Last Writes (10 page)

Rita brought the girl over to where Claudia and Kelly waited. “This is Esther. She’ll take you to Brother Stedman and see to it that you’re properly fed.”

Kelly nodded toward Karen Harrison and asked, “Isn’t that lady going, too?”

“Sister Harrison has already had her lunch. She’ll be going to class in a few minutes.”

The woman raised her head from her paperwork. “Yes, I’m scheduled for the one o’clock orientation,
What It Means to Be a Temple of Brighter Light Member.
” Her face glowed with anticipation. “I’m so happy to be here, Sister Rita. You have no idea how wonderful it is to be free at last.”

“And we’re very happy to have you here, Sister Harrison,” Rita said with what sounded like genuine warmth. She turned to Claudia and Kelly. “Why don’t you leave your overnight bags here and I’ll have them taken to your rooms.” She put a hand on the young girl’s shoulder. “Go on now, Esther, you’d better get them over to the dining hall.”

Esther gave them both a shy smile and beckoned for them to come with her. Walking between Claudia and Kelly, she took them along a dark hallway where it was thankfully a little cooler than the main office, and out through the back door. As they left the building, Esther assumed the role of tour guide, explaining that the area directly behind the office was the Ark’s vegetable garden.

Claudia gazed over the large plot of ground, recognizing the leaves of summer squash and beans planted close to the back door. Toward the far end of the garden, cornstalks rose high in the air. There must be at least two or three acres of plantings. Several women in shifts the color of natural flax worked between the rows of plants, hoeing and weeding, their arms deeply tanned in the sleeveless dresses, protected from the brutal sun only by wide-brimmed straw hats. There was a primitive tone to the scene, as if they had time-traveled a hundred years into the past.

One of the gardeners looked up and gave them a cordial wave as they passed by. Her cheeks were flushed from exertion and heat, and she swiped a hand across her forehead before returning to her work.

“Do you grow all your own food here?” Claudia asked, welcoming the respite from the heat as they entered a grove of tall shade trees bordering the gravel path along which Esther led them.

The girl nodded, looking surprised at the question. “Of course.”

“Of course,” Kelly echoed, raising her eyebrows at Claudia.

“Well, most of it, anyway,” Esther amended. “We get our meat from outside. I don’t eat flesh, though. I’m a vegetarian.”

“Good for you, Esther,” Claudia said. “Have you lived here all your life?”

The girl nodded again. “This is where I was born.”

“Have you ever left the Ark? Gone outside?”

Esther’s eyes grew large. “Left the Ark?
No!
There’s too much evil outside. The Lord told the elders to build the Ark to protect us. As long as we stay inside the Ark, we’ll be safe.”

She’s learned the party line well,
Claudia thought.

Kelly stopped walking. “Shoot.” She had been punching a number into her iPhone.

“What’s wrong?”

“No cell signal. Must be the hills around here. I wanted to check my voicemail.”

Claudia checked her own phone and got the same results, zero reception bars. “We’ll have to use a phone in the office.”

Esther said, “You have to get permission from Sister Ryder.” Just then, a cluster of buildings came into view that had not been visible from the office: a series of long, low-slung structures of weathered stucco, adobe, and concrete that looked as though they had risen from the earth like mushrooms and squatted there for a long time. Claudia remembered that Harold Stedman had mentioned that this group had been in existence for more than fifty years. Might the buildings originally have been Cold War bunkers? She asked Esther what they were used for.

“That one’s the bookbindery.” The girl pointed at a square concrete building on the far side of a patch of gravel. “That’s where they make all the books and pamphlets that we send out. And that smaller one over there is our school. The nursery and the infirmary are behind it. The sewing rooms are over there. The farm is farther back over there beyond the trees. The chapel is even farther. That one is the store, and that one, the biggest one, is the dining hall where we’re going right now. There are two seatings. I already had lunch at the first seating.”

She swung her arms to encompass an area beyond a stand of tall trees. A group of about twenty to twenty-five small adobe houses and a wood-frame four-story structure made up a small village. “Over there, that’s where we live. Each of the houses has a name. Ours—my family’s—is Sinai.”

“Sinai?” Kelly echoed. “You mean, like the desert?”

Esther turned puzzled brown eyes toward her. “Like Mount Sinai in the Bible,” she said, as if she didn’t understand why Kelly didn’t know that.

“How many people live at the Ark?” Claudia asked.

Esther thought for a moment. “I think there’s around two hundred here.”

Claudia was struck by the complexity of the compound. Until now, she had not imagined it would be the size of a small village. “I didn’t realize there were so many members,” she said.

“There are the satellite branches, too. Those are like smaller Arks in other states.”

Claudia was ready with the next question. “What about children? Are there many little ones?”

“Little ones?” Esther stopped on the path, cocking her head to the side as she thought about it. “Hmmm, let’s see. Sister Abigail had a baby a couple of weeks ago, and we have some toddlers.” She started counting on her fingers as they walked on. “Aaron and Deborah are twins. They’re five. Cassia is three; Michael and Paul are around four or five, I don’t remember which. Kylie is almost . . .” A shadow flitted across her face and she started walking again. “Well, Kylie doesn’t really count. She’s gone.”

“What happened to Kylie?” Kelly asked quickly.

“She went away with her parents, Brother and Sister Powers. They took her to the mountains for two months to pray and meditate. Then she’ll be entering into Jephthah’s Daughters.”

Claudia asked, “What does that mean, to enter into Jephthah’s Daughters?”

“It means you go away and serve the Lord God in a special place.”

“For how long?”

Esther looked puzzled. “How long? Forever, I guess. How can you ever stop serving the Lord?”

“Don’t the Jephthah’s Daughters ever come back to the Ark?”

They had reached the building that housed the dining hall. Esther stopped, her hand on the door, and looked back at Claudia with a frown. “I don’t think so. Only girls who are specially favored get to go, and it only happens once in a while. They’re not all from here. Some of them live in the satellite Arks. They just come here for their consecration.”

“Does that mean you don’t know them?”

“Well, we all get to go to the consecration ceremony, so I’ve
seen
them. But the last time there was a ceremony I was only nine.” Esther’s lips curved into a reminiscent smile. “She looked like a baby angel, all dressed in white, with pretty flowers in her hair.” She laughed. “I remember she didn’t want to lie down on the altar—you know how little kids get all fidgety. She was too little to know what was going on, and she kept squirming around.”

Icy fingers sent chills up Claudia’s spine. Even if it were a symbolic gesture, she could not fathom putting a child on an altar. Kelly must have had the same thought, as she gripped Claudia’s arm tight enough to leave imprints from her fingernails.

“Why did she have to lie on an altar?” Claudia asked, making an effort to keep her voice level.

“The governing board elders were saying prayers over her.”

“What happened after that?”

“We all went to the dining room and had a party with carrot cake and ice cream. The grown-ups had wine. I tried to sneak some, but I got caught red-handed and had to go to Brother Stedman’s office.” She grinned like any twelve-year-old might. “He was really pretty nice about it and just told me there would be time for wine when I got older. Anyway, some of the sisters from Jephthah’s Daughters took the little girl with them. She started crying because she wanted to stay with her mommy. Her mommy was crying, too, but my mother said it’s because she was happy to give her child to God.”

Aloud, Claudia said, “And now, there’s going to be another ceremony?”

Esther nodded. “My mother says Kylie Powers is an extra special child. She told me that when Kylie was born, Brother Stedman said she would be the next chosen one, and now she’s turning three, she’s the right age.”

Kelly finally relaxed her grip on Claudia’s arm. “That sounds pretty young to leave your parents.”

“I think her daddy will be really sad,” Esther said. “He takes care of her all the time.”

“What about her mother?”

“She works in the kitchen a lot. Kylie mostly stays with Brother Powers in his office because the kitchen is too dangerous for a little kid.”

Esther pushed open the dining hall door and they entered a room with long tables and benches arranged in rows, and a head table at the far end. As in the office, ceiling fans chugged above them, churning the air, but they had little effect on the heat, which was intensified by the activity in the kitchen. A wide pass-through at one end of the room was all that separated the diners from three kitchen helpers in long aprons who were busy at massive cooking pots.

Dozens of eyes turned to look as Claudia and her companions entered. At the head table, Harold Stedman, who was already standing, beamed at them and spread his arms wide in welcome. Even without a microphone, his deep voice boomed along the dining hall. “Welcome to the Ark! Bring them over here, Esther. Brothers and sisters, I’m delighted to introduce you to our guests.”

Esther delivered them to his table and scurried away. Although several other diners sat at his table, an empty place had already been set on either side of him. Stedman brushed off their apologies for being tardy as Kelly and Claudia slipped into their seats. He addressed the congregation. “Sister Kelly and Sister Claudia are going to be visiting with us for a few days. They’re eager to learn the way to salvation, so I know you’ll all welcome them and help them understand our ways and our beliefs.”

In dutiful unison, the group chanted, “Welcome, sisters,” and Claudia felt as if she were attending a twelve-step meeting.
What would they do if I said, Hi, my name is Claudia, and I’m here to spy on you?
Then everyone returned to their meal and she might as well have thrown a rock into a pool: the ripples vanished, leaving the surface undisturbed.

Moments later, Esther returned with a large tray on which two plates were heaped with steamed broccoli, cauliflower and rice, grilled chicken, and a slab of buttered cornbread. They might get overheated, but they would not starve during their stay at the Ark.

Stedman said, “We eat plain, but nutritious. We rise early, work hard, and retire early. Especially in the summer when it’s so warm, we try to get most of our work done in the cooler hours.”

Kelly dabbed her forehead with her napkin. “I guess you don’t use air-conditioning.”

Stedman smiled. “That would run counter to our beliefs, don’t you think, Sister Kelly? Admittedly, we do use electricity, but we want to contribute as little as possible to the coming cataclysm. There are swamp coolers in some of the buildings.”

Kelly shifted her body closer to him, her chin tilted toward his face with an earnestness that made Claudia cringe.

“Brother Stedman, I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to learning about the Temple of Brighter Light. It feels like I’ve been wandering in the desert, spiritually starving for ever and ever. But since hearing your sermon at the rally last night, I believe that it’s possible I’ve found God’s manna at last.”

Claudia silently telegraphed a message:
You’re overdoing it.

Stedman returned her gaze with a long, searching one of his own. “That’s just fine, Sister Brennan. I’ve already asked Brother Norquist to spend the afternoon with you and introduce you to our teachings.” He nodded in the direction of a frail-looking man seated at the end of the table, nodding over his plate. Claudia guessed he must be ninety if he was a day. “Brother Norquist is one of the founding members of the Temple of Brighter Light, so he’s the best equipped of all to answer your questions.”

Kelly’s face fell, but she quickly recovered. “That sounds great, but I’d love to just wander around the grounds for a while and chat with some of the members.”

“When I told him how interested you were to learn, brother got very excited. We wouldn’t want to deprive him, would we, sister?”

“I guess not, but . . .”

Stedman turned to Claudia. “You and I will go over to the office, Sister Rose. I’ll show you what I’m looking for in regard to what we discussed last night, and then you can get to work. We’ve got you set up in our purchasing agent’s room. Brother Powers is away from the Ark for an extended period, and I know he wouldn’t be averse to your using his office while he’s gone.”

Claudia’s interest quickened, hearing that she would be assigned to Rodney Powers’ office. The more they knew about Jephthah’s Daughters, the easier it should be to discover something about Rodney’s plans to have his daughter inducted. She said, “Esther was telling us about a family named Powers. She said they’d gone away to the mountains. Is that who you’re talking about?”

“Yes, the family has been away for a while. In fact, they’re due back in a few days.”

“Esther told us their little girl is going into a special program.”

“That’s right. Kylie has been enrolled since her birth. It’s a great privilege to be chosen.”

“How does one get chosen for the program?” Kelly managed to sound casual as she asked.