Бентли Литтл - The Disappearance

“Of course we do!” Rebekah said fiercely. “But we can’t! No one can!”

“We did,” Joan said simply.

“And you’re back again.”

That was true. Joan thought of her parents in the coffins. Where were they now? “I’m not staying here,” she said.

The two looked at her, expressionless.

“I was kidnapped and brought here against my will. I’m being held here against my will.” She swallowed hard. “My parents are dead. They were kidnapped. And killed.” It felt like a punch to the stomach to say those words. “All we have to do is get out and tell the police, and it’ll be all over.”

“Father will punish us,” Rebekah said again.

Joan backed off. This was too new for them, too much to handle all at once. But they were unhappy here, they were already doing something forbidden and their sympathies were with her. All she needed to do was nudge them in the proper direction and help them gather the strength to do the right thing.

She also needed to figure out what that right thing was. She needed to come up with an escape plan, the way her dad had. Unfortunately, her knowledge of the Home was not only five years out of date but incomplete. She’d been a teenager when they’d left and had not been exposed to many areas and aspects of life here—which was another reason she needed Mark and Rebekah’s help.

“What are you supposed to do with me?” she asked.

They looked at each other. “Treat you like family,” Mark said finally. “Father thinks that if we show you that this is still your home, it will make it easier for you to adjust. That’s why he put us here in your old place.”

Father thought no such thing, Joan knew. He had given her a fake family and put her back in her old bedroom for the same reason that he had paraded Kara in front of her. He wanted to twist the knife.

“How long am I supposed to live with you?” Joan asked.

“We don’t know,” Rebekah said. She still seemed reluctant to reveal information, as though she suspected Joan was a spy trying to trick them and trap them.

“And now that I’m awake? What happens now?”

Mark answered. “We’re supposed to pray with you, read some scrolls together and take you to Chapel.”

“Take me to Chapel? Are you supposed to… hand-cuff me or anything?” She remembered the humiliating discomfort of the muzzle Absalom had put on her.

“No.” Mark shook his head. “We were told that the herbs administered to you would leave you content and without the desire to escape.” He allowed himself a small smile. “We have experienced that effect ourselves.”

Thank goodness that aspect of the drug hadn’t worked.

Maybe she could use that to her advantage.

“You’re to help me cook,” Rebekah offered. “Father wants you to help me in the Kitchen.”

“So you work in the Kitchen.” An idea was beginning to form in her head.

“I enjoy cooking,” Rebekah said, a trifle defensively.

Joan smiled. “Me, too.”

There was an awkward silence. She didn’t want to push, wanted to keep the two of them on her side, so she just stood there, smiling blandly, trying to ignore the heaviness in her head. Rebekah still looked suspicious, worried, no doubt, that Joan would reveal to someone the secret mushrooms growing in the closet.

“Perhaps we should pray together,” Mark suggested, closing the closet door.

“Yes,” Joan and Rebekah both agreed, and the three of them walked out to the living room, where the prayer cabinet was located.

Mark opened up the dark wooden door of the cabinet, revealing dozens of small compartments filled with scrolls. “You may choose,” he offered Joan, and she reached forward, plucking one from the top row. They knelt down together, bowing their heads, as Mark unfurled the paper and read the words:

O Lord of Heavenly Hosts! Protect me from The Outsiders. Shield me from sin and see me through times of trial and tribulation. Protect me from The Outsiders. Safeguard my friends and family from those who would corrupt us. Protect me from The Outsiders. Let Your light and goodness shine on me and mine. Protect me from The Outsiders. Amen.

Joan was silent afterward. She knew that prayer. It was the one her parents had given her when she’d gone off to school, and to her it still had power. She had no fear of Outsiders anymore—she was an Outsider now—but it seemed an appropriate entreaty for protection from an enemy, any enemy, and somehow it gave her strength.

Rebekah picked a scroll, and Mark again read the prayer. Then Mark chose a scroll and Rebekah read the prayer. All three scrolls were returned to their respective nooks, and the cabinet door was closed.

“Let us go to Chapel,” Mark said.

Rebekah shot a worried look at Joan. “You’re not going to try and run away, are you?”

“No,” Joan said, and managed to smile. “Not yet.”

Chapel was as dreadful as she remembered: the punishing stone floor, the muttering of Residents and Penitents all about her, the ever-increasing pain in her arms as she remained in worship position, her hands clasped in front of her. She hadn’t been hungry and hadn’t had to go to the bathroom, so she hadn’t had to suffer those indignities of the flesh, but the entire experience was just as brutal and grueling as it had been when she lived here.

Mark and Rebekah must have known it, because the first thing Mark said after they’d walked back to their living quarters was: “Would you like to try a piece of mushroom?” His voice was kind, but there was yearning in it, too, and she knew that that was what he wanted to do.

She shook her head. “No, thanks.” She smiled politely, but deep down she was still shocked that any Resident would do such a thing. She had been brought up strictly—no drugs, no alcohol, no caffeine—and it was a lifestyle to which she still adhered, an approach to living that had stuck, and in her mind the defection of her family was far less blasphemous than the couple’s clandestine drug use.

Although her headache was all but gone, only a slow thickness to her thoughts betraying the fact that she’d been sedated, she’d pretended at the Chapel and in the hallways on the way that she was still groggy. She’d lowered her eyes to half-mast and walked in a zombielike fashion. No one had spoken to her or remarked upon her appearance, though several men and one woman had greeted Mark and Rebekah as they passed through the Home.

Not for the first time, Joan thought about Mark’s knowing smile and what he’d said when referring to the substance that had knocked her out: “We have experienced that effect ourselves.” Something about his reaction struck her as significant, and it seemed to her that it might point the way to her escape, though at the moment she could not understand how.

It was midafternoon now, and obviously she was still feeling the aftereffects of being drugged because she felt tired. Excusing herself, she went into her old room, used the bedpan and lay down. It was weird being here again, and the superficial changes superimposed over the familiar layout of the living quarters were disorienting. She closed her eyes, intending only to rest for a few moments, but when she opened them again it was dark. For a brief, panicked second she thought she’d been drugged again, but she quickly realized that either Mark or Rebekah had closed the curtains in the bedroom and shut the door.

From the living room, she heard the clinking of knives, and the clanking of pots and pans. The juxtaposition of her groggy, dazed state and what sounded like the everyday noises accompanying food preparation caused something to click in her brain.

She suddenly knew what to do.