Before leaving, Rebecca approached the Tally Board for a better look. Caroline and Daniel stood by her. Each column was twenty names high; each completed row was forty-two names long.
There are eight hundred and forty-three of us, Rebecca thought. Holy freakin’ cow.
“There,” Caroline said and pointed.
High up and on the far right they found their own names, the very farthest from the Absolution acronym that listed the categories. A single horizontal purple line shimmered under Rags. Three stark crimson ones underlined Faust.
“You have to be careful,” Caroline breathed.
Rebecca wasn’t entirely sure which one of them she was talking to.
Other kids had numbers and days under their names: Madre 435 Days, Colt 18 Days, Kit 98 Days, Dove 1 Day…
Rebecca assumed the number of days indicated how long they had gone tally-free.
The Threshers were the only ones whose nameplates weren’t black. They were azure blue, the letters of their names gold. Rebecca understood why, in a nonspecific way, before Caroline explained in detail.
“They made it five hundred days. That’s why they’re Threshers.”
Rebecca stole another glance at the rulebook in her hand and raised her eyebrows. “How much of that thing have you read?”
“Some highlights,” she answered simply. “You were taking forever, you know.”
Two of the nameplates, Merci and Gnash, were upside-down. They’d gone over the limit and would be punished for it tonight.
Dread enveloped them like a swelling fog. Caroline said, “You have to be good, Faust.”
“Yeah,” he said. His eyes were blank. “I know.”
“We know how,” Caroline assured him. “We’ll help you.”
“You can help me,” he said, pointing to her nameplate, then pointed to Rebecca’s. “Jury’s out on you, though.”
Rebecca shouldered him with a snort. “Shut it.”
“Merci,” he read. “That one I get. Gnash, though—how do you get a nickname like that? Must have lost a bet or something.”
The boy by the entrance, the one with the sunglasses, spoke. “It’s biblical. As in, ‘weeping and gnashing of teeth.’ Gnash has a semipermanent retainer. Poor family, don’t you know. The dentist only visits the island three times a year, and that’s not nearly enough to work in every kid. He only does cleaning too—no surgery except for emergencies.”
Daniel walked over to him. “Faust,” he introduced himself, holding out his hand. “Day One.”
The boy neither looked up nor moved. “I was waiting,” he said. “It’s actually Gnash’s turn to help me back to my cabin today. But he’s not exactly available right now, and no one thought to replace him.”
Instantly Rebecca felt both callous and stupid. She and Caroline both hurried over to Faust, who was already guiding the boy to his feet. They saw he had a plain metal cane with a rubber-encased handle, which Rebecca put in his hand.
The boy actually laughed. “I get around all right. Short distances. I can get from the food line to this spot no problem—and I’m nearly as good in my cabin as anyone else. It’s just a little far, is all, and I’ve only been here two weeks. Really, I don’t need all three of you. Just one. I can walk.”
Daniel introduced the girls by their Angel Island names, then said, “I’ve got you. We might even have the same cabin, anyway.”
Fair chance, Rebecca thought. They were both red shirts, after all.
“People call me Vex. Creative of them, huh? I was actually hoping they would call me ‘Shades’ when Mom and Dad signed me up. No such luck.”
****
There was an awkward moment just after Daniel led Vex from the mess hall.
It was almost seven thirty—half an hour until church. Through the open doors, Rebecca looked out over the quad. And even though kids and a fair assortment of grownups milled about nearly everywhere, the stretch of ground before the clock tower where she had kicked mulch over her key ring remained deserted.
If someone found it before she could recover it—she was in that picture. She was going to pay for it big time if she didn’t get the thing back soon.
“Let’s go see our cabin,” Caroline said eagerly. “Think it’ll be as nice as the dorm at DTR? We’ll probably get a chance to meet some more people too.”
“Go ahead,” Rebecca said. “I need to walk for a minute. I’ll catch up.”
She had not told Caroline about the key ring yet, and she didn’t plan to any time soon. It wasn’t that she distrusted Caroline. The key ring was her own personal secret—no one else’s—and … well, if it was gone, Caroline would panic.
Caroline’s eyes showed traces of hurt feelings.
“Really,” Rebecca said. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Caroline said, “Okay,” and trotted off with an unconvincing shrug.
Rebecca’s heart fluttered as Caroline disappeared into the flow of kids on the quad of Angel Island. No guilt. None of that. You have to do this. Now. She battled the feeling away with cold thinking, with information:
This is where the sun would be at DTR at seven thirty in the morning too. The exact same place. Not higher, not lower. I’m still on the East Coast.
But it wasn’t just guilt that was creeping up on her as she moved anonymously among her peers. Nor was it only her fear of being caught. Both of those things were there, as much as she tried to keep them down, but there was something else. Something she had been fighting down much longer, consciously and unconsciously—a thing she had managed to keep at bay while she had run from one side of the mountain to the other. A thing she had denied on the helicopter, on the back of the skimmer-ski. A thing that had grown within her, that would not be denied forever, as she had cleaned up and learned a few of the basics at the orientation station. It was a monster, and it would have her, sooner or later.
She passed younger kids playing kickball, and older ones moving in packs, gossiping. A four-square game. A crowd encircling two girls playing acoustic guitars and singing.
Later, she said to herself again, standing over the place she had hidden the key ring. Later.
Casually she kicked the mulch aside. She looked around.
Her key ring was gone.
Caroline and Daniel were lost to sight.
Her parents were gone.
Right there, under the full morning sun and in the middle of the quad, the monster finally won. The grief struck her suddenly. She sat and cried in plain view of anyone who cared to look.
Chapter Twenty
Settling
At that very moment, the music started, even as the clock tower struck the half hour before services were to begin. It came from the perimeter towers, Rebecca guessed, since it sounded as though it was coming from everywhere—a synthesized remix of “The Old Rugged Cross,” her mother’s favorite hymn. Mom would have hated what Mandy Brighton, the little pop diva, was doing with it now.
A laugh choked through her sobs, but the tears would not stop.
Go to the cabin. Hang out with Caroline until you calm down.
Her cabin assignment was 12D, which was supposed to be the second one on the left, on Bethlehem Street. Wherever on Earth that was. But it would not take her long to find it. She had her father’s better-than-average sense of direction.
Before she could, she felt herself being eased to her feet from behind. She turned and found herself facing Magda. Of everyone who might have come forward, of course it would have to be one of the Threshers.
Magda squeezed her shoulder. She was crying too.
Rebecca found herself unexpectedly saying, “You okay?” She wiped her own face, hitching a breath.
Magda smiled. “I’m crying because you’re crying, dummy,” she said with an ironic giggle. “What’s the matter? Can’t find your way around?”
Oh yeah, she thought. That’s totally it. Rebecca shook her head. “I’m not usually like this. Missing home, I guess. It just sort of hit me when I was
n’t ready for it.”
She realized a crowd had silently gathered around them, boys and girls in every shirt color on the list. Most wore benevolent and sympathetic smiles. Magda, comforting the latest helpless little serf. The thought hardened Rebecca, stopping her crying.
Magda hugged her anyway, making rather a show of it.
Game time, girl. You have to play. You can get a point or two here. Rebecca hugged her back. “Thank you, Magda,” she said quietly, but not too quietly.
When “The Old Rugged Cross” ended, a deejay came on. Rebecca knew the voice.
“Happy Sunday, New America! You’ve just been uplifted by Mandy Brighton here on 106.8—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, 24/7! You’ve got Laurie Mackinson this a.m. till noon, and thanks for swimming with the Big Fish…”
The Big Fish, 106.8. The bane of her mother’s a cappella existence, playing everywhere, nationwide. Even here.
I wonder if there’s a two-way radio anywhere on this island. Bet the grownups have cell phones. They have to have a way of getting in touch with the real world.
She wondered who had found her key ring.
I am so dead.
Everyone she saw looked so … with the program. They’d turn it in to a counselor or Mrs. Black or the Reverend for sure. No amount of points would save her, then.
“Come on,” Magda said. “Let’s find your cabin, get you some company for church.”
She didn’t bother saying she’d have Caroline for that. She allowed herself to be led, knowing it was expected of her. And it was easier than finding her way on her own.
****
This’ll be crowded, Caroline thought.
Cabin 12D, Bethlehem Street, housed three blue-shirted campers and a Thresher. Their names were listed outside on thin planks of wood affixed to the entry door: Gab, Rags, Wren, and Philis.
That’s my name now. Might as well get used to it.
She’d gotten off easier than Rebecca had as it pertained to names. “Wren” had a nice sound to it, made a nice picture. She might even like it.
Philis would be in charge of things. Also, she had the only bed that actually looked worth sleeping in. She had her own room, whereas Caroline and her roommates would share a triple bunk along one wooden wall in the common area. She supposed she should feel lucky, having such proximity to an actual Thresher. Who better to help a new kid like her? Like Rebecca?
Like Rags. And I’m a “serf,” not a new kid.
Apart from Philis’s room, the bathroom, and the common area, there wasn’t much to the place. Four dressers, the bunk wall, and a single small table with chairs accounted for all of the furniture. There weren’t even individual desks for after-class schoolwork. Instead, Philis told her, there was the “Pasture,” a hillside study area with picnic benches for that kind of thing. If it rained, there were tents. If it stormed, they might be given the occasional reprieve from homework.
After-class schoolwork. You won’t have “home” work ever again. You’re here until college.
She sat on the lowest mattress without knowing if this one would be hers or not and tested it by bobbing up and down, finding it more than a little stiff.
Whoever Gab was, she was outside somewhere. She was probably hanging out with friends. Probably gabbing, at least until services. Caroline was alone with Philis.
“Do you like it here?” she asked.
“I love it here,” Philis said, running a cloth over seemingly random surfaces, looking for dust. Word was, this particular cabin setup was a whole new arrangement. Several assignments had been reordered this morning. Philis had called it a “scramble” and said it happened every month or so.
“Don’t you miss your family? Your old friends?”
“We don’t think about that. It’s against the rules to dwell on old life stuff like that. Anyway, I’ve been here a long time. Five years this September.”
Caroline’s jaw dropped. “How old are you?”
“Seventeen.”
She’d been here five years?
“Got in a lot of trouble the first two years I was here,” she said, almost sounding wistful. “It took me some time to adjust. You’ll get used to it, Wren. We all do, sooner or later.”
Caroline supposed that was true.
“You’ve spoken to a counselor,” Philis said, now facing her, looking down on her. “And Wendy Scruggs, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Then you already know,” Philis said. “Better sooner than later, for you.”
The door opened and Rebecca entered, leaving Magda at the door. She looked terrible, like she’d been crying. Caroline had never seen Rebecca like that. As bad as things had been for her, Rebecca was … well, kind of like a well from which Caroline had been drawing most of her own courage.
No. Not Rebecca.
“Hi, Rags,” she said. “Done walking?”
Rebecca noted the presence of Philis, even as Magda wordlessly departed back to the quad. “Yeah,” she said, her voice croaky. “Sorry about that. Wren.”
****
Daniel soon learned that he did not, in fact, share a cabin with Vex. They passed his cabin on the way, though. He saw his Angel Island name affixed to the door of 8C Revelation Lane and briefly stopped. There were other sliding wooden name plates under his. Rivers, Skip, and…
Asher. You must be kidding. Damn it all.
“Lost already?” Vex asked.
“No,” Daniel said. “Just found myself, actually. Come on.”
“You know,” Vex said, as his own cabin at 10C came into view, “we have morning services in, like, twenty minutes.” He snickered. “You’re going to end up walking me right back to the quad as soon as we get there. Stupid of me. Sorry.”
“It’s cool. Figured you had a bible you needed to pick up or something.”
Daniel was still carrying the small sack of his possessions, which included his own New Testament. He supposed he’d want to drop off the rest of his things before church started and probably say hi to his new roommates. He hoped Asher wouldn’t be there.
“If I had a bible,” said Vex, “it would be as big as a desk and weigh three hundred pounds. They do manage to get me my required readings in braille, though. Very thoughtful of them.”
“They?”
“He, actually. Charlie. We call him the Ferryman. He brings in all kinds of things.”
“Well,” Daniel said, guiding Vex up the steps by the arm, “I’m two cabins down from you. Now we know where we both are. Practically next-door neighbors.”
Once inside, Vex eased himself from Daniel’s grasp and tapped around with the cane. “I’ve got it, now. Thanks, man. There was a cabin scramble this morning, but they didn’t move me. I don’t think they’ll ever move me.” He sat himself in a chair at the table. “On the way back, let me try to go on my own—see how many times you have to keep me from bumping into trees and stuff.”
Daniel had to suppress a guilty laugh. “Trust me that much already, do you?”
“I have a nose for my own,” he said simply. “Stick with me, help me around a little, and I’ll do my best to teach you how not to be maimed or killed around here. I mean, I’m still kind of new here, but I know a lot more than you do.”
Do you know enough to help me find out about my mom?
“Fair deal,” he said. “What’s the first thing I should know?”
“Today’s Communion Sunday,” Vex said. “We have it once a month, just like everyone. You have to take it and not fake it. You have to be born again right away, even if you’ve never done it before.”
“What makes you think I’ve never done it?”
“They’ll lead you through it,” Vex said, unfazed. “No worries. It’ll be good. You just got to kind of, you know, let the Spirit take you. Be into it.”
“Are you?” Daniel said. “Into it, I mean. Or do you fake it?”
“Me? Fake it? My good man, I would not dare.”
I have three tallies, Daniel thought. And it’s o
nly Sunday morning.
“Oh—and you should know, since no one else will have the time to warn you…”
“What?”
“The communion wine,” Vex said, his blind eyes blinking behind his lenses. “It isn’t wine, Faust.”
Daniel took a moment to process that.
“Try not to act too surprised when you drink it.”
****
“It’s lamb’s blood,” Philis said. “Until it becomes the blood of our Lord and Savior.”
Rebecca took that in. She and Caroline both studied Philis, aghast. Finally Rebecca asked, “Is this a joke? Some kind of initiation scare for … serfs?” She allowed herself a nervous laugh, which Caroline joined in.
She had seen people drink cow’s blood on reality TV shows. On Survival: Leap of Faith, it had been one of the traditional late-season challenges. And the pink part in an ordinary steak, that was blood. She told herself it wasn’t a big deal.
“After church,” Philis went on, “I’ll show you where I keep the lambs. I do the blood-drawing Saturday nights with some help from the younger campers. We actually separate the whole blood into its recyclable parts right there and pack it all into coolers. There’s a whole crew that has to get up early on Sunday to take it out of thermal stasis and get it all ready—not sure how that works, though. They must use blood-thinners or something to keep it from getting all crusty. Anyway, it’ll be lamb chops on the table for supper tonight—really, really good, if you’ve never had it before.”
“I’ve had mutton,” Caroline said quietly, as though unsure of herself. “But never baby lamb.”
“Huge difference,” Philis said with a grin. “You’ll love it. I promise.”
Play the game. Don’t freak out.
Philis seemed to clue into Rebecca’s thoughts. “It’s all purified and treated. Totally healthy. Remember, once you’ve got it down, it’s the blood of our Lord.”
The Salvation State Page 23