She started to sit up.
Gently but irresistibly, Magda pushed her back down, repositioned her head, and sought another patch of hair that she could stretch out far enough to chop.
As each blow landed, as Rebecca progressed from “daily bread” to “trespasses,” the amount of hair Magda could offer Asher and his hatchet grew steadily less and less—and the hatchet came closer and closer to her head.
Finally, well after Rebecca had finished praying, Asher said, “That’s it. Some of my best work, though, I think—what with all the mud and gunk.”
Laughter.
“I so need to wash my hands,” said Magda.
Rebecca didn’t even wonder what she looked like anymore. She was just thankful it was over. Trembling, she somehow found her feet.
“Next,” Asher called cheerfully.
Nero and Philis eased Faust onto his back.
Mrs. Black and DC left them to it. Moments later, they were in the long black motorboat, buckling in. By the time Asher had begun the slightly more delicate operation of shortening Faust’s hair, the grownups were gone, leaving Rebecca, Caroline, and Faust completely in the hands of the Threshers.
Chapter Eighteen
Baptism
“Well, now,” Asher said, after helping Caroline stand back up. She swayed and he steadied her. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“Happens to us all.” Magda smiled softly. Affecting an older voice, she said, “We go to holy ground in humility, with our feet unclad.”
Philis added, “Like Moses, only we have electricity and stuff.”
Rebecca looked them over, with their neatly groomed long hair and their comfortable clothes. Then she regarded Caroline, scared beyond tears, her curly brown locks reduced to a patchy brown mess that resembled a swimming cap. And Faust, who sat unspeaking with his head between his knees. If the Threshers had ever had this happen to them, then they must have been here a good while—not only to have grown their hair back, but also to have acquired such a casual disregard about performing the ritual on others.
If they’d ever let me just wash up, I was going to wear my hair over my stupid elf ear.
Which, she noticed, was starting to tingle again.
“I guess you don’t believe in scissors,” she said, and was surprised by the good-natured laughter she received in return. It was an oddly inviting sound, not derisive at all. She supposed they were used this sort of complaint and honestly found it amusing.
“Not for this, anyway,” Asher said, then returned his attention to Caroline. “You going to be okay if I let go, Wren?”
Her name is Caroline, Rebecca wanted to say, but she knew better than to give in to the temptation.
“Yes, sir.”
“No,” Asher replied, stepping back cautiously. “Save the ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’ for the counselors and Mrs. Black. Also, calling the Reverend anything other than ‘Reverend’ is a red tally right out of the gate. Remember that. But we call each other by name, Wren. Got it?”
“Yes, Asher. Thank you.”
“You’re going to fit right in. I can tell. Brace yourself, though. This next part … well, you might not like it. At first.”
As they spoke, Rebecca saw the others had gotten to work. They’d emptied the burlap sack and were assembling its contents. They separated out three thick, sturdy poles and three shorter crossbeams. The poles had blocks of wood fixed near the base—or near the top, depending on how you looked at it—and they were looping leather cords to either end of each crossbeam.
The blocks were triangles with right angles, creating a perfect…
Footrest. Oh hell no.
Faust ran for it. Rebecca had not even noticed the moment when he’d brought his head up. The Threshers, however, had been more observant.
Nero and Drab abandoned their cross and pounced on him. For the most fleeting of instants, Rebecca was tempted to run too—but no, the Threshers had been ready. Drab held Faust facedown in the dirt while Nero drew out an object from his pants pocket.
Faust had barely made it past the dock’s wooden entry steps. “Let me go!” he yelled, his voice gravelly with rage. “Freaks!”
A quick electric crackle—not quite as loud as the shock coils, and without the visible arc of lightning—and Faust lay silent. One of his legs kicked twice, and then he was still.
Dumb move. That was your devil’s half talking to you.
This time they made Faust the example for Rebecca and Caroline. His cross lay assembled, flat on the planks, next to one of the idling skimmer-skis. Nero and Drab, working together, hoisted him up and carried him. The Threshers worked fast. Faust was still drooling and his eyes were rolled over when they laid him down and spread his arms over the crossbeams. The leather straps secured both wrists, as well as his feet at the ankles. Faust started blinking even as they raised the cross with him on it.
The footrest was adjustable, and they slid it up until it allowed plenty of room for his knees to bend. There might be some discomfort, maybe even a little pain, but no real physical torture. No death. After Philis and Magda removed the tail flag from the skimmer-ski, Rebecca saw the slot in the raised aft section and could not fathom how it would support him.
This is blasphemy. This is a mockery of Jesus.
It took two of the Threshers to steady the boat and the other three—led by Asher, naturally—to successfully mount the cross. When it went in, the skis under the boat spread, the nose came up, and the back dipped into the water … and steadied itself, bobbing, with Faust’s feet less than half an inch submerged.
He was awake now, looking straight up, shaking his head in disbelief. “Goddamned freaks,” he muttered, not so quietly that it went unheard.
Asher said, “That’ll be three for taking the Lord’s name in vain. Before we’re even there. Probably shouldn’t open your mouth up too much, my friend. Not until you learn the rules.”
“Who’s next?” Drab asked, wiping sweat from his brow.
Before Rebecca could think it through and put herself forward, Caroline answered.
“Me. I don’t want to be last for everything.”
“Right!” Asher said, grinning. “Yes! That’s the spirit!”
Rebecca could not believe it, and yet there Caroline was, sitting down for them by one of the remaining crosses, letting them stretch her out. Perfectly calm. When she whispered, “A little higher, please,” as they were setting the footrest, they happily accommodated her. Her only other words, as they raised the cross with her firmly in place, were “Oh my gosh.” But she repeated it several times, squealing it more than once, until they had her cross in place on another skimmer-ski.
The terror that had been so omnipresent in her demeanor—through everything, leading up to this—took on a new aspect. She no longer looked afraid for her life or for her soul. Even the loss of family and freedom had been erased from her bearing, and she seemed, rather, as one who could not quite believe she’d just gotten on a roller coaster that she had been dreading.
Rebecca didn’t resist when they came for her. She cast her gaze at Faust and kept it there until he returned it. Of the three, she knew, she’d appear the most helpless, the most defeated, with her ragged clothes and the filth and the bandage on her ear.
He looked on her with unmistakable pity.
Good. If that’s what he saw, that’s probably what the Threshers saw. Rebecca winked at him as they laid her down. It isn’t time, Faust. We have to be smarter than we’re used to being. I know I do, anyway. We can’t win this game until we figure out how it’s played.
How they think it’s played.
Plus, if there proved to be a way to escape all this, Rebecca was not leaving without Caroline. It was her fault that Caroline was here. When the time came, they’d leave together or not at all.
“Get ready, Rags,” Philis said. “You’re about to go for a cruci-ride!”
“Baptism,” Asher corrected her. “Angel Island-style.”
“T
ry to have fun with it,” Magda said, squeezing her hand reassuringly, then looping a strap around her wrist.
Drab, at her feet, said, “If you feel the need to scream, feel free. They almost always do.”
“Know that from personal experience, I guess,” Rebecca said as he cinched her ankles tight.
At her other arm, Nero snickered. “I like this one. And you’re right, Rags. I think we all did.”
“Asher didn’t,” Philis groused, going to the skimmer-ski to get it ready with Magda.
Taking the crossbeam in two hands, kneeling, positioning himself, and waiting for the others to help, Asher said, “Just try not to scream anything bad, okay?”
****
Nothing bad, Rebecca thought as the skimmer-skis slowly glided past the pier in a horizontal line. That I can handle. Maybe.
Asher and Magda were on either side, their skimmer-skis unburdened by new arrivals. Faust was in the center—You’re the Jesus and we’re just the thieves, Rebecca could not help but think—with Nero piloting. Philis had Caroline. Drab had asked for Rebecca specifically.
There I go with my big mouth again. He’s going to scare me as bad as he can.
The skimmer-skis were actually quieter moving than idling. The water was much louder than their engines, and the Threshers could still speak easily to one another over the noise. As for the three riding astern, none of them said anything.
Rebecca trained her eyes ahead, hoping to catch a glimpse of the island. If it was close, maybe this would all be over soon. She wished she could see behind herself as well, see how far out they were from the piers, and make some eventual guess as to how far into the lake the island was.
She did quite enjoy the water running over her feet, clearing away the mud, cleaning her cuts, making her feet feel somehow whole again. Oh, she could get used to that. She decided to focus on that sensation.
Then, dramatically, Asher pointed forward with one hand.
The skis under the boats fanned out even farther. A hissing noise escaped them at the back.
There was some kind of propulsion system in the skis.
The back of Rebecca’s boat lifted again, raising both her and the aft engine clean out of the water, and the vehicle shot forward in a near-silent whoosh of unleashed power and speed.
Try to have fun with it, Magda had said.
Water on either side of her shot up in a continuous spray, misting her when the vehicle powered straight ahead, drenching her when he turned it left or right.
Peripherally, she saw Faust’s vehicle. His eyes were closed, his mouth clamped in a grimace. And there was Caroline, just for a second. She was screaming her head off.
Rebecca screamed with her, even as her wet rags rippled in the wind and the water spray cleansed her body. “The Lord is my shepherd!” she screamed. “I shall not want!” Distantly, and then instantly close, she unexpectedly heard Caroline answer.
“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures!” And then, receding just as quickly, she chanted, “Oh my gosh, my gosh, my gosh—”
Rebecca was cackling when, also unexpected, Drab chimed in from ahead of her.
“He leadeth me beside the still waters! Hold on, Rags!”
The skimmer-ski cut left. Rebecca was certain the tiny craft would capsize. She was nearly parallel with the surface of the lake; the left crossbeam actually grazed the surface. She was drenched, so gloriously drenched… When Drab righted the skimmer-ski, she felt as though she didn’t have even a smudge of mud left on her.
“He restoreth my soul!” she screamed, rapturously.
And again, Caroline. Rebecca could hardly hear her and she could not see her at all. “He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake! My gosh, my gosh, my—”
Asher came up alongside her and Drab and paced them. He held his right hand over his heart, still grasping the handle with his left. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil…”
From the other side now—Nero, piloting Faust, saluting Asher. “For Thou art with me!”
Now the others wanted in, and the recitation was impossible to coordinate. And so, totally out of time with each other, they all finished.
“Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me.”
And there, in the far distance, a new shoreline, with tall steel poles lining its perimeter.
“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.”
The skimmer-skis slowed and reformed their horizontal line.
“Thou annointest my head with oil.”
As land grew closer, Rebecca saw people there, waiting for them. Kids by the hundreds. The Forgottens.
“My cup runneth over.”
Many, she guessed, were smaller than her. Younger than her. She was still at least half a mile away, though. Too far away to be sure.
“Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.”
The masses jogged after them, following their progress, cheering. Only one figure never moved, a dark figure in sunglasses, blue jeans, and a black shirt with the cuffs rolled up.
“And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”
Through it all, to the very end of the ride, Faust never contributed.
Also, he never screamed.
Chapter Nineteen
Between the Lines of Red
At a guess, they were no more than an eighth of a mile from landfall when Asher banked sharply right, leading the procession of skimmer-skis away from the following crowd. The kids kept jogging after them but were soon lost to sight. Their calls and cheers faded and were gone.
It wasn’t until Asher’s party had left the campers behind and drew even closer to the island that Rebecca realized what the poles really were. Thin perpendicular lines, either steel wire or actual laser light, connected them in rows parallel to the ground. They pulsed, ever so faintly, in hues ranging from burnished gold to dull crimson.
The perimeter fence was at least twelve feet high, maybe more.
Pretty.
Beyond it, the buildings were mostly of the log-cabin variety. The paths between them were earthen and lined by stone upon either side. There were streetlamps also, just like at DTR, and wooden sign posts with names she could not make out. She caught sight of a long-haired young man riding what looked like a small dune buggy dragging a cart of vegetables. He had a rifle strapped across his back.
Outside the largest building, she saw two young women—also armed, but with pistols—raise the Christian flag with the New America flag running beneath it. The building had four wings that stretched out from its two-story central hall and then bent from either side like the arms of a crab. From behind, Rebecca could not see any windows or doors, but she could make out an aluminum entrance to what might have been a storage cellar—and also, high up, the arms of Jesus, who was facing away from them on the crucifix of its prominent steeple.
A “graven image.” Rebecca’s father would not have approved.
The sudden remembrance of him stung her. She hadn’t even had a good and proper cry over her parents yet. Not since leaving Miss Paula, anyway.
Not now, she said to herself, battling down fresh waves of guilt. There’ll be time later, when I’m off this stupid thing and by myself or with Caroline. I can cry then.
Once again running slow and silent, with only the soft sound of the spraying water to compete against, Asher called out, “That’s the main worship center and the classrooms. Boys in the west wing, girls in the east. The chapel looks more impressive up front. It’ll fill up soon.”
“That was just about everybody, back at the shore,” Philis said. “The greeting party is a tradition—just for the newcomers who aren’t adoptions. They turn off a fence section for that every Saturday, but you three are a day late.”
“Sometimes we get to swim there,” Drab said.
What’s an adoption? Rebecca wondered. And … what are we, then?
The worship cente
r and the classrooms passed behind them, out of sight.
The ground met water at a sharp bluff, not terribly high, but with jutting rocks at the bottom that the Threshers lazily wove around. Rebecca wanted to see if there were any points of easy access. She supposed there would have to be for the skimmer-skis at least. She hoped they would make a complete circuit of the island, giving her some idea of how big the whole thing was.
Those hopes were dashed when Magda said, “We’re almost there. Hang tight.”
Hang tight. Crucifixion humor. I get jokes.
Drab started to add something, but he stopped himself when the other fence came into view.
It was introduced by a subterranean rumble and grind, steadily growing, unfelt but easily heard. It was coming from in the water, off Rebecca’s right side, away from the island. She could not make it out until she saw the water break, a line that stretched either way as far as she could look. Even then, its rising structure was transparent, only detectable by the water that briefly ran along its surface, a rippling effect similar to what a person might see looking through the rising heat of a barbeque grill.
It shuddered into place with a bang and a hiss. The rippling effect faded until the wall became completely invisible.
“So, yeah,” Drab said. “Just in case you were wondering, you’re not going anywhere.”
And there, just ahead, was another docking pier. This one had long metal landing ramps that lowered into the water as they approached. The Threshers cut the engines entirely when they drew close. Drab lightly tapped some kind of hydraulic brake right before he and Rebecca glided up the ramp, stopping the ski neatly in its assigned place, just behind Asher and Magda. Philis and Nero parked on the other side.
Two adults were there to greet them, along with a company of five campers who helped the Threshers get them off the skimmer-skis. The kids laid them down fairly gently and finally unbound them. “Blessings of the Lord,” they said as Rebecca and Caroline came free.
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