I shut the door and leaned over in front of it, trying to catch my breath. “I wasn’t going to say anything until I had proof, so I don’t want you to think I was purposefully keeping anything from you. Anyway, I started setting my alarm and getting up at different times to see if Kate would get on the phone again. Well, tonight I caught her. For sure. And she lied to me when I confronted her about it, just like before, but that wasn’t the weirdest part. She asked me not to do this to her. I don’t even know what she’s talking about. I just wanted her to tell us the truth.”
“So you’re creeping around the house spying on her?”
The world tilted and shifted like I’d just slammed into a wall. “I’m spying on her?”
“I mean, getting up in the middle of the night and trying to bust her sounds a bit like spying to me. Did you forget we’re trying to earn her trust, not break it?” He worked his jaw before continuing. “How is she ever going to open up if she doesn’t trust us? And not just open up—get better. That’s what we’re trying to help her do. Remember?”
My pulse throbbed in my temples. Anger inched its way up my chest. My fingers balled into fists at my sides. “I thought it was pretty important to find out if she was talking to someone in the middle of the night and why she was lying about it. I didn’t think there was any better way than catching her again.”
“Why are you so obsessed with this?”
“Why aren’t you?” His naivete about her was maddening. “What if she’s talking to someone from Love International?”
He shook his head.
“What if she’s still in contact with them?” I refused to let it go, especially if there was any potential that any of us were in danger.
“She’s not,” he said with conviction.
“How can you just blindly trust someone who left you for eleven years?” He recoiled like I’d slapped him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. I wasn’t thinking.”
“Move,” he said.
It slowly dawned on me that he thought I was blocking the door, because I was standing in front of it. “Where are you going?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.
“I’m going to see if she’s okay.”
THIRTY-ONE
ABBI
NOW
I pulled the pillow over my head. I would be so glad when I got to sleep like a regular person again. It was almost five, and I hoped I’d be able to fall back to sleep. Something next door had woken me, and then I’d heard Dad and Meredith’s whispered yelling. I didn’t even want to know what had happened.
I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and opened Vanished. I’d been obsessively refreshing it since Gloria’s threatening post about Mom two nights ago. Who was she? I’d spent hours staring at the line, unable to move, just reading it over and over again. Of course Dad hadn’t taken it seriously. He never did. This wouldn’t be the first time someone had hijacked her thread with nonsense. Once someone had pretended to be her. A couple of other times someone had written something similar about her being alive.
Except Mom was alive for real, and the post just happened to have been made within weeks of her coming home. And I was supposed to believe that was all coincidence? If no one was going to take it seriously, then I would. Besides, Dean had said that he was going to be closely monitoring the forums, so what did I really have to worry about?
I looked around like Dad could see through the walls and into my bedroom and would come barreling in to stop me at any second. I created an account as fast as I could and registered to use the discussion boards. My heart thumped in my chest with each tap on the keypad. I was a registered user within seconds.
Why do you want her dead?
I quickly hit “Submit” before I changed my mind.
KATE
THEN
I shucked the beans, filling up the bowls before passing them to Margo as Abner walked past us. He was too busy communing with the spirits and muttering prayers underneath his breath to pay us any attention. Bekah’s son, Miles, toddled behind him, doing his best to keep up. Even though Abner tried to pretend like all the children were equal in his eyes, he had a special spot in his heart for Miles. He favored him so much that he allowed him to sleep with him at night, and Abner always slept alone. I watched as they disappeared into his tent, wondering what they did in there. Sometimes they didn’t come out for hours.
Margo eyed me from across the table. “They make an interesting pair.”
My cheeks flushed. I was embarrassed she’d caught me watching them so closely. “Yeah, they really do, and I just don’t understand it.”
“It’s because she was his. That’s the real reason she kept her relationship with Sam a secret.”
“What do you mean?”
“She’d never been with anyone else besides Abner.”
I almost dropped my bowl. “She was with Abner?”
“Yes.” She raised her eyebrows. “You didn’t know that? I thought everyone knew that.”
I shook my head, unable to speak around the emotions working their way up my throat. Abner had told me years ago that he practiced sexual abstinence, and he must’ve preached on sexual purity hundreds of times. Every time I was starting to soften toward Abner, he did something horrendous again. He’d done much worse things in the past, but I’d never caught him in such a big lie. Something about his dishonesty was unsettling in a way that none of his actions had been before.
“Wow, you really had no idea, did you?” she asked after a few minutes had passed and I still hadn’t regained my composure.
“How many other disciples has he been with?” I asked, finally finding my voice.
“There weren’t any others—just Bekah. Like I said, she was his.”
Was that the real reason he was so angry with Sam? Jealousy? My knees felt weak. I needed to sit down. How did I never see it?
“Were they in love?” I asked, steadying myself against the table.
Margo let out a bitter laugh. “Love? No. He wanted a virgin, so that’s what he got.”
My stomach rolled. “What are you talking about?”
“You think people get here by accident?”
How else would they get here? Was this some kind of weird test? Had Abner put her up to it? I stopped what I was doing and dried my hands on my shirt. “None of this is making sense.”
Her eyes swept the area around us before she spoke, making sure we were alone. “Back in the beginning, Abner made exchanges for what we brought in—”
“What do you mean by what you brought in?”
“Discipleship and membership have always been separate. You know that. Membership is voluntary and open to everyone. Discipleship is reserved for a select few who can pass certain tests or are brought in as a form of loyalty test as part of someone else’s discipleship.”
Her words knocked the air from my lungs. “You tricked people?”
“We didn’t trick anyone. That’s not how it worked. Every person and situation was different. Bekah was Will’s exchange for me.”
“Exchange?” I couldn’t wrap my brain around anything she was saying. None of it made sense. Discipleship was all about choice—free will. How did any of this fit with that?
“Abner wanted proof that Will was willing to give up the thing that was the most important to him for Love International, so he asked to lie with me for one night. But Will refused to share me even for a night.” Her eyes filled with pride. “The problem was that Will had been with Abner long enough to know that he couldn’t simply refuse his request. He needed something to offer him in return, and it had to be equal to what Abner was asking, or he’d never consider it. He told him he could do better than allowing him to experience me. He could have his own virgin. That’s how Bekah came into play.”
My eyes widened. “You were a virgin when you married Will?” She nodded. “But you were twenty-six.”
“I was a committed Mormon before him.”
That meant Will was still the on
ly man she’d been with, since she’d told me during our mentorship that they practiced monogamy. I took a moment for it to sink in. “How did it work?”
“What do you mean?”
“You can’t just put an ad in the newspaper asking for virgins. How’d Will find Bekah?”
“He didn’t.” Grief clouded her face. “I did.”
Horror filled my insides. “You found Bekah?”
“In a women’s devotional group on the south side of Atlanta.” She hung her head in shame.
“But that was just Bekah, right? Nothing like that happened with me, did it?” Margo refused to lift her head. Her silence was more than my answer. “Look at me,” I hissed. “Tell me what you did to get me here.”
“Nothing. None of that matters. I was—”
I interrupted her. “Yes, it does. You owe me the truth after everything we’ve been through.”
She cleared her throat, eyes still downcast. “I’m sorry, Kate. I really am. It was a long time ago. You need to remember that. A different lifetime ago, really.”
I wanted to shake her. Yes, yes, it was, and it was a lifetime where I had a family. One with a husband who adored me, who never would dream of hurting another human being, and there was a possibility I’d been tricked into leaving him? And a daughter who used to follow me around the same way Miles followed Abner.
I tried to keep my voice calm. She’d shut down if I got hysterical and drew attention to us. “It might have been a different lifetime ago, but it was my life, and I want to know what happened.”
She let out a sigh. “We wanted to see if someone would leave their earthly family for us.”
“But people left their family for Love International all the time.”
“Yes, but we wanted it to be an amazing family they left behind.” She lowered her voice, like it would lessen the impact of her words. “We wanted to see if what we had was powerful enough to make someone give up the love they had for something greater.”
I couldn’t process the truth. It was too big. How could they do that? How could they justify toying with people’s lives like that?
Margo’s face reflected my pain. “I’m sorry, Kate. It still makes your experience real. Nothing changes that. Nothing. We were never allowed to do anything once they were in the door. Our only influence was on getting the chosen ones there.”
Calling me a chosen one didn’t make the betrayal any less real. Tears slid down my cheeks, and I quickly brushed them away with my sleeve. “So all of this has been a game to you guys?”
She reached into my bowl and took both my hands in hers. “No, Kate. Every decision you made from the moment you walked through Love International’s door was your own.”
But I never would’ve walked through the doors if they hadn’t called my boss and requested the interview. It tainted everything that followed. I jerked my hands out of the bowl. “I don’t feel well. Find someone else to cover for me,” I said and hurried back to my tent before the sobs overtook me.
THIRTY-TWO
MEREDITH
NOW
Kate hadn’t been in her room when Scott had gone to check on her. She’d gone back downstairs to make coffee, and I couldn’t help but follow him down there. I hated myself for doing it, but I wanted to see what he would say to her.
“Morning, Kate. Where’s Shiloh?” he asked when he noticed she was alone. It was rare for her not to be wearing Shiloh strapped to her chest in a wrap.
“Upstairs sleeping,” Kate said while she poured creamer into her coffee. She’d told them coffee was one of the things she had missed the most while she was away.
“Meredith just filled me in on what happened this morning,” Scott announced, surprising me with his directness.
She turned to Scott, her back to me. “Meredith thinks I’m making phone calls while all of you are asleep.”
“It’s no big deal if you have been, you know. I mean, you can talk to whoever you want. It’s not like we’re your parents or something. You’re not going to get grounded.” He let out a nervous laugh.
She smiled. “I know that, but I haven’t been talking to anyone. I don’t have anyone to call.”
“I know. I just, well, you know . . .” He shrugged. “Trying to keep the peace.”
“She’s lying, Scott. I caught her twice,” I said. “And even if I hadn’t caught her, I have the phone records to prove it.”
“The records don’t say who made the call. Anyone could have been on the phone,” Kate said.
“Yes, except that I caught you.”
“I’m sorry, Meredith, but even if I was talking to somebody, it wouldn’t be your business.”
“It’s called keeping secrets,” I said. “And we don’t keep secrets in this house.”
“Are you sure about that?” she asked.
“Of course I’m sure about that.”
“I’m not the only one in the room with secrets.” She shot Scott a pointed look.
“What’s she talking about?” I asked, turning to Scott.
“Kate, don’t,” he begged.
The room spun.
“What’s she talking about?” I could barely breathe.
“Ask him what we argued about on the day I left,” Kate said.
Scott had never said they’d argued. That wasn’t how the story went. And then I remembered what he’d said the other night before bed—how he’d hinted that I didn’t know the full story. Waves of fear rocked my insides.
KATE
THEN
Margo spotted me coming out of the outhouse and made a beeline for me. I’d been avoiding her since yesterday, but it was only a matter of time before she cornered me, since there was nowhere to hide. She grabbed my arm, fingers digging into me, and pulled me to the other side of the outhouse.
“Did you tell him what I told you?” Her eyes darted around, watching the camp at the same time she spoke.
I jerked my arm away. “Of course not.”
Abner grew more unraveled every day, and there was no telling what he’d do if he found out she’d told me their secrets. I’d be rewarded for calling out a dissenter—that was what he labeled anyone who kept a secret or went against what he said—but there’d be a reckoning for Margo. I couldn’t do that to her, even if she had hurt me.
“Please, Kate, you can’t stay mad at me. You have to understand that I thought I was doing the right thing. You know what it’s like. You have to. Don’t pretend you don’t understand what it’s like in the beginning. I would’ve done anything.” Her eyes pleaded with mine for understanding. “But things are different now. Everything’s changed.”
A twig snapped, making both of us jump. We quickly stepped in line back toward camp. Too much time away from camp was unacceptable. She held on to my arm as we walked. “I’m sorry, Kate—please forgive me. I’m so sorry I got you into this mess. I’m sorry I got everyone involved.” She was seconds away from crying.
“Stop it, okay. We’re fine. Just stop. We’re almost back to camp, and everyone’s back there waiting on the gathering,” I whispered. Margo straightened up immediately.
Abner had announced at breakfast that he wanted to have a midafternoon gathering. We rarely had middle-of-the-day meetings, since afternoons were reserved for chores, so whatever it was had to be important. We hurried underneath the tent, where everyone was waiting on him, and we took seats next to each other on one of the blankets.
It wasn’t long before Abner stepped out of his tent and made his way to us. He strutted to the center of the circle, wasting no time in getting started. “As the outsiders discover how broken their world is, they are going to come searching for ours. They are going to want to steal what we have and make it their own. We must be ready for that time.” He grew more and more paranoid each day about people finding out where we were before we had our army assembled. “And family, we are not ready. Not even close.”
Six children weren’t enough for an army. All our discussions lately had focused on proc
reating, but nobody had been successful. I didn’t know if I could stomach another lecture on how important it was to channel our sexual energy into a shared purpose, but I couldn’t tolerate much of anything lately, and I didn’t know how I’d manage to keep fooling everyone after Margo’s disclosure. I’d had dark periods of my soul, but this one wasn’t leaving.
Abner’s voice interrupted my thoughts, and I forced myself to pay attention. “We’ve been living bound by the agreements we made while we lived in the fallen world. Marriage is a man-made construct and a tie binding us to our former identities. We haven’t been successful in procreation because we are still holding on to those ties. It’s time to break the chains and leave it all behind.”
The married couples stood next to each other. Their children curled around their legs tighter, because, despite how hard we all worked with the children, they still ran to their parents at night.
“How does any of this work?” Malachi asked the question we’d all been thinking.
“However it chooses to. There are no rules. That’s the point. No constraints. No boundaries. The lines of separation between us no longer exist. We are free to procreate as God intended. Whenever and with whomever we feel.”
Malachi cleared his throat uncomfortably. “I mean, that would mean you could have sex with my wife if you wanted to.”
Abner nodded. “If she chose to.” He pointed to the other men in the group. “Or she might choose to have sex with one of them.”
The color drained from Malachi’s face.
“But we don’t have to sleep with anyone else unless we want to, right?” his wife, Gilly, asked, gripping his arm and moving closer to him.
“Of course not. No one is ever forced to do anything they aren’t called to do. From now on, people are free to couple with whomever they choose.” Abner’s faced beamed with purpose and light. “I will do my part as well. I will begin lying with our maidens to see if my fruit might create a soldier. This is how we will build this army.”
THIRTY-THREE
MEREDITH
When She Returned Page 20