First Girl

by Julie Aitcheson

  “So what are we supposed to be doing, anyway?” Peter asked, his pockets moving with the clenching and unclenching of his fists. Marnie sucked contentedly on her cigarette and let Jordan’s bulk block her from the counselors’ view.

  “More bonding, I guess,” Gabi ventured.

  “Why is that such a big deal?” Peter asked. “It’s not like this is a competition, is it? I mean, are we going to be, like, competing with the other teams or something?”

  “I think….” The tentative sound came from the depths of Jordan’s hood.

  “What’s that?” Marnie said loudly. “Can you take that hood off, Spruce? I think the risk of frostbite is minimal seeing as how you’re about to sweat through that thing.”

  Jordan pushed the hood away and wiped the perspiration from his lip. “I think the competition is to see what team has all four members get their callings first. That’s what my sister told me, anyway. She was here last year.”

  “My brother said it’s so we can support each other and make it fun,” Gabi volunteered, “so it’s not so much pressure.”

  “Is this the Mathew Lowell we’re talking about?” Marnie sneered. “Well, damn, let’s just etch that in stone and call it doctrine.” Gabi bristled but said nothing.

  “So what do we win, then, if it’s a competition?” Peter huffed, shifting from one foot to the other. The skin on his arms was covered in gooseflesh, and Gabi could tell he was trying hard not to lose face by rubbing them for warmth.

  “Salvation,” Marnie said flatly as she stomped the filter of her cigarette deeper into the snow. “Hooray.”

  “Rations,” Jordan corrected softly. “Each team member’s family gets an extra month’s worth of food if they get called first. At least, that’s what it was last year.” Now Gabi knew why Jordan had come to camp, above and beyond the pressure of being called. An extra month’s worth of rations in a branch like Spruce could mean the difference between life and death.

  Ruth’s whistle shrieked from across the clearing where she stood on the lodge steps.

  “Activity time, campers!” she sang, waving them all toward the open door to the hall, where mouthwatering smells emanated from the adjacent kitchen. Once inside, Ruth instructed the campers to claim space on the plush rug, then assigned each of them a personal counselor to work with. Gabi watched her counselor approach in dumb awe. Even for someone as oblivious to the world of romance and dating as she, this guy was 100 percent crush material. Tall, but not too tall, with straight brown hair pushed back from his forehead and grass green eyes. His counselor’s uniform of T-shirt and jeans revealed a physique that was less intimidating than Zach’s but still defined and athletic. When he grinned lopsidedly at Gabi, his teeth flashed like virgin marble.

  “Hey there,” he said, sinking onto the floor across from her. “I’m Luke. Gabi, right?” He extended his hand and clasped Gabi’s in a warm, dry grip that lasted until Gabi pulled away because her palm was getting sweaty. Nearby, Jordan sat across from a stunning redhead, who was leaning toward him with an earnest expression. Zach folded his rippling muscles into a similar pose beside Peter. Gabi noticed that Zach hunched himself forward so that Peter, who was thrusting out his narrow chest and sitting ramrod straight, appeared to be the taller of the two. Marnie was seated across from a female counselor whose jeans sat low on her hips and whose face bore none of the rosy blush or tint of lipstick the other female counselors wore. Her hair was shorn close to her skull on the sides and gelled into a streaked strawberry-blond wave on top. A smattering of freckles dusted her nose, and a metal ball winked from a piercing just below her lower lip. Like the other counselors, she was gorgeous, but in a way that reminded Gabi of her brother’s effortless appeal.

  “Boring you already, am I?” Luke chuckled.

  “No! I mean, there’s just a lot going on. It’s distracting.”

  Luke’s face grew serious as he propped his chin on his fist and leaned toward her. “I know. I still get overwhelmed by all of this, even though it’s my third year. Dealing with crowds was way harder before I got well, but it still takes some getting used to.”

  “Well?” Gabi asked. “You used to be sick?”

  Luke revealed he’d been born with a leaky valve in his heart and had to have a series of operations that had kept him out of school until fourth grade. He did his schoolwork from home and sometimes from a Care Center bed so he wouldn’t get behind, but when he was finally strong enough to attend class, he felt like an outsider and didn’t know how to connect to the other kids. Luke’s ease and social graces compensated for Gabi’s lack thereof, and she was soon unselfconsciously absorbed in their conversation.

  “It wasn’t really until I was about thirteen, when I healed from the last operation and started doing Training Period, that I finally made some friends,” Luke confessed. “School’s like a war zone if you don’t fit in.” His voice dropped as he said this, and Gabi had to lean close to hear him. Close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his skin and the answering warmth in her own.

  “But how did you get like this?” Gabi breathed. Luke laughed, exposing a strong, tanned throat that Gabi had the crazy urge to bury her nose in.

  “You mean how did I go from being a half-dead ghost to a regular guy?”

  A ghost. That was exactly how Gabi had felt until she’d stopped taking her pills. She’d never heard anyone else describe themselves like that before.

  “I found a sense of purpose. I spent all my time while I was sick reading books about adventure and faraway places and listening to the stories my parents and their Witness friends told. I realized I would do anything for the chance to live that kind of life. What could be more exciting than risking your life to bring the Word to people suffering in the darkness? It’s like giving a message times a million.” So Luke was a Messenger, just like Gabi’s father insisted she was destined to be. “I took my first trip last summer, and now I’m hooked,” Luke continued. “I’d like to go pro, try for an Apostleship if I work hard enough. Otherwise, I’ll probably end up teaching like my folks.”

  “Your parents are teachers?” Gabi fantasized about a house where every shelf groaned under the weight of books. A house where questions and curiosity were encouraged, and no secrets were necessary.

  “They’re both in the biology department at the university, though my mom spends most of her time working in the lab.”

  This was getting weird. Luke was ridiculously handsome, humble, and Gabi felt more understood by him in a few minutes than she had by almost anyone ever, except Gram. Luke had also dreamed of getting out of Alder by joining a Witness team, and his parents were experts in a subject that had been Gabi’s primary fascination for years. Her skin prickled, and the fine hairs rose on the back of her neck. While she was enjoying Luke’s company and undivided attention, something about the situation niggled. “But, hey, here I am talking about me and I’m supposed to be getting to know you,” Luke said, breaking into her reverie with a gentle poke to her arm.

  “Why?” Luke’s complete focus on her, though thrilling, was making her uncomfortable.

  “Why what?” he asked, his head tilted so close to hers that she could feel his breath on her face.

  “Why are you supposed to be getting to know me?”

  “The idea is that each camper should have a mentor to help them open to their calling. It can be sort of pressured and scary if you don’t have someone more experienced to encourage you and answer your questions. Do you have any more questions, Miss Gabriela? You are definitely the curious type.”

  Luke’s attitude was playful bordering on flirtatious, but Gabi had no idea how to talk to someone like that, and she’d already discovered how pitiful she was at making small talk during her bonding time with Marnie.

  “I meant, why you?” Gabi pressed. “Is it random how counselors are matched with campers, or did they use some kind of system? We have stuff in common that definitely wasn’t on the questionnaire.”

  A
muscle in Luke’s jaw jumped. Perhaps he was unused to people who didn’t flirt back. Tell the truth, Gabi pleaded silently. If Luke couldn’t be straight with her, how could she trust him? He shifted away from her and looked over toward Ruth.

  “Names in a hat,” Luke said, turning back toward her and stretching his smile wider until it reached his eyes again. “Totally random.” He was lying, and he was almost good enough at it to fool Gabi, but not quite. She could breathe again, her heart no longer working overtime in response to his charm. She was disappointed, but not surprised.

  “Ten minutes, then dinner,” Ruth sang from her post by the fireplace.

  Luke straightened and gave Gabi a mock-stern look. “Okay, down to business. You’ve gotta give me something to work with here, Miss Gabi. Tell me about the first time you ever felt the Holy Spirit, because that’s what we’re working toward here. That feeling, but bigger.” Luke spoke with total conviction that Gabi would become a servant of the Word in the next forty-eight hours, and whether she believed him or not, she needed him. For all she knew, Luke himself could be an undercover recruiter. If she didn’t find a way to stand out this weekend and receive her calling along with the rest of them, her best chance to honor Gram’s dying wish would vanish.

  “I feel the Spirit every day,” Gabi stated firmly. “I can’t actually remember a time when I didn’t feel it.” A lie for a lie.

  Chapter TEN

  DINNER WAS another lavish buffet, and the effects of the heavy food combined with the fire in the hearth had turned the pack of rowdy teens into a docile herd. After they disposed of their plates, Gabi, Marnie, Peter, and Jordan arranged themselves on the carpet to face each other in awkward silence. Their halfhearted attempts at bonding had proven unsuccessful thus far. Peter kept belching behind closed lips, and Marnie was distracted, her eyes glued to her mentor, Beth, as she circulated around the room. Marnie and Beth had only paused from their initial conversation long enough to get plates and retreat to a corner to eat huddled together. Jordan still had most of his dinner in his pockets, which bulged with rolls and rounds of cheese coated in waxy rind. Gabi hadn’t seen one bite of food pass his lips and wondered if he was too self-conscious to eat in front of the group because of his weight. Ruth, Zach, and a handful of others walked among the teams while the staff cleared the dishes and ferried everything down the hall to the kitchen.

  “This group is so special,” Ruth crooned over the sounds of settling in. “The Spirit has been so strong here ever since you guys arrived. Can you feel it? Can you feel how this place is just pulsing with the Presence?” Nods and murmurs from the counselors and the drowsy but accommodating campers. “I’m serious, you guys. You all are so alive with the Word. It’s totally inspiring. You are lifting us up with you, and I can’t wait to see what all that energy can do. You came here to be chosen, but I am telling you that you have already been chosen. You all are prophets, just waiting for the One God to lay his hand upon you and bless you with his mission, amen!”

  The electric hum from the message service earlier slipped back into the room, percolating into the campers. Everyone shifted in anticipation as the counselors added their amens. The hum built with every word falling from Ruth’s lips as she continued to shower the campers with praise for their specialness, their faith, their unprecedented holiness. The noise level increased as the mentors joined their mentee groups, encouraging the teams to stand and hold hands.

  “We are going to perform one of the most sacred acts in the fellowship here tonight,” Ruth said. “We are going to pray for each other. Pray that every young fellow in this sacred hall feels God steering them onto their path, and toward their sacred destiny.” Gabi found Ruth’s words dramatic and a little ridiculous, but some small part of her was carried along by them as she joined in her circle’s hypnotic sway.

  Luke stood beside Gabi, his warm hand enveloping hers, the raw silk of his bare arm pressed into her side. They were almost slow-dancing. “It is only together that we can rise above the perils of earthly life and be saved,” Ruth preached from the center of the room, her face lifted to the rafters. “Each of us faces not only death but damnation as mere individuals, condemning all those we might have gone on to save as well. But together? Together we rise!”

  Zach began to sing, backed by the other counselors. There were no words at first, just the harmony of layered voices, a mosaic of music over the electric buzz.

  Following the mentors’ cues, each team member was drawn into the center of their small circle in turn. The team members laid their hands on the center person and bowed their heads. Jordan was first, and Gabi’s hands brushed the edge of a crusty roll under his sweatshirt when she touched him. He winced as his teammates made contact with his body, but his mentor, Ginny, laid her soft white hands against his cheeks and smiled at him in reassurance.

  “Let it flow through you,” Ruth urged. “Let God enter you and flow right out of your hands into your brothers and sisters, that they may be filled. Help them prepare their vessel for the call!”

  Jordan was sweating. They all were. Though their bodies were moving only slightly, the temperature inched higher, and the whole room throbbed with heat.

  Gabi was the last of their team to move into the center of the circle. Hands pressed into her, stamping her with their warmth. The pressure was light, but it felt as though their touch was the only thing holding her up. The hum was shaking the earth beneath her. Marnie was in front of her, so close Gabi could see how the black eyeliner creased in the folds of her eyelids as her brows drew together in concentration. Her fingertips rested on Gabi’s collarbones, one of them heavier than the other because Beth’s hand was on top if it. Luke was behind Gabi, his hands on her shoulders in a firm, kneading grip, his breath stirring the curls by her ear. Gabi had never been touched by so many people, and never like this, but she felt safe in their midst.

  The hum moved through the team and into her as they swayed together, and she imagined that this was what being in the ocean felt like. Her skin was too tight, and there wasn’t quite enough oxygen, but the discomfort paled beside the glorious sensation of being held. She’d been hugged by her family in recent years, but not held for a long time, even by Gram, who used to rock her to sleep at night until Gabi got too big to sit in her lap.

  “God has blessed this gathering,” Ruth called out. “He is working through all of you to bring healing and light back to this troubled world. Do you feel his presence? If you feel it, give me an amen.” The counselors sang their amens, and all around the room, the campers joined in. After a few seductive refrains, Gabi added her high, tremulous voice to theirs.

  SLEEPING IN a large room with so many other people was impossible, though Gabi was exhausted from hours of praise-singing, and they would be woken before dawn to begin a long day of preparation and ritual. Not only did the mélange of smells and sounds issuing from the bunks ricochet around the dorm, but she felt as if she could actually feel the other girls’ dreams. Gabi had a vague memory of sharing a room with Mathew when they were young, his dreams ebbing and flowing around her bed, tugging at her emotions. Fortunately for her, Mathew was not prone to nightmares. She mostly felt his curiosity, wonder, excitement, and on rare occasions when he would cry out in the night, his longing for Therese.

  On nights when Gabi had nightmares of her own, in which she was suffocating or disintegrating to dust like an unraveled mummy, Gram would pad into their room, scoop the whimpering Gabi up into her arms, and carry her back to the comfy double bed with the trough in the middle. With her narrow back pressed into the cushion of Gram’s torso, Gabi would fall asleep in a few minutes. Gram’s dreams never tugged at her. The energy that came off her sleeping grandmother was like warm indigo velvet.

  Scorching pulses of anger and grief radiated from the sleeping Marnie like a fetid fog. She tossed and thrashed so forcefully that it was a wonder she didn’t wake herself. The rest of the room was a potpourri of excitement, anticipation, and anxiety as dreams dis
charged the emotions of the day. Natalie, the leader of a snarky clique that had managed to maintain its rigid exclusivity even though the girls had all been assigned to different teams, was the only neutral presence in the room. Her vibration wasn’t calm and comforting like Gram’s. It was just nothing, as if her body were a hollow plastic mold. Christina and Ginny, the two female counselors sleeping in bunks on either side of the entrance, volleyed snores back and forth, their dreams purging the preoccupation with endless to-do lists. There were no sleepwalkers, though that was the alibi Gabi rehearsed as she slipped into her boots, lifted her heavy coat off a hook, and tiptoed toward the exit.

  THE AIR in the hills of Cedar was different. It bubbled like sugared soda in Gabi’s lungs, so rich and pure she felt light-headed with each inhale as the effervescence scoured her clean. Earlier she’d been too engrossed in her interactions with her fellows to notice much, but now her awareness expanded to take in the uniqueness of this place. The lodge was located in a copse of trees bigger than Gabi had ever seen. The only trees that still existed in Alder were feeble saplings painstakingly raised at the arboretum in soil that required constant monitoring. Some of the trees encircling the lodge towered three or more stories high, and the sound of their creaking branches was like the groan of arthritic giants. The fingernail clipping of moon was visible overhead, and the patches of snow at Gabi’s feet lay scattered across the ground in milky puddles. Though she shivered as the breeze sent drafts of air up the legs of her thin pajamas, she found herself wishing that she could stay in this place forever. There was a rightness here.

  A lisp of swishing nylon diverted Gabi’s attention from the night sky, and a shadow moved in the corner of her vision. Gabi took a step back, drawing her coat more tightly around her and cursing herself for her foolish impulse to leave the dorm. If she were lucky enough to escape a mauling by forest beasts, the counselors would catch her when they heard her scream. Hardly Witness team material. The form stepped into the moonlight, and Gabi exhaled as the massive head resolved itself into a hood, pushed back just enough to reveal a familiar nose and chin.