by Rysa Walker
Directly beneath us is a brightly lit circle, where a cluster of people are gathered around a white claw-foot tub. A sheet of something—glass, maybe, since it reflects the light from the lanterns—rests on top of the tub, with flowers decorating one end. I can’t see what’s under the glass, and I’m perfectly okay with that.
Seven chairs, draped with white cloth, are arranged in a row just to the left of the tub and are occupied by women of varying ages, similarly dressed, with their hair pulled back into a knot. Beyond the seven chairs, dozens of people, maybe even a hundred or more, extend to the back of the stable. About two-thirds are women and children, and almost everyone is dressed in white. Most are standing, some leaning against support beams, some sitting on hay bales. A few adventurous kids straddle the tops of the low walls separating the stalls.
“The women in front?” Kiernan whispers. “They’re the Seven Sisters of the Planetary Court.”
I nod. I vaguely remember reading something about them in the historical account but can’t recall exactly what their role was in the commune.
When the violinist finishes “O Holy Night,” he launches immediately into “Silent Night,” and several voices join him. A bearded man with reddish-blond hair pulls out a pocket watch and says something to the matronly woman sitting closest to the tub. She stops singing for a moment, then nods as she closes her eyes and continues with the second verse.
The scene below us would be almost pastoral if I didn’t know there was a moldering corpse in that tub.
The blond guy glances at his watch again, then taps the woman’s shoulder. She stands and raises her arms high above her head. She’s nearly as tall as the man, and her dark hair is streaked with gray. The music stops abruptly, and the other six women rise to join her. They all begin to sway, their eyes closed and faces raised to the rafters.
They move back and forth for about thirty seconds, and then the first woman pulls her arms down abruptly. There’s a domino effect as each woman down the line stops swaying, and I choke back a laugh, because they look a lot like fans doing the wave at the Washington Nationals game Dad took me to last summer.
The tall woman’s eyes snap open, and she cries out, “Koresh! Our beloved Koresh! We do not mourn your passing.”
The crowd murmurs in agreement, and Kiernan moves close to my ear, whispering, “Annie Ordway, but they call her Victoria Gratia. It means ‘victory by grace’ or something. Koresh’s second in command, at least for now.”
“For,” the woman says, “as the sixth messiah, Jesus, rose on the third day, so shall the seventh messiah rise this Christmas Day. We await your second coming, our prophet, to build our New Jerusalem, our heaven here inside the Earth.”
Kiernan gives a silent, little chuckle. “Annie is one of the remaining Hollow Earthers.”
“What?”
“Later. Shh . . .” He holds up his hand and leans forward. “Just watch the tub. In three, two, one . . .”
There’s a flash of bright blue behind the tub, and a small young woman appears. She’s also dressed in white, but it’s more like a toga, cinched at the waist and shoulder, with a gold chain reflecting the blue beams from her CHRONOS key. Her arms are stretched out to her sides, her head thrown back, with all-too-familiar dark curls cascading over her shoulders.
Prudence. And she’s glowing. It’s not just the medallion. Her skin and clothes are literally glowing, like polished metal.
A girl near the horse stalls quietly faints, but no one notices. They’re all facing forward, most of them smiling, all of them mesmerized by the vision behind the corpse-laden tub.
Annie Ordway doesn’t seem happy, however. She looks stunned and a bit confused, as do two of the other Sisters. The confusion only lasts for a few seconds, and then Ordway goes to her knees. As if on cue, the remaining Sisters drop as well, followed by everyone else in the stable.
“It’s paint,” Kiernan whispers with a hint of disdain, and I flash back to 1893 and his eight-year-old self looking down at my crimson toenails and telling me his mum said only whores wear paint. “Phosphorescent paint. See the beam over her head and how it looks kind of purple?”
I nod.
“Portable black light, set with a timer for midnight.”
The crowd below was silent at first, but a few cries of “Praise God!” and “Praise Koresh!” begin to circulate. Gradually, the exclamations build to a crescendo.
Prudence holds her hands out to the people kneeling before her. I can’t see her face at first, until she tips her head back again. She’s younger than when I saw her at the Expo. And she’s either a killer actress or she’s convinced herself, because her face, which is eerily like my own, is illuminated not only by the phosphorescent paint but also by a smile of ethereal joy.
“Rise, children of Cyrus! Rise, rejoice, and follow me in The Way!”
The crowd stumbles to its feet, and Ordway steps forward. Her arms are open. “Welcome, Sister in Koresh! I am Victoria Gratia, and I welcome you into our Unity.”
The smile fades from Prudence’s face, replaced by an air of stern compassion. “I know you well, Sister Annie. You shall have my grace and my patience as you work to overcome your sins.”
Ordway’s smile collapses. “My . . . sins?”
“Yes. You and . . . these others,” Prudence says, picking out two of the other Sisters with her eyes and a nod of her head, “are guilty of the sin of lust. You placed temptation in the path of Brother Cyrus, but I stand here as proof that his soul remained pure. He has escaped the bonds of mortality and sin.”
It’s hard for me to view any of the three women as temptresses. The youngest is at least fifty, and all three are covered from neck to ankle. There are gasps, and then a muffled hum fills the stable as one neighbor whispers to another.
Two Sisters at the end farthest from the coffin-tub take a step back from the others. They wear wreaths in their hair, the shorter woman’s made of red rosebuds and the other’s made of pink. At first, they seem to be arguing, then Pink Rosebuds steps forward and embraces the shorter woman. They just stand there with their heads together for a moment, forehead to forehead, grasping each other’s shoulders.
My eyes are drawn back to the center of the barn when one of the women Prudence just outed as a sinner falls to her knees, head bent, and begins to sob. The second woman looks around at the others in the barn, pulls in a deep breath, and joins her on the straw-covered ground.
Ordway stares at the two as she feels behind her for the chair. She sinks into it, looking as though she might vomit.
Prudence smiles at the prostrate women, her face both falsely and genuinely radiant. “Do not grovel, Sisters. There is always hope for those who show remorse.”
Her eyes flit briefly to Annie Ordway, still seated, with her chin tilted defiantly. Then Prudence looks back to the two on their knees. “You still have time for your souls to reach perfection. Death cannot claim the pure of heart.”
“If Koresh is risen, then why is his body still here?” Ordway challenges.
Prudence tilts her head, giving Ordway a patronizing smirk before smiling back toward the crowd. “What lies before you here is a useless shell, an empty husk. I stand before you as Brother Cyrus, Sister Prudence, Koresh—call me what you will. We are all one in Cyrus. And those who follow me in The Way will find the same reward.”
I feel Kiernan’s body tense up next to mine. I glance at him, but he shakes his head, directing my attention back to the scene below. He grabs my hand, however, and holds it tightly as the two women who were huddled together in the shadows break apart. Pink Rosebuds walks quickly toward the back wall and grabs something off a shelf near the bridles, while the other one moves into the center of the light, directly facing Ordway and Prudence.
Red Rosebuds points a pale finger at Annie Ordway, but her eyes are on Prudence. “Eloise and I—we never stopped believing, Koresh. After we saw you last week, down at Bamboo Landing, we told the others, including Annie—”
&n
bsp; There’s a soft gasp from the others, and Red Rosebuds turns to them and says, “I will no longer call her Victoria Gratia, for she is impure. She is not of the Unity.” She turns back to Prudence and says, “I told Annie and the others that you would soon die but that you told us not to despair, because your purity would be rewarded with a new, immortal form, just as you’ve always said. Annie laughed and said we were naive.”
Pink Rosebuds, who I assume is actually named Eloise, steps forward at this point. “Not so naive, Annie. We saw how you watched Koresh, how you touched him not as a Sister but as a temptress. But we never wavered, and we, the truly pure, will follow him now.”
She turns to Red Rosebuds. “Are you ready, Sister Mary?”
Red Rosebuds nods and Eloise leans across and kisses her on both cheeks. “Go with Koresh, Sister.”
There’s a flash of something metallic as she steps back. Kiernan’s grip on my hand tightens, and then I stare, shocked, at the red line on Mary’s throat, just above the collar of her dress. Blood seeps through the lace, but she still smiles at Prudence as she slumps to the ground.
Someone screams, but before anyone can move forward, Eloise turns and says, “I go with Koresh! If you are pure of flesh and spirit, then follow!” She pulls the knife swiftly from left to right across her own throat and slumps down, her blood spattering the coffin-tub in front of her as she falls next to Mary.
Her legs are twitching under the long skirt, as are Mary’s, so they’re still alive. A small group of people rushes forward, including an elderly man. He bends down, and it looks like he’s feeling for Eloise’s pulse. Then I realize he’s taking the knife from her hand.
Prudence’s eyes are huge, and her mouth just sort of hangs there. It’s clear that she didn’t anticipate this. I want to scream at her to say something, to speak out, because she’s the only one who has the power to stop this.
But I’m silent as Kiernan’s arms encircle me, and his fingers fly over the interface of my CHRONOS key to bring up the stable point in his room. “Kate, we have to go. There’s nothing we can do here.”
The old man raises the knife to his throat. I’m pretty sure that my nightmares aren’t going to be PG-13 tonight, and I definitely don’t want to push them up to NC-17 by watching another suicide. I snatch the medallion from Kiernan, look down at the stable point, and blink.
BOSTON
July 25, 1905, 12:05 p.m.
I arrive in Kiernan’s room and sit there, shaking, wondering where the hell he is. Then it hits me that I’m blocking the stable point, so I slide toward the bed.
When he appears, I fly at him, hitting his chest with both fists. “Why did you take me there? Why didn’t you warn me?”
“Kate, I’m sorry.” He grabs my wrists and moves toward me, trying to put his arms around me, but I push him away. “I’m sorry, but you needed to see that.”
“You don’t get to decide what I need to see! Just because you showed her—”
“Damn it, Kate—no. No, no, no. That’s not it at all.” He’s still holding my wrists, and he moves closer, his deep brown eyes imploring me to listen. “She took me. That’s how I knew you needed to see it. I’ve seen that look of doubt before, not in your—” He sighs. “I didn’t see it in her eyes. I saw it in my own, in the mirror.”
He lets go of my wrists and slumps back against the side of the bed. “Kate made me go back to Estero and see it again. Reminded me just how seriously they take their beliefs and how far they might go to protect them. Reminded me that any group that would stand by and encourage or even allow that type of fanaticism must be opposed. I’m sorry you had to see that. But I still think it was the right thing to do.”
A little of the anger drains away, but my eyes are still stinging as I blink back tears. “What happened to the rest of them, Kiernan? The others in the stable? How many died?”
“Only three died in the stable. Then Pru snapped out of it and told them to stop—said that even the purest of soul and body couldn’t be resurrected if they resorted to suicide. Told them they had to trust God and the Prophets to know when their time was right, instead of taking it into their own hands. But two more still took their lives before it died down.”
“So five people?”
He nods. “The community wanted all five of them put in tubs like Koresh had been. Of course, none of them were resurrected, and that’s where the old timeline and the new merge a bit—the county health inspector showed up and made them bury the bodies after about a week. Annie Ordway was more than happy to comply, of course—she was suspicious of Pru from the beginning—but she sacrificed her last bit of credibility with the group when she ordered the burials. They pushed her out. And, yeah, they voted her out in the other timeline, too, but it took a lot longer. Once she’s gone, Pru became the leader, although really she was more of a figurehead, since she was gone most of the time.”
I’m silent for a moment, thinking through everything he’s just told me. “Wait . . . you said Kate made you go back? You were there when it happened?”
He stares at the floor, clearly uncomfortable. “I didn’t see anything other than Pru all lit up. I was at the rear of the stable, with Simon. I helped him set up the lighting.”
“So you knew what had happened? That those people cut . . .”
“Yes, but it wasn’t like that was part of the plan, Kate. You saw Pru’s face. She was shocked. I don’t know if Saul had any clue that something like that might happen, but she didn’t. She was really upset about it. We all were.”
My mouth tightens. “Not too upset, or one of you would have gone back and changed it.”
He shakes his head. “Pru thought about it, or at least she said she did. But Saul was set against it, and he convinced her those deaths would serve as a warning to others not to assume they were pure enough to be . . . resurrected. Or reincarnated, whatever you want to call it. Rebooted was Simon’s word for it. Anyway, Saul’s argument was that those deaths would deter others and make the community easier to control. It was for the greater good.”
“And everyone just said, ‘Okay, Saul, whatever you say, Saul’? You, too? No one questioned him at all?”
There’s a defensive note in his voice when he responds. “I was barely sixteen, Kate. And tell me, why didn’t you yell out that Prudence was a fraud just now? Why didn’t you scream when you saw that first woman fall?”
My eyes narrow. “I very nearly did, but we both know that’s not the same thing, Kiernan! I was observing something that has already happened. If I screamed, what might have changed? Another timeline where I don’t exist? Prudence deciding this little truce we have is off? I couldn’t risk that. And it all happened so fast—”
“Exactly. It all happened so fast,” he says. “Step back for a minute, and think about what you’re saying. Try to see it from my perspective back then. I’m not making excuses for anything, Kate. I was a Cyrist. You know that. I didn’t fully trust them, but Mum did.”
“But why? You told her about your suspicions. Why would she trust them?”
“Yeah, back when I was eight.” He laughs, but it’s bitter. “Did your mum listen to you about anything even slightly important when you were eight? Mum was unskilled, widowed, and she had a kid to feed. And I was still a kid, no matter how grown-up I tried to act. The Cyrists offered her food and shelter for the both of us, and she took it, gratefully. That’s true of many, many people who’ve followed them over the years, Kate. I lived there among them for eight years. Longer than Da was around. You start seeing things different after a while.”
He leans back, his elbows on the bed, his face pointed toward the ceiling, still covered with those improbable stars, and lets out a slow breath. “I think trusting them was the only thing that kept my mother sane after my dad died. Because she’s the reason he took that job at the Expo when Pru brought it up. She talked him into trusting Prudence. If she hadn’t, he’d never have been at the Ice House the day it caught fire and he was killed. So if she w
as wrong about trusting Pru and the Cyrists . . . well, then maybe she’s the reason he died, you know?”
He closes his eyes and is silent for a moment. “I never blamed her. But I knew she blamed herself, so I bit back my suspicions, and we returned to the Farm after the Expo closed down. When they merged with the Koreshans and moved to Estero, we followed.
“Three months before that night in the stable, Simon took me around on a little time tour, to locations selected by Saul. Or maybe older Pru chose them. I don’t know for sure. Ever seen videos of concentration camps? Genocide? Nuclear or chemical weapons? One stop was in Africa—a place called Chad—in the early 2020s. A famine in the region, made worse by climate change. Add in refugees and groups who turned on each other when the food and water got scarce. The stack of bodies was taller than I was, and there were dozens of those stacks, Kate. In just that one town. And the rest of the world did nothing until it was too late. That famine was only one of the many places he showed me. Let’s just say that 2070 isn’t a pleasant decade between the bioweapons and—” He opens his eyes and shifts them in my direction. “I’m guessing you don’t want the gory details?”
I shake my head. Leaving aside the fact that I really don’t want to know history that won’t happen until I’m old and gray, I’ve seen enough gory details for one day.
“Most of the people I saw died slow, nasty deaths. Saul and Prudence said it just went downhill after 2070. Said they were working for a future that’d change all that, which sounded like a pretty good idea to me at the time. They didn’t give me specifics, not then. Not a word about a Culling to wipe out half of mankind. So, yes, I was still a Cyrist when we met at Estero. It took you—she—damn it, I mean her.” He pounds his fists on his thighs. “It took Kate dragging me back to look directly at that fiasco to make me accept that I’d been part of something evil. Small in scale, maybe, compared to what was coming down the pike, but still capital-E Evil.”