The Darkest Path

by Jeff Hirsch

  “I got it.”

  James glanced out the open door into the hall.

  “What are you doing here?” he asked as he picked up the remaining shards. “If you’re a spy, President Hill will find out.”

  “So it’s President Hill now?” James glared at me, then went back to his work. “Someone had a bomb at his speech and I saved his life.”

  “Why?”

  It was a knife-edge of a question and I didn’t know how to answer it. A speck of barbecue sauce flew off his rag as he scrubbed, striking his uniform. James hissed and rubbed at it with his thumbnail. I took the rag and found its single clean corner.

  “Here.”

  I held the cloth of his uniform between my fingers and worked at the stain until it began to fade. If I closed my eyes, I could have sworn we were back at Cormorant.

  When I was done, I stepped away and caught James staring hungrily at the private’s stripe on my shoulder. He had been dragged across the country to scrub floors and clean plates and he still lusted after a stupid stripe. I remembered dogs in Quarles’s kennel that were the same way. The harder you kicked them, the more they tried to please.

  “Private Roe!”

  James jumped to attention as soon as he saw Parker standing by the door.

  “Everything okay here? This novice bothering you?”

  “No, sir. Everything is fine.”

  “Good. Then let’s move out.”

  I nodded and Parker strode away down the hall. James started toward a door to the kitchen.

  “Wait.” I took his arm but he snatched it away from me. “James—”

  “I didn’t tell Monroe anything when I got back. Nothing. But if you’re planning to do something here—”

  “I’m just trying to get home.”

  “Fine,” he said. “Do it and leave us alone.”

  James shoved the door open and disappeared into the kitchen. I wanted to tell him what I thought of a kitchen boy’s smug superiority, but then a single thought came from nowhere and stopped me dead.

  It’s because of me.

  There was no one in Cormorant more on Path than James, and yet he had been stripped of his place as a valet and hauled across the country to scrape food off trays. How better to humiliate the brother of a traitor? It wasn’t Monroe who had done this to him, it wasn’t the Path, it was me.

  I backed away from the door. I had done enough to James. It was time to leave him alone.

  A cheer broke out down the hallway. I left the mess as the hall filled with soldiers. I joined the stream, bouncing from officer to officer.

  “Sir!” I said. “Sir, what’s going on?”

  A major grinned mid-stride. His hand found my shoulder. “It’s about over, son,” he said. “We just punched a hole in the Fed’s lines north of Richmond. We’re taking territory faster than we can secure it!”

  “Philadelphia?”

  “We’re on our way!”

  I eased out of the flood of bodies and into a nearby doorway. The major ran a key card through a reader next to a set of double doors down the hall. He stepped through and before the doors could close, I saw banks of computer screens and the dark silhouettes of soldiers. In the middle of it was Nathan Hill.

  “Roe!”

  Parker was standing beside an open door. Inside was a small room with a table and two chairs. On the far side of the table was Nat, her wrists cuffed and secured to the table.

  He pushed a notepad and a pen into my hands. “We’ll be recording everything you two say, but we also want a signed confession and details on Fed forces.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Nat didn’t look up when I entered the room. She was wearing a gray pair of Path work pants and a gray T-shirt. Her feet were bare. Her skin was waxy-looking, but I couldn’t see bruises on any of the skin that was showing. So far Hill had kept his word. She hadn’t been hurt.

  The door shut behind me, and a lock was thrown.

  “You’re a private now,” she said, her brown eyes sunken and dark. “Not bad pay for a job well done.”

  I sat down across from her. There was a large black microphone in the center of the table. I pulled the notebook toward me and began to write.

  “Do you need water?” I asked, pausing for an answer I knew wasn’t coming. “Something to eat? Are you injured at all?”

  I held up the notebook so she had to see it.

  I won’t apologize for wanting you to live.

  Nat looked at the paper without reaction.

  “I was able to make a deal with President Hill—”

  “President Hill,” she said.

  “I explained to him why you did what you did and he’s prepared to forgive you and let you go.”

  “You explained why I did it?”

  “Yes.”

  “And why did I do it, Cal?”

  I took the notebook back and started to write. “You were distraught over the deaths of your parents. Like I said, the president decided to be merciful and is willing to let you go. You just have to tell him everything you know about the Federal forces.”

  “I don’t know anything about the Federal forces.”

  I held up the notebook again.

  The Path broke the Fed line a few hours ago. They’ll be in Philadelphia by the morning. Say something about forces at the front. True or false, it won’t make any difference now.

  When I put the paper down, Nat had a thin smile on her face.

  “I’m not afraid to die, Cal.”

  I scribbled another note.

  Do you think all they’ll do is kill you?

  Nat’s smile vanished. Her chains rattled as she put her hands flat on the table, like she was bracing herself.

  “We’re going to win,” I said. “We were always going to win. Keeping things to yourself won’t do you or anyone else any good.”

  Nat said nothing.

  Please, I wrote.

  Nat flexed her hands into fists and then let them go. Her hair hung down in greasy locks along her cheeks. She looked so tired. I wanted more than anything to touch her.

  “Their numbers aren’t what you think they are,” Nat said, her voice steady but lifeless. “They have maybe ten or fifteen thousand good fighters left. They moved them all to the front so the Path would assume they must have more in reserve. They’re going to rely heavily on armor and artillery, which they have a lot of. More than the Path.”

  Nat took the pen and a sheet of paper from the notebook. Moments later she pushed it back at me.

  “Show them that.”

  Scrawled on the paper was a rough map of the front, indicating where their artillery was, along with the location of a small airfield and a brigade of armor. The plastic pen clattered to the desktop. We sat there beneath the buzz of the fluorescent lights.

  “What else, Cal?”

  The microphone was crouched between us like a rat. I wanted so badly for this to be over, to take Nat’s drawing and walk out of the room, but I forced myself to meet her eyes.

  “You have to make the Choice, Nat. You have to say the words.”

  She stared back at me, motionless.

  “Once you do, this is all over. You’re free.”

  “Free to be what?” she asked. “A companion? Ministering to men of the Glorious Path in my robe and veil?”

  “You’ll be alive.”

  “No,” she said. “I don’t think so.”

  Sick of the paper, I covered the microphone with my hand and whispered.

  “They’re just words.”

  Nat pushed my hand away and spoke directly into the microphone.

  “My name is Natalie Marie Whitacker. My mother was Staff Sergeant Eliza Whitacker of the U.S. Army rangers. My father was Deputy John Whitacker. Both were murdered by Path forces. In retaliation, and to defend the republic, I attempted to assassinate the traitor Nathan Hill. I am proud of my actions.”

  Nat dropped into her chair.

  “Those are just words too,” she said.
<
br />   There was a metallic click behind me as the door opened. I crumpled the notes I had written Nat in my hand and stuffed them in a pocket. Parker’s presence was heavy in the doorway.

  “Nat, please.”

  She said nothing as Parker stepped inside and unlocked the chain that bound her to the desk. He took her arm and led her out into the hall and away.

  “Private Roe?”

  A young novice stood in the doorway behind me. “President Hill has asked that you meet him in his ready room in one hour. He thought you might want to go to your quarters until then. They’re this way.”

  I followed him out of the building and through the streets of the base, mixing with the soldiers and the novices. The sounds of the war filtered in from far away. I stopped across the street from a long building with a peaked roof.

  “That’s our Lighthouse.”

  I looked over the novice’s shoulder at another building. “My quarters are that way?”

  “Yes.”

  I thanked him and crossed the road. Flickering amber light warmed the windows of the Lighthouse and spread onto the concrete below. I remembered years ago when Beacon Quan explained that anyone looking for light should always be able to find it in God’s house.

  The Lighthouse was large and empty, carpeted in burgundy with black walls and a thin stage that held the altar. It looked like it had been a movie theater before the Path came. The air was warm from the lanterns hung all around and the thick candles that lined the stage.

  The Path insignia hung over the altar, radiant in gold and marble. It was more than simply quiet within the Lighthouse. It was as if time stopped within its walls.

  I dropped into one of the seats and thought of Nat, wishing that time could stand still for her too. In less than an hour I would meet with Hill and he would know that I failed to bring her to the Path. After that it wouldn’t be long until someone like Rhames showed up in Nat’s cell. I wondered if she would welcome him when he came.

  “Cal?”

  Startled, I turned and found James standing behind me in the aisle. He had changed out of his dirty kitchen things and into rumpled novice fatigues.

  “Mind if I…”

  I moved over and James sat next to me. He closed his eyes and mouthed a prayer. His copy of The Glorious Path was on his knee.

  “Not where I expected to find you,” he said.

  “Just looking for someplace quiet, I guess.”

  James sunk down into his seat, gazing up at the altar, its varnished lines gleaming in the candlelight.

  “You remember the first time we came to Lighthouse?” he asked.

  I nodded, remembering the two of us as we were then, fresh from the Choice and trembling in our pews as we sat through services for the first time.

  “I was so scared.”

  “I know,” James said. “You were holding my hand. I remember thinking — why is my brother holding my hand? And when will he stop?”

  James laughed and I glanced over at him. “All of this always just felt right to you. Didn’t it?”

  “No. I fought it at first too.”

  “I wasn’t fighting it, James. I was—” I cut myself off, hating the angry snap of my voice. I looked over my shoulder at the Lighthouse door. Time was still turning on the other side. Why had I come in here? What had I hoped to accomplish?

  “You remember those nights we would sleep in the backyard?”

  James was looking up at the altar, a half smile on his face.

  “Our bunk beds,” I said.

  “I remember how Mom and Dad would go to bed and we would stay up talking, you know, just about—”

  “Your crush on Mrs. Hurley.”

  “I didn’t have a crush on Mrs.—”

  “You told Mom and Dad that if they didn’t get you into her class, you were going to run away.”

  “Well, what about you and — what’s her name?” James asked. “That girl down the steet. The redhead. Cassie!”

  “No no no,” I said, waving him off. “I definitely didn’t have a—”

  “I saw the poetry. I saw it. Would you like a quote? ‘Oh, Cassie! With hair of fire —’”

  “Enough!”

  James laughed and so did I, the sound echoing off the walls and brightening the inside of the Lighthouse. Once it faded, James and I sat side by side, a little breathless.

  “The best thing about home was me and you,” James said.

  “Yeah,” I said. “It was.”

  “I can’t believe this is a coincidence. God wanted you here.”

  “Why?”

  “You have to ask Him.”

  “God doesn’t talk to me, James.”

  “You don’t listen.”

  An old anger began to smolder and I tried to hold it down. “How can you — I mean, the things Hill does. The Choice—”

  “We’re trying to fix something that’s badly broken,” James said, repeating the line we had heard from a dozen beacons. “The Choice is a tool. Once we get where we’re going, it won’t be necessary anymore. Until then—”

  “How can you say that?” I asked, my voice rising. “How can you believe that?”

  “Because it’s—”

  “How did they get to you?”

  “No one got to me! I just—” James stopped. He closed his eyes for a moment and then continued. “I was just as scared as you after they took us. Just as angry too. Without Mom and Dad, everything just seemed… It’s like we were in the middle of this hurricane all the time. You know? But then I went to Lighthouse one night and Beacon Thomas explained that there was a path that ran through the center of the world. He said that no matter how chaotic things seemed, there was a plan and everything and everyone had their place in it. He said that once I pushed the fear and anger and doubt out of my head, I would know mine.”

  A glow washed over James as he remembered.

  “And he was right,” he said. “Once I saw it, once I let myself see it, I couldn’t see anything else. I didn’t want to. And it can be the same for you, Cal.”

  “James.”

  “I know you don’t believe it, but you have a path too. There’s a reason that you—”

  “Maybe there are some things we just shouldn’t talk about.”

  James fell silent. He turned away from me, staring down at the concrete floor, his hands on The Glorious Path.

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  Neither of us said anything more for some time. The quiet in the Lighthouse made it feel like we were trapped in amber.

  “Guess they’ll want everyone at their duty stations soon.”

  I nodded weakly, and James left his seat and started toward the aisle. The feel of him drawing away stopped my breath. If he left, if he opened that door, time would start up again and everything would be lost.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I said.

  James stopped. “I thought you were going home.”

  “I think there’s something I have to do first,” I said. “A friend I have to help. But I don’t know how.”

  James’s footsteps whispered down the carpet until I could feel him standing just at my shoulder.

  “I don’t know if I even can.”

  “God’s not cruel,” he said. “He wouldn’t put you on a path you couldn’t reach the end of. You have to trust that.”

  I turned around. James stood like a pillar in the middle of the aisle. The way the candlelight struck his face, deepening the hollows of his eyes and cheeks, made him seem so much older. It was like we had switched places and he was the older brother now and I was the younger. Or maybe it had been that way for a long while and I had never noticed.

  “Good luck, Cal.”

  The noise of the war broke the spell of the Lighthouse as he opened the door. When it closed again, that same timelessness gathered around me — only now, I could feel the lie of it. Seconds ticked away inside of me like the fall of an axe.

  I leaned forward over the seat in front of me. The altar and the glim
mering sign of the Path seemed huge, overwhelming. Without thinking, I laced my fingers together and closed my eyes. Terror of the beacons had led me to spend months hiding in our barracks, rehearsing all the gestures and expressions of faith until I had them down perfectly. But sitting there in that Lighthouse, peering into the darkness of my closed eyes, a prayer unspooled deep inside me and for the first time it felt like something reaching out from the very center of me.

  “God,” I prayed. “Lead me to my path….”

  • • •

  I stepped out of the Lighthouse and into the chaos of the battle. A siren was screeching and scores of soldiers ran by in a blur of camouflage, sprinting for their duty stations. There was a flash as a missile battery on the outskirts of the base fired. Veins of smoke shot into the sky, and seconds later, there were three explosions high overhead.

  With all the confusion, it was hard to be sure, but I thought I heard small-arms fire just beyond the perimeter of the base. I joined the rush of traffic headed into the command building.

  “Cal!”

  James was running from the kitchens and I shoved my way through the mob to meet him.

  “What’s going on?”

  “I don’t know,” James said. “Something’s gone wrong but no one will say what.”

  Down the hallway, officers were streaming in and out of the ops center. “I’ll be right back,” I said. “Stay here.”

  A soldier swiped his key card by the doors and I timed my stride to slip in right behind him. The room was packed with generals and their men, all of them huddling over communications gear and glowing computers. I eased back into the shadows and looked for Hill.

  He was standing with a group of officers before a large screen that showed a map of the United States. Path forces were displayed as gold circles and Fed forces were blue triangles. One look and it was easy to see what fueled the chaos in the room. There was a lot more blue on the board than gold and much of it was south of the Path’s frontlines. It looked like Federal forces were streaming in from the east and west simultaneously and quickly overwhelming Path forces.

  “I want to know what the hell is going on,” Hill said. “The Feds were not supposed to be able to do this.”

  A general in a disheveled uniform stepped forward. “Mr. President,” he said, struggling to keep his voice calm. “There was a wave of drone and cruise missile attacks followed by large-scale beach landings and paratroop drops from stealth aircraft in Virginia, North Carolina, and Maryland.”