“Yes. As much as I could in three days.”
“Tell me what happened.”
I keep my eyes on the man even though the recent past overlays the present like a film over this stranger. “I had gone to steal a book from our leader Xantheus’s collection. He never let us read from his private library. He had secrets hidden among his books. I liked to sneak in and take them. Not just the books, but the secrets. Like his real name. Donald Soversky.”
The man’s eyes narrow just a fraction. I worry for a moment that maybe he knows Xantheus and will deliver me back there, even though they cast me out. But before I can ask, he offers the straw and I take another drink. “Continue,” he says.
“When I arrived, Xantheus was already at his home. He was having an argument with his son, Xanus, so I listened beneath his window. Xanus said he wanted me. He’d always hated me when we were younger. He was four years older than me and there were other girls closer in age that he got along with, so I didn’t know why the sudden interest. Xantheus was arguing that it wasn’t a good idea, but what Xanus wanted, he usually got, so eventually his father agreed, promising to make arrangements for the marriage ritual to occur in three days’ time. So I went straight away to the storage barn for rope and an ax. I hid them in the temple room where I would have to bed Xanus after the ceremony. That night, after everyone was asleep, I siphoned diesel from the tractor and took candles from the pantry. I hid those in the loft of the storage barn. The next night, I timed how long it took to burn a candle down to its base. Before the ceremony, I set up three candles to burn down to rags soaked in diesel. When the ceremony was over and I was led to the bed chamber with Xanus. We were alone for only a few moments before the fire took off in the barn. Everyone rushed out of the temple to put it out. He was going to go too, but I hit him with the blunt edge of the ax and knocked him out. I tied him to a chair with the rope I hid. Then I waited.”
“Waited for what?”
“Anyone. Everyone.” I shrug. The motion pulls at the weeping scabs and sunburn that streak my skin.
“Why?”
I smile, remembering the hours I spent alone with Xanus as the others tried and failed to keep the storage barn from turning to cinders and ash. He spent an hour unconscious, and then two hours more vacillating between pleas and curses. When the others finally realized that we hadn’t come and something was wrong, they burst into the room as though an unstoppable prophecy was coming true. The sense of triumph I felt was all-consuming, like being struck with lightning and trapping the power of the storm. “I didn’t just want to kill Xantheus’s son. I wanted to mark their souls with something that would scar them forever. Just like they’ve scarred me.” I roll my shoulders. This man must have seen the blood and slashes across my shirt, possibly even the old scars through the holes in the dirty cotton.
“How did you kill him?”
“When I heard footsteps and muffled voices, I cut off his hand. His father burst into the room, and I threw the hand at him. He always called Xanus his right hand, so it seemed fitting to give him his son’s as a token. Then I hacked at his neck before they tackled me.”
My faint smile fades as I slip away from the memory, avoiding everything that came after that glorious moment. The merciless beating. Falling unconscious. The unforgiving sun as they dumped my broken body hours from the compound and left me to rot. I blink those thoughts away as I take in the man’s unperturbed expression.
“Why did they not kill you for taking the son’s life?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they thought a long death in the desert would be more fitting. Or maybe because they were afraid they’d enjoy it just like I did, and their house of straw would tumble away.”
“Would you do it again?”
“Yes,” I say without hesitation. I look past him to the door, unsure I’ll ever walk through it. “I would kill them all, if I could.”
“Why didn’t you just try to escape?”
“I did try. It nearly worked once.” I close my eyes, remembering that beautiful night when a rare storm blanketed the commune when I was twelve. I snuck out and bolted into the rain. Lightning streaked across the sky and thunder boomed around me like drums. Freedom poured into me with every drop of water that pelted my skin. I’d hoped I could get far in the cool, wet weather, but I hadn’t counted on the flash flood through the creek bed. I couldn’t swim.
I open my eyes to the memory of hands around my arms, pulling me from the fast-moving water. “They put me in the Sinner’s Box for punishment,” I say, trying to repress a shudder at the thought of being encased in the narrow iron coffin. “But it was worth it.”
I meet the man’s eyes and he watches me for a long moment before he steps away and turns around, setting the water glass on the desk to his left. He then walks to the opposite wall and studies one of the topographic maps.
“Do you know what I meant when I said you were in my dumping ground?” he asks. He doesn’t look at me. His gaze seems trapped within the swirling lines of topography on the thin paper. I wonder if that’s where his dumping ground is, somewhere among those hills and valleys.
I think for a moment before I answer. My head is still buzzing and my muscles tighten with cramps. Working out a problem feels like trying to lift my feet free of deep mud. “It was your third question, but the most important to you. The only one that sounded like an accusation. Is it a hiding place?”
“Of sorts,” he says. He turns to face me. A knife glints in the dim light, clutched in his hand.
The man steps toward me. These might be my last breaths. I’m still and quiet, watching as he draws closer in the small, narrow space.
The man steps around me and cuts the zip ties that bind my wrists.
“Come with me,” he says as he takes my arm in a firm grip.
The man neither rushes nor coddles me as we leave the office. The cool night air is a relief on my sunburnt skin. We’re in some kind of industrial building site where the land has been leveled by the dozers parked on the perimeter and temporary structures dot one edge of the space. We head toward a canvas dome building and enter through the scuffed white door.
The man turns on a single row of overhead fluorescents and the unintelligible sound of a muffled, desperate voice fill the wide space.
“She said you were the Devil,” the man whispers to me as we stop at the edges of the light. A woman is bound to a chair that lies on sheets of clear plastic. Her mouth is covered by duct tape. I recognize her wild eyes. She’s from the community that just abandoned me to the merciless desert sun.
“Zara,” I breathe. My heart riots, blood humming through my ears. Zara squints into the shadows, struggling against her bonds. A channel of blood paints a crimson stain across her face.
The man leans close, his voice low in my ear. “She said she was sent to make sure you were dead, and to kill you if you weren’t. When I found you, she was trying to convince herself to crush your skull with a rock. She begged me to help her cleanse your corrupted soul from the world.”
They must have wanted to test her loyalty. Zara’s not the type to level accusations, though she never would have stood up for me either. She’s not the first one to volunteer to lead prayers. She doesn’t sing hymns with the most feeling or speak in tongues. She’s not the first on her knees to praise Xantheus.
But she does still drop. She does still sing and lead prayers and sway with her hands reaching for the heavens in worship.
When they’re not reaching for a rock, it seems.
I step forward into the light.
Zara’s eyes widen. I see every thought in them. Every emotion. Recognition. Relief. The spiral into realization. Fear and hopelessness. Desperation and terror.
