For some, that maturity came at thirteen or even later. For many, it came as early as age seven. Rebecca had only been born again last night, when she had learned about her father’s big day. No one had made her do it. She had felt it in her spirit. For the first time in her life, she had really, truly felt it.
“I love you, Rebecca. God loves you.”
Now, taking the bread in two fingers, no trembling whatsoever, Rebecca felt the eyes of the whole church upon her and wasn’t the least bit self-conscious. Reverently, she dabbed the bread into the wine. In the moment Daddy spoke, he would become Jesus. The Lord would commune with her, look down on her, before becoming her father again.
The fact that it was real wine in her church—not just juice, as with some other churches—made her wonder what it would taste like. She supposed it should taste like blood, since that was what it would become. Receiving it and hearing the words of Jesus pass through her father’s lips as she closed her eyes, she discovered the changeover to blood didn’t happen in her mouth. It wasn’t like blood at all.
It must change in my stomach, then, she thought.
It was bitter. Very grownup. She knelt and crossed herself.
When she stood, opening her eyes, her father risked the briefest wink at her.
To Rebecca that meant that he was still there. Where was Jesus, then? For the briefest moment, Rebecca felt rather crushed.
Appropriately, she didn’t react. She pressed her hands together in supplication, just like everyone else, and kept them that way until she was back in her seat with her mother.
“So proud of you,” Mom whispered.
Rebecca didn’t answer.
****
“I have her,” DC said, standing at the open doorway.
“That’s good,” Ruth said, keeping her seat. “I’m glad you’ve managed to do one thing right today. But it took you long enough. Show me where.”
She saw the indignation in his eyes. People did tend to take the wrong attitude with her from time to time, especially those who were older than her and had some authority of their own. Coming from DC, who was actually better at his job than most, such transgressions were easily ignored.
He set a small satellite video grid on her desk, switched it on, indicated a location with his stylus, and made a tiny circle, which blinked red when he tapped it. Magnifying the area revealed a small, shadowy figure moving.
He’d gotten close enough to tag her image. They would not lose her now, no matter what. And if they should decide to go in and get her, they would not require help from outside.
But the plan had changed. Rebecca had changed it. Collecting her was no longer the best option.
The sun was up, but all the residents were still in their rooms. Ruth had ordered them to stay put. Kitchen staff would deliver breakfast by cart. In an hour or so, the prefects would conduct morning devotions by going room to room.
Ruth was in no mood for distraction.
She’d commandeered Mrs. James’s office for the time being, dismissing Mrs. James with the gruff reassurance that she’d probably have it back by noon. Of course, the old bat had complained Mrs. Black didn’t have any legal authority for such a move—technically the truth. She’d had to send one of the Masada cops back to the courthouse for an occupancy order. That had taken less than an hour, but really, it was all so very tiresome.
“Masada PD can scoop her up in less than half an hour,” DC assured her. Then, that small trace of indignation showed again. “All I need is the go-ahead. Even reporting back is taking time. Could’ve had her in the car by now, probably.”
“She’s injured,” Ruth said, going off-topic deliberately. “You injured her.”
DC was taken aback. “I barely even grazed her. I didn’t have my—”
“I’ll need you back in the air. I need to know if the wound is infected. I need to know if she’s in any immediate danger, medical or otherwise.”
“But, Mrs. Black, we can just—”
“Also,” she continued lazily, “I need to know about wild animals and other environmental dangers in the woods of New Sinai. You know: bears, wolves, rattlesnakes, that kind of thing. Poisonous plants. Man-eating flora or fauna, lack of drinkable water, roving bands of ninjas, whatever… I require information.”
“Mrs. Black—”
“Because, DC, the simple truth is that you do not know what I know.”
That shut him up.
“I received a call from the Reverend earlier this morning,” she went on. “News of Rebecca and her parents has already been leaked to the Internet. It seems that one of Mrs. James’s perfect little prefects shot a video.”
She let it sink in. Standard media was easily controlled, but the Internet remained lawless and wild, virtually untamable.
“This video has become popular. As people wake up and sip their morning coffee, it will become more popular still. It has already attracted the attention of the local news outlet, who are awaiting direction.”
“All right,” DC said slowly, all impertinence gone from his tone.
“The only problem is, I’ve also heard from the FBI, and they are threatening me with intervention if I do not have the story ‘turned’ immediately.”
DC nodded. He was not a stupid man. He understood.
“Curious,” Ruth said, “that Rebecca’s online audience seems to believe that she was the head prefect here and not just a short time ‘resident.’ I can’t imagine how people leapt to that conclusion, but then, I haven’t watched the video yet. But you can see why this misperception is problematic—how it stokes the proverbial fire. We cannot allow ourselves to become the bad guy here. It’s very important that we don’t let that happen.”
A juvenile delinquent on the run was nothing. Even a delinquent preacher’s kid only amounted to minor scandal. An anointed prefect in rebellion, however, was a story.
DC said nothing. Good. His wits really were coming back, then.
“We’ll get the truth out,” Ruth said. “But we will not arrest her.”
“Mrs. Black, it isn’t an—”
“To the world, it is,” she answered. “They don’t see the difference. No. We will let her come to us. In her own time. And we will make sure that people see her do it.”
DC opened his mouth to interject, but then seemed to think better of it and closed it again.
“We will monitor her. We will see that no harm comes to her as she grieves for her parents. When she is ready, we will receive her, even as the Lord receives us all when we come to our senses.”
There will be weeping across the couches of New America, she thought. They will be praying in front of their televisions and computers. They will praise the Lord for what I have done.
If she was waiting for a response, some approbation of her brilliance, she never got it.
“We will make this an event,” she promised. “The masses will love it.”
DC turned to go.
Then, an afterthought. “Oh—and, DC?”
He stopped.
“I want Marcy Barrows to disappear,” she said, leaning back in her chair. “Have her arrested for incitation.”
****
The pain was almost gone by the time the ground finally leveled out. Rebecca could hardly feel her ear at all, except for a persistent, spreading throb and a stinging itch she could not scratch. If she gave in to the temptation, she knew the pain would return in a wash of fresh blood.
She looked at her watch. It took a moment to focus her eyes and discover it was now ten o’clock in the morning. She’d been awake twenty-six straight hours and spent the last nine of them on the move. She felt reasonably sure she’d lost all pursuit.
Above her, the sky had gone gray. Clouds promised rain. The air smelled of it.
Let it rain, God.
She hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since last night’s dinner, and she hadn’t conveniently stumbled across any berry bushes or apple trees in the woods. She didn’t know how to look for
food. She didn’t know how to hunt—and, even if she did, she had nothing to hunt with.
New Sinai was really more of a gargantuan tree-covered hill than a proper mountain. Through the dark hours of the early morning and all the way past sunrise until this very moment, Rebecca had seen no evidence of wildlife beyond a couple deer and the occasional squirrel. And bugs. In this heat there were plenty of those.
Looking ahead, she saw a wasps’ nest in full swarming-buzz effect not twenty feet away. She steered clear, grateful she had looked up in time to not walk headlong into it. Her mind hadn’t even registered the noise until she’d seen them.
If the ground started going down anytime soon, maybe she would get to the other side and find someone who would help her. Didn’t Amish people live in Pennsylvania? A strange subculture, Daddy had always said. The God-fearing tolerated the Amish but kept their distance. They were said to be friendly—Christian, too, in their own weird way—but antiquated. They … built barns and rode carriages and stuff…
Maybe I can be Amish. Wear a blue shirt and suspenders and learn to make butter.
She felt suddenly dizzy and sat.
I need to sleep, God.
There were no pillows or blankets. The wasps were not that far away. What if they swarmed her while she slept?
Would I go to Heaven?
Yes. Rebecca was rather certain she would. The world might want to punish her—
For kissing Brian. You were not supposed to do that. You’re not married.
—and yet, even now, she still believed God loved her.
“God loves us all,” whispered the memory of her mother’s voice in her ear. Her good ear.
“Even the worst of us,” her father added.
Father.
Rebecca put her hands together, closed her eyes, and remembered the prayer Daddy had taught her. Remembered her earth-father teaching her to talk to God.
“Heavenly Father,” she prayed, pulling her knees in front of her to do it properly, “thank You for this day. Thank You for the blessings of this day and of this life. Thank You for the gift of prayer and the promise of life after this…”
She was unaware of swaying, of lying down on her side, of her words shrinking to mutterings, to mere thought.
Forgive me for my sins, which make me unworthy of the kingdom of Heaven or any of the blessings you bestow upon me…
Sleep took her in a brush of warm, comforting wind.
****
After she had been asleep for some time, they came to her. If any had been there to see, they might have been mistaken as forest rangers, given their attire. But only one of them was. The other two, both doctors, had needed a ranger and weren’t at all comfortable with hiking. Theirs was an altogether different line of work, which they set to immediately.
They didn’t speak, nor did they want to wake her. If she started to come around, they’d have to put her under, hard, and then give her a little something extra to make sure she didn’t remember the encounter.
The two older men knelt by her, one on either side. The ranger waited and watched.
The needle looked like a fat adrenaline one, such as a kid with life-threatening allergies to bee stings or peanut butter might keep in a school backpack at all times, for emergencies. The payload in this particular needle consisted of something quite different, including a local anesthetic that would hopefully allow its very insertion to go unnoticed—even though one of the men would have to hold it in both hands while the other slapped the plunger down with force.
It would go straight through the fabric of her clothes, making it unnecessary to expose her skin. Generally subjects took the shot in the thigh or buttocks. Not wanting to roll her onto her side, to disturb her unnecessarily, they settled on her thigh.
When they first touched her, Rebecca gasped in her sleep, but she didn’t wake. She slept right through it.
They had been told to not give her medicine. Mrs. Black had insisted they “leave that to the Lord.” In that regard—and nothing else—they disobeyed. Plenty of room in the plunger for a little something to battle an infection and control a rising fever. It may or may not even work. It was hard to know what would work best without giving her a full checkup. But it was worth a try, and Mrs. Black would never know. Even the ranger didn’t know.
And Rebecca would never know how three strange men had come to her and planted a diagnostic cell into her bloodstream, which would continuously report to them—and to Mrs. Black—everything about her physical condition before it dissolved in a couple days. All she would notice, along with every other pain and discomfort she had to deal with, was that her right thigh felt vaguely as though someone had punched it. All things considered, the doctors doubted she would give that small matter much thought.
They waited until they were far away—from both her and from the ranger—before speaking about it. And when they did, they didn’t say much.
“We might have just saved her life,” said one.
“Maybe,” the other said. “We’ll see.”
Chapter Thirteen
Ghosts and the Vigilant
The banner bar read: Rebecca on the Run. Televisions across the country showed it, along with a timer that counted up instead of down. On Saturday at almost two in the afternoon, it stated 0 Days, 11 Hours, 38 Minutes.
Ruth had everything set up and ready to go before the first media trucks arrived. Now, as the news crews clustered respectfully behind the tape barrier that separated them from the vigil, she prepared for her first interview. She checked her appearance in the door mirror of a police cruiser and went through the questions she would provide the correspondent, running down the list with a critical finger.
She peered over the paper at the drama she had orchestrated.
At every possible point that Rebecca might eventually emerge out of the New Sinai woods, the residents of Damascus Teenage Retreat were stationed. She’d managed to conscript dozens of the boys from Prodigal Sons as well. By camera time, most of the signs and posters for the makeshift vigil had already been finished. They were now held aloft, their words broadcast through all the major networks.
Praying for you, Rebecca!
You are not alone.
Rebecca, come home!
And, most importantly: Rebecca, you are not forgotten.
“Not” was in bold as well as capitals. It was by no design of Angel Island, nor by any of the Second Salvations community, that the children who were taken there came to be known as the “Forgottens.” It was another casualty of unregulated Internet chaos, a term that had randomly taken hold ten years ago or so.
It tainted their image, even though everyone knew the vast majority of the so-called “Forgottens” had nowhere else to go. It conjured fear, when what ought to make people afraid was the prospect of so many kids let loose on the street without guidance.
For the most part, people were appreciative. They were doing the Lord’s work, and on a nonprofit basis at that. But there were some—a statistically insignificant number, it must be said—for whom the term “Forgottens” led their estimations of Second Salvations camps dangerously close to the truth.
I will turn this story, she said to herself over and over again. This will be the best thing that has happened to us in years.
For the next several hours, the kids who were holding signs—carefully chosen from among the crowd, and just as carefully prepped—would talk to the cameras. At night, if she should stay in the woods for so long, there would be candles for Rebecca and her parents. And all throughout, there would be prayers and the singing of hymns. The cameras would not see Rebecca herself until she gave up, though it would have been easy to show her. It might even be a good move to show her without seizing her, making a grand display of Angel Island’s benevolence.
But there was inside work too. DC was handling that. Poor little Rebecca had no idea what was in store for her if she should make them wait beyond nightfall.
It started to rain.
Excellent.
When the people saw Rebecca’s friends holding vigil even in the rain—oh, Ruth could not have planned it any better. It would also probably shorten the length of time before Rebecca’s inevitable surrender. And that was good too. There was work that needed doing back home. The Ceremony of the Lamb was coming up.
Ruth looked over the posters that showed Rebecca’s innocent, pretty face.
And you, child, will have a front row seat for that.
****
Even on the hard earth, Rebecca slept through the day and through the rain. She lay on her side, injury exposed to the falling water. By noon the downpour became a deluge that produced streamlets rippling downhill the way she had come. At three o’clock, when she was sleeping in a pond an inch deep, she turned over onto her back. It was ninety degrees, and yet she trembled and twitched.
Three miles away, under a tent that served as operations control, a Masada police lieutenant and two doctors monitored her vitals and watched her via satellite feed. Her fever had reached 103. Her ear, now washed clean of the blood, was brick-colored and swollen. The flesh surrounding it had gone a mottled pink. If the infection spread any further, if her temperature went up one more degree, the doctors would override Mrs. Black and insist on her rescue.
At four o’clock, though, it dropped to 102. In her sleep she seemed to be keeping her mouth open on purpose and drinking the rainwater.
As the sun began to set behind the darkening curtain of dirty-gray sky, as the rain finally relented, her temperature was 101.
She woke and sat up.
****
If she had dreamed, she did not remember it.
At first she was simply astonished she had not been discovered yet. Secondly, she noticed a new night had fallen, moonless. Dim silver clouds and flittering lightning bugs did little to help her get her bearings. The brightest light came from her watch.
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