Sinless

by Sarah Tarkoff

  So while I was upending everything I believed in, my father was on Skype, arguing with the prophet’s right-hand man, Guru Samuel Jenkins. Unlike my father, Samuel was in no way humble about his connection to the prophet. And after all my father’s years of service, he was annoyed to have to communicate with Joshua through this intermediary—he thought he deserved a direct line. “It’s urgent. I need to speak to him right away,” my father told Samuel.

  “If I determine your case warrants an audience with the prophet, I’ll arrange a meeting.”

  “It’s my daughter. Something’s . . . wrong.”

  “Oh?”

  My father decided to come straight out with it. “She’s been telling these stories . . . a boy who does terrible things but can never be Punished . . . have you heard of anything like this?”

  “Who is this boy?”

  “Ciaran something. Just a high school kid. I met him—there’s no doubting he looks pious . . .”

  “But you never saw him do anything bad?”

  “Not myself, but my daughter . . .”

  “Perhaps your daughter is exaggerating.”

  “That’s not like her.”

  “Teenagers can be dramatic.”

  My father was nervous to relate what he’d seen—he didn’t want to out me as a heretic—but he was more nervous that it would happen again. “It’s happening to her, too.”

  This piqued Samuel’s interest. “So you have seen it.”

  “Once. She didn’t do anything terrible. Just swearing, nothing bad,” my father said, trying to defend me.

  “You should bring her here.”

  “To Walden Manor?”

  “Yes. I want to see this for myself.”

  “Of course. And if you can’t solve the problem, we’ll set an audience with the prophet?”

  Samuel smiled, placating. “Yes, of course.”

  Chapter 4

  As we left Dawn’s house, I couldn’t help but stare at Jude. It was surreal. How many times had I sat next to him, and here we were, doing it again—as though it were just another drive home from school. He was different now though—the ease of his gait, the seriousness with which he spoke. Even the way he dressed—casual, simple, like he wanted to recede into the background.

  There was so much I wanted to know. “How did you survive?”

  “Dawn and her friends. They saved me.”

  “How?”

  He described that moment I remembered, after our car crash, when he was loaded into that ambulance, no hope left . . . and then something I wasn’t witness to: a priest standing over him as the ambulance raced to the hospital. That little white collar was an unusual sight—most people had given up the physical trappings of their old religions. But this devout Catholic hadn’t. He was like many, I’d come to find out, who had never abandoned their old faiths—who worshipped, covertly, as they had pre-Revelation.

  “My name is Father Dennehy,” the priest told Jude. “And I have to ask you to make a choice.” It was a conversation much like the one I’d had with Dawn—this one laced with a few more Our Fathers and Holy Spirits, but the message was the same. “Jesus will save you,” Father Dennehy told him, “but you must repay the favor.” Jude nodded, though he didn’t then and never would believe that Jesus was anything more than a long-dead rabbi. The priest placed a red pill in Jude’s mouth, and as the ambulance rolled away, Jude felt the drug work its way through his system. Saving him.

  Jude looked up at Father Dennehy, amazed. “How . . . ?”

  “You have been worshipping false idols. The world is not what you think it is,” Father Dennehy said. Jude learned that Dawn ran a network of EMTs with a tap on the city’s 911 calls. If they got word of a potentially fatal Punishment, they’d send someone like Father Dennehy to intercept the dying patient. Once the victim was safely in hiding, they’d show their families the body of a different dead Outcast, then bury an empty coffin, or deliver an urn filled with nonhuman ashes.

  People like Dawn and Father Dennehy couldn’t risk being caught—the prophet had methods for dealing with heretics like them—but they could still act under the radar and save lives.

  So that was the bargain Jude made. He promised to go into hiding and spend the rest of his life helping others like himself, who’d suffered brutal consequences for their mistakes. Jude chose life . . . and gave up his old one.

  “How have you been helping?” I asked.

  Jude was vague—he pointed out what he’d done tonight, rescuing me from death. “Things like that. Riding in ambulances, passing out pills.” But he wouldn’t elaborate on any other people he’d saved—perhaps, I imagined, to protect their identities.

  I realized, “My 911 call. That’s why you were following me.”

  “I recognized your voice, yeah. Normally I stay out of town, to avoid being seen by anyone who might recognize me, but . . . once I realized you were in danger, I had to keep an eye on you.”

  I still had so many more questions. Where had he been for two years? Who was he, now that so much time had passed? Jude had always been so sweet, so kind, so endlessly forgiving of my faults and frustrations. But now he was walled off, and he shut down any additional queries I tried to make about our time apart. Sensing my concern, he said, “I’ll tell you soon, I promise.”

  But I couldn’t hold back my curiosity. “How big is this? How many people know?”

  Jude hesitated. “I’m not sure what I’m allowed to tell you.” And then after some prodding, “There are more. I don’t know how many.”

  “In D.C.?”

  “All over the world. All kinds of people. All these different religions that have survived, people still praying to Ganesh and Allah and Buddha. A lot of atheists who survived the initial Revelations.”

  “All working together?” Though I was living in a golden age of world peace, that peace was based on one thing—everyone living under one god, Great Spirit, one religion. I couldn’t fathom people working together like that while believing in such different things.

  “Yeah. They have churches, mosques, synagogues, ashrams, all in secret. All these people who have no identities in the real world, people whose families think they’re dead, like me. That’s why Dawn got so scared when I brought you in. Because she’s worried if she goes down, all these other people who are saving lives will get caught, too.”

  “I won’t get anyone caught. I promise.”

  I wasn’t sure if Jude believed me. Perhaps he was doubting his choice to save me. I wondered what had changed since that drive two years earlier. If he still wanted to ask me the same thing he’d been about to ask then. I couldn’t help but work in, “Before the car accident, we were talking.”

  “I remember,” he said, as though he’d been waiting for me to bring it up.

  “What were you going to say?”

  He paused so long, I wondered if he’d heard me. He finally said, “I want to have this conversation. I really do. But you should know, after I drop you off, that’s it. I’m not alive, you know, I’m living this whole other life, and to keep you safe you can’t be a part of it.”

  “But I know everything now.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I’ve spent the past two years wanting so badly to see my family and my friends, and I can’t, because then people would know I survived, and they’d ask questions, and . . .”

  “I won’t give away your secret.”

  “You wouldn’t have to. They’d track your phone, they’d . . .”

  “I’ll leave my phone at home. Please. I don’t want to lose you again.” I started to get angry. Not just at his stubbornness now, but at those years I’d grieved for him—pain I’d experienced for no reason at all. “You make this decision like you’re the only one it affects, like there aren’t other people who care about you who deserve a say. You can’t just cut yourself out of people’s lives . . .”

  Jude took my hand. “Someday, this will all be over.”

  I looked at his face, instinctivel
y checking to see if he was telling the truth. But none of his features changed, so maybe he believed what he was saying. Though what did I know about telling truth from lies anymore?

  As we pulled up around the corner from my house, I hugged him tight. “Please just stay here with me. As long as you can.” Having Jude back almost hurt more than losing him in the first place. I’d taken Jude for granted before the accident. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed his company, how safe he made me feel. Now that he was sitting next to me, all those old feelings came rushing back. How silly I felt for thinking Ciaran, or even Zack, could compare.

  “I should go,” Jude said. But he didn’t, yet. He held my face in his hands. That moment, so close to him, I noticed a hundred things I never had before. How his brown eyes were a mile deep, with little flecks of a whole rainbow of colors. How long his eyelashes were. The way his fingers touched my cheek, so strong and so gentle. I wanted him to kiss me more than anything in the world. But he didn’t.

  And then I remembered—I was no longer constrained by any rules. There was no Punishment to be afraid of if Jude was not my soulmate. And what did I care now about the societal rules of boys kissing first? All I could think was that after all this grief and confusion, Jude was the one bright spot that had emerged from the darkness, and I wanted to hold on to him. I’d lost him once before . . . I knew I’d always regret it if I didn’t take this chance. I leaned in, but before I could kiss him, he pulled away. Serious, businesslike. “I’ll keep an eye on you. I won’t be able to stop doing that.”

  I hid my disappointment as I sat back. “Thank you.”

  And he was out of the car, hopping on a motorcycle he’d left hidden in the nearby bushes. He pulled on a blue motorcycle helmet. A familiar one. It wasn’t Zack who had been following me to the black market . . . it was Jude. Jude’s ghost had been with me after all, who knows how many times. “You’re not alone” were his final words to me.

  But then he rode off, and he was wrong—I felt so alone.

  Chapter 5

  As I pulled in my driveway, I could see my father moving around in the kitchen. Had he waited up all night for me? I steeled myself, prepared my story.

  The drug rushing through my veins relaxed me. Dawn had explained it was like a very precise form of Xanax, a drug I’d never heard of until that night. For those of you born after the Revelations—Xanax was a drug used in the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries to treat anxiety disorders. Antidepressants were among the surprising early Prohibitions by Prophet Joshua—perhaps, I realized, for this very reason—that they would interfere with the chemicals in the brain that created Great Spirit’s Punishments.

  Though antidepressants took some time to work their way out of society, a drug that was mainstream when I was born was, by 2033, nearly nonexistent, except perhaps at black markets. And if those old anti-anxiety medicines were a hacksaw, this new one was a scalpel. Not only did these mysterious red and yellow pills prevent you from experiencing the physical changes associated with guilt, they blunted the guilt itself. No wonder I’d felt so comfortable going to the black market, I realized—the pills had chemically wiped my conscience clean. I could see why Jude was so insistent that eventually I stop taking the pills—what they might do to a person seemed dangerous. But in this moment, facing my father, they were going to be very helpful. I knew I needed to sell him on my holiness and naïveté, and I had never felt more prepared to say whatever was necessary.

  As I walked in, I played cool to my father’s shocked face. “Grace! Thank Great Spirit.”

  “You were right,” I told him. “I’m so sorry. I prayed for a long time, and Great Spirit Forgave me. The thing that’s been happening—it’s not going to happen anymore. I’m sorry for taking the car without asking . . . I just thought, if I drove out to the place where I had that bad experience with Ciaran and prayed there, maybe I’d get some clarity. And I did.” The lie came out smooth and clean. No hesitation, not a word out of place. Never had I lied with such ease, with so little remorse.

  My father hugged me, relieved. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  “I understand why what I did was wrong, and I won’t do it again.”

  As my father pulled away, I saw the conflict on his face. “I have a confession to make.” I kept my breathing even and calm. I would have to appear surprised no matter what he said. “I was really worried about you, so I made a phone call.”

  “To who?”

  “To some of my colleagues. I thought they might be able to help.”

  “I’m fine now,” I insisted.

  “I believe you. But they’re concerned about you. They’d like to hear your story. I’m sure you have some questions. Maybe you can ask them. Get some closure. I’m sure you’re tired of hearing the same old answers from me.”

  “Who am I asking?”

  “That’s the most amazing part. It’s an audience at Walden Manor later today with Guru Jenkins.”

  “You’re kidding.” I hoped my terror came off as excitement.

  “There are a few benefits to being a member of the spiritual community,” my father said.

  “I’m really tired,” I said, needing to get out of there.

  “Go take a nap. I’ll wake you up when it’s time to get ready.”

  “Thanks.”

  It was all I could do to get out of that room and into mine, door closed, mind spinning. After only an hour, I was desperate to contact Dawn again, just to ask her for advice. Were the prophet and his associates to be trusted? My gut said no—if Joshua was the leader of a religion based on a falsehood, something didn’t feel right about that. But if they weren’t to be trusted, why hadn’t she mentioned that? Was Samuel as in the dark as my father was? What would he feel justified in doing if he thought I was allied with the devil? Or worse, if he was part of this whole conspiracy, what would he do if he knew I knew the truth?

  If it really was the truth. I started to resent Dawn. Protect us at all costs, but we can’t do a thing for you—that was basically what she’d said. Why should I trust her? I ran my fingers over the bottle of red pills she’d given me to take until I stopped needing them. Those pills, and my life, were Dawn’s promises of loyalty.

  I considered . . . if there was a devil, this is what it would look like, right? A friend rising from the dead. A mysterious coalition of blasphemers, shrouded in secrecy, who had to be convinced to let you live. Now that Jude was gone, he seemed so much less tangible. The whole experience still retained a dreamlike quality—could I have made up the entire thing? Why had I been so quick to believe this relative stranger and this seeming apparition over my own father, a man I implicitly trusted, whose word I’d believed as gospel my whole life? Why had I confided such dangerous secrets in them?

  Either way, I was going to have to face Samuel Jenkins. I knew Jude was gone, off to wherever it was he lived now. But I hoped somehow he could see my one last cry for help, that his promise of watching out for me would come true now when I needed it to. I rummaged through my closet, found my old blue bear, and set it in the window with a newly recorded message: “I have a meeting today at Walden Manor.” As it looked out at the murky dawn, a beacon to a lost friend, the last kind of prayer I knew how to make, I lay in bed, willing myself to sleep, hoping that when I woke, there would be some kind of answer waiting for me.

  Chapter 6

  I slept fitfully, and after an hour or so, I couldn’t force myself to sleep anymore. I looked outside—the teddy bear was unmoved, with no new response recorded. I was going to have to face Samuel without help.

  I tried to remember what I’d told my father about Ciaran. I was sure he’d told Samuel every word. I rehearsed my story: I’d relate the bare minimum of facts about my date, and I’d leave out anything about Zack or Jude or Dawn. I’d play dumb. I’d play me two weeks ago.

  I pulled on my most conservative dress, the one I wore to our worship center for Ramadan break fasts. I took a pill and hid a second in my shoe, just to be
safe. Getting antsy, I headed downstairs, where my father was emailing his sermon to the junior cleric who was covering for him today.

  “You’re up. I said I’d wake you.”

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “It’s exciting, isn’t it? The prophet’s an amazing man. Just standing in his presence is enough to heal you.” I’d seen the videos on TV. Blockades holding back hordes of Outcasts, all reaching to touch Joshua’s hand. For the one or two who were lucky enough to make contact, their whole bodies would change, instantly. “Maybe if we’re lucky, we’ll get to see him today.”

  “That would be cool,” I said.

  As we sat in the car, en route to Walden Manor, I grew more antsy. The truths I’d learned from Dawn barely amounted to anything, when I thought about it. She hadn’t told me much more than I could have guessed just by knowing about the existence of these stupid pills. And she’d shown no evidence to back up her claims. Couldn’t it still be Great Spirit acting on all of us, I wondered, even if it was related to guilt? Wasn’t everything Great Spirit, really? And if she couldn’t tell me how she knew what she knew, why should I trust anything she’d said?

  I’d made a promise not to betray her, but hadn’t she betrayed me, in a way? Hadn’t she abandoned me with all these questions? I knew Great Spirit was vengeful . . . would He Punish me for withholding information about potential subversives, people who were spreading lies about the Universal Theology? Maybe all of my problems would last until I did something that won Great Spirit’s approval again. Maybe all I had to do was tell Samuel the whole truth, tell him everything about Zack, and Dawn’s organization. But then I remembered the last time I’d tried to win Great Spirit’s approval—and it had ended with me nearly dying in my driveway. No, I was going to have to lie, and hope I was good enough to get away with it.