Starbird Murphy and the World Outside (36 page)

“I can try,” I said, “but I'm not sure I'll be much help.” I didn't want Mars or EARTH to know I had shown the books to Ben. I got nervous thinking about EARTH in the office, looking through the books alone, and hurried to put on my shoes, wool hat, and gloves.

Outside it was misting rain, and the streets shone wet like black rocks on the beach. Winter was circling us, preparing to close in.

Mars and I walked to a shiny new truck, which was parked on the street in front of the house. As I touched the handle to open the passenger door, something occurred to me. “I'm not authorized to sign the checks,” I said. “We have the money from the apple pressing, so all EARTH needs to do is take the bills to Ephraim and get his signature.”

“EARTH needs you to explain some things about the books,” Mars grumbled and added, “just get in.”

Something about the way he said that, “just get in,” made my heart tremble. Teacher Ted had told me to listen to my inner voice. Something inside me was yelling. My hand still on the passenger side door, I looked through the window and my blood stopped flowing. Sitting on the seat of the truck was the book Teacher Ted had given me, the one that had been in my backpack.

“Why were you in my backpack?” I said, taking a few steps back from the passenger door. “Where are you trying to take me?”

“To EARTH,” replied Mars Wolf, stepping away from his open door and walking toward the back of the truck.

“Did you drive my brother off in the middle of the night? Did you tell him you would kill me?”

“Crazy rantings of a drug addict. I wonder where you heard those?” Mars moved quickly around the truck, faster than I thought he could.

“I'm EARTH's daughter. You can't do anything to me,” I said, panic rising like an elevator inside me, rocketing to the top floor.

“Just get in the damn truck.”

I turned back toward Beacon House, thinking I could scream and wake everyone up. V wasn't home, but the others would help me. And that's when I saw the sight that squeezed my heart till it bruised. Standing in the hall, with the little green door open, watching the whole scene, was Europa. And as I took two running steps toward the safety of Beacon House, she stepped back into the foyer and closed the door.

I looked back at Mars, who was paused at the truck's tailgate, one foot held off the ground. I sprinted. I had two feet on the sidewalk before Mars Wolf had one, and broke hard down the street, in the direction of the café.

I could hear Mars Wolf's steps after me, all the way to the end of the block. Then I heard him say, “Shit,” and stop abruptly. After several feet, I turned to see if I had lost him and saw his driver's side door slam as the truck lurched down the street. I cut left at the intersection and then right between two houses toward the alley. A dog collided with his chain-link fence as I passed, barking ferociously. I could hear the truck's tires squealing, turning around toward the alley.

I doubled back, out between the same two houses and the barking dog, and across the street to some bushes. I knew where I had to run, but I couldn't lead Mars Wolf there. Luckily, no dogs were out on the next block, and I made it to another alley and then a yard without hearing the truck. I came out on a familiar sidewalk, and ran down it all the way to the park with the baseball diamond. I checked both directions before making a break for the trees at the north end and ducking into them to catch my breath.

The sound of my heart and the rain were what everything in the world was made of. Then headlights turned down the street near where I squatted, crawling slow and menacing down the road. I tucked myself low behind a trunk, making sure no white piece of clothing or reflective bit of jacket was visible to the street.

The headlights passed. I sat for a few minutes before pulling my hat away from my ears to listen. The park was dark and quiet again.

I didn't stand but hunched over, staying low as I moved. Doug said his tent was near this row of trees, so I figured I could creep from trunk to trunk and find it. How hard could it be to spot a tent pitched in a park?

I walked through the grass and over roots, head down, for several feet until I felt a surprising pain near my right ankle. My foot slipped and I tripped into the wet leaves, my cheek smashing into the ground.

“Get up,” said a voice above me, thick and ferocious. Mars Wolf had found me. He was going to drive me off in the night to deposit me at a teen homeless shelter somewhere in Oregon, or maybe he would just kill me. “Get up,” he said again.

I rolled over and looked. It was Doug Fir, poised over me with a baseball bat, ready for a battle. I held my arms over my head. Was he high on drugs? Would he hit me?

His arms went limp. “I set up trip wires so no one could sneak up on me,” he said.

Doug didn't have a tent at all, just a dark-blue tarp secured between two bushes with a sleeping bag underneath. He had booby-trapped it on every side with some stakes and a wire that was invisible in the dark. It was hard to imagine a drug addict would think to do that. He helped me up.

“Mars Wolf,” I said, feeling myself start to lose it, “he tried to drive me off.” Then I was crying for real, crying like I cried when Doug left, like I hadn't cried since EARTH went on his Mission, like I was thirteen again.

“I would have come to find you,” said Doug, pulling me into a hug, pressing his hands against my back and neck. And I hugged him back ferociously inside the square of trip wires.

“I'm sorry I didn't bring you dinner.”

“I've been fending for myself for a long time,” he said into my hair. Then Doug pulled away and started to untie his tarp from the bushes. “He's still out there looking for us. We should probably move.”

“And go where?” I said. “We can't go to Beacon House. We can't go to the Farm because they're going there in the morning to have a Translation.”

“What if Mars tries to do something to Fern?” Doug was rolling up the tarp now, into a tight ball, his eyes scanning the street.

“Doug, are you using drugs?”

He shoved the tarp into a canvas bag. I couldn't make out his expression in the dark. “I smoke pot sometimes. Did mushrooms once. Why?”

“No reason.” It was true, Doug was using drugs, but did that make him a drug addict? EARTH smoked marijuana, too, but EARTH said that not everyone could handle it. One thing was clear: Doug had been telling the truth about Mars Wolf kidnapping him.

I grabbed one of Doug's bags, and he hoisted a pack onto his back when the camp was broken. We started walking toward Paul and Devin's house. That's where V would be, and it was the only place I could think of to go. There was Ben's, but I couldn't imagine his parents being too happy about a late-night visit.

We tried to take smaller streets. I didn't know the way very well and I kept getting confused. We decided to use major arteries and duck into the bushes whenever a truck passed.

“Do you think these guys will drive us to the Farm? If we can get there before EARTH, we can talk to Fern alone,” Doug said as we walked. “Maybe we can even get her out of there before he arrives.”

“We can't just grab Fern and go,” I said. “What about everyone else? What about Iron and Ursa? What about Indus? We need to go expose Mars Wolf. We need to tell EARTH what he's been doing.”

“Tell EARTH about Mars Wolf?” Doug stopped walking. “What about Arnold Muller and EARTH owning property?”

“He has good reasons for that,” I said, stopping, too. “The Family was being sued and he had to put the money someplace safe. And he bought the Mansion for all of us.”

“Oh, the leader of the cult's bank account is somehow safe from legal action?”

“Don't say that. Don't use that word.”

“You talked to him alone, didn't you? What did he tell you, Starbird? How did he convince you not to listen to me?”

“Why should I listen to you? You already told me you're using drugs. Are you an addict now, is that why you're trying to break up the Family? Is that why you're here?”

“
Drugs?
Are you serious? Is that what he told you? I'm here because
you
are my family. I don't have anyone else in the world but you and Fern, and now you're going to choose EARTH over
me
?” Doug was yelling, no longer cautious about the passing cars. “You know what? Keep it. Keep EARTH and the Family, and good luck in California!” He grabbed the bag I was carrying for him out of my hands, turned away from me and started running.

“Doug, no!” I screamed. But he didn't stop. I tried to run after him, but he was faster than I was, even wearing a pack. He must have had a lot of experience running. He passed under one lamppost and into the darkness, and then he was gone again, out of my life just like before.

 
 

I was hardly aware that I was walking after that. I trudged along the sidewalk, occasionally ducking into a yard if approaching headlights appeared to belong to a truck, but almost too tired to care anymore.
Let Mars take me to Oregon
, I thought.
Maybe it would be easier that way
.

 32 

P
aul wasn't happy to see me in the middle of the night. I got to his place a little before four a.m. It was dark and still outside the tiny house he and Devin shared with their mother, Seta, and with Sun.

“I'm working the open shift,” Paul said when he saw me standing on his front porch. “And you are destroying my last half hour of sleep right now.”

“I'm really sorry.” I stepped through the door into the hallway. “Mars Wolf tried to kidnap me.”

Paul flicked on the hallway light. His dark hair was standing up straight where his pillow had shaped it.

“What the hell?” Devin appeared from another door off the hall, wearing pajamas. V was right behind him.

“Doug came back from Oregon, but then he left again. EARTH's going to sell the Farm and café to buy a mansion in California.” I sounded like a patient under hypnosis. I kept talking without emotion.

Another door opened at the end of the hall. Seta was pulling on a cotton robe over her nightgown. She said, “Someone make some coffee. Starbird, come in the living room and sit down.”

 
 

Paul woke Sun, who looked angrily at the clock in the hall and immediately went into the kitchen and started pouring a bowl of cereal.

The rest of us gathered in their tiny living room, crowding around the coffee table. I sat on the sofa between V and Seta, with Paul in an armchair and Devin on the floor. V stroked my back in little circles. I told them about Doug's reappearance, what he said about Mars Wolf, how he came back after he ran into Bathsheba Honey.

“I worried about Bathsheba when I heard she went on the Mission,” Seta said. “EARTH chose me to go on a Mission once, when I was young. He can be quite captivating.”

“Good word choice, ‘captivating.'” Sun walked into the living room with cereal and a pot of coffee, which he put on the coffee table for all of us. He sat on the floor against the wall.

Then I told them about the payments to Arnold Muller at the café, and about Mars Wolf trying to get me into the truck.

“I've heard rumors about Mars before,” said Seta. “Clay told me he finally stopped trying to get his café back because of Mars's constant threats.”

“You've talked to Clay?” I remembered his angry voice on the phone asking,
Do you know who I am?

“We joined the Family at the same time,” said Seta. “He had his café and I had my divorce settlement. We both signed over what we had to the Family willingly. It's hard to turn around and change your mind after that. But Iron never had the choice. He shouldn't have to lose his inheritance.”

“EARTH's a con man,” said Sun, “a classic scam artist.”

“Don't talk that way about him,” said Seta, scolding him like he was her child. “Think of all the people he's helped. We wouldn't have found each other if it wasn't for the Family.”

“You left the Family, too,” said Sun.

“EARTH's not perfect, but no one is. He just has no head for business. He's a dreamer.”

“And what about Mars, is he a dreamer, too?” Sun tossed his spoon into the empty cereal bowl and put it on the floor.

“We can't let him sell the café. Where are we going to work?” said Devin.

“Some other café, I guess,” said Paul. “It's not like we're gonna fight EARTH.”

“It's easier to say you can just find another job when you have a birth certificate,” said Devin.

“We would lose Beacon House, too,” said V. “Ephraim signed everything he had over to the Family.”

“Wouldn't any of you move to California?” I said.

There was a strange silence in the room. “I left the Family because I wasn't a Believer anymore,” Seta finally said. “I don't think that EARTH is a terrible person or a con artist, but I just don't believe that he hears the voice of the Cosmos.”

“I, however, think he's a con man,” said Sun.

“What about you, V?” I said.

“Frankly, I don't buy the Cosmos crap,” she said, pouring herself a cup of coffee. Devin put his hand on her leg. “But this is my Family, so what do I do?”

“I just don't want a leader,” said Paul.

“Same here,” said Devin.

“So, no matter what happens now, it's going to break up the Family.” I thought about Doug Fir, out there in the dark with his duffle bag. Maybe I should have gone with him to get Fern. Wasn't there anything I could do to keep the Family together?

“I really need a ride to the Farm,” I said to the room. “I can't just sit around and let this happen.”

Sun finished off his cup of coffee. “Let me grab my keys. I think I finally got my Calling.”

 
 

Sun put on his shoes and coat and went out to start his van.

“Do you need help getting dressed, Momma?” said Paul, helping Seta out of her chair.

“No time to waste,” she said. “I'll go see EARTH in my pajamas.”

“You're coming with me?” I said.

“I want Iron to keep his farm,” said Seta. “My word probably holds no weight with the Family these days, but I still want to try.”

“I'll go with you,” said Devin.

“So will I,” added V.

We were packed into Sun's rusty VW van by four- thirty a.m. and cruising up I-5 toward Bellingham by five. As the lights of Seattle and the congested businesses of Everett passed, the land was swallowed up again by trees. Evergreens lined both sides of the highway, their thin, pointy tops reaching futilely for the stars. We fell into a sleepy silence with the sound of the van's engine working hard on every hill and turn.

“What time do you think EARTH will leave for the Farm?” said V. “If we can beat him there, maybe we can talk to people before the Translation.”

“They probably called ahead,” said Sun. “Family members are probably in the barn as we speak, sprinkling rose petals on EARTH's pillows.”

I imagined Caelum and Indus rushing to move their beds out of the barn, Fern rising in the dark to brew coffee. Would Iron even be there for this Translation, or would he be in his cabin or harvesting the back lot while the homestead of his ancestors was sold out from under him?

“EARTH doesn't have to convince everyone in the Family to sell the properties, he just has to convince the board of directors,” said V, her head resting on Devin's shoulder in the rear of the van. I sat in the middle with Paul, and Seta was in the passenger seat.