Darger was growing tired of Curtis’ little sermons.
“Let’s talk about Stephen Mayhew.”
“Very well. What would you like to know?”
“He was a… what do you call these people?” Darger gestured toward the windows looking out on the work area. “Your followers? Your flock? Your congregation?”
“I don’t call them my anything,” he said. “It’s you who’ve decided I’m some sort of leader. I’m merely a vessel for universal truths. As for what I call ‘these people.’ I call them my family, because that’s what they are. My brothers and sisters.”
Darger resisted an urge to ask how many of his so-called sisters Curtis had slept with.
“So Stephen Mayhew was one of your brothers?” Darger asked. “I assume only the fully initiated get the shiny new name.”
“He was.”
“Did he live here?”
“For a time. We have a somewhat fluid group. Many of our brothers and sisters only come to visit. They have jobs and lives and other more traditional families. Some of our people live in the tents you saw in the warmer months. We make room where we can when the weather turns, but sometimes it’s impossible to house everyone here in the sanctuary.” Curtis made a vague gesture with his hand. “There’s a trailer park outside of town. More recently, Stephen had rented a trailer there with a few of our other family members.”
Darger stared at Curtis, hoping Loshak would sense what she was doing and would stay quiet as well. She wanted Curtis to squirm in the silence for a few seconds.
She counted to five before Curtis’ curiosity kept him from remaining his cool, collected self.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
“Well, I’ve been using the past tense this whole time when asking questions about Stephen, and you haven’t corrected me. It’s like you already knew he was dead.”
Chapter 26
“Are you there?”
The girl’s voice echoed funny as it traversed the tunnel to find Cora. It was sharp, a little strident, as if the speaker knew she had to make herself heard over some distance.
Goosebumps rippled over Cora’s skin, a cold prickle assailing every pore. She tried to speak, to respond, but the words seemed to clamp her throat shut.
That detached female voice sounded down the shaft again, perhaps slightly weaker and thinner this time.
“Are you there?”
Cora’s body trembled as she lifted her voice in response. Ribs quaking. Palms flushed with icy tendrils.
“Yeah. I’m here.”
The voice wavered when it asked the follow-up question, going thick with emotion.
“Are… are you real?”
Cora fought back the urge to laugh as her mind immediately thought of what Chase would say in this moment, the most immature, inappropriate joke possible: Real as a fart attack.
“I’m real,” she said, surprised to hear the smile in her voice now. “My name is Cora.”
A long silence filled the space before the girl answered.
“I’m Lily.”
Cora licked her lips. Her mind raced over the implications of another girl being down here, presumably stuck like she was, somewhere deeper in the tunnel. A pile of questions riffled through her brain like a deck of cards, so many of them.
“They trapped you here like me? In a cage?” she asked, wanting to confirm that first and foremost.
“Yeah. A dog crate, I think.”
“How long have you been down here?”
The silence stretched out again.
“I don’t know. What day is it?”
Cora thought about that for a second. The night had passed by now, she thought, though the night never really ended down here in the dark.
“Wednesday morning by now, I think.”
Another pause, longer than before.
“No. Like, what date is it?”
“The 16th.”
“I mean… what month?”
Cora gawked at the black nothing. Felt her eyes go wider and wider until they stung. Watched pink splotches form in her vision and flit across the void before her.
“It’s June.”
“Oh.”
The girl fell quiet again for a few seconds before she repeated what Cora had told her.
“June.”
Cora laced her fingers around those thin bars again. Braced herself for the answer to her question. Tension drew all the cords in her shoulders taut, made those slabs of muscle that formed her upper back stiff.
The darkness felt palpable now. Cool and thick around her, touching her everywhere, enveloping her.
“Guess it’s been almost two months,” Lily said, her voice sounding somewhat hollow now. “Feels like it’s been longer than that. And shorter, too.”
Cora didn’t know what to say to that. Her face felt numb. Her fingers curled tighter around the bars that held her here.
“I remember Easter,” Lily said. “Right before I got… Right before they brought me here, I mean. I remember eating Easter dinner with my parents earlier that day. My parents are religious like that a couple times a year, you know? My mom made brisket.”
Cora took a second to process what she was hearing. Easter. That had been in early April, she thought… over two months ago. Just as Cora was about to reply, Lily shushed her.
“Did you hear something?” she whispered.
They both listened for a few seconds. Nothing.
“The sound travels funny here. Ricochets around, I think. Sometimes you can hear things from far away and then not hear something just next to you.”
They were quiet again for another few breaths. Then Cora asked the question she didn’t really want to ask.
“What do they… do to you?”
Lily sighed, a breathy sound that fluttered in the space between them.
“They get you out when they want you,” Lily said. “And only when they want you.”
Cora swallowed. Closed her eyes. Tried to push down the roaring of the blood in her ears.
Something clicked somewhere in the distance, and the sound shuddered down the tunnel. The reverberation almost seemed to shiver and swell in the air, like the wavering chime of a struck bell. The noise had been metallic and familiar, Cora realized. Someone closing a door? It was hard to be certain.
“Quiet now,” Lily said, her voice almost a whisper now. “I think someone is coming.”
The pitter-patter of footfalls gritted in the sand and echoed down the shaft of dirt.
Chapter 27
There was another long pause, but this time it was Curtis who had gone silent.
“Puck, er… Stephen is dead?” he asked, and to his credit, he seemed genuinely surprised. “You’re certain?”
If it was an act, he was quite good at it. He’d even gone a little pale, if Darger wasn’t mistaken.
“We assure you, Stephen Mayhew is quite dead.”
Now Darger brought out the photos. Placed the glossy rectangles between them until the images of the emaciated body surrounded by trash occupied the surface of Curtis’ desk.
“Oh my dear God,” Curtis muttered, looking ill. “What happened to him?”
“We were hoping you could tell us.”
“I don’t… I’ve never seen…” He glanced up at Darger. “Why would you show these to me? These are horrible. Please take them away.”
He shoved the photos back at Darger. She gathered them up and returned them to the manila folder in her bag.
When Curtis had recovered, he took a deep breath.
“I use the past tense because Stephen had left the family.” He let his eyelids flutter closed. “Or rather he’d been asked to leave, to be completely forthright.”
“Because of what happened at the full moon ritual?” Darger asked.
“No.” Curtis frowned. “That was a minor offense, really. I had a lengthy discussion with Puck regarding his indiscretion, but he ultimately hadn’t caused any harm. He interrupted the ritual, of course
. Broke the reality. But that was only spilled milk.”
“So why did you ask him to leave?”
Curtis paused again. His eyes moved to Darger’s bag, where she’d tucked the folder of photos. He was remembering what he’d seen in those pictures, she thought. Weighing whether to divulge private cult matters to two outsiders in the name of justice for a former member, perhaps. The grave images must have done their trick, because he didn’t consider it for very long.
“We discovered he’d been bringing illicit substances into camp, and that is… strictly forbidden.”
“What kind of substances?”
Curtis tapped his fingers against the desk.
“Crystal methamphetamine.” Curtis sighed. “This is a judgment-free zone. I don’t cast aspersions on drug users, but drugs tend to shut down the very senses required to make a true connection with others, which is a key component to what we do here.”
Darger couldn’t help but wonder if Curtis actually didn’t like drugs because they competed with him for control of all of those minds.
“What about the moon juice?”
“Pardon?”
“We were told there was some kind of beverage with psilocybin in it at the full moon feast.”
“Only enough for a microdose. More therapeutic than anything.”
Darger crossed her arms.
“What our witness describe sounded like more than a microdose.”
“Well, he wasn’t supposed to drink any. The ceremonial wine is for initiated members only. And they all know what to expect.” Curtis sighed. “Puck’s tattoo artist friend drank the wine without knowing what it was and came into the ritual without proper orientation. Even with the initiated, we discourage them from drinking the wine if it’s their first time. That kind of experience coupled with a psychoactive substance, even a small amount, can have disastrous results for the unprepared. And the man’s reaction was a perfect illustration of that.”
“Who was Stephen close with?”
“You know, when we first started, everyone knew everyone. But as we’ve grown, I have to say that natural cliques and groups have developed. I worried about it at first. Reminded me of being in high school. But then I realized it’s simple human nature. You gravitate to those you share a common bond with. A kinship. After all, you can’t help when you feel that connection with someone, can you?”
Darger didn’t like the way he stared into her eyes when he said this. Almost like he was trying to hypnotize her.
“Anyway, Stephen was part of a group who called themselves the degenerates.”
“The degenerates?”
“I know it sounds harsh, but it was something they came up with themselves. They were all former addicts and alcoholics. That was their common bond. And I do think they helped each other through some things.” Curtis’ face tightened. “At least for a while.”
Darger pulled the other photos from her bag.
“I have some more photos I need you to look at. I should warn you, they’re… similar to what you saw before.”
She laid out the morgue photos of John Doe One and Jane Doe One and Two.
“Do you recognize any of these people?”
The color drained from Curtis’ face.
“My god. How many are there?”
“These three and Stephen. So four total.”
Curtis’ hand shook as he pointed first at the photo of Jane Doe One and then at Jane Doe Two.
“These two.”
Darger sat up straighter.
“You know them?”
“If I saw these photographs out of context, I’d say no. But given that you found them with Stephen?” He let out a shaky sigh and then turned in his chair. “Here, I’ll show you.”
Chapter 28
Curtis swiveled in his chair and pulled a leather-bound book from one of the shelves behind him. It was thick and landed with a thud on the desk. When he flipped it open, Darger saw that the pages were filled with photographs. Various events and daily life around camp. Professional looking, too.
“Juniper is an award-winning photographer.” Curtis winced. “But there I go bragging about my family again. Anyway, she puts together a book like this for the camp every year. A visual history.”
Pages swished as he riffled through them, finally pausing on one halfway through the book. He spun it around and handed it to Darger.
In the photo, the sun shone down on a small group sitting together at a picnic table. Three women, two men. They had plates of food before them, and one of the women had flowers in her hair.
“That’s Puck on the far left.”
Darger was startled to see how normal Stephen Mayhew had looked not so long ago. He wasn’t a particularly large man, but he also wasn’t the gaunt skeleton they’d pulled from the garbage heap.
“The woman beside him with the marigolds in her hair is Trinity. That was on their joining day.”
Trinity was of average height and build, looked to be in her late twenties, and had blonde hair and blue eyes. A dead match for Jane Doe One.
“Joining day?”
“The equivalent of a marriage here.” His finger jabbed at another face. “That’s Celestia sitting beside Trinity.”
Celestia had a mop of curly red hair and an abundance of freckles dotting her skin. Not a match for Jane Doe Two, who’d had dark hair.
“And her?” Darger asked, pointing to the third woman.
She was small and dark-haired and wore a pair of oversized glasses with black frames.
“That’s Amaranth,” Curtis said, and she heard an emptiness in his voice now. “I think the two women you found are Trinity and Amaranth.”
“How about this other fella,” Loshak asked, knocking a knuckle against the second man in the photo. He lifted his eyes to look at Curtis. “You think he could be our other John Doe?”
“I don’t think so. The John Doe’s height is listed as 71 inches. That’s what… five-feet-eleven?” Curtis shook his head. “Worm is quite short. No more than five-five or five-six, if that.”
“Worm?” The name didn’t have the same hippie-esque flare the rest of the cult names had.
Worm had an arm slung around Amaranth, and if Darger thought the girl looked a little like she was recoiling from his touch. There was the slightest tinge of discomfort in her smile, like she’d realized a spider was crawling up her leg right as the photo was taken.
“But there’s an easy enough way to know for sure,” Curtis said. “Does your John Doe have a gold tooth?”
“No,” Darger said, suddenly noticing a strange glare over the man’s mouth in the photo.
“Well, Worm does. He’s rather proud of it. Told quite a tale about how he’d lost the tooth in a fight with some Hell’s Angels. Said he took three of them on and managed to steal one of their bikes, and all he had to give up was the one tooth.”
Darger got out her phone.
“Do you mind if I take photos of this for our records?” she asked.
“Be my guest,” Curtis said.
Darger snapped one shot of the full photograph and then close-ups of each individual face.
“When was the last time you saw those three,” Darger asked, handing the book back. “Puck, Trinity, and Amaranth?”
Curtis closed his eyes.
“The incident with the drugs was just after the Spring equinox. So it would have been the last week of March. Puck was asked to leave immediately. When he left, Trinity went with him. Given that they were joined, it wasn’t wholly unexpected. Amaranth stayed on a bit longer, but she was very close to Trinity. They were practically inseparable. Ultimately, she decided to leave as well. She was gone perhaps a week later.”
Darger made note of the dates.
“What about Worm and Celestia?” Loshak asked. “Can we talk to them?”
“Celestia is in India on a spiritual retreat,” Curtis explained. “The thing with Puck and the drugs created quite a fuss around here. A rift in the family, if you will. We th
ought it was best she get some distance. I can provide you information on how to get in touch with her. As far as I know, she hasn’t spoken with any of them since their departure, but I suppose it’s always possible she’d been in contact with them without my knowing.”
Curtis scribbled a phone number and brief instructions on a piece of paper and passed it to Darger.
“Just one request?”
“Yes?”
“Could you wait a few hours before you call her? I’d like her to hear the news from me, if possible.” Curtis brushed a lock of Jesus hair from his face. “I really think the person you should talk to is Worm, though.”
“Is he around?” Loshak asked.
“Well, I think there’s been a misunderstanding,” Curtis said. “Worm wasn’t a member of our family.”
“No?”
Curtis folded his hands in front of him.
“Worm did odd jobs for us. Contract work. Had some carpentry skills. And he had a truck, which was helpful for bringing in manure and compost for the fields and the greenhouse.”
“Did?” Darger asked. “As in past tense?”
Curtis swallowed and stared up at the ceiling.
“When we confronted Stephen about the meth, he admitted that he’d gotten it from Worm. Worm had been warned about such things once before. He hadn’t brought in illegal drugs before, at least not to my knowledge. But he’d been caught sneaking alcohol and cigarettes in for people. As he wasn’t actually a member, he was banned outright. Stephen was told that if he could prove himself contrite and enter a rehab program to get clean, we’d discuss welcoming him back. But I don’t think he was interested.”
Curtis let out a breath that caused his shoulders to deflate.
“They’re really dead? All of them?”
Darger nodded once.
“I’m sorry.”
Tears collected at the corners of Curtis’ eyes.
“I don’t know how I’m going to break the news.”
Darger waited a few moments for Curtis to collect himself before asking her next question.
Violet Darger | Book 7 | Dark Passage Page 13