The Night We Burned

by S. F. Kosa

  I pull my stuff together for a shower, and my phone buzzes again. Rolling my eyes at this boy who can’t take a hint, I look down at the screen. But it’s not Noah. It’s Gina, Arnie’s girlfriend. Again.

  I told my friends you would be writing a big story about Arnie but nothings on that website and they said you might not be who you say you are I couldn’t find anyone named Dora on the site

  I read her message a few times, calculating my response. I’m a fact-checker. I don’t write the pieces, I finally voice-text back. Journalists do.

  Whats that persons name then

  I can’t put her in touch with Miles now. I don’t have the energy to manage it, and it feels like the walls are closing in. I take a shower with my arm wrapped in a plastic bag, and I thank my lucky stars that both Hailey and Martin have left for work by the time I emerge. I take time to put on heavier makeup than usual, because when Max knew me, I didn’t wear any. I style my white hair, thankful for the trick of genetics or whatever it was—maybe even osteoporosis for all I know—that made my natural color fade so quickly.

  Essie Green recognized me, though. Even with all the years and trauma, she knew.

  I contemplate calling Max and canceling. But unlike Ladonna, who I lived in the same dorm with for a year, who saw me every single day, Gil wasn’t that close to me. And there’s a lot to be gained if I can get ahold of his information, make sure it doesn’t get out. My life. My freedom. And it’s not as if I’m preventing Miles from writing the story; I’m just excising a small piece of it that no one will realize is even missing.

  I type up my notes from the check of the Michelle Bathhouse interview, writing that the only detail he got wrong was the eye color on the two girls. Then I pace until he texts back: I love your attention to detail. I exhale with a smile.

  I’m getting ready to leave for the meeting with Max when the doorbell rings. Was today the day the cleaners show up? I can’t remember.

  I grab my purse and keys, cursing as I bump my arm against the bedside table. Grimacing, I head down the hall and into the living room. I walk to the door and answer it.

  There’s no one there. I didn’t think I’d taken that long; if Hailey was depending on me to open the house for the cleaners, it’s just one more thing I’ve screwed up. I lean out the door and look up and down the street, but there’s no one at the curb, no one on the sidewalk. A car is turning at the intersection a block away, an ancient-looking sedan, but there’s no sign of anyone else out and about. I’m about to close the door when I glance down. My stomach drops.

  There, on the welcome mat, is a blue stone. Markings carved into its rough face.

  Etched in red.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Retreat

  October 3, 2000

  A drop of sweat clung to the end of Darius’s nose as he bowed his head over the piglet. It lay on its side on the altar, eyes glazed as its blood ran down a funnel and into a bucket next to Kazem’s feet. He, too, had his head down, expression hidden. Parvaneh had overheard him arguing with Darius about using the pigs as channeling vessels. Kazem hadn’t thought it made any sense; he didn’t see how an animal, even a smart one like a pig, could help them touch the deep consciousness. But Darius said it was life and death that brought them closer, and any life would help them, though human life was best.

  Kazem had drugged the animal so it didn’t struggle or suffer, but Parvaneh felt uneasy all the same—she’d seen the creature struggling to avoid the squirt of medicine into its mouth when she went to tell Kazem they were ready. He’d given her a look, silent and seething. She’d glared back, holding her ground. Then she’d asked him about his loyalty, his commitment. His face had gone smooth and cloudy, almost as if he had taken the sedative himself. He said his loyalty was strong as ever.

  Parvaneh wanted to believe him, but as the weather had started to signal the slow but inevitable return of winter, a few people had begun to grumble, especially after Ziba, her pushy adult children with their threats, her death at the end of August. Of course it had affected Darius. Of course it had been stressful for him. And of course it had made him more short-tempered, more eager to help all of them tap that vein of the deep consciousness and drink from its wisdom. The millennium approached, bringing with it all kinds of danger. He was in charge of protecting them, and those people had just barged onto their compound and threatened to sic the authorities on them, even to have their children taken away.

  Parvaneh had done her best to support him. To please him. She was terrified he was slipping away, but he explained that he’d had to meet in the evenings with Ladonna and Zana and Goli and Laleh—they needed more support than Parvaneh did. Their faith had been wavering, and he’d needed to reach out to them individually. She’d told him she understood, but she was eager to return to the times when he’d spend every evening with her alone. He’d promised that time was coming soon.

  “Do you all feel that?” Darius asked, his hands on the animal’s back.

  Parvaneh looked down at a smear of blood on her hands, which had been gently stroking the dying pig’s pale-pink skin. Her stomach burbled with nausea.

  “Do you feel that throb?” he continued. “That’s the consciousness, telling us to dig in instead of pulling away. The only path to real enlightenment is to keep searching with a hunger and thirst that’s unquenchable save for one source: that thick vein of immortal wisdom that hides in all of us, dormant unless we focus. Unless we offer our utter commitment and sacrifice. As Ziba did. As Shirin did. As all of you might one day be called to do.”

  Parvaneh felt a tremor pass through the pig’s body. She raised her head to see Octavia peering at Darius, her brow furrowed. Eszter was also looking at Darius with a quizzical expression. Maybe, like Parvaneh, wondering if she understood what she’d just heard.

  Darius glanced around as if he felt the ripple of uncertainty shimmy up his arms. “You look fearful,” he said to Octavia. “You love this life too much. You confuse your skin with your self. That is weakness.”

  Eszter lowered her head again, as if she was afraid of being called out. Parvaneh lowered hers for the same reason. But then Octavia said, “I’m not confused. I’m just asking for more wisdom about all of this.”

  “That’s an excuse,” said Darius. “You’re wrapping your rank fear in all the right words, but I can see it all around you, hanging in the air like stench.” He scowled. “Your doubt is poison, Octavia. Take it out of here before you hurt the rest of us. This isn’t the first time, but it has to be the last. You’ve become a cancer, killing us from the inside.”

  “I’m not—!”

  Parvaneh looked up in time to see Darius snap, “I know it was you.”

  Everyone had gone still and watchful, and the pig’s final, labored breaths—a signal that the moment of closest intimacy with the consciousness was at hand—were slipping past unnoticed. Darius’s face was ruddy.

  Octavia’s was slowly draining of color. “What are you talking about?”

  “You told them where to find us. You want to ruin us!”

  She shook her head. “I’ve never wavered.”

  “You told them!” he shouted. “You betrayed us! You wanted them to take Ziba away!”

  “I didn’t tell anyone anything! What about Gilgamesh? They’d been to the Portland house. He probably told them!”

  “Ziba’s son said he did,” volunteered Eszter.

  “No one asked you to speak,” Darius barked. As Eszter clamped her mouth shut, her cheeks suffusing with red, Parvaneh felt a zing of grim satisfaction alongside a rush of sympathy. She hadn’t forgiven Eszter for the lie. She still wondered what Eszter had been trying to conceal with the deception—was Eszter in love with Darius? Was she going to try to get him back? But at the same time, Parvaneh missed their closeness, their late-night talks. Especially now that things had gotten so strange.

 
Darius was shaking his head. “Someone’s been giving people ideas, Octavia. About the children.”

  Octavia stepped back from the altar. “Why would I ever do anything to hurt our children?”

  Darius stood up to his full height. “I get my answers straight from the consciousness.” He stroked the flank of the pig. “Just now.” He looked around. “Did the rest of you feel it? There are people among us who are pulling us away from our goal. Make no mistake: they are killing us more effectively than any knife.” He glared at the top of Kazem’s bowed head—he was the only person, in addition to Octavia, who wasn’t eyeing all the others at the altar, all the rest gathered on the steps of the dais. There were thirty-nine of them now, not counting the children. Which of them was dragging everyone down?

  Parvaneh had felt it growing over the last many weeks, as the animals had been sacrificed one by one. Comments about wasting meat, worries about having enough for winter, concern about causing pain unnecessarily. Stray words, seemingly harmless. But what they really meant was these people didn’t trust Darius. They didn’t have true faith in his vision. Anger surged inside her, crackling like a current. “I feel it. How that doubt is poisoning us,” she blurted out. “If you don’t have faith during times like this, do you really have it at all?”

  “Wisdom from one of our youngest Oracles,” Darius said, offering her an approving smile. “Faith is the tie that keeps us linked to one another and the consciousness. Without it, you can never hope to touch it, never hope to feel that liquid gold sizzling through your veins, that promise that when you shed this skin, you will be forever linked with it. You can’t hope to feel one with the consciousness without faith. If this is how you feel, full of doubt, you are a cancer.”

  His eyes narrowed. “And we will root you out. Our trials are at hand. Our commitment will be tested. The attacks come from the outside, like the attackers Octavia invited in, but they also come from our very ranks. The two-faced. Those with hate in their hearts. Only the purest of us will pass that test, and to pass, some of us, and perhaps those who are closest to the consciousness, the ones who can save us all, will make the ultimate commitment.”

  Parvaneh felt a zing of excitement mixed with the buzzing drone of nausea as the smell of blood pervaded the room. He’d told her about the special retreat, the wonderful place just for a few of the most devoted. This had to be what he was talking about.

  But Octavia said, “The ones closest to the consciousness. Are you talking about the children?”

  “It is not for you to question me,” he said loudly. Then he grimaced and clutched at his head. “You’ve pulled me away from the consciousness, just as you’d hoped.”

  “I didn’t hope to do anything like that!” she cried. “I’m trying to understand what you mean! You always said the babies were links to the consciousness, our purest way to connect—in creating their bodies with our own, in raising them in this place, closely linked to the source of all.” Her expression went steely. “It’s why you’ve worked so hard since we came here to father so many.” She looked around at Zana, Minu, Laleh, Ladonna, Parvaneh, Eszter. “How many new babies should we be expecting?”

  Parvaneh gritted her teeth. She didn’t want to be tossed into the same category as the others. He’d told her she was special.

  “You’re selfish, Octavia,” Darius snapped. “And weak. Get out of my sight.” He glanced at Ladonna. “Go fetch Xerxes. It’s time he understood.”

  “No. He’s too young,” Octavia said.

  “Get out,” Darius roared, even as Ladonna jogged down the aisle and out the door.

  Octavia shook her head. She descended the steps unsteadily, tears flowing. She was halfway down the aisle when the door opened again and Ladonna appeared, holding Xerxes by the hand. When he saw Octavia, his face lit up, and he yanked himself away from Ladonna to run to her.

  Darius’s face transformed into a blank mask. Parvaneh reached out instinctively to touch him, connect with him, but he shrugged her off and descended the steps, approaching as Octavia enfolded her son in her arms. “Mommy, why are you crying?” Xerxes asked.

  “Shh,” Octavia whispered. “It’s okay.”

  “Get away from him,” Darius said quietly. “Don’t poison him with your touch.”

  Octavia straightened. “You’ll frighten him.”

  “He is a creation of the consciousness,” Darius told her. “Any fear he feels comes from the venom you’ve pumped into him.”

  “Don’t—” she began. Then her mouth snapped shut, and she glanced down at Xerxes, who was watching her carefully. “Please.”

  Darius curled his fingers around Octavia’s arm and pulled her away from the boy. Parvaneh could tell, even in profile, that it hurt, but Octavia didn’t cry out. Xerxes, though… “Don’t be mean!” he shouted.

  “Ladonna,” Darius said mildly. “Take Xerxes to the altar.”

  “No!” Octavia screamed.

  Darius shoved her away. She stumbled into a row of chairs. He stalked back toward the altar, and Ladonna didn’t have to take Xerxes because the boy was chasing after his father. “I told you not to be mean,” he shouted, smacking at Darius’s butt with his little fists.

  Parvaneh’s heart was beating so hard that it hurt. As Octavia ran from the meeting hall, sobbing, someone needed to make sure Xerxes wasn’t scared, that he understood. But if she was the one, would Darius think she was being defiant? All she wanted to do was help.

  Before she could move, Eszter descended the stairs. “Xerxes,” she said sweetly. “We’re all just trying to teach you. We want to answer all the questions you have.”

  “Why are you mean to my mommy?” Xerxes wailed.

  “She was trying to hurt you,” Parvaneh said, though even as the words flew from her mouth, her mind began to question them. “She was trying to make you scared. But you’re never scared, are you?”

  Xerxes blinked. “No.”

  “That means your mind is in the right place,” Eszter said.

  Darius gave them a small smile that lifted Parvaneh’s spirits high. He knew they were loyal. He knew they were trying to help. She caught Eszter’s eye and offered a nod of appreciation. Eszter nodded back.

  “Is my mind the same thing as my brain?” Xerxes asked, wiping a smear of snot from his nose. “And what’s that?” He pointed up at the altar, where one of the pig’s hooves protruded over the side.

  “It’s a pig,” Kazem said.

  “Is it sleeping?”

  Discomfort flickered in Kazem’s eyes, but then he said, “It was helping us connect with the most important thing in the universe.”

  “A pig?” Xerxes asked. “It just likes mud.”

  “Then I guess the pig is like you,” Darius said, his smile growing, his shoulders relaxing now that no one was provoking him. “Which goes to show that perhaps the most innocent among us are the best conduits. I believe this is the lesson for tonight. You can all go back to your dorms.”

  Parvaneh felt a pang of misgiving as Darius guided the now-calm boy back down the steps and away from the altar. Xerxes couldn’t see it, but the pig’s throat had a small, deep wound. Its purpose had been fulfilled. But this was a pig. And Xerxes was a child. She hoped Darius only meant conduit in the way he’d meant it a month ago, before Shirin and Ziba had died on this altar, before they’d started to go through a few pigs a week, before conduit had meant dying.

  Darius announced that he was going to the children’s dorm to meditate there, and he led Xerxes away. Parvaneh frowned, her hopes for spending the evening with him dashed. Then she shook herself a bit. This, she realized, was the doubt. That destructive force each of them held inside. The one that tore them apart. She pushed it away, stomped it down. Flinched as Eszter put a hand on her arm. “Are you all right?” Eszter asked.

  They walked together down the steps, ahead of the others. “I wish Octavia hadn�
��t challenged him like that,” Parvaneh said.

  “She was worried about the children.”

  “We should all be.” Parvaneh gestured at Eszter’s baby bump. “If someone comes in here and tries to take the kids—”

  “I know,” said Eszter. She gave Parvaneh a pained look. “I just want things to be like they were before, you know?”

  Parvaneh hugged her, resentment melting away. “Yeah,” she whispered fiercely. “I know.”

  “Get up,” Ladonna said tersely, shaking her awake in the darkness. “Darius needs us.”

  Parvaneh sat up, realizing Eszter and Zana were already dressed. “All of us?” she asked.

  Eszter was tying her hair back with a cloth. She looked sleepy and worried. “I hope this isn’t what I think it is,” she whispered to Ladonna. Somehow Eszter already seemed to know what was happening, or at least suspect. The resentment prickled to life again in the basement of Parvaneh’s heart.

  “Darius asked for the four of us specifically,” Ladonna said.

  Because they were the most loyal. He knew they wouldn’t let him down.

  They pulled on their clogs and tromped out of the dorm, leaving the few dozen other women sleeping soundly.

  Ladonna led them across the clearing, lit by a canopy of stars, to the door of the children’s dorm, where Darius stood with Kazem and Tadeas, looking grim. He held his hand out, and Ladonna offered hers, palm up. He dropped the keys to the van onto it. “She won’t be moving fast, and you can catch her before she makes it to the road. Bring all of them back.”

  “All of them?” Parvaneh asked.

  “She took Xerxes and Parisa. She’s going to kill them.”

  Eszter’s mouth opened, but she seemed to think better of what she was going to say and shut it. But Zana blurted out, “I don’t think Octavia would hurt the baby and—”

  Darius grabbed her by the arms. “If she takes them away from us, she is killing them. If you don’t understand that, you shouldn’t go. And maybe you shouldn’t be here at all.”