Jeff Hirsch - The Darkest Path

“How do I… ?”

Beacon Radcliffe returned to the altar for his copy of The Glorious Path . He kissed its cover and whispered a prayer before opening it in his lap.

“All you have to do is repeat after me.”

Radcliffe read from the book, and I repeated all he said back to him, making sure to fill the words with all of the cautious reverence I could muster. As I spoke, I felt a strange doubling inside me, like past and present were synching together.

When I was done, Beacon Radcliffe smiled warmly and I returned his smile in kind. He said I should go get something to eat before duty but that I’d be welcome in his Lighthouse anytime. He left me then, returning to his book and his altar.

I stayed in my pew, staring up at the Path symbol. “I am the Way and the Path,” I said, full of devotion, and just loud enough for Radcliffe to hear. When he turned back to me I left my pew and headed up the aisle.

“Wait!”

I froze in place, making sure to erase my smile before I turned back.

“The service tonight,” he said. “I think perhaps we can make an exception. Be here at seven.”

After morning mess and prayers, Corporal Connors led us up the hill to the site of our newly dug pit and set us to building the latrine structure around it. On one trip across the hill to fetch a bucket of nails, I found myself looking down at the Lighthouse.

Thirty or forty soldiers had surrounded it, followed close behind by several horse-drawn wagons. As soon as the wagons were parked, the soldiers threw themselves into the task of unloading them. More canvas. More folding chairs. The walls of the Lighthouse were taken down and half the soldiers set about expanding it to nearly twice its size.

Even though no announcement had been made, everyone knew something big was happening. An electric tension jumped from person to person in the camp.

Was Nat watching the preparations too? Or was she serving meals and tending to the sick with the vest strapped under her robe, sweating beneath the weight of the explosives? Was there any part of her that wished she’d be caught and stopped before she could step into the Lighthouse and press that trigger?

I worked the rest of the day in a dream, floating from one assignment to the next. It felt like barely any time had passed before the sun began to sink into the trees and Corporal Connors led us off the hill and down to the barracks.

The Lighthouse towered in front of me. The flaps were drawn back, and inside I could see the ranks of chairs, split by a razor-sharp aisle that led to the raised altar. The Path insignia glowed in the candlelight. I shuddered and imagined Nat standing before it in her white robes, her finger falling on the trigger, felt the breathless moment before the detonation.

“Okay, everybody. Showers. Let’s go.”

The men around me moved with a weary groan, but I was distracted by a flash of white as a group of companions moved across the camp. They were heading toward the soldiers’ barracks, and as they passed a wooded rise near the outer fence, one companion drifted away from the group unnoticed. As the rest continued on, she climbed the hill and disappeared among the trees.

“Hey. Kid. Let’s move.”

“I… I’m having a hard time, sir,” I said, looking up at Corporal Connors, with one hand clutching my middle. “I’m wondering if I might run to the med tent.”

“We got a schedule kicking into high gear here.”

“I know, sir. I won’t miss anything. I’m on Path, I promise.”

Connors considered a moment, then waved me away. I moved slowly until he got the men into the barracks and then I skated around behind the med tent and climbed the hill.

The trees at the top were few but thick and gave a small umbrella of shade. I crossed into the shadowed ground, and Nat turned at my footsteps. She was still in her companion’s whites. The backpack lay at her feet.

“My mother trained me to fight since I was six, Cal. If you think you can take it from me—”

“I don’t.”

“You can’t talk me out of it, either.”

“I know.”

“So why are you here?”

I took a step back and then found a place near the edge of the hill among the roots of a nearby oak. Below, soldiers poured from their duty stations to the barracks and the mess. Lit from within by scores of flickering candles, the Lighthouse glowed. There was a pause and then a rustle of fabric as Nat crossed the hilltop.

“Where’s Bear?”

Nat was standing alongside a nearby tree with the backpack at her feet.

“Had to give him up.”

“Oh,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

She sat down and pulled the backpack close to her. It was gray with black piping and a small logo, no different from one a thousand kids threw on their backs before jumping onto a school bus.

“Did they make it out?” she asked. “Alec and the others?”

I shook my head. “Alec is dead. Two of the soldiers too. I think the others made it.”

There was a sharp draw to her breath but Nat said nothing. Her fingers went white on the straps of the pack as she pulled at them and looked down at the camp.

“How did you get into the service?” I asked.

“They always want a few companions around to do their bidding. I played the pious game until I got an invite.”

Bells within the Lighthouse began to chime and the first wave of soldiers responded, flowing from the mess toward the open tent. Soon the novices would follow and then the companions.

“Do you know when you’ll do it?” I asked.

“As soon as he gets on the stage.”

“Too many people will be watching then,” I said. “After he speaks he’ll probably do the Receiving. Security will be expecting people to come up, and by the time the companions get there, they won’t be paying as much attention. That’s the best time.”

Nat stared at me a moment and then she nodded and hooked her fingers beneath the backpack’s straps. When she stood, she pressed one shoulder into the oak beside her to steady herself. I followed her into the copse of trees, where it was nearly dark and smelled richly of grass and honeysuckle. Nat set the pack at her feet. Her hands trembled as she unzipped it and lifted out the vest.

“Let me help you,” I said.

Nat hesitated a moment and then handed me the vest. She lifted her arms up over her head and I stepped forward, lowering it onto her shoulders. I tightened each strap until it fit her like a second skin. Next came the explosives. I lifted each brick and slipped it into its slot in the vest’s pockets. I did the sides and the front and then the back.

“The detonator,” Nat said. “It’s in the front pocket.”

I pulled out the battery pack and a tangle of wires that ended in the trigger. Nat turned around and I paused, staring at the connections. Maybe if I could find a way to disable it now, then I wouldn’t have to—

“Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine,” I said. “I’m just adjusting the—”

“Let me.”

Nat turned around and took the battery and trigger from me. She stepped away and finished up herself, tucking the battery into a pocket at the small of her back and running the wires into their channels. When she was done, she pointed to her robe and I helped her with it. Once it was back on, the bomb was invisible beneath its snowy folds.

Nat looked up at me. She was shaking now, her veil in one hand, and the bomb’s trigger in the other. Down below us the Lighthouse bells chimed. There was no breath in my lungs. My blood had gone still.

“Do you believe in God, Cal?”

My throat tightened. I didn’t know the answer. Didn’t know what to say.

“I thought after Mom and Dad and Steve, I would stop,” Nat said. “But I didn’t.”