Astray (25 page)

When I’ve been passed through almost everyone’s arms and been told I’m loved more times than I can count, the meeting begins to break up. I follow my parents back to their trailer with Will by my side. I’d forgotten how warm everyone could be. They really mean what they’re saying when they say it. They missed me and wanted me home.

She just needs a little reminder of who she is and where she belongs.

—Allison Hamilton

After the meeting, Will walks with my parents and me back to the trailer. Once we’re inside, my parents keep smiling at me as they fight for space in the cramped kitchenette, each of them anxious to make a hot cup of tea to warm me up after my night spent outside. My mom’s humming and my dad looks as relieved as I’ve ever seen him. I’ve come back; now he doesn’t have to choose Mom over me anymore. He can be with us both.

I sip my tea. I don’t have the slightest idea what to talk to my parents about, so I take Will to my bedroom instead, where we can hang out alone, away from their happy stares. My parents don’t seem to mind, but they do ask us to leave the door open.

“So, you really mean it—what you said back there?” Will sits on my bed, his back against the wall.

“Yeah, I did.” It’s harder to pretend to mean it now. I don’t like lying to Will. Especially when he so desperately wants what I’m saying to be true.

“You know, when you left I was so scared that you had a good reason to. I was afraid that what you thought you saw … you know, with Marie … was true. It felt like everything I ever believed in was being ripped out from under me. But then when the Rangers came and we got to stay together and Pioneer explained what really happened, it just made perfect sense. It does to you now too, right? I mean, that’s really why you’re back?”

This pretending is going to be so much harder than I thought. I don’t want to say what he needs to hear. I can almost feel Marie’s presence, weighing on me, waiting for me to make her murder be something else, something worse: her fault. My lips are dry and I bite at the spots that are chapped. “I’m back because I know where I belong now—and it wasn’t with Cody or his family,” I say, trying to answer without really saying anything at all. It’s enough to bring a smile to Will’s face, though.

“No, it wasn’t,” he says, his voice growing tender. “Look, I know that you see me as your friend … more than anything else. I’ve always known that, Lyla. And it’s okay. I’m okay with it. I think it’s enough for us to build something more on, someday, if you’ll just let me try to make you happy.” He pulls something out of his back pocket. It’s a smaller pocket-sized version of the owl that he left in Cody’s car. My stomach turns over. I look at his face, at the wistful expression on it, and I’m positive that he doesn’t know that one of the others climbed up the tree outside Cody’s house and killed an owl in front of me. He would never
have kept this little owl with him if he did. Will might be a true believer, but he’s not capable of that kind of evil.

“I kept this with me all the time you were gone. I never gave up on you, you know. Even before Pioneer said that we shouldn’t give up. And I never will.”

I’m starting to finally understand that Will’s here for Pioneer, but it’s not his only reason—it probably isn’t even his main reason. He wants his old life back because it’s the only way we might be together. What he believes in most is
us
—as a couple.

“Will, I …” My voice trails off. It hurts me, this hope he has now, but how do I make him see that we are never going to be together the way he wants and still keep everyone else convinced that I’m part of the Community again? I can’t tell him yet. As much as I hate it, I have to pretend that I want to be his Intended again until I understand what happened to the sheriff and Cody and how many members of the Community are to blame.

Will gets up from the bed and moves toward me, but I take a step backward—almost on reflex. His hands were up like he was going to try to hug me. He lowers his head, and I panic. I’ve given too much of what I’m really feeling away and blown it, but then he just nods to himself and heads for the door. “You probably need time to clear your head and … let go of him.” He won’t say Cody’s name even now. “I can do that. I’ll do whatever it takes to get things back to where they were. I won’t give up on our future, Lyla. Being with you is my calling.”

He goes out into the hall and I’m alone in the room. I lie back on the bed and put my arm over my eyes. I’m so tired all of a sudden. The lack of sleep and everything that’s happened over the last twenty-four hours are catching up with me. I’m too tired to move so that I can get under the quilt, so I just pull one side of it around me instead and stare at the wall. It isn’t long before I can feel myself slipping away.

I wake up with a start. My dad’s hand is on my side, gently shaking me awake. My heart’s pounding and I have an indescribably bad headache. What I really need is a full, uninterrupted night’s sleep—maybe an entire day. I curl into myself again and hope that he’ll go away so I can go back to it, but he just keeps shaking me and saying my name. The light coming through the window is still really bright, which means that I can’t have slept very long at all.

“Your lunchtime tea’s ready. We let you sleep for an hour, but we should probably talk a bit, don’t you think?” Dad says softly. “Come on, honey, wake up.”

“No thanks,” I mumble. I never finished the last cup that they gave me. The truth is that I’m not sure drinking anything with any of them is a good idea considering what happened yesterday, but I can’t very well say that to him.

“You’re going to need to keep hydrated. Fasting is hard on the body. If you don’t drink enough, you’ll start to get sick.”

This makes me open my eyes. Fasting? Then I remember how Pioneer asked them all to fast and pray yesterday.

“For how long?” I ask. Since Cody and the others are already poisoned, I’m not sure why they’re still doing it.

“Until Pioneer tells us to stop or the Outsiders let him out of jail,” Dad says—very matter-of-fact. “Now come on, it’ll get cold.”

I roll out of bed and stumble after him. I’m still so tired that the room feels like it’s rocking and I keep listing right and then left the whole way down the hall. I can smell cinnamon and cloves in the air.

“There you are, sleepy girl.” Mom shuffles past me and ruffles my hair. The casual nature of her touch is strange. It’s like she’s choosing to erase all that’s happened in the past few months. She moves around to the little table beside the kitchenette and settles into one of the chairs, pats the one next to hers for me. She’s holding a cup of hot water with lemon.

At my spot at the table is a large mug of spiced tea. This smell more than any other reminds me of my mom both before and after we left New York to go be with Pioneer. She’s been giving me this tea on cold days since before we lived in Mandrodage Meadows. Out of nowhere I get a flash of my sister, Karen, and me sitting at a table with our dolls, clinking our teacups together and giggling. What would our life have been like if she’d never disappeared? Would we be sitting at a table in our old brownstone in
New York? Would Pioneer ever have entered our lives? Would my mom be more like Cody’s? These thoughts make my throat so tight that I’m not sure I’ll be able to take a sip, but both my parents are watching me, looking for signs that I’m back with them the way I used to be. I can’t give them any reason to doubt it, so I bring the mug up to my lips and drink.

My parents grin at one another and my mom sips at her water.

“Taste okay?” she asks.

“Mm-hmm,” I say, and force a big smile.

She laughs, delighted, and runs a hand up and down my arm. “We’re so glad you came home. I can’t tell you how much I’ve worried for you. Things are going to get a lot worse for the Outsiders now before they’ll get better.”

“How do you know that?” I ask in a tone that I hope sounds merely curious, not accusatory.

“Because Pioneer said so. You heard him yesterday. He knew what would happen. That’s why he told us to fast and pray. We just have to be strong for a little longer. But can you imagine the reward we have waiting for us afterward? A few years in the Silo while the Brethren wipe them out and we’ll have our new earth. Pioneer promised that your sister will come back to us then with the Brethren. What a life she must be leading up there with them. I can’t wait to be a part of it.”

I look at Dad, but he won’t look at either of us. I can see the same doubt about Pioneer in his face that was
there that last day in the Silo when I asked him to leave with me; it’s slipping in and out of his expression.

There’s a knock at the door and then it opens before anyone gets up to answer it. This is the way it used to be back in Mandrodage Meadows. People weren’t allowed to keep their houses locked and it was expected that any of the other Community members could enter your house without permission. There was no such thing as privacy. It seems funny that I thought that was normal before. It seems that they’ve brought that practice here too. Which will be good for when I want to snoop around, but bad if I want to feel safe anywhere.

Mr. Brown enters our trailer, his face flushed from the cold. He plucks a napkin from our table and blows his nose loudly and then leans against the wall and peers at our tea. “Looks good, may I have a cup?”

“We wanted to welcome Lyla home,” Mom says as she gets up to pour him a mug.

“Wonderful.” Mr. Brown looks at me and winks. “So good to see you here with your parents. They’ve missed you. The last few months have been quite hard on them. On all of us. You’re our family too.”

“I know, I’m sorry,” I say.

“You’ve been gone for a while, Lyla. You’ve probably developed lots of bad habits, maybe gotten too used to seeing things from the wrong perspective.”

Translation: he thinks I’m infected with Outsider beliefs. I knew that he would. Now I have to convince him
that I’ve really and truly seen the light. He will be harder to convince than everyone else. My stomach quivers.

“Coming back means letting go of all of the new, wrong ideas that you’ve taken into your life. You have to let it all go willingly and completely if you want to be back for good.”

I put my hands on my knees beneath the table and grip them tightly. After everything that’s happened, I knew that I would have to convince them of my commitment. But I’m not sure what I can do.
What will they ask me to do?

He looks over at my parents. “I’m going to have a little talk with her to get her sorted out and back on the right path. Pioneer told me what would need to be done if she returned. He left me detailed instructions on how to … correct her. I’d like to do it in the barn.”

At the sound of Pioneer’s name, I tense.
Pioneer left him instructions? For what?
I can’t imagine. I look past Mr. Brown at the door and briefly consider jumping up from my seat and bolting for it. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

“Absolutely, we’ll just let her finish her tea and head over there with her,” Dad says. He pats my arm and I feel less afraid for a moment. He seems utterly calm.
Maybe I’m just being paranoid
.

“I think it would be better if I took her with me now and you both waited here. I’ll have her back to you soon.” Mr. Brown motions for me to stand up. “She seems ready
to do what it takes to be with us again. Aren’t you, Lyla?” Mr. Brown is talking in a voice that’s warmer than a thick pair of mittens, all deep and soft and pleasant. Pioneer used to do that too—right before we got punished.

I get up from the table. I already know that my parents won’t argue with him to keep me with them. They never did before and I’m certain that they won’t start now.

I go outside with Mr. Brown and slowly follow him to the barn. On the way, I pass several of the Rangers. They’re standing over at the far end of the barn in a kind of huddle, a laptop computer propped up on a log between them. I can hear someone talking on the computer. It sounds like a news report.

“Sources say that as many as two restaurants frequently visited by those at the courthouse were compromised. Some kind of salmonella poisoning is suspected, but the police have not released any statements confirming whether the poisoning was deliberate.” One of the men looks up at us as he listens and frowns. It’s clear from the way he watches Mr. Brown go by that he suspects the Community and that he isn’t happy about it.

I have a sudden urge to call out to them, to confirm what they seem to already suspect, but I stay silent. It’s too big a risk until I know how they feel for sure. I make myself keep walking with Mr. Brown—all the way to the barn and whatever he has waiting for me there.

I am the devil here to do the devil’s business.

—Charles “Tex” Watson, member of the Manson Family

The barn is completely empty. Mr. Brown leads us to the back of it, all the way to one of the rooms I found earlier this morning, the one where the rusty shears are. For one brief moment I’m tempted to grab them off the wall and point them at Mr. Brown, but I don’t. I am choosing to be here … sort of.

There’s a chair inside, the metal folding kind, and nothing else—the workbench and all the things on it are gone. I stay close to the door, but Mr. Brown nudges me farther into the room. His wife is in the far corner. She waves at me. She’s wearing the apron she always wore when she had kitchen duty in the clubhouse, the one with little cherries all over it. It’s oddly cheery in comparison to the rest of the room.

“Take a seat, Lyla, no need to hover in the doorway,” she says.

I don’t want to sit and have them standing over me. “I’d rather stand if that’s okay?” I keep the question in my
voice so that hopefully they won’t see this as defiance. It doesn’t work.

“You see, this is the very thing that we have to address before you can truly come home,” Mr. Brown says. “You used to know how to listen to your elders without question.”

I steel myself as best I can, lower my head like I’m apologetic, and quickly sit down. I’ve been punished before. I can handle it … I think.