The Faithful

by S. M. Freedman

  “Sorry. I really don’t know what that was all about.”

  “Do you think you should go see a doctor? Maybe your blood pressure dipped or something. My mom gets that a lot, then she falls over just like you did.”

  “Isn’t she in her eighties?” I lifted an eyebrow in his direction.

  “Well, yeah . . .”

  “Thanks, Dan. I think I’m all right.”

  He was still frowning with worry.

  “Are the latest CCD images in?”

  I waited him out. Dan was a smart man. He understood the futility of arguing with a stubborn redhead. He gave in with a sigh.

  “About twenty minutes ago. Would you like me to run them through the star catalog match?”

  “That would be great.” I tried to stand and realized just how shaky I still was. “Maybe I’ll head home early. Do you mind?”

  “I think that’s the first sensible thing you’ve said in the last hour. Go home, get some rest, do whatever else it is you do when you’re not busy being a science nerd.”

  I laughed. “Okay, thanks.”

  He helped me put on my coat and handed me my purse.

  “See you tomorrow night? Wait! Are you sure you don’t want me to check . . .”

  “I’ve got it.” And with that he pushed me through the door and closed it in my face.

  Like most medium-sized towns, Las Cruces, New Mexico, had been hit hard by the economic downturn.

  During the real estate crash, I took advantage of a steady job and a hefty savings account to buy my first home. A year before, the house would have been way above my means. I had patiently worked through the red tape that came with buying a foreclosed home, and was proud to be in my thirties and mortgage free.

  The house was located in a newer subdivision off El Camino Real on the north end of Las Cruces. The development was full of beige stucco houses with Spanish-tile roofs. In the back corner, my house stuck out like a sore thumb.

  It looked like a child had put it together. Five white blocks of varying sizes were stacked in a random way and then linked by a central courtyard. The inside had two bedrooms and a den spread out across twenty-two hundred square feet.

  It took almost forty-five minutes to get home from the White Sands Missile Range, but it was worth it to live off the base. I had lived on base at WSMR for six months after my transfer, and that was plenty.

  After getting my masters in aeronautics and astronautics from MIT, I had moved the forty minutes to Westford, Massachusetts, to work on improving the Haystack Long Range Imaging Radar. After more than a decade of greenery, apple orchards, and New England winters, the move to New Mexico three years ago had been a huge adjustment.

  Las Cruces, also known as “City of Crosses,” was a combination of Old Mexico and Old West. Modern conveniences like Albertsons and the drive-through Starbucks were slapped on top of the old town like a fresh coat of paint that barely covered the rough grain of the wood underneath. The Rio Grande cut a path across the west side of the town, and to the east the Organ Mountains stood sentry like ancient guards.

  Due to proximity, the city housed many employees of the White Sands Missile Range and the White Sands Test Facility, as well as students from New Mexico State University. It was through NMSU that I had just completed my PhD.

  The eastern sky was aglow as I pulled my yellow FJ Cruiser into the garage. I had held it together during the drive home, but as I let myself into the kitchen, I began to shake. The walls pushed inward, threatening to collapse on top of me like a weighted blanket. Fighting the urge to escape back into the emerging daylight, I took a big, trembling breath. The walls receded on my exhale, so I did it again. And then again.

  Light. I needed light.

  The house was as I had left it, but as I moved from room to room turning on lamps, nothing felt the same. I kept expecting to see something out of place: a painting hanging askew, a vase tipped over, the corner of a rug turned up. But there was nothing.

  I finished in the living room, looking around as though I were a guest. The couches were made of buttery leather, accented with orange and plum throw cushions. The table lamps were orange glass, and a revolving rosewood coffee table stood in the center of the room. The artwork was bright and abstract, by artists such as Darlene Keeffe and Sharon Cummings.

  Most of the furniture in the house was midcentury modern, a style I found pleasing to the eye. I had purchased the furniture and artwork with studied care; through time, I’d cobbled together a collection that made me feel at home.

  Yet it all looked like an illusion. Like a stage preset with furniture and props. I stood with my hands on the back of the couch, waiting.

  Waiting for what?

  I could feel the anticipation in the surrounding stillness, like a held breath. The air throbbed in time with my heartbeat.

  What actors would step out of the wings? And what story would they have to tell?

  But the stillness remained. For once there was no one lurking in the dark corners, waiting to torment me.

  It was inside. Like that stupid slogan about being the change you wanted to see in the world. The change was happening within.

  I closed my eyes, shaking my head in denial.

  Ricordare, Ritornare.

  There was a cesspool of toxic junk churning deep inside me. It was spinning faster and faster, threatening to spill over the sides and burn me with memories.

  Remember, Return.

  My jaw clenched convulsively. My tongue glued itself to the roof of my mouth. The tendons in my neck went as taut as violin strings. Was I having a seizure? I crumpled onto the couch, curling in on myself.

  Ricordare! Ritornare!

  “No! I’m not ready!” I screamed, terrifying myself even more. What? Ready for what?

  The tinkling of wind chimes. The earthy scent of hay and horses.

  “Rowan, Rowan

  Under the apple tree

  Rowan, Rowan

  Remember, return to me!”

  A child’s rhyme. A skipping-rope chant. I could hear the slap of the rope hitting the ground. Again and again.

  “Rowan (slap!) Rowan (slap!)

  Under the (slap!) apple tree (slap!)

  Rowan (slap!) Rowan (slap!)

  Remember, (slap) return to me! (slap, slap!)”

  The rope was red plastic. It glowed in the last rays of the setting sun, flaming for a moment as it arced up over my head, and then winking out as it dove down into the shadows.

  My feet found the air at just the right moment, missing the rope as it passed beneath them. I jumped and landed, jumped and landed.

  My body was light as air, small and sturdy and perfect. I was burning with childfire.

  “Rowan, Rowan.”

  With one last devilish wink, the sun dropped behind the mountains.

  “Under the apple tree.”

  They were green and rocky and impossibly tall.

  “Rowan, Rowan.”

  Before my child-eyes everything faded.

  “Remember, return to me!”

  Leaving nothing but shadows.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The security gate eased open as if by magic. It bore no markings and was tucked eight hundred feet up a narrow path so dense with vegetation, it was unlikely to be found unless one knew exactly where to look.

  First one would have to leave Forest Service Road 550 behind for an even rougher gravel track, so unused it didn’t even have a name. Three harrowing miles up that road one would snake through a small opening so overgrown it was virtually invisible to the naked eye, and then risk some seriously scratched paint as one bumped and jittered eight hundred feet up the hill.

  Someone who made it that far would discover a sturdy electric gate with a spiked top just waiting to impale an unwanted visitor. Any attempt to circumvent the gate
would be met by an electric fence that enclosed the property. The only way in was through the gate, and one had to be granted permission to enter.

  Bile filled Sumner’s mouth with hot bitterness as he waited. Once it was open, he pulled through and stopped on the other side, watching the gate swing closed behind him. It closed with a metallic clatter that made him wince. He wiped his sweaty hands on his jeans, and then clutched at the wheel as if it were a life preserver.

  The Ranch was spread over almost eight thousand acres of spectacular Wyoming wilderness, climbing up the western edge of Green Mountain to almost seven thousand feet and shadowed by Red Mountain to the west.

  The nearest civilization was the Hog Creek Reservoir, six miles south of The Ranch as the crow flies. It filled up with campers and fishermen during the summer months but lay abandoned the rest of the year.

  Sumner guided the Ford up the steep incline past thick stands of spruce, subalpine fir, and aspen. The air was thin and cool, and he found himself gasping for breath. The Main House was one mile up the dirt path, and Sumner moved slowly as the condition of the road demanded. The sharp tang of pine and rot tickled his nostrils, mixing with the far-off earthy scent of cows and horses.

  Night was stretching its inky fingers over The Ranch, and as it did a new memory opened before him like a blood-black rose opening to the darkness, seeking nourishment from the absence of light.

  Hell was a moving metal box. He’d been rattling around inside it for hours or days or years, skidding this way and that way across the grimy floor, slamming repeatedly into cold walls, and bashing his skull against the jagged handle of the roll-up door.

  The crotch of his pants was icy with wetness, and his eyes were swollen shut with tears. He was six.

  “Mommy!”

  He cried, and screamed, and banged his fists against cold metal until they were bruised, but his mommy did not come. Eventually, he curled into a tiny ball in the corner of the metal box and Loretta came with her green light and sang his favorite song, the one about the little boy blue and the man in the moon.

  “I want my mommy . . .”

  He whimpered against his arm, but Loretta just kept singing because that was all she could do.

  The memory began to fade back into the ink from which it had come, and Sumner gritted his teeth and tried to force it to stay.

  His mother. Who was she? Who . . . ?

  He wanted to follow the thread back and back and back to his beginning, but it was gone. Life before that moving metal box was a big black hole. It was as though he had been birthed there. Birthed from metal. Perhaps he had been.

  He was cold. He was so little and so very cold.

  That same cold clamped around his adult bones as the trees fell away and The Ranch opened out around him. The Main House loomed ahead on the right; on the left was the dim glow of the stables. Behind the stables stood the half circle of outbuildings that housed the cows and pigs, and on the far end the chicken coop. Farther back, the silo roosted over the lot of them, its tall metal doors sealed against the night.

  Turning away from the pastoral scene, he bumped toward the Main House. It was eighty-five thousand square feet of functional and inelegant space. The exterior was three levels of weathered, unpainted wood. The porch ran across the front and along the sides, bisected only by the wide staircase that led up to the front door. Two additions extended back from the main structure like the wings of a butterfly.

  Sumner had left The Ranch more than two decades before, but he could close his eyes and trace every splinter and every scratch and every shadowed corner of the great house.

  The third floor was the living quarters for all the children; the Disciples and the Chosen bunked together. The boys were in the eastern wing, girls in the western wing. Between them, running the length of the main part of the building, were the bathrooms, and a common room where the children could congregate. Boys were not allowed into the girls’ wing, nor the girls into the boys’. A breach of this rule was met with severe punishment, as Sumner had learned during the testosterone-fueled summer of his fifteenth year.

  The Priests rarely entered the third-floor living quarters. They didn’t need to. If a fledgling was doing something wrong, the Priests simply knew about it. Punishments were swift and severe, and most of the Disciples lived in such fear of the Priests that acts of rebellion were almost nonexistent.

  After all, the Priests not only knew what one did, but also what one thought. There was no privacy. It wasn’t enough to mask inflammatory thoughts; one must not think them in the first place.

  And yet the children were loved, and as long as they followed the straight path they were treated with respect and kindness. More than that, though, for the first time in most of their lives they were revered for the gifts that, on the “Outside,” made them different from their peers.

  They were no longer freaks because they could read minds or predict the future or see people who weren’t there. They were encouraged to explore and develop those gifts rather than shamefully hide them away.

  The Founding Fathers’ Doctrine was intoxicating, and in his early years Sumner had lapped it up. They were not to feel shame, but pride in their abilities. They were exquisite beings with powers that brought them close to divinity.

  As he grew, he was encouraged to immerse himself in the Doctrine. He learned that the I Fidele family was fashioned in the Heavenly Father’s image. They were the Chosen People. And who was their enemy? Why, it was the human species who roamed the earth like an infestation of cockroaches, plundering the earth’s resources and polluting her fragile ecosystem.

  Of course, all that knowledge was fed to the Disciples slowly, over the course of many years. A new child at The Ranch wasn’t thrown into the Main House with the rest of the children. They were brought to The Hut, a small cabin in the woods on the western edge of the property. During their month in The Hut, they were carefully monitored and guided by the Priest assigned to be their mentor. This was where the mind-wash began.

  The day would start with an injection, the daily dose of “vitamins.” Sumner had no idea what was in that powerful concoction, but it made him feel slow and compliant. About fifteen minutes after the injection, the world around him would start to throb. He would find himself staring at the intricate web of lines on the palm of his hand, comparing it to the delicate beauty of a spiderweb in the corner of the kitchen.

  The days were broken into three categories. The first was learning. His mentor, Father Narda, spent hours explaining life at The Ranch, the basics of the Doctrine, and what would be expected of him on a daily basis.

  The second was a long evaluation of his skills. Tests upon tests were administered. Could he move that glass across the table using just his mind? Could he light a fire in the fireplace without getting up from his chair? Could he read Father Narda’s mind? Could he summon a spirit to him and, if so, could he force it to do his will? Sumner was especially proficient with the spirits, and eventually the testing focused on his skills in that realm.

  The third category was one he thought of as the Moonlight Time. He was forced to drink a black liquid that tasted like a combination of bitter licorice, mint, and earth. It would take effect within minutes, burying his mind in clouds of black cotton.

  The Moonlight Time was like the erasing of a chalkboard. The boy from before was wiped away, one stroke at a time. A month later he emerged from The Hut a newly baptized Disciple and was inducted into life at The Ranch as “Sumner,” The Summoner of Spirits. The boy from before ceased to exist.

  Ranch life was busy and exhausting. They arose before sunrise to do their assigned chores. Chores were rotated and everyone was expected to be proficient in all aspects of Ranch work. Outdoor chores included tending to the horses, milking the cows, cleaning the chicken coop, and gathering the eggs. Indoor duties included cleaning bathrooms, tidying the bedrooms, cooking, and doing end
less loads of laundry.

  The children were divided into four groups, and for one week each month a group was assigned to farming duties. After breakfast they would troop down to the fields on the north end of The Ranch to plow or plant or harvest, depending on the time of year.

  The other three groups would adjourn to the second floor, which housed the school. They learned Latin, French, and Italian, which was the original language of the Founding Fathers. They studied astrophysics, trigonometric interpolation, algebraic topology, geophysics, and relativistic mechanics.

  After lunch they would spend another hour doing chores before settling into the afternoon learning, which was devoted to expanding their individual gifts. The Priests would work with them in small classes and one-on-one. The classes usually involved three or four children with similar gifts working on a series of exercises to “stretch the third-eye muscle.” Sumner spent a lot of time in darkened rooms pulling spirits to him and trying to bend their actions to his will.

  They were also forced to expand on gifts that didn’t come as easily to them. Mind reading and decoding of dreams were emphasized. They worked on premonitions, astral projection, and telekinesis (for which Sumner never developed a gift, although over time he did become very proficient at mind reading).

  Those who did develop a strong ability to move objects with their minds, the Telekinetics, were ranked highest among the Disciples for reasons Sumner never figured out. They were usually moved off The Ranch to a place called The Command. No one seemed to know where The Command was, or what they did there, and those who went never returned to enlighten them.

  Except for boys who entered the Priesthood or girls who became an Amante, Disciples would leave The Ranch at eighteen. Upon their seventeenth birthday, there was a ceremony in which they left the Main House and moved into the Cocoon, a small log building on the northeast edge of the property. From that moment on, they didn’t associate with their younger counterparts.

  Sumner had once asked Father Narda what happened in the Cocoon. His mentor smiled and told him the Disciples were being prepared for life beyond the walls of The Ranch, and one day Sumner would learn it for himself.