre nears, the group has grown to ten. The half siblings are hoping to convene in Bend sometime in December to reflect on the event that took their parents from them. There’s only one problem. In the words of one member: “We don’t have everyone yet.”

  A few children of Darius are still unaccounted for. It’s possible these individuals are not aware of who they are or that they are but have no interest in joining. Technology may help uncover their identities, however. Some members found one another through use of modern forensic genealogy on sites such as GEDmatch, which was instrumental in helping discover the Golden State Killer in 2019. Others requested membership after scouring the dark corners of the internet to discover more about their own identity. Now, they are hoping to find their last remaining siblings to complete their family.

  The story is full of rough edges, dramatics, vagueness, and a few errors—the author repeats the misconception that thirty-five bodies were found after the fire—but if what he’s claiming is true and he’s got a contact in that group, this is huge. It could totally change Miles’s focus, taking it off the adult survivors and the whole “bad math” thing and placing it squarely on those grown-up kids who have banded together on the internet. Maybe even in person. Maybe even right here in Bend. It’s a lead with a lot of loose ends, hidden identities, and a few kids left unknown. Perfect for keeping Miles busy.

  I squint at the byline. Noah Perry. I click on his name. A senior at Reed, he’s one of the editors of the school newspaper and has written and edited several other pieces over the last few years on things like the need for better vegan options in the school’s cafeteria and a romantic relationship gone wrong between the student body president and vice president. There’s a link to his email, and I go for it:

  Hello. I work for the Hatchet, and we’re doing a story linked to the Oracles of Innocence. I just read your piece about the Children of Darius—really sophisticated work and great reporting! I was wondering if you’d be interested in talking to me about what you’ve discovered about this group. Please let me know if you’re willing to talk!