by Megan Hart
That’s what the television said. All dead. Suicide. They made it sound so nasty, something terrible and shameful. They didn’t know anything about the family, she thought as the buildings outside the car window became empty fields, then trees. This was the road she’d stumbled down so early in the morning. Or maybe it was another one, so many places in this world, so many things to see, and she was still alive to see them all.
Josiah had been on the TV screen. A woman had been shoving a microphone toward him. His familiar face had been more than serious, grim even, but he’d looked out from the TV as though he could see Sunny right through it.
“Sunny, are you… We’ll be home soon. We’ll get you home.”
Liesel wasn’t taking Sunny home. Home was Sanctuary. Liesel was taking Sunny and Bliss back to the big yellow house at the top of the steep driveway, where she would feed Sunny’s children junk and sedate them with television. Where Sunny would sleep in a bed so soft it had to be made of sin.
Sunny curled her fingers against her palms, feeling the sting of her nails in her skin. Pressed harder. Small pain, getting deeper. She pressed so hard her fists shook, and she tucked them between her knees to keep them still.
Sunny thought again of Bethany, the things she’d shouted about the world. Sunny had made her own lists over the years of wordly things she wanted to taste or touch or smell or try. She’d drifted to sleep at night imagining the tug of denim between her legs instead of her own flesh pressing together beneath a long skirt. She’d lifted her hair from her neck, thinking how it would feel to cut it all off. Pinched her cheeks and bit her lips to take the place of cosmetics.
That was why she’d been left behind.
“We’re here,” Liesel said as she pulled into the garage. She twisted in her seat to look at Sunny with wide eyes. Her mouth had thinned with a grief Sunny didn’t understand. Liesel hadn’t known any of the family. “We’re home.”
Liesel was waiting for something, though Sunny didn’t know what it was. More tears, probably. Shame, prickling, heated her face at the memory of how she’d lost control in that store. Mama would’ve been ashamed.
From the backseat, Bliss let out a cry, so Sunny had the excuse of focusing on that. She got out of the car to unbuckle her daughter from the complicated straps of the seat they’d forced her to use. She pressed her face to Bliss’s sweet baby head, nuzzling the fine hairs before cradling her. Liesel was still staring as Sunny lifted Bliss out of the car.
“I’ll be okay.” Faced with Liesel’s obvious anxiety it seemed the thing to say, and the words tripped easily enough from Sunny’s lips. “We’ll all be okay.”
Liesel nodded. “Yes. You will.”
They were both lying. Her mother had sent her out into the world, and that had been bad enough. Sunny’d been found unfit, left behind, abandoned. That was worse. But the worst part of all was not that she’d failed to make her vessel pure enough to leave with the others. The worst part was knowing she’d been given what she’d always secretly hoped for, she was out here in the world, and nobody was coming to take her home.
Nobody ever would.
Chapter 9
At the sight of his mother, Happy jumped down from the stool and ran to her with a cry. She got on one knee to greet him, holding him at arm’s length and studying his face. She looked up at Christopher with a faint smile that didn’t reach her eyes.
“Peanut butter?”
“Yeah…is that okay? They’re not allergic or anything, are they?” Christopher looked back and forth from her to Liesel, who’d gone to the fridge with a glass to get herself some crushed ice and chilled water.
Sunny shook her head and stood, holding on to Happy’s hand. “No. They like peanut butter.”
“He wouldn’t eat it. Said it wasn’t dinnertime,” Christopher said with a self-conscious laugh that didn’t sound like his. “I guess you have pretty strict rules where you…live.”
The ice crashed into the glass. Sunny looked at Liesel. “I need to feed Bliss, and Peace probably needs a nap. Maybe Happy, too.”
Liesel nodded. Her smile felt like a grimace. “Sure, you go on. I need to talk to Christopher.”
When Sunny had taken the kids from the room, Christopher looked at Liesel. “What the hell is going on? Did you guys have a fight or something? She’s definitely a little weird, I know that—”
“They’re all dead.”
Christopher blinked. “What?”
Liesel swallowed frigid water, thinking it might somehow make the words easier if they fell from a numb tongue. “All of them, in that compound. They’re all dead. They killed themselves yesterday in some sort of mass suicide. Some cult thing.”
A broken, strangled cry tore from her throat. She clapped her hand over her mouth and went to the sink to dump the water down it. The clink of the glass against the stainless steel was very loud when she put it down. She turned to him.
“It was all over the news. We saw it on TV at Kmart, for God’s sake. And yesterday, when I was running, when I slipped on the ice? I saw the ambulances and the police cars heading in that direction. I saw all those cars, but I didn’t think… I didn’t know—”
“Hey. Shh, hey.” Careful not to press her bruises, Christopher took her in his arms again. “Slow down. How do you know they’re all dead?”
“The reporter on the news said so. The paper, too. A hundred people, all dead. They didn’t release how it happened, just that they found them all together. Dead. Don’t you get it? That’s why Trish sent them to us. She must’ve known.” Liesel swallowed convulsively, nausea rising. “Oh, God. We have to call the police, don’t we?”
All those people. Dead at their own hands, dead like those poor jerks in Jonestown who drank the Kool-Aid. Was that how they’d done it? Or had they put themselves to sleep with plastic bags over their faces and matching sneakers like those Heaven’s Gate fools?
“Did the news say what happened?”
“Just that the police found only bodies. No survivors.”
Above them, the ceiling creaked with footsteps. Both of them looked up, then at each other, connected by something more than twelve years of marriage and familiarity. Christopher pulled her close.
“There were at least four,” he said.
“I think we have to call the police, Christopher.”
“Yeah. I guess we have to.”
Liesel swiped at her eyes. “Sunny didn’t seem surprised. Do you think she knew? I mean, ahead of time. Do you think she left that place knowing?”
“If she did, then she’s smart, don’t you think?”
Liesel pressed herself against him with a soggy sigh. “All those people. There were children in there, Christopher. The news didn’t say how many, but there had to be kids.”
His hands rubbed her back in slow circles. She waited for him to say something comforting, but he stayed silent. She looked up at him, thinking how he would kiss her and tell her everything was going to be all right, and then he’d do something to make that true.
“Christopher?”
“I’ll call the police.” He kissed her forehead. Then he let her go.
Chapter 10
Mama shakes her awake and says, “Come on, Sunshine, wake up, it’s time.”
Mama means it’s time to leave. Papa’s voice is talking over the speakers. Mama pulls a sweatshirt on over Sunny’s nightgown and takes her by the hand, out into the hall.
The lights are too bright, the sounds too loud. Sunny hangs back and Mama tugs her by the hand. No time for dawdling. You never, never run, but you don’t dawdle, either.
In the chapel, they take their places on the hard wooden floor. It hurts Sunny’s knees, hurts her bum. There’s a splinter in her finger, but she doesn’t dare cry. She puts it in h
er mouth to suck it, feels the sharp piece of wood sticking out and tries to catch it with her teeth but can’t.
John Second has a tray with paper cups full of juice. White pills, red pills, some blue, a few are yellow or green. Papa always calls them the rainbow, but it’s not really. Not enough colors for a rainbow. John Second holds up the tray to show them all. Mama and Sunny are near the front, so they can see. What about the people in the back? They are far away. Can they see what John Second is showing them?
Mama pinches her. “Turn around. Pay attention.”
Papa is very tall. He stands with a hand on Josiah’s shoulder. Papa’s two true sons take the cart with the trays. Up and down, up and down the aisles while Papa talks.
Take a cup, hold it up. Fill it from the pitcher. Maybe, Papa says, the rainbow is dissolved into the juice tonight. If it is, are they ready to leave? Who’s ready to leave tonight and go through the gates? You have to be ready, your vessel prepared, you have to be ready to go without anything on your conscience.
“If you have something to report,” Papa says, “now’s the time. Because you can’t get through the gates with a dirty, broken vessel, and what breaks your vessel faster than the weight of your bad behavior?”
The splinter pricks and stings. Thief’s hands. That’s what Sunny has. And a liar’s tongue, because even though Papa says it’s time to report, she says nothing. Not about the food she steals from the kitchen, not about anything. Nothing.
Other people report. Papa listens and nods. Sometimes he points to the stick on the wall, and John Second takes it down to use. Tonight nobody’s sent to the silent room. That’s good.
Sunny drinks the juice. She watches as the rest of them do, too. Watches as they all fall down. She waits and waits to fall down herself, but nothing happens.
“Get down here!” Mama has a rasping, angry whisper, but her eyes look scared. They look toward John Second, who is staring their way. “On the floor, Sunshine!”
And then she knows it’s just another practice. The rainbow wasn’t dissolved in the juice, they’re just supposed to pretend it was. Her face is pressed to the dirty wooden floor so close she can see the splintery bit that poked her finger. She hopes it won’t poke her eye. That will hurt way, way worse.
“So,” Papa says, “it’s not time to leave. We can’t get through the gates. They’re not opened. They’re still closed, because at least one of you has a vessel that is still not ready. Who here has not made a full report?”
And though Papa waits and waits, nobody else says anything. They look at each other until finally someone steps up and makes a report about someone else. Then another. And then it seems everyone has something to say about someone else, and Papa looks pleased even though the juice is all gone and the sun has come up and it’s still not time to leave.
Lots of people talk about other people and themselves, admitting to every small thing, but nobody says anything about Sunny, and she says nothing about herself.
And she knows it’s her fault they didn’t get to leave.
Chapter 11
Christopher stood like the floor felt too slick, like he might slide and fall if he moved too fast. Sunny knew that feeling. She stood beside him, still. Quiet. The coroner spoke in a quiet voice. Respectful. He seemed to think there should be tears from at least one of them, and Sunny couldn’t tell if it offended the man that there were none.
“This is your mother, Patricia Bomberger?” The coroner twitched the sheet to reveal a fall of blond hair streaked with silver.
Christopher took a step back.
“You okay?” the coroner asked, as if he was ready to catch Christopher if he fell.
Christopher nodded. “Fine. Sure.”
Sunny looked at the woman on the table. Same hair. Same face. The same mouth that had smiled at her so many times, now gone slack. It was only her mother’s vessel; the important part of her mama went through the gates. But that wasn’t what the man was asking. She looked at the coroner. “I didn’t know that was her last name.”
“It was Albright,” Christopher said hoarsely. “We were married. Her last name was Albright.”
The coroner raised his bushy white eyebrows in Christopher’s direction, but Christopher had nothing for the guy. No sympathetic shrug. No understanding smile. Christopher looked almost as blank and loose as the empty vessel on the table.
“All I know is what was in the letter she left behind,” the coroner said. “Look, Mr. Albright. I know the circumstances were a little…unusual. I just need to make sure she’s identified correctly.”
Christopher had already signed all the paperwork guaranteeing he’d take care of the burial arrangements. Sunny had been adamant the body be buried in a plain pine box with no restoration and minimal preservation. That there be no ceremony. Christopher hadn’t argued about any of that.
“Yes. That’s my mother’s vessel.” Sunny looked at it again. She felt the weight of both men staring at her. She looked at Christopher. “Is that it? Can we go now?”
The coroner shook his head as he tugged the sheet back up over her mother’s face. He cleared his throat. “Just to let you know, in cases like this, we always do an autopsy to determine the cause of death.”
“What difference does it make?” Christopher asked in a low voice. “She’s dead. They’re all dead. Right?”
“We do it anyway,” the coroner said. “There has to be an investigation.”
“I can tell you how she did it,” Sunny told him. “They dissolved the rainbow in the juice, and she drank it. They all did. That’s how she left her vessel.”
It was more important to understand why, not how. That it wasn’t death, which was involuntary, something that happened to people who weren’t ready to go through the gates. Her mother and all the others had left. There was a difference between leaving and simple death, but the coroner was blemished. He wouldn’t understand. Sunny stared at him until he looked away.
“There’s an investigation,” the coroner said again. “To make sure that it was…voluntary.”
Christopher let out another low sound, like a groan. He turned and took two shambling steps away from the gurney before stopping to put both hands on the countertop by the sink. His shoulders hunched.
“The others,” Christopher asked without turning around. “What about them?”
“We were able to get positive IDs from their family members.” The coroner cleared his throat again. Sunny wished he’d just cough already, instead of trying to talk around whatever was caught there. “It seems they were all extremely…organized. Left notifications for their next of kin. Specific instructions for the burials.”
“They’ll all want the same thing,” Sunny said in a flat voice. “They’ve left their vessels, it’s important they be used to nourish the earth as best they can.”
Christopher and the coroner exchanged a look she didn’t miss.
In the hall outside, Christopher tried to touch her, but his fingers skated along her sleeve without grabbing hold. Before he could say whatever it was his brain had convinced him was necessary, a tall man stepped in their way.
“Chris.”
She hadn’t thought he might like to be called Chris instead of his full name. Liesel called him Christopher. He still wasn’t “Dad.”
Chris sighed. “Hi, Mr. Bomberger.”
The men stared at each other, Sunny between them. Not like a prize to be fought over, but something else. She paused and looked at Chris. Then the older man.
“This is your mom’s father,” Chris told her. “He’d be your—”
“So. It’s true?” Mr. Bomberger didn’t even look at her. Not a glance. Not a shift of his eyes. Nothing. “She’s dead.”
“I’m sorry,” Chris said.
The othe
r man’s gaze went dark. “She died for us a long time ago. I just wanted… I had to know for sure. My wife wanted to know.”
“This is Trish’s daughter, Sunshine,” Chris said quietly. “Mine, too.”
But Mr. Bomberger kept his gaze fixed firmly on Chris’s face. “She died for us a long time ago,” he repeated.
He turned on his heel and stalked away down the long, echoing corridor while Sunny and Chris stood watching without saying a word.
“I need to use the restroom.” Chris didn’t wait for her to reply, just left her standing there as he ducked into a bathroom smelling strongly of some caustic chemical.
Sunny waited for a few minutes, but the grinding, desperate sound of sobs echoing off the tiles was too much to stand. She hurried down the hall, seeking daylight. Needing fresh air.
She found her mother’s father just outside the doors to the parking lot. The smell of smoke clung to him in a cloud she could actually see as he exhaled a wreath of it. The cigarette in his fingers made more. She stepped back until her rear hit a metal handrail, one foot going down a step but the other staying put.
“Smoking’s bad for you,” she said after a long minute had passed without him saying a word.
Mr. Bomberger looked at her with narrowed eyes and lifted the cigarette to his lips again. He drew the smoke in. Let it out. “Your mother used to say the same thing to me.”
“She was right.” Sunny looked up at the gray sky. Maybe rain. Maybe just clouds.
“You look like her.”
She looked at him. “I do?”
She’d never thought so. Her mother was pretty. Petite, blonde, graceful. Her mother was a good woman. Quiet and respectful. Good with her hands; she could make things. She could sing.
He nodded. Smoked some more, then tossed the cigarette onto the concrete step and ground it out with his toe. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry,” Sunny told him.
His shoulders bent. He was an old man, she realized. Not as old as Papa had been when he died, but he had the same kind of wrinkles in his face. He looked faded.