California: A Novel (28 page)

“We helped get this place settled,” Sailor said.

“What about the people who were here before you guys showed up?”

“They mean well,” Dave said.

“Do they know what’s going on? That you’re part of the Group?”

Someone was coming in on the walkie-talkie. “All clear?” Dave said, and waited for the person to say, “Affirmative.”

“Ask Mikey,” Dave said to Cal.

“Most people on the Land live simple, happy lives,” Sailor said. “They do their chores and make food together. It’s a peaceful place.”

“Are they mistaken?” Cal asked.

Dave shook his head. “Of course not. It’s just that their lifestyle needs to be supported by a select few of us. We’re active, so they can be passive.”

“‘Active’?” Cal said.

“Ask Mikey,” Sailor said again. “He’ll explain.”

“We don’t know that, Sail,” Dave said. “Break.”

A few hours later, after Cal had assiduously studied the hand-drawn maps Sailor had given him, he headed for the Forms. Dave had insisted he wear a scarf. “Before dawn is when it gets the coldest, and if you get stuck, you might be out here for a while.”

“The trick is to compare what’s in front of you with what you remember from the diagrams,” Sailor said before they parted ways.

“Do you have that kind of mind?” Dave asked.

“I guess we’ll find out,” Cal said, and clicked the light on the helmet he’d been given.

Beneath the moon, the Forms had been eerie, but in the funnel of light they were sinister. The objects within them had been wrested from their original purpose, and they were now misunderstood, lost. It must have been a huge sacrifice, Cal thought, for the residents of the Land to give up these things in the name of protection.

He noticed an empty picture frame and then the boomerang shape of a rocking-chair leg. A doll speared with barbed wire. He took a deep breath and reminded himself that they were just objects. He forced himself to look again, and closely. “Commit all this to memory,” Dave had said before leaving him alone.

Cal had no exact purpose except to walk through this maze with an alert mind. He had his pistol and the walkie-talkie, and Dave would find him should he need help. The goal, really, was to just get used to the Forms, to learn them as he would streets in a strange city.

He walked slowly, careful of the glass at the outskirts. The easiest way to understand the layout of the Forms was to imagine a series of spirals. He studied each Form as he passed, memorizing its contents. The door of a washing machine; a plastic air-freshener plug-in; a shopping basket missing its handles. Just objects. Collected by people, reused by them.

Not many had seen the maps. Sailor had unrolled them solemnly, said, “These are closely guarded,” and hovered as Cal read them. Cal understood that the others—the ones not in the Group—were hemmed in by these Forms. They couldn’t leave easily, not without people finding out. Not that they wanted to leave. They lived a good life here, and that was all anyone could hope for nowadays.

Cal stopped walking and turned off the lamp on his helmet. The miner’s cone of light disappeared. His eyes should get used to the dark, as an animal’s did, and as his own had, back when he and Frida were holed up in the shed. He imagined the Form next to him exhaling, relieved to be back in the safety of darkness, and Cal felt a kinship with the thing.

In L.A., when Cal could no longer improve the world by growing food, he had resolved to escape the wretchedness, take Frida to the edge of the world, and start over. And when he discovered the Millers had killed themselves, Cal had buried their bodies and resolved to retreat once more from ugliness, from the familiar wretchedness that seemed to follow them. How impossible, though, to turn one’s back on all the horrors in the world; there had to be another way to live.

Passing beneath these makeshift monsters, Cal understood that he was now part of Micah’s scheme. He would be man enough to admit it. Frida was wrong; he didn’t think this was Plank, the sequel. This was a brutal wilderness where people did what they had to in order to survive. By taking back his gun and ascending the Tower and studying the maps, Cal had tacitly accepted whatever was going on behind closed doors on the Land. That’s what Frida would say. She was right about that, but maybe that wasn’t a terrible thing. Cal had rejected the Group back in L.A., but out here, where there were Pirates to fight, and people to protect, it was easier to accept. It made sense. There had to be a part of Frida who agreed with that.

The past didn’t matter if it was the future they had to worry about. It would all be okay; he’d have to convince Frida of that. At least for now, alone in the dark save for the glow of the moon, it seemed okay to him.

Cal soon found that he wasn’t lost, that he could recall the maps Sailor had unrolled on the tower floor and see the maze’s tricks before him. He did have that kind of mind. He walked carefully but with confidence. He put a hand out to the closest Form, gentle enough that the edge didn’t cut him. They were just objects. Made by people to fight people, and to protect them, too.

Maybe all along he had wanted Micah to find the revolutionary in him. He’d wanted someone to seek out that place in him that could be powerful.

I
t was darker than dark, and far too early to meet Anika downstairs, but Frida couldn’t stay in bed any longer. Cal wasn’t back from security yet, and thank goodness, because he was the whole reason she couldn’t sleep. Imagining him out there, patrolling the Forms, or watching from the Tower for any suspicious movement, made her sick.

She crept out of bed and put on her shoes and coat in the dark. She lit a candle, and followed its light out of the bedroom and down the hallway. The stairs creaked with each step, but she kept going, one hand dusting the banister as she went.

Once Frida was outside in the cold, she followed the flame’s flickering light down the path. If Cal was up in a Tower, he’d see her. Was that what she wanted? She couldn’t shake the thought that he might blow his whistle instead of climbing down to talk.
Stop being so dramatic,
she reminded herself. She’d asked him to find out everything, and that’s what he was doing by watching the borders until sunrise. He’d learn this place for the both of them.

Frida let the candlelight dance across the dirt. She kept her eyes on the flame but didn’t move. She had no plan, nowhere to go. Every time she thought of her fight with Cal, and about Anika’s story, about the Pirates attacking this place, about the kids who used to live here, about her brother beheading another man, and about Cal being blind to what had happened here, she wanted to scream. She stared into the flame. It was so feeble against the blackness.

She always took off when they argued, as if it might kill her to stay another second with Cal when she was angry. She should have stayed, shouldn’t have been so gutless, so afraid to hear him out. He wanted to make things better, no matter what it took, and she couldn’t stand that.

The Land didn’t get as quiet as the wilderness did. Even in the middle of the night, Frida could hear two people talking nearby, and in another house, someone was humming. There was the occasional sleep-snort, too, and the creak of a bed as someone rolled over. There was so much life here.

Frida shielded the candle with a cupped hand and stepped forward, one foot in front of the other, as if walking on a balance beam.

Before she’d left the Bath, she had asked Cal to find out everything. He’d asked the same of her, but she’d nearly forgotten that part. It was her job, too, to discover the Land’s history. Cal said Micah didn’t care about the past, but that had to be false. Everyone cared about the past.

Frida had never been inside Micah’s house, but it had been pointed out to her a few times, even by her brother himself.

“If you ever need anything,” he’d said. “That’s where I sleep most nights.”

“‘Most nights’?” she’d asked, an eyebrow raised.

“Not like that,” he said. “I don’t have a girlfriend if that’s what you’re getting at.”

It was a one-story structure made of wood that had darkened and gone brittle over the years. Its roof sloped, and its two front picture windows were boarded up.

Across the doorway hung a curtain made of thick material and torn at the side. It was probably as cold in there as it was out here, Frida thought, and dark. As she stepped up to its entrance, she practiced what she would say:
Tell me exactly what went on here. What have you
done in the name of containment, and where does it stop?
She would ask him what happened to the children. Anika shouldn’t have to be the one to retell such horrors.

“Hello?” she said as she reached the doorway. She pulled the curtain aside, prepared to walk into the house, when her hand hit something solid. Frida saw that behind the curtain was a wooden door, sturdy as the Hotel’s, sturdier than Anika’s, and a metal knob. Of course her brother had a door, it was just hidden.

Frida struck her knuckles against the wood, hard, and then once more. When there was no answer, she turned the knob. With a click, the door opened.

She found herself inside one large room. Two windows across from the door would let in the first of the morning’s light; they had not been boarded up, Frida realized, because their glass was intact.

A shelf ran along the length of the room, directly below the windows: it was smooth, and when Frida shined the candle she saw it was made of wood. Different candles lined this shelf, some of them burned almost to nothing, others long and tapered. None of them were lit, but Frida imagined that when they were, they transformed the room. It’d be like standing in an elegant little restaurant: spare, honey lit. All it lacked was a hostess stand, some skinny cute woman with a handful of menus, ready to show you to your table.

Against one wall was a single sleeping pallet, empty, and in the center of the room a stove huffed. It was warm in here. Micah must have left recently.

Frida was stunned by the anger she felt. Or maybe it was envy. The house’s exterior was nothing special, but it was welcoming inside, almost beautiful. Someone had renovated this carefully, but if you saw it from the outside, you’d never have any idea. Everyone knew Micah lived here, but how many were invited inside?

She stepped to the window and for a moment felt like she’d found herself in a charming country home. That didn’t seem like Micah, though: he’d want to wake up to see the Land’s dangerous and unique border. Maybe when the sun rose, it revealed a line of sharp Spikes in the distance.

Frida pushed away from the window, the glass solid and smooth against her hands, and rounded the stove. Behind it was a table, low to the ground, and beneath it, a pile of clothes, a few folded neatly, others flung carelessly aside. Frida picked up a blue T-shirt and held it to her face. There it was, her brother’s smell, as if he were still fourteen years old, showering every morning for three minutes, timed, like he was training for the military. Frida knew she was caught in a fantasy, but she didn’t care. She breathed in deeper.

On the table were a few odds and ends: a fingernail clipper, a brush for Micah’s long hair, and a bandage, the kind you’d roll onto a sprained ankle.

And then she saw the toy.

They had called it the Bee, even though someone, Dada maybe, eventually realized it was a butterfly. By then, it was too late, the Bee was the Bee.

It was a plastic butterfly with clear blue wings and a big smiling face. From its head protruded a ring that opened and closed; Hilda used to hook it onto their stroller or onto one of their car seats. Not that Frida remembered any of that; when they were older, the toy used to sit on the mantel like a vase, and Hilda would sometimes talk about it. When Frida and Micah were babies, she said, the Bee had the miraculous power to turn their distress into something more palatable. It had saved the family on many crosstown car trips.

Frida picked it up and rubbed her hand over the ridges of the wings, across its smile, its big orange eyes. Its body was striped, black and white, but now the white paint had peeled off, revealing a sad gray color beneath. The Bee.

Her brother had taken this toy from their home. He must have wanted a souvenir before he left L.A. for good, and he knew it wouldn’t be missed. Frida had forgotten all about it.

There was no way Micah saw this now and didn’t think of their family, of their mother’s stories. He might not want children on the Land, but it wasn’t because he was evil. He had to have a reason; it had to be an act of compassion.

Maybe her brother would give this to her, pass it on to his niece or nephew. He loved her, and he loved his family. Frida remembered what he’d said to her in the tree house. He thought she’d go to the encampment with their parents. He’d wanted her to be safe, too. Her little brother was mixed up, but she could forgive him for that.

As Frida walked into the kitchen, Anika said, “I thought we’d try breadsticks today.”

The kitchen was dark, the candle between them throwing shadows across Anika’s face.

“Those were my brother’s favorite, growing up,” Frida said.

“Oh, yeah?”

“He loved stale, store-bought ones. He loved how crunchy they were.” Frida laughed. “It was kind of weird, actually. But also funny.”

“Sounds about right,” she said.

As they worked, Frida said, “The kids had to leave when Micah got here, right? That was a condition of his help?”

Anika nodded, but she didn’t look up. “It was practical.”

“I thought so,” Frida said.

“August had access to a Community. At first, we didn’t know which one.”

“And you didn’t know it was Pines until August brought the objects for the Forms?”

Anika didn’t answer.

“Anika?”

“Back then, the Communities had everything figured out except one thing: children. What if someone couldn’t conceive, even after IVF and all that? What then? It didn’t happen often, but occasionally, there was one unlucky couple on the block.”

Frida remembered what Toni had told her: that in Communities, childless couples were frowned upon.

“August took the youngest children there,” Anika said. “To live.”

“Adoption?”

“They wanted babies.”

“What about the older kids?” Frida asked.

“Bo and Sandy took Jane to live off the Land. They were the only ones. A handful of others were going to do the same, but right before the Millers left, another family lost their child. Melissa—our oldest. I told you she had that fever when the Pirates came? Well, she died of it.”

“My God.”

“It frightened us, the thought of being out there alone, vulnerable to something like that happening. Micah told us we were right to worry. I’m not sure if his goal was to scare us into keeping close, but it worked. Melissa’s parents are still here.” Anika didn’t say their names, and Frida didn’t ask. She’d let them be themselves, not their tragedy.

“I assume Pines was able to take care of the children?” Frida asked. “They wouldn’t die of fever there. But I bet it’s terrible sometimes being without Ogden.”

Anika nodded. “It is. But I’m glad he was young enough to be adopted. Micah said he’d go to a family immediately, a well-off one. The older kids didn’t have it as easy.”

“They weren’t adopted?”

“No. They were sent to a place called C.A.P., the Center at Pines. That’s where children too old to be adopted are educated and trained for jobs. Micah said they’ll be well fed and safe. He showed us pamphlets. It looks like a nice boarding school, with classrooms and a cafeteria. Once they’re old enough, they receive apprenticeships. The kids who grow up at C.A.P. are guaranteed jobs upon turning eighteen. It’s manual-labor stuff. They’ll only be eligible for certain jobs, but they won’t die of fever or starvation, and their lives will be easier there.” She paused. “Micah said it was the best thing for them. Didn’t we want a better life for our children?”

“But to give them up—” Frida stopped herself midsentence. She wished she could take it back.

“I’ll never forget it. All the kids left together on the school bus, dressed in clothes August had provided for them. Crisp, clean dresses for the girls and pants and button-down shirts for the boys. Even tiny outfits for the little ones. Ogden had a smile on his face when they put him into his carrier, like he was proud of how he looked, like he was excited for the ride. We could almost pretend it was normal, our babies’ first day of school. We waved until the taillights disappeared.”

Frida remembered the bus, parked in that meadow like something out of a children’s book. Frida imagined Anika giving her baby away. He would be covered in a light blue blanket, to protect against the chill of the early morning, his tiny clenched fists hidden beneath it. Had Anika run her index finger over Ogden’s gums one last time, to feel the teeth cutting through? Did she cry out as Ogden’s familiar weight left her arms? Or did she remain stoic? As something dark pressed at the edges of her chest, did she press back? This was best for Ogden, she must have told herself. Wasn’t it?

The day they found out Micah was dead, Hilda said she could still feel the top of his baby head beneath her nose, against her mouth. She said she remembered the way she’d comb her fingers through the fuzz of his hair as she nursed.

Anika gestured for Frida to step aside so she could roll out the dough.

“You can’t think too hard about this, Frida. We all had to make sacrifices. I suppose that includes your brother as well.”

“Micah is sweeter than he lets on,” Frida said with a smile. “You know he kept this toy? We loved it when we were kids. It’s a little bee, well, it’s a butterfly. But my brother has it in his room.”

“The Bee?” Anika said.

“You know it?”

“He gave that to Ogden, before they left.” She put both hands on the table before her, to settle herself. “He took it back?”

“I’m sure there’s an explanation…” Frida didn’t know what else she could say. Her brother had given the toy to a baby, and then he’d taken it away. It was petty at best. At worst—she couldn’t go there.

She wondered what other cruel things Micah was capable of. She tried to imagine Randy hanging the Pirate’s head from the top of the tallest Spike. He was probably crying, and her brother would have remained calm, as if instructing the boy how to decorate a Christmas tree.

“What about Randy?” Frida asked.

“He’s at C.A.P. now, too.”

“Deborah let him go?”

“It was the only way,” Anika said.

They didn’t speak for a moment, and then Anika placed both her hands flat on the table and said, “Frida, let me tell you about your brother.”

“I know my brother.”

“You don’t,” she said.

Frida waited.

“The first year Micah was here, I was very difficult to live with. Losing my baby was harder on me than the others, I don’t know why. I wasn’t very cooperative, I talked back, I didn’t want to help with the Forms, or anything, really.”

Frida wished she could stop listening; she knew something bad was coming. If only there was a door to slam, a bridge to jump off. But she let Anika keep talking.

“On a particularly dark day,” Anika said, “I refused to show up to the Church’s meeting. I lay in bed all day, crying. I thought I’d be reprimanded publicly, but it was worse.” Anika stopped.