Addicted to the Light

by S. E. Amadis

“Yes, you’re right, Cal. We’re going to kidnap her.”

  PART II

  Chapter 17

  For a week I staked out in front of the Green Thumb Restaurant in Niagara Falls. I neglected my potential new clients. I neglected all attempts at sales or promotion. I neglected everything related to my business and only spent my hours sitting on a bench on the sidewalk, straining my vision to see who came to man the restaurant.

  Every day I observed Tikvah, the girl who had originally served us, arriving in the van with a young man whom I didn’t know, although he seemed vaguely familiar from the gatherings. I suspected maybe it was possible other people were also hidden in the back of the van, but I couldn’t be sure.

  One time I hopped off my bench and prowled in the trees surrounding the restaurant so I could spy on the restaurant’s parking space to see who emerged from the van in addition to Tikvah and the young man. As I suspected, someone else did step out from the back of the van, but it wasn’t Lindsay. Rather, they were accompanied by one of the older fellows. I had occasionally noticed this middle-aged individual with bulky muscles and the swarthy, unshaved complexion of a North African accompanying Chaya, and I’d assumed that it must have been her husband.

  He would hold both his arms out around Tikvah and the young man zealously and herd them towards the door of the restaurant, as if there existed even the slightest danger that one of them might try and bolt for it.

  Of course, neither of them ever showed the least amount of interest in attempting to escape.

  After that, he’d secrete himself in the back of the restaurant. The patrons never saw him, but I knew that Tikvah and the young man knew that he was there, keeping tabs on them.

  Even if they’d wanted to run, they wouldn’t have been able to.

  I spent a fortune in bus fares, money I knew it would have been wiser to invest in my business instead of in this hare-brained plan. But I didn’t feel like I had any choice. I couldn’t just give up on Lindsay.

  After a week, I reached the conclusion that maybe they only allowed trusted members, who they knew wouldn’t try to flee, to leave the community to run their businesses. And obviously, they didn’t consider Lindsay a trusted member yet.

  On Friday I decided that this whole jimbaloo had all been nothing but a waste of time. I’d got absolutely nowhere and nothing out of it. There must be some other situations where they would allow Lindsay to get out. They couldn’t possibly keep her sequestered on their grounds all the time, could they?

  And wouldn’t Lindsay have been bored if she never left? Wouldn’t she start asking for the occasion to get out and see new sights?

  I finally remembered that they’d also said something about frequenting farmers’ markets. I asked around at tourist offices to find out about farmers’ markets in the region, and on Monday I changed tactics and decided to drop by a different one every day. Now it was early fall and harvest season, there was a profusion of markets in nearly all the nearby towns.

  I wandered through a few markets, trying to catch at least a couple every day even though it meant spending more time on buses than actually walking about on the ground.

  Finally, in the village of Lennox — population four hundred including the cows, as I recalled someone once disparagingly qualifying this place — I came across a stall with the letters “Heart of Christ” painted in tiny red letters on the corner of an enormous wooden sign. The main headline was “Fresh, Ecological, Organically Grown Produce Prepared by Our Very Own Hands — No Chemicals, Insecticides or Fungicides Used”.

  The day I discovered it, which was Wednesday, there was no one there. I returned on Thursday. That morning I took note that it was Yosef accompanied by Eliya and Devrah who sat at the stall. They stayed there the whole day, then left in the afternoon in a battered, tan-coloured van.

  I went there again on Friday and once again observed the same threesome manning the stall.

  At that point I realized that chances were, they never let Lindsay leave the grounds after all. She still had to prove herself. Win their trust. They had to be sure that she’d lost all desire to return to her former life and that all nostalgia had abandoned her.

  Suddenly, unexpectedly, I came to the logical conclusion that I probably couldn’t go it alone. Perhaps it should have been obvious, but it simply had never occurred to me before. I felt I had no choice but to pull Grant into my mad scheme.

  *

  We met up for coffee again on Friday.

  His eyes nearly plopped out of his sockets when I described what I had been up to and explained what I planned to do. His hands began to shake as he fingered his coffee mug.

  “Annasuya, do you have an unrequited desire to experience life in jail or what?” he exclaimed, his fingers still shaking. “Because the last time I checked, kidnapping a fully grown, non-consenting adult was still a crime.”

  “We’re not going to kidnap her.” I tried to sound reasonable. “Just talk to her and try to convince her to come with us.”

  “From what I heard, the last time you tried to talk her into coming with you it didn’t work.”

  I stirred at my coffee too, my hands firmer than Grant’s.

  “Yes, well. Maybe once she sees all that we’ve been willing to go through to get her back, she’ll realize how much she really means to us, and she’ll change her mind. So...” I stared directly at Grant. “Are you in?”

  I noticed the muscles of Grant’s jaw working away.

  “Don’t you care about her? You were a couple, once. Besides which, like I said, we’re not actually going to grab her by force or anything. Just talk to her.”

  Grant nodded at last, although I could tell he was still sceptical.

  “We’ll go this weekend,” I said. “In addition, just so happens Calvin has another working marathon, so he’ll be spending the whole weekend at the office. He won’t even have to know anything about this. It’s like it’s bashert. That’s what my mother always used to say. It means, like a sign from heaven. Like God is helping you out in something.”

  “You’re not telling Calvin? You’re planning on doing all this behind his back?”

  I nodded.

  “Well, I thought you were a couple. One with no secrets, I mean.”

  I stirred my coffee vehemently.

  “I’m not planning on keeping mum about it forever,” I protested. “Once we actually succeed in getting Lindsay away, I’m going to tell him.”

  Grant swayed his head thoughtfully.

  “The only problem is,” I added after a minute, “we’re going to have to bring Romeo with us.”

  “What?” Grant nearly shrieked. “We can’t drag a child with us. Do you know how dangerous this is, Annasuya?”

  I gazed into my coffee.

  “Well, I can’t leave him alone all weekend either. And we don’t know how long we’ll be gone.”

  I gazed directly at Grant.

  “Don’t forget there’s still a madman by the name of Hugh loose out there, and he knows where I live.”

  I jabbed my spoon into my coffee.

  Grant studied his own drink morosely, appeared to mull it over.

  “Well, I do suppose it’s the lesser of two evils,” he conceded at last, grudgingly. “And I suppose if you’re not planning on actually using violence, maybe he will indeed be safer with us than in Hugh’s hands.”

  I beamed at him.

  “Of course,” I said brightly, as if it were obvious.

  We prepared to set out bright and early Saturday morning, as soon as Calvin left for the office.

  “How’re we gonna go somewhere without telling Cal?” Romeo muttered, protesting. “We always tell Cal everything.”

  “Look, guppy. I’m not trying to teach you to be sneaky and dishonest,” I explained. “We will tell Calvin. It’s just that... we’ll only tell him after we’ve succeeded.”

  “Succeeded in what? In making Lindsay come with us?”

  “That’s right.”

  Rome
o rubbed at his chin.

  “So, what you mean is, we should only tell people that we’re going to do something if we’re successful at it?” Romeo reasoned slowly. “And if we fail, we shouldn’t tell anyone about it?”

  I sighed. Sometimes it seemed the world of adults was inordinately complicated and difficult to explain.

  *

  Grant rang at the doorbell, dressed in black from top to toe. He stared in dismay at my colourful peasant skirt and flowery blouse.

  “What’s up? You trying to be one of them or something?”

  I glanced down at my unlikely outfit.

  “Thought it would fit in more.”

  “We’re going there to get Lindsay back. No one’s going to see you. Or at least, they shouldn’t. Get into something black like me.” He pointed at Romeo. “And put something black on him too.”

  Romeo scowled.

  “Jeez, Grant. We’re not going to a funeral,” he protested.

  But he let me fit him out in dark jeans and a black T-shirt. A navy windbreaker completed his camouflage.

  “He doesn’t have anything black. I’m against black for kids,” I explained when I saw Grant surveying Romeo’s disguise dubiously.

  “Well, just hope that doesn’t catch anyone’s attention in the woods,” he said at last.

  I slipped into dark jeans and a black shirt. Then I remembered my camo jacket. Grant glanced over it as I dragged it from the back of my closet.

  “This’ll do. And do you have a sweater? We’ll need it to throw it over the barbed wire fence.”

  “Yeah. A white one.” I glared at him. “What barbed wire fence?”

  He arched his eyebrows at me in surprise.

  “The one that surrounds their property, of course. They must have one... Don’t they?”

  He stared at me, doubt apparently starting to cross his mind.

  “I didn’t notice any when I was there.” I was relieved for once to know more than him. “I think they didn’t feel the need for one. They were so isolated in the woods, far away from civilization.”

  Grant shrugged.

  “Well, I’d recommend you bring one anyway. You never know...”

  Romeo, more practical than me in many situations, pulled a dark sweatshirt from my drawer.

  “Will this do, Grant?”

  Grant smiled at him indulgently.

  “Your kid’s got a sharp head on his shoulders,” he remarked.

  I slipped into my jacket, hauled my handbag over my shoulder and draped the sweatshirt over my arm.

  “Are we missing anything? I feel like we’re headed out to war instead of just to chat with my best friend.” I grumbled.

  “To chat with your best friend? Ha.” Grant guffawed towards the floor. “The understatement of the year. You forgot to mention that your best friend’s practically sequestered in a remote community in the middle of an almost unnavigable forest, surrounded by goons who never let her out of sight for even one minute. And she doesn’t even want to chat with you, to boot.”

  We climbed into Grant’s car and drove off towards the town. But once we got there, we were stumped: we didn’t know the way through the thick and winding forest.

  Chapter 18

  “I took it for granted you would’ve thought your way through these insignificant little details before we left,” Grant complained.

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, of course. You’re the only one who’s ever been there. I didn’t tag along. Remember?”

  I glared at him.

  “Besides which, you’re the one mapping out the logistics, aren’t you?”

  “The what?”

  “You’re the one making all the plans. I’m just here for the ride. Remember?”

  “Weeell,” I started, a bit stymied. “There was a trail. I do remember that... Why don’t we just start off on that trail, and then we’ll see what comes up.”

  “Look.” Romeo waved my mobile at me.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  Romeo flashed the screen at me.

  “It’s a satellite photo, of course,” he said. “From Google.”

  We all peered over his shoulder at him. There before us, as clear as day, paraded the layout of the forest as well as the road through it and even the outline of the community, with the immense mansion perched at the top of the hill and the various trailers scattered across the land. The mansion appeared the same, but there seemed to be less trailers than I remembered.

  “Well, this is a photo from a few months back,” Grant reasoned. He chuckled. “Can’t hide anything these days from ole CIA and Telesat or whatever they’re called there. So they’re not exactly as well hidden or undetectable as they think.”

  Romeo studied the map meticulously, then began to call out detailed instructions to Grant. Grant eased his car onto the trail, squinting through the sudden gloom, and tried to follow Romeo’s instructions to the letter.

  Other tracks branched off in different directions, many of them looking well-used even though this seemed such a remote region.

  “I thought no one else ever came this way,” I mumbled.

  “Hunters, maybe... Or maybe summer homes...”

  Without knowing the way, it took us a lot longer to cross the several kilometres or so that separated the town from the community than it had taken Lindsay and Tikvah. At last we glimpsed the clearing. Grant pulled his car behind some bushes and brambles and patted Romeo on the head like a puppy. Romeo shied away.

  “You’re way better than any GPS, champ,” Grant said.

  We circled around the vast enclosure on foot. I pointed out the main structures to Grant: the mansion, the trailers, the outhouse. The immense acres of cultivated ground and crop land.

  As I’d suspected, there weren’t any fences of any sort.

  “How do they expect to keep members in, or unwanted visitors out, if there’s no fence?” Grant whispered.

  “It’s so remote and far away from anyone that I doubt they have a lot of problems with unwanted visitors.”

  We checked out Lindsay’s trailer, located near the centre of their farmland. I indicated where the water hose was as well. That would be where Lindsay would go to brush her teeth at night.

  “They might send her out to work in the fields sometime,” I whispered. “But she probably wouldn’t be alone.”

  We settled on the ground and waited. Grant groaned.

  “This makes me feel like some sort of PI on a stakeout,” he said. “Glad I’m going to be a nurse.”

  I giggled softly.

  The sun was burning brightly in the sky before we saw Lindsay leave the main lodge and skip down the staircase towards the fields. Grant and I both sat bolt upright. Lindsay walked to her trailer, then stepped out with toothbrush in hand. We glanced around. Several members were working in the fields surrounding the water hose. There was no way we would be able to get to her at the moment.

  She finished brushing her teeth, then returned to her trailer and remained inside. The girl from the restaurant, Tikvah, hopped out of Lindsay’s trailer and dashed to one of the vans parked near the entrance to the enclosure. She was soon joined by the two men who tended to the restaurant every day. They got into the van and drove off. We cringed and breathed a sigh of relief when they didn’t slow down as they passed Grant’s concealed car.

  We waited for Lindsay all morning. Grant tapped me on the shoulder.

  “Maybe you had the right idea after all, about dressing up like these people,” he hissed into my ear. “If we were dressed like them, maybe we could have walked right across the fields and gone up to Lindsay’s trailer to speak to her without attracting attention.” He waved at the workers in the fields. “Do you think they’re far enough away that they wouldn’t realize we’re not one of them?”

  I shook my head.

  “I’m sure they would’ve been aware right away if some unfamiliar figures started crossing the fields. I have no doubt that even if they can’t see our faces, they would
realize that we’re not members of the community. There are few enough of them that I’m sure they could identify every member from a distance, even without seeing their faces.”

  Grant studied me carefully.

  “You know, if you wore a blonde wig, you could probably pass for that girl that got in the van, from a distance,” he remarked. “That’s an idea. Maybe we could do that tomorrow. Wait for that bunch to leave in the van, then you could put on the wig and walk across the fields dressed like that girl and go to talk to Lindsay.”

  “How are we going to know what that girl’s going to wear tomorrow? Let alone just happen to have a similar outfit by chance? And how would we explain that she’s here if her van isn’t?”

  Grant shrugged.

  “Dumb idea,” he said.

  He pondered some more.

  “How about at night?” he said. “Maybe you could wear that silly peasant outfit you were wearing this morning, and go to Lindsay’s trailer to speak to her once the sun sets. No one would be able to see you clearly, and they’d think you were that girl, who obviously shares the trailer with Lindsay.”

  “And what would I do once I got there and Tikvah is already there?”

  “Well, tell her to shut the hell up, for example. Tell her not to raise the alarm. That you’re Lindsay’s friend and you only want to have a word with Lindsay.” He tried to make his voice sound reasonable.

  I butted my shoulder against him.

  “Yeah, right. What would you do if all of a sudden some stranger showed up in your bedroom in the middle of the night? Would you just hang around to listen to reason and explanations?”

  Grant spread his hands out helplessly.

  “Well, I was only trying to be damn useful,” he said.

  Lindsay emerged from her trailer at lunchtime, but she merely limited herself to walking back to the main lodge. In the afternoon she didn’t show up at all. Tikvah and her companions returned from the restaurant and whisked themselves away into the main house as well.

  Then Grant had a brainstorm.