Astray (22 page)

“Lyla!” From behind me my mom’s voice rings out high and clear. It’s hard not to shudder all over again at her appearance. She rushes down the stairs, my dad’s hand on her arm, barely able to hold her back. She throws herself at me headlong. I haven’t seen her since our counseling session. Her hug is too tight. I struggle inside of it, feeling an almost violent urge to flee. I can feel her tears sliding down my neck and into my shirt. “I’ve been so worried about you. You ran out on us and then wouldn’t take
my calls.” This outpouring of emotion is so intense … so unlike her. My feeling of impending doom intensifies.

I don’t know what to say to this; I can’t make sense of this woman who loves me and yet wants nothing to do with me if I don’t believe the same things that she does—who blames me for my sister’s death and yet clings to me like she’s afraid I’ll disappear too.

Cody and Taylor stand silently next to me. I look at them over my mom’s shoulder, easier to do than it should be because her hair isn’t blocking the way. They make no moves to rescue me. They’re as frozen as I am. I’m starting to believe that without hair the members of the Community wield a strange sort of power. No one wants to get too close to them. It’s like they’re contagious. Almost in spite of myself, I reach up and put a hand on the back of my mom’s head, run it down along the skin there. It’s smooth and naked—vulnerable.

“Come home, Lyla. There’s no time for rebellion anymore. You belong with your family and the people who love you. Bad things are coming soon. You heard Pioneer. I don’t want you to be punished with them. Please, honey!”

My mom pulls away a little so that we can look straight at each other. Eye to eye. Her face is red, tear-streaked, and panicked. Her hands still cling onto my arms, hard enough to be painful. “You aren’t one of them. Deep down you know your place.”

I try to see past the hairless dome of her head, past the
sunken cheeks and wild fear. But there’s nothing left when I do. This woman in front of me is not the mom I want—the one that I wish for so much that sometimes there’s nothing in the world but the ache of it. She is damaged and desperate and too afraid to ever see who Pioneer really is. My mom is nothing more than a stranger and I want her to stop touching me.

Now.

I pull away a little too violently and almost fall. My mom’s face crumples for a moment, her hands falling to her sides like they’re too heavy for her to hold up any longer. “I can’t watch you be destroyed. Honey, don’t you see? If you aren’t with us, then you are opening yourself up to the punishment that’s coming.” Her eyes travel over to Cody, and her hands, limp just seconds ago, ball into fists. “Why can’t you leave my daughter alone? You’ve managed to fool her, but don’t think for one minute you can fool me, Outsider! You’ll pay for what you’ve done to my family. And it won’t be long now.” Her face goes a little slack before a slow, purposeful smile stretches across it. “It won’t be very long at all.”

“Stop it!” I yell, but she ignores me. Her eyes bore into Cody’s and she laughs, a harsh, angry sound that feels like it’s slicing me in two. I look at my dad, hoping that he’ll start to pull her away because he’s always been the buffer between us, but he just stands there looking old and tired, his hand rubbing at his temple, his face expressionless. He won’t even look at me.

Taylor stands in front of Cody as if to deflect my mom’s words. Behind them is a growing crowd of reporters. I hadn’t noticed them before, but now they are inches away, microphones pushed out in front of them so that they catch every word. They haven’t called out a question. I think they’re reluctant to interrupt my mom, who seems to be on some sort of lunatic roll.

Mom looks up at the crowd. “All of you. Not just him. Mark my words. Dark days are coming. No world that lets men take children from their very front doors to murder them and turns daughters against mothers and allows rapes and beatings and poverty and ignorance will be allowed to go on forever. There is a reckoning on its way. When it comes, you will remember what I’ve said. You will see that our Pioneer really is a prophet, but it’ll be too late. You’ve had your chance to repent and you threw it away.”

By the end she’s looking directly at me—still hoping I’ll somehow come with her—and I have to fight the fear that slithers along my spine.
Pioneer’s using her and the others to make something bad happen somehow. I can feel it, but how?

Behind her the rest of the Community begins to gather. I can’t move. I can’t see. The world is narrowing to a tunnel with my mom’s face at the end of it. When I finally begin to back away, it isn’t under my own power: the sheriff has found us and is pulling us away from the mob to his car. My mom gets smaller behind me, but I can still see her staring after us, my dad’s hand in hers. There
are dark clouds behind them, spreading out across the sky. All at once it starts to rain.

The sheriff leads us past the place where we parked and down one more block to a restaurant. None of us have said a word since we left the courtroom. All I know is that I won’t be the one to break the silence. There’s no way to explain my mom or Pioneer or the rest of the Community, not even to myself. The whole experience was like getting served one giant slice of crazy pie.

The restaurant is old and nestled at the base of one of the taller downtown buildings, one of the only places to eat that’s remotely close to the courthouse. We settle into a table with a crisp red-and-white-checked tablecloth. There aren’t any menus. Instead there is an elaborate buffet stretched out across the center of the restaurant. Around us the other tables are filling up with people I recognize from the courthouse. Before long the entire place is packed. The sheriff waves to the lawyers prosecuting Pioneer’s case as they walk past—each with phones glued to their ears. Farther over I recognize several of the reporters eyeing us as they pick at the salads on their plates.

“All right, let’s get something to eat.” The sheriff heads for the buffet and we follow, but I’m not hungry. I trail behind the others, grabbing a plate from the stack by the buffet. There are dozens of home-style dishes, most of which are casseroles—all of which remind me of the
communal meals we used to eat. I make myself take a roll and a few packs of saltine crackers. Just the smell of everything else is making my stomach turn. Cody and the sheriff load up their plates, though, their faces grim but determined like it’s their duty to fill up since we’re here. Taylor and her mom follow my lead and build a small pile of crackers on their plate, then add apples almost as an afterthought.

“Your mom is … intense,” Taylor says on our way back to our table. “She really believes all that stuff, doesn’t she?”

I nod. “That may be the understatement of the century. Yeah, she does. Wholeheartedly.” The bitterness in my voice shocks both of us into an awkward silence.

We settle into our seats and start eating just as a handful of Community members show up with the Rangers. They occupy three tables on the opposite side of the restaurant, far away from the prosecuting attorneys and assorted deputies eyeing them carefully. My parents are with them. I slide down in my chair and will them not to see me.

“I thought Pioneer ordered them to fast and pray,” Cody says between bites, his eyes on my parents.

I steal a furtive glance in their direction. None of them look at us at first; they seem to be in deep conversation with one another and the Rangers. I can see Pioneer’s lawyer in the middle of the group and realize that he’s brought them here to go over what happened after Pioneer was dragged away. From the looks on their faces, whatever
happened wasn’t good. They sit stiffly in their chairs. I can see Mr. Brown and Brian at one end of the table. Both are staring over at me—until I catch their eye and they look away. I look at the others too, but no one meets my eyes. They ignore our table completely, skipping over it as if it isn’t there. Are they trying to shun me as some kind of punishment for not changing my mind when my mom asked me to? Does it mean that they’ll stop trying to threaten me into coming home? I try not to get my hopes up. What happened with the owl yesterday morning feels more like the beginning of something than the end.

Brian, Jonathan, and Mr. Brown get up from the table together and head for the buffet. They’re really going to eat? Has Pioneer’s outburst before backfired?

The sheriff watches them walk past us and tension rises off all the men just as thick as the steam coming off the food trays. He puts his fork down and turns in his chair a little so he can keep his eyes on them. They don’t acknowledge him and he doesn’t say anything either, but I can tell the sheriff really wants to. He may not have evidence enough to confront them about the owl, but he’s sure that they’re behind it.

Our whole table stares at the three of them as they go through the line. Jonathan stands by the salad section, lingers near the salad dressings and pointedly ignores us. Still, I’m sure that he feels us watching, because he keeps fidgeting, picking up salad dressing ladles and then setting
them down again. At one point he drops one, sloshing dressing onto the counter. He glances up at us, then moves to the other side of the buffet where we can’t see him clearly. I almost feel sorry for him. He seems so nervous and out of place. I wonder if he’s starting to regret being a part of the Community. He didn’t grow up in it like I did. Can he really be completely committed in such a short period of time?

Brian and Mr. Brown go back and sit down, their plates heavy with every kind of dish on the buffet line. Jonathan follows a moment later. The lawyer has a plate of food too, but the rest of the tables are completely food-free. My parents are sitting with Julie’s and Heather’s parents, sipping ice waters and listening as Pioneer’s lawyer talks between bites of food. I can’t help wondering if the smell of fried chicken and onions is hard for them to take. If it is, they don’t show it. I watch them take in Mr. Brown’s and Brian’s full plates, then do nothing. No one seems put out that they’re eating. I stare at them, stunned by their disobedience. They move their food around their plates with their forks, but I never see them actually take a bite. Maybe they aren’t eating after all? But then why go through the charade of getting food in the first place?

Cody and the sheriff go up to the buffet several times and end up eating three plates of food apiece. The rest of us nibble halfheartedly on our crackers and fruit. I’m itching to leave. Being in the same room as the others and
their bald heads is too much. Eventually the sheriff notices and starts looking for our waiter so he can ask for the bill.

The Community starts to leave before us. I watch as they mill around the front door and pull on their coats. Jonathan walks over to the cash register and grabs a mint from the bowl beside it. His hand is still thickly wrapped. The bandage is brown in spots and wet in others. I can’t tell if they’re food stains or seepage from his wounds. Either way it’s gross. If the owl scratched him or bit him somehow and it isn’t a burn, could it be infected? I wish I could find a way to get close enough to him to pull the bandage down and check the skin underneath. Then I think about him up at the buffet, his injured hand grazing spoons and food, spreading germs, and I almost gag.

“You should change those,” I call out as he heads for the door. I watch his face to see if my noticing his wounds again rattles him at all. I need to know for sure if he’s the one who hurt the owl. Maybe if I can be certain I won’t be so scared, won’t keep feeling like it could still be Pioneer.

He raises an eyebrow at me. He’s sweating. A lot. I can see beads of it on his upper lip and forehead. He’s either sick or nervous or both.

The sheriff looks at Jonathan, who shudders visibly. “You should get that checked out, son.” The sheriff has the same look on his face that he had the day he questioned me in the hospital. Jonathan has just earned a larger spot on his radar.

Mr. Brown puts his hand on Jonathan’s shoulder and
glares at the sheriff. “You want him to go to one of your hospitals so you can try to wheedle information out of him like you did her? I don’t think so. This time there’s nothing you can do to prevent what’s coming.” He pushes Jonathan toward the door.

The sheriff’s jaw clenches, but he keeps his cool. I’ve never seen him lose control, especially when he’s working things out about something or someone in his head, but I can see it in his eyes: he has the same fear that I do. Bad things really are headed our way.

Our fears are confirmed just a few hours later when he and Cody get violently ill.

That’s what attracts people. He’s completely happy. Gentle. He dances, he sings, he looks beautiful … this draws a lot of people just like people are drawn to little babies.

—Sandra Good, member of the Manson Family, speaking about Charles Manson

The sounds of Cody and his dad throwing up are awful. It’s almost like they’re screaming into the toilet. I feel like the whole house shudders every time. They’re in two different bathrooms, curled up across the throw rugs in painful comma shapes, hands clutching their stomachs.

Cody’s mom, Taylor, and I run from bathroom to bathroom, handing them wet cloths to wipe their mouths with. I hold my nose and try not to gag, but the smell is awful. It’s like the worst case of flu that I’ve ever seen times ten. It has them moaning and writhing and glassy-eyed. The worst of it was when Cody didn’t make it to the bathroom in time and we had to mop up the sick while he yelled at me not to look. At least now they’re both sequestered close to a toilet.

It goes on for hours until both Cody and his dad are retching up bile and nothing else. Their eyes are sunken
in and they’ve started running for the sink to guzzle water straight from the faucet, only to lunge for the toilet and start throwing it back up again. There’s desperation in their eyes now and their skin … it’s so, so pale. I feel panicked, every bit as much as and maybe even more so than on the night of the false alarm at Mandrodage Meadows.

“They’re dehydrating—we have to get them over to the hospital.” Cody’s mom starts throwing blankets at us. “Wrap them in these and I’ll get some buckets to take in the car.”