“At least they have electricity,” I whispered to Jake when I saw the lights.
“There were windmills on a hill a few miles away,” he told me. “Korin said they belonged to Harmony Farms. Anyway, it looks like a family reunion.”
He should know. Though his parents were dead, he and his sister had a grandmother and more cousins than I would ever know what to do with.
“Much more friendly than some families I’ve seen,” I commented. Everyone was smiling and apparently having a good time.
Korin gave a signal, and the music cut off abruptly. “Hello, everyone!” he boomed from our elevated position on the back porch. “Sorry about stopping the music, but I knew you’d want to meet our newest members.”
Cheers met his proposal.
He introduced us each by name and indicated that we should descend the stairs to meet our new family. As I stood at the bottom of the stairs, people came toward me, waving their arms and lifting their voices in greeting. Some hugged me or kissed my undamaged cheek. Blade was already well into the crowd, taking advantage of his newbie status by firmly planting kisses on any willing girl in sight. To one side, Spring was almost surrounded by women holding babies.
Menashe, on the other hand, stayed motionless on the middle stair, looking horribly uncomfortable. For no reason I could explain, I found myself moving in front of him, intercepting well-wishers as they approached. Jake stood beside me, smiling and nodding with a professional storekeeper smile. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized he had a fake smile in his repertoire; he’d always treated his customers like friends. This was different. These people weren’t long-time customers or new acquaintances. They had an obvious eagerness to please that was painfully noticeable, almost an invitation to be taken advantage of. They didn’t know us, and yet I had the distinct feeling they would give me the last bit of food or their only shirt off their back if I asked for it, all the while praising Founder Gabe for the opportunity to serve. For me, it was similar to walking into a room full of people like my adoptive parents. If I felt unbalanced by it, no wonder Jake and Menashe were uneasy.
Korin descended two steps, reaching out a hand to rest on my shoulder. “Don’t worry. You’ll get used to having so much family.” He gave both Jake and me a little push forward.
The music began again, and we were drawn into the crowd. We danced, everyone twirling around without a care for specific partners. I started to loosen up, feeling pretty in my broomstick dress and not at all cold despite the night air. Most of the other women wore dresses too, made of bright material, though of a more simple cut. Not old-fashioned exactly, but modest, with sleeves of various lengths. They wore no jewelry except the inexpensive beads I’d seen them selling at the riverfront. Most of the men and boys wore rough brown pants or jeans and dress shirts, mostly white or blue. A few of the younger children wore the commune T-shirts with their jeans.
Jake was gazing around distractedly as he danced. I realized he was examining faces to see if Marcie and Victoria were here, and I began doing the same. If we found them tonight, everything would be resolved and we could go home.
After twenty minutes, Jake caught up with me and put his arm around my waist, bending to whisper in my ear. “See them?”
“Not yet.” Was it wrong to hope we didn’t find anything for a few days? Though I didn’t know how that would be possible because everyone seemed so open and friendly. If Victoria and Marcie were here, we’d run into them soon. “Maybe we should ask around.”
Jake shook his head. “We’d better wait to get the feel of things.”
I looked for Menashe and saw that he was at the food table. My own stomach growled. “I’m going to see what they’re eating.”
“Better eat a lot,” Jake said. “Fasting begins tomorrow.”
I groaned, having completely forgotten to smuggle in snacks.
“Didn’t you listen to the spiel? Everyone in the community feasts and then fasts for three days after new people arrive.” He gave me a mocking look. “You really should do more research on the cults you join. Or at least listen during the meetings. You should be grateful they allow liquids.”
I hit him hard. “Let’s eat.”
Before Jake could reply, he was swept into the crowd by a few giggling pubescent girls, one reaching up to tug at his locs. I grinned and made my way alone to the tables of food.
I chugged down a delicious drink that tasted faintly of peaches and apples. Nonalcoholic, which was a good thing, because the children were also drinking the mixture. There were banana muffins, pumpkin cookies, pies, meat dishes, salads, fruits, vegetables, all set out in beautiful homemade pottery dishes. I knew they probably didn’t eat like this every day, but I was still impressed they could put on a spread like this in what was practically the wilderness.
I ate. A lot. I vaguely wished Tawnia could be here to experience it all. Everything tasted as if it came straight from the garden or the fields, without any vitamin-depleting processing. At the moment my heart was softened toward Harmony Farms.
I ate more. After all, there were those three days of fasting to consider. Though Winter had sworn that an occasional weeklong liquid fast was cleansing, I’d never gone for more than two days without solids. And I’d regretted that.
The trees above the houses danced a little in the evening breeze, scattering shadows over the tops of the roofs of both side houses. It would have been a little frightening to be out here alone, but with all the company and the music and the food, it was a slice of paradise.
Which meant I needed to be careful not to grow too relaxed. I still hadn’t seen either Marcie or Victoria—and what did that mean? Either some people hadn’t chosen to attend the dance, or they couldn’t. Or maybe they had changed so much I couldn’t identify them among the more than a hundred faces.
My gaze ran over the square again. Nothing out of the ordinary, except a long shadow near the far end of one of the side houses, as though a light was coming from outside the square and falling on something solid. But what? The shape of the shadow was tall enough to be human.
Hoping no one noticed me, I slid in that direction, passing Menashe, who nodded and quickly looked away. He seemed relaxed now that no one was pestering him.
The light faded quickly toward the end of the side houses, the shadow I’d seen nothing more than a darker splash on another shadow. Probably a pole of some sort, highlighted by a light someone left on in a window facing the garden. Yet as I approached, the shadow moved. My chest tightened in momentary alarm, but when the shadow disappeared altogether, I knew whatever had made it must have moved around the houses and into the forest.
The night had grown chilly, or maybe I was too far away from the burning barrels to feel the heat. I rubbed my bare arms as I debated following the shadow, but I’d watched enough TV to know what happens to nosy heroines. No, I wasn’t going tramping anywhere until I knew more about what I was up against.
I eased back into the party. Jake was at the food table talking with Menashe. Blade and Spring were laughing and dancing. Korin was nowhere to be seen. Had he been the person behind the house? And so what if he had? He probably had a lot to check on now that he was back.
Like a prisoner in a darkened room?
Then I saw his broad figure. He was standing by one of the heating barrels near the back porch of the front house, toasting bread on a stick and laughing with a woman who had long, straight black hair and pale skin. She seemed familiar to me, though I’d never seen her before, at least not with my natural eyes.
Gabe’s wife, I realized. His much younger wife. She was clearly attractive but not nearly as beautiful as in the imprint on his ring, the way he saw her. Her pale face was devoid of makeup, her skin smooth and translucent, and her laughing dark eyes were framed with long black lashes that were better than any store-bought paint. She had a face models craved—all but her nose, which was slightly too large for her oval face, and the noticeable scar that ran parallel to her jaw on the left si
de. Her figure was lithe and supple but not overly thin. In fact, she had nice curves, with hips a tad too wide for modern tastes, but for her they were just right. She was the picture of womanhood, childbearing, and motherhood. Earthy and comforting. But also mischievous. I could see that in her dark eyes. Something else that hadn’t been in her husband’s image of her. Even as I thought this, she reached out and tugged on Korin’s ponytail. He flicked it away from her as they both laughed.
Korin caught my eye and beckoned. I went toward him, curious about this woman who had elicited so much feeling in a man, as though by watching her I could uncover the secret of making a man fall in love with me. Not just any man, of course, but the right man.
I wondered if she loved Gabe as much as he loved her.
“Autumn, this is Harmony.”
Of course she was Harmony. Not only did the name fit her perfectly, but now I knew how the commune had found its name. “Nice to meet you,” I said. No last names were used here, but like her husband, she wore a thin band of gold. Not plain like his but with facets cut across the surface so it caught and reflected the light.
“Welcome to the farm.” She took my fingers and squeezed them as a friend might, and her skin was dry and cool against mine. Her ring didn’t make contact.
“I actually thought it’d be more farm-like,” I said.
Her laugh was bright, like a child’s. “You can’t see the two barns from here. Or much of the fields. We’ve cleared nearly a hundred acres. Most of it we use for grazing, but we grow all our own food. Gabe wanted to have our main barn closer than it is, but I convinced him to leave these trees and build it way out there.” She waved in the direction of the side house opposite our position. “Good thing, too, or you’d smell it.” We laughed with her.
“What about the bathrooms?” I asked. “Do you have indoor plumbing?”
“We have water piped to the kitchens and the bathing rooms indoors, but toilets are still outside for now.” She pulled a flashlight from a pocket of her dress. “They’re in the trees behind us, if you need them, not too far past this house.”
I nodded, thinking the location of the bathrooms might explain the shadow I’d seen. It made sense that someone dancing at the end of the square near the garden would go that way around the long side house instead of walking the length of the square to go around the other side.
“Would you like me to show you?” Harmony asked.
“Please.” My bladder was suffering from all the punch. It wasn’t every day I had anything remotely healthy offered to me in drink form, and I’d overdone it.
She smiled at Korin. “Excuse us, then.”
He nodded, and I wondered if it was my imagination that he let her go with reluctance. They were probably close friends and they’d have a lot to catch up on. As Korin was Gabe’s second-in-command, his friendship with Gabe’s wife was only natural. Still, it made me uncomfortable that I hadn’t yet spotted Marcie or Victoria. With every second they were missing, the greater the likelihood that something suspicious was going on in this paradise.
Behind the house Harmony clicked on the flashlight, the beam casting otherworldly shadows on the tree trunks and shrubbery. My hand glided over the rough bark of a tall tree, and I experienced something I was at a loss to describe. Not imprints or emotions, but something ancient and wise and benevolent. I wondered if my imagination was working overtime again.
“I bet the children love to play here.”
“They adore it. That’s part of why I insisted Korin design the houses this way. Not enough forest left here to get lost in or to attract the biggest wild animals, but enough to have a good game of hide and seek and chase a rabbit or two.”
“And hide the bathrooms.”
Her laugh trilled out a little too loudly. “Exactly.”
We were quiet a moment, following a dirt and pine needle path that was wide enough to allow us to walk side by side. She moved like a dancer, graceful and aware of her body.
“Korin likes you,” she said after a few moments of quiet. “Or at least it seems that way to me. He was watching you.”
Thanks to Shannon, I wasn’t surprised. I had that effect on almost everyone who knew about my strange ability. It had nothing to do with romance. For my part, I hadn’t once thought of Korin as anything other than a particularly eloquent kook, who had a kindly tendency toward his misshapen brother. I had judged and dismissed him quickly, placing him in a box labeled “Not my type.” Now I wondered what kind of man he was inside. If it had cost him personally to stay behind when his brother had left the farm. If he had known his sister-in-law well before her death. If he’d ever been married.
I didn’t know what to say to Harmony, so I shrugged. “I think he’s watching everyone. His brother’s missing, and he’s probably concerned about him showing up here.”
“Oh?” Yet something in the way she said it made me feel she already knew about Inclar.
“There was some trouble with his brother back in Portland. A detective came to the hotel. I thought someone might have called to let you know.”
“There’s no phone here.”
I hadn’t considered that.
“We do sometimes get messages from our business in Rome,” she added, pulling back a branch overhanging the path and holding it so I could pass. “That’s closer for messages, but no one came from there today except you guys.”
“I don’t know much else.”
“Ah.” She didn’t seem concerned.
“Did you know his brother?”
She nodded. “And his wife.”
“She was here?” This surprised me.
“For a little while. But she left, and then she died. Inclar—that’s Korin’s brother—didn’t like staying here because of the memories.”
“I see.” I remembered from the imprint on Korin’s watch that he had let Inclar out of a locked room. Why had he been locked up? “Do a lot of people leave here?”
“A few.” She laughed. “Not many. Most choose to stay.”
“Do you and Gabe have children?”
She didn’t seem to think it odd that I should know she was married to the commune’s leader. Apparently, there weren’t many members named Harmony. “We have one little girl. Five years old. Flower. Oh, I know”—she laughed self-consciously—“it’s a silly name, but she is like a beautiful flower to me. She’ll change it when she’s fourteen, I’m sure, but for now it serves her well.”
“She was born here?”
She nodded. “We’d just completed the houses. Took us four years and a lot of work.”
“I’ll bet.”
“Gabe and I wanted more children, but I was already thirty-five when I had Flower, and it just hasn’t happened.” She hesitated before adding cheerfully, “We feel fortunate to have so many other children here to love.”
“So how many members are there?”
“Almost two hundred now.”
“Are all of them here tonight?” I didn’t think there’d been that many at the dance.
“Twenty or so are at the bakery in Rome, and another twenty are with Gabe in the city. Some are watching the animals, and a few are sick in bed.”
“So everyone lives in those three houses?”
“Yes. We’ll give you a tour tomorrow, but basically the house we passed coming out here is divided in half for the single men and the women. The house opposite is for families. The main house has the kitchen, laundry facilities, a meeting room, and the leaders’ quarters.”
I wondered if the leader’s quarters were any better than anyone else’s, but I didn’t say that aloud. As Gabe’s wife, she wouldn’t take that well.
“So how many are married?” I asked.
She laughed again. “That’s important, isn’t it? Don’t worry. We have more unmarried men than married men. Gabe encourages marriages, but no one is ever forced. You can date anyone you’d like.”
“I guess that’s good,” I said in a tone that told her I wasn’t interest
ed.
We walked along in silence. “What, no more questions?” she asked at last.
When I didn’t respond, she gave another short burst of laughter, and I didn’t know whether to be offended or not.
“It’s just all so new,” I offered.
Her hand touched my shoulder with a fleeting movement, a butterfly kiss. “Please, don’t be offended. I forget what it is to be new. I’m afraid we are too blunt and rough here sometimes, but I’m glad you’re here, and I hope you’ll be happy.”
Before I could respond, her light shone on a building with rustic wood siding. “Here we are. This side is for the girls. The other is for the boys. It’s not bad. We installed flush toilets last year, and there’s electricity.” She opened the wooden door and flipped on a switch.
The place didn’t even smell. “Thank you,” I said.
“Do you think you can find your way back? We have a horse about to foal in the barn just beyond those trees, and I’d like to peek in on her. I’ll leave you the flashlight.”
“I just follow the path?”
“Yes. The wide one. It goes straight back.”
“What about you?”
Her laugh tinkled like warm drops of rain on a pond. “Oh, I don’t need light. The moon is out. But I’ll take a lantern just to be sure. We keep a few extra out here because the children like to play pranks and leave each other in the dark.”
The image made me laugh.
She opened a narrow door next to the bathroom entrance, revealing a closet filled with cleaning supplies and lanterns. After taking a lantern but not lighting it, she extended the red flashlight to me, deceptively small for such a bright light. “I’d like to have it back later,” she said. “It’s one of the few battery-operated ones we have left. I use it a lot.”
“Sure.” I took the light without thinking and watched her go. I was glad she didn’t look back because strong images from the flashlight were shifting in my mind, and she might have been concerned at my expression. This was no ordinary flashlight, one people had used uneventfully, and I had none of my antique rings to soften the mental explosion.
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