Maybe I should run? Fight? But there’s nowhere to go. The gate is closed, and there are big guys with guns standing next to it. The wall is pretty high, and there’s wire along the top. Mom taught me to look for these things, to think before I do anything. Run if you can. Wait if you have to. Do what you have to do to survive. She’d meant it for people coming to get us because of what Dad did. But it works for this too.
Right now, making Father Tom think I’m listening to him is the best thing I can do. It’s easy. He thinks he’s smarter than everybody else anyway. If I just agree with him, he’ll start trusting me.
It’s weird how calm I am. I remember how helpless and trapped I felt in class, with the gunshots blaring over the loudspeaker and everybody screaming and knowing all I could do was hide. Here, I am trapped, I am helpless . . . but I can also think for myself. Somehow that’s different.
I haven’t said much to Father Tom, but he doesn’t seem to care; maybe he sees it as normal. He leads me up the steps into the building—church, I guess—and inside there are people standing on either side of a path that’s marked by a narrow carpet running down the middle. They’re in neat rows, and I realize after a couple of seconds that all the men are on the left side, all the women on the right. The women are standing with their hands clasped and their heads bowed. There are a few kids, too, but they seem just as quiet and serious as the adults. Even the littlest, who can’t be more than three years old. They all turn to look at us, and as we pass, the men say, all together, “Hello, Brother.”
I think they’re talking to Father Tom, but no: they’re looking at me. Smiling. Nodding. The women and kids don’t say anything, they just keep looking down, and all of a sudden I remember how the ladies looked down in that basement in Wolfhunter. They stood just that way, very straight, very still, heads down, hands clasped. Like little dolls waiting for orders.
It makes me sick.
Father Tom takes me all the way down the length of the church—and I guess it has to be one—and at the end there’s a wooden platform about a foot high and a big leather armchair sitting in the middle. It looks strange. I was expecting to see a podium, maybe. Or an altar, like in a real church. But it looks more like a . . . stage.
Father Tom points to an empty spot in the front row, next to the carpet, and says, “The brothers saved you a place.” He expects me to go where he points, I see that. I’m not sure what’s going to happen if I don’t, so I try it. I just stand on the carpet like I’m too dumb to understand. He still looks friendly when he says, “Connor, would you mind taking your place? I promise, this will be quick.”
I don’t say anything, but I move off to the side where he points. I see the extra little curl in his smile. He thinks he’s got me, because I did something he asked. But I did it to see what he would do. And because I can’t do Sam any good if I’m locked up somewhere.
Father Tom steps up on the platform and seats himself in the big chair. When he does, the men all say, “God bless you, Father.”
“And you, my brothers,” Tom says. “Thank you for welcoming young Brother Connor into our number. He’s only here as our guest, but I know he will appreciate your charity to a stranger. Now, I know you’re all wondering what happened last night; you know we went out to retrieve our sister Carol, but as you also know, the demons in the world are clever. It’s been three long years, and she’s still hidden from us, along with our precious child. But with God’s help, and the continuous prayers of our saints, we are going to find them. Very soon.” He beams a smile right at me, and it’s like getting hit with a spotlight. “With God’s help, and Brother Connor’s.”
I want to yell back that I’m not here to help him, I’ve been kidnapped, but something tells me to keep quiet. Lanny wouldn’t, she’d be kicking and screaming and maybe she’d be right to do that. But I want to see what he’s planning.
This has to be about the case that Mom was working, the one with the missing young man. She’d talked about a woman named Carol.
Don’t tell him anything, Mom. I know they’re using me to get to her. And it’s going to work, too, because if my mom has a weak spot, it’s me and Lanny. And Sam, but he’d probably agree that it’s more about us. I’m here to make Mom give up that lady who escaped.
“Brothers and sisters, we will pray about this tonight after work’s done. But for now I want you to take young Brother Connor under your care, make him feel at home, and show him our true fellowship. We’ll have a dinner this evening, Sister Harmony. A real feast to welcome him to Bitter Falls.”
A tall, blonde woman on the other side of the aisle in the front row raises her head and nods, but she doesn’t say anything. She’s probably Mom’s age, maybe a little younger. I guess she’s in charge of food or something. And right on cue my stomach rumbles. I don’t know how I can be hungry at a time like this, but I am, and I can’t help that. Maybe I shouldn’t eat anything here. Isn’t there some Greek story about how if you eat and drink in the underworld, you can’t leave?
Father Tom talks a little bit more, but it’s all Bible verses and explaining what they mean, and I don’t really listen; what he’s saying about them isn’t what I learned in Sunday school. He has a calm, deep voice, though, and it rises and falls almost like he’s singing. It’s kind of relaxing, and I fall into sort of a trance listening to it.
Then it’s over.
I’m a little surprised when I realize people are moving. The women and kids are heading straight for the door, walking single file, while the men stand and wait; Father Tom is sitting in his chair talking to one of the guys who was in the RV with us, the one who drove, not the one who shocked Sam. I’m concentrating hard on them, so it comes as a surprise when I realize someone’s holding a hand out to me. I blink and look up. It’s one of the men who’s been standing next to me. “Good to have you here, Brother Connor,” he says, and shakes my hand. He claps a hand on my shoulder like we’re friends, and then before I tell him I’m not his friend, that I shouldn’t even be here, he’s replaced by another, shorter man, who says, “Welcome, you’re safe here.” They’re all coming at me, beaming big smiles and offering handshakes. “God bless you for visiting us,” one of them says, like I had any choice. I know this has been set up, that they’re under orders to make me feel like a guest. It’s like they just accept Father Tom’s fake reality without question. I usually know when somebody’s saying things to me just to say it, but every one of these men who talks to me seems actually happy to see me.
I try saying, “I want to leave,” to one of them. He just smiles and nods and does that shoulder-clap thing, then moves aside for the next one.
After ten of them, I start losing track. They all say slightly different things, but one thing’s constant: they smile at me. They seem happy. They do that shoulder-touch thing.
It’s really hard, after a while, not to smile back. I don’t want to smile, but when people do that, when they’re beaming all that happy at you . . . it’s weird. It tells some part of you that you ought to seem happy too.