It's nearing nine when we make it to the town park.
Most of the vendors are already set up, their tarps flapping violently in the gusts, fighting against the pegs that have been stomped extra hard into the ground today. We've had the lot at the Southeast corner for as long as I've been here. It's tucked away from the other farmers, and mixed in with the craftspeople. On one side of us there's a woman who sells paintings exclusively of storms. Nothing else. She has her easel out under her tent today, painting the glowing face of the clock tower under the brewing skies; charcoal trees, smudged out with her fingers, bend on the horizon behind it.
On the other side of us, an older white-haired couple sells knitted accessories and jam. They always bring with them an old FM radio. Most of the time it's set to a music station playing the classics, but every so often it'll switch to news and we'll get to hear a few seconds of something going on in the larger world. But it never lasts long; Heath usually asks them to change it back, and they always do.
In the centre of the park the smaller vendors set up camp. There's the guy who sells gemstones out of a briefcase, and the lady who climbs up into the big oak tree with her ladder to hang her handmade faeries and wind chimes from the branches. All her pieces are made from items she finds on her hikes; it says so on her chalkboard sign. Today her chimes and faeries are making lots of noise as they clash against each other in the wind, like angels fighting in the heavens. Their wires are getting all tangled up, but this doesn't deter her from hanging every last one.
Near her, a fire is glowing within a shallow rings of bricks. Incense sticks are stuck in the ground around it, filling the air with their musky ashram scent. For three dollars, you can buy a small bundle of sage and cedar from the boy tending it. Included is a slip of paper and a pencil. You're supposed to write down a prayer, then drop it in the flames.
There's a woman in a shall there now, clenching her paper to her chest, saying quiet words. She's there every Saturday. She buys from us sometimes. She says Heath and Addison remind her of her boys. Hers are overseas. The older one is in the Army; the younger in the Navy. How nice it would have been, she often says, if they had stayed here and taken over their father's business after he passed. Heath and Addison tell her what her sons are doing is noble, and that business around here isn't what it used to be. All the right things.
At our table, Noah is balancing on his crutches, unloading the cucumbers from their crate. He's stacking their bumpy bodies, one by one, to build a pyramid. He's moving slowly compared to Addison and Brandon who are scrambling to get the tent up before the rain. Anna is rushing, too, kneeling at the trailer, scribbling down new prices on ripped panels of cardboard with permanent marker.
I'm not sure where Heath went. He's the only one allowed to wander off. The rest of us aren't even allowed to go to the bathroom in the library by ourselves. He makes us go on the side of the road when we pass the sign for Petersburg, so we won't have to go once we're here. I suppose he thinks if he lets us wander off it'll get harder to draw a line. How far is too far? How long is too long?
He's paranoid about people finding out that 'Little Valley Farm', the name written on our sign, isn't a real place, nor is it where we say it is.
I can see him now. He's walking back across the park with a pastel box under his arm. He makes room, between the green onions and pints of gooseberries, to set it down, and opens it up like a jewellery box. Inside, there's an assortment of donuts.
"You're serious?" asks Brandon, already reaching in. He hasn't had any real sweets for months. None of us have because it's one of the rules. According to Heath, Kent wants us in perfect health. And perfect health, as outlined by The Vision, requires a diet of foods grown from the ground, in the same climate as one lives. No refined sugars or processed foods, and only products from animals of which we've respectfully shared a habitat with beforehand.
"Save a couple for Jai," Heath says, watching Brandon alternate bites between the two he has in his hands, as if he's been stranded on a desert island for weeks with no food at all.
Everyone digs in, except for Noah and I.
"Noah, you don't want one?" Anna asks.
"Try the jelly ones," Brandons says, powdered sugar puffing past his lips, landing on his shirt.
"Maybe later," Noah says, dusting off Brandon's chest for him. He pushes a smile that he abandons too quickly for it to seem real.
"Casten?" Brandon asks, holding one out.
Addison takes it instead, knowing I won't eat the whole thing. He rips it in two and holds both out for me. I take the smaller one.
Not wanting to appear off, I take a bite. The inside is doughy and wet, compared to the thin layer of crumbly glaze. I've not even swallowed before I can feel the warning signs of a sugar headache. It's crazy what the body can start to forget when it goes too long without it.
I check the clock on the tower. Nine-thirty. We have to go soon. I don't want to make Noah feel rushed though, so I go back to watching the lady paint the sky and wait for him to say when.
It's not long before I feel a tug on my sleeve.
"...You ready?" I ask him. It's not too late for him to change his mind...
"The guy said ten," he tells me quietly.
That doesn't really feel like an answer, but he's already reaching down for his drum.
"Here, I got it." I toss the rest of my donut onto the grass behind the painter's tent, and brush my hands on my skirt, before lifting the drum onto my back.
Heath sees that we're leaving. "Don't go far, please." He says this every time.
I scan the park for a good place, landing on a spruce tree whose lower limbs have been pruned, leaving it in the shape of an umbrella. "We'll be just there," I say, pointing it out. I try to sound casual. It's farther than our usual spot.
"What about closer to the fire there?" he suggests.
"Out in the open? It's going to rain."
"It better not. We have a waterfall to get to," he says, with a sort of camp counsellor enthusiasm that doesn't fit him.
He's trying though.
Seeing my reaction, he resorts back to his normal self. "Check in ever so often, yeah?"
I nod. "Sure." I look at Noah to see if he's ready. There's dread in his eyes. He knows if we walk away now, this is goodbye. This is it. And they're eating donuts, completely unsuspecting.
Addison is watching Noah, seeing him turn pale. "Is it your ankle?"
"You said it was feeling better," Heath says, as if to defend his decision to let Noah come today.
"I've just been standing too long, that's all." He's talking to them, but his eyes are lost somewhere else.
"Here," Addison says, fishing into his pocket for a joint. "If you want me to try to find something stronger for you—"
"It's okay. It's not so bad when I'm sitting," he says, stuffing the joint into his pocket, without much care.
"We should go, then." I tell him, picking up my guitar. I almost lose balance when I lean down for it. The drum on my back is far heavier than normal, all stuffed with clothes.
Noah doesn't know how to walk away. How do you say goodbye without saying goodbye? How do you just walk off, knowing it's the last time? How do you leave the people you called home for the last year? Why does this feel so wrong all of a sudden?
...Is it wrong? Why don't I know the answer to that anymore?
"Noah," I say again. I can see that he's struggling, but, in the span of one exhale, he straightens his back.
"Yeah, ready." He takes off through the growing crowd, propelling himself in long, swinging strides.
I try to keep up, but it's hard to maneuver two instruments through all the market-goers. Everyone has come early to beat the rain by the looks of it. A few people stop to admire his crutches. Usually Noah's like a puppy, excited to talk to anyone, but today he brushes them off.
When we're far enough from the table, he finally lets me catch up with him.
"Where are we going?" he asks, avoiding making eye contact. He knows the second he looks at me, he's going to break. I can hear it in his voice; he's so close. So he looks anywhere else.
I lead us the rest of the way, and help him down onto on of the tree's roots. The trunk shields us from the table, and we have a view of the baseball diamond and narrow parking spaces that run alongside it. It must have been a long time since anyone has actually played there. The dirt is sprouting witch grass and dandelions, the bleachers are sinking, and the rusty chain link fence is making a seventy degree angle with the ground in some spots.
He tips his drum on its side to use as a footrest, while I sit on my guitar case to lean back against the wide trunk. Following the parameters of being within sight of the table, we're in about as good a place there is; about a hundred yards away, and low to the ground. They'll only be able to see us well when the crowd thins.
Hopefully all of this will be over by then.
"I'm freaking out, Case," Noah says, twenty minutes in. The jitters have taken over. "What if they changed their minds?"
"When's the last time you talked to them?"
"Yesterday morning."
"We're fine then," I tell him, although I'm starting to think maybe we should have come up with a backup plan just in case they were to bail. Thing is, I don't really think there's another option for Noah. If this falls through, he's not going to bolt. Even if he tries, he'll get caught before he makes it very far on crutches. I think, if this doesn't work, he'd rather go back to the farm and call it fate, rather than risk getting caught trying to leave.
Stressed, he starts searching his pockets. "Will you ask someone for a light? You know that guy, right?" he asks, nodding towards the coffee shop. The blonde-haired barista is plugging his guitar into an amp next to the door. His parents don't let him play inside anymore. He told me so the last time he came over to our table with one of his mixtapes, back when we were still friends, sort of. But then, one market, he stopped coming over, and that was it. We haven't talked since. I kept thinking Heath said something to him, or maybe even Addison did. But I never asked.
I'm ashamed that I never went to him. I guess I've just been scared. Scared that he might not want to talk to me, in case it was something I did that made him stop wanting to come over. "Um...I can light it at the prayer fire," I offer, even though the idea of lighting a joint from the same fire a woman is using to pray for her sons at feels a little off.
"Nevermind. I got it." He starts picking at the dead grass around us. Once he has a good handful of it, he moves onto the tree. Using the knife he keeps at his waist, he shaves off some of the dry bark, catching the fibres in his cupped hand. "...Remember when you me and Kyle tried making spruce gum that once time?" he asks, now chipping away at a big chunk of crystallized sap.
I smile at the memory. "That was bad. Anna was fuming."
"Cuz we destroyed the best pot in the house."
I laugh. "Yeah...and it wasn't even worth it. Tasted so bad."
"Could pull fillings out, that stuff. Better to just suck on it as is, I'd say."
"Is that any good?"
"You tell me," he says, holding out the blade of his knife where a few crystals are stuck.
I pull one off and suck on it. It starts off mild, but soon the taste is overwhelming and oddly oily. My cheeks pucker and I shake my head. "It like caster oil or something...mixed with turpentine."
"It'll probably make you shit your pants. If you have too much of it."
"What?" I laugh, spitting it out onto the grass.
He smiles. "I popped blisters on a balsam tree once and drank too much of the sap, cuz a native guy said it would stop my cold. And by too much I mean only a teaspoon. Was up all night—well, you get it. Hey, bend back over for a second?"
"Why?"
"Just do it." He starts rubbing my back extra hard with the heel of his palm, trying to collect the lint from the flannel I'm wearing.
When he has enough, I sit back up and watch as he combines everything in a small pile on an adjacent root, topping it off with a few thin spruce twigs. Holding the joint in his mouth, he used the magnesium stick on the back of his knife to spark the pile. It catches after just a few tries. Before the pile vanishes into thin air, he lights up.
"Cool party trick, huh," he says, holding in the smoke, but it's more like he's talking to himself...in a way that's self-deprecating.
A few hits in, his energy drops considerably. I was wondering when that would happen—hoping it wouldn't.
I don't know what to say to make him feel better. Instead of helping, I seem to slip deeper inside myself with each passing minute.
I thought he was doing the same, but then he asks out of nowhere. "...Are you mad at me?"
I break my gaze with the parking lot, but only for a second; just long enough to shake my head.
"You're lying."
"I'm just thinking."
"About what?"
I inhale deeply, trying to make it silent, but for some reason it only makes everything feel more tense. "Nothing worth saying."
"They could come at any second, Case. I don't want it to feel like this. Just talk to me, take my mind off it."
"...Do you think Heath really would have done it?" I ask. "Used The Aura against us?"
His soft jaw shows a flash of sharpness, and I instantly regret saying anything.
"Nevermind. Forget I said that," I say, abandoning it.
Noah looks at me in disbelief. "...How the fuck are you going to ask me that right now?"
"You're not wondering it, too?"
"No, of course I'm not wondering it," he bites, amazed that I would be doing this right now. "He said if I ever brought up leaving again, The Aura was going up, end of story."
"I know, but...it wasn't a heat of the moment thing, you don't think?"
Betrayal shows in his face, only slightly masking his panic. "Fuck you."
"Noah—"
"No, fuck you, Case," he repeats. "You're not allowed to say that to me now. What's wrong with you?! Of course he meant it, or you wouldn't have fucking helped me."
I scrunch my eyes under my hands. I knew it was a mistake to say anything. I just want to be sure about this—as sure as I was the morning after I found Kyle. As sure as I was when we talked down at the sauna. I was so sure then, that giving him this plan was the right thing.
"If it's cuz he's being nice—let's have donuts and go to a stupid waterfall—"
"Forget it. You're right. I'm sorry."
"I can't fucking be here anymore. I can't do this. I can't stay," he says, like he's desperate for me to understand that it's not a choice for him anymore. "You know that. You know I can't."
"I know."
"Do you?" he asks, looking back and forth between my eyes.
"Yeah," I whisper.
"Then say he was going to put it up. Say he was never going to let me go."
"He was never going to let you go." As I say those words, I realize that I do still believe it.
And because I believe it, he believes it, too. He finally relaxes back against the tree, as if he just walked a tightrope, and his blood is pure cortisol, and he needs a second to come down.
I can tell there's something he wants to say, so I wait.
"...Are you good at forgiving people?" he asks after a minute, his voice solemn.
"You don't need to be forgiven for anything," I say, thinking he's talking about himself. "Especially not for leaving. I'm an asshole for saying anything."
He nods to himself, sucking on the join especially hard, his eyes fixed on the ground.
I reach out for his hand. He doesn't break his staring contest with the grass, but holds my hand back. It's only a few seconds though before he lets go. He rubs up and down his legs nervously as if he'll be able to push the shakes out of him. Some ash falls onto his jeans, but he doesn't care.
Not knowing how much longer we have to wait, I go to undo the latches on my guitar case, thinking maybe some music will help, but he grabs my wrist to stop me, almost as suddenly as I grabbed his legs in the truck earlier.
"What's wrong?" I ask, worried.
"Will you just sit with me a little longer? I don't want people hanging around to listen."
"I can play really quietly. Just for us," I offer. "To pass the time..."
"Can you just...hold my hand again?" he asks, like it's something he needs, but is shy to ask for.
I leave the guitar and find his hand again. We hold hands every morning in circle, but it's never felt like this. He holds tight and doesn't let go.
A few minutes later I spot a black van circling the park. It's driving slow. The windows are tinted, and the colours on the license plate don't match the others around it.
"Noah?" I ask, knowing he hasn't seen it yet.
"Yeah?"
"Will you promise that, if things get desperate again when you're out there, you'll go back to Idaho? To your mom?" I don't know if it's stupid to ask that or not, but I just need to know that he has at least one safe place. Just one. I get that she gave him up, but if she met him now... What mom wouldn't be happy to see their child? No one wants to give up their baby. I mean, if she thought she could have given him a better life than foster care, she'd have kept him, right? How could she have known what was going to happen? How could anyone have known how bad it was going to get?
"I have a letter from her. The adoption agency gave it to my first parents... She thinks I'm going to hate her if I meet her. She actually wrote that," he says, as if he can't understand why she would put that down on paper for a kid to read.
"Do you hate her?"
"No. But, who knows...maybe she's right. Maybe that will change if I meet her."
"You saw her. That's something."
"Yeah...I suppose. She looked so old. Worn out. She had that, like, dark eye shadow thing girls do. I don't know...it just wasn't what I thought. It wasn't like the pictures. I felt sorry for her more than anything. By the way she looked, the last thing she needs is me showing up."
I want to hear him say that he's going to be alright. I want him to tell me about a cousin he has somewhere, or an uncle... I want to hear that he's thought of somewhere to go. Somewhere besides New York, on some one-in-eight-million quest to find a girl who might not even be there, under some pretense of 'love' that also might not even be there. "There's a van," I tell him.
"Where?"
"It just parked in front of the gallery...on the other side of the baseball diamond. On the street. You see it?"
He nods.
I stretch to look around the tree, back to the table. A group of kids, with skewers of fat strawberries, are running through the crowd that separates us. I catch glimpses of Anna and Heath through the bodies; they appear like images in a flip book.
The kids stop to crowd around a man sharpening knives on a wet stone. They follow the pedal, watching as it goes up and down, and up and down...their heads playfully nodding along, until they let an exaggerated form of dizziness send them falling into each other, all laughing. At the next tent over, one stray kid is watching a jeweller bend copper wire into perfect spirals.
I'm looking at anything—anything else—to avoid looking back towards the diamond.
"They're getting out," Noah says, forcing me back to reality. He's been watching this whole time. Eyes glued.
Three men cross the diamond. Beige pants, athletic half-zips, broad shoulders, clean haircuts, leather blackberry holders like gun holsters on their hips...
They're not how I imagined, but exactly like I should have imagined. They look out of place here. There's a gentle air of authority surrounding them, the same way an undercover cop looks slightly unlike everyone else, but it's hard to know exactly why.
Even though we planned it, I can't believe this is actually happening; that they came all this way just to help Noah. We've summoned the exact people we've been trying to avoid for a year with Kyle.
This is so crazy. I'm not ready yet. They look so much more official then I expected— "I feel like there's still so much I want to say to you," I whisper. "Just be careful, okay? Promise you'll be careful."
"I'm so sorry, Case."
"Don't say sorry. Don't even think it."
"Shit," he whispers, his voice high and painful, as if someone just knocked his ankle. He rubs out his joint in the dirt, and lifts the neck of his shirt over his face. Through the material I can hear him trying to calm himself down.
"They have to see you, Noah," I whisper. The men are searching for him.
He lifts his head up and pushed his hair out of his eyes. His fingers drag against his skin with a haphazard harshness, like a child who hasn't ever thought about wrinkles.
The men stop at the bandshell. They've spotted us. They talk amongst themselves for a minute, devising a game plan by the looks of it. In the end, two stay back and only one comes forward.
I hold onto Noah's knee as he approaches. I don't want to let go until I have to.
The man crouches down in front of us. His eyes are warm, but the rest of him asserts a cold strictness. "Noah Lisbon?"
"Yeah," Noah exhales, but quickly buttons himself up. "Yes, sir." Still, it comes out tired, defeated.
"Mark Warona." The guy holds out his hand for a shake. Mark has light eyelashes. His hair is somewhere between brown and red, and his skin is covered in freckles, as if to constitute a tan.
Noah cautiously shakes his hand. I notice how rough Noah's hand looks next to his, his fingernails packed with dirt.
"Nice to meet you," Mark says, with an endeared smile, that I assume is meant to make Noah feel safe. "Where are the people you came here with?"
Noah half looks around the tree, but knows not to identify anyone, even though it's obvious who we belong to.
The guy, whilst crouching, takes a half step to his right to get more coverage from the tree. It's now that I can smell his cologne. I hate it. "Alright," he says. "What we're going to do is walk calmly out of here to the van. We'll just walk. That's it. If someone tries to stop us or get involved, that's why there's three of us. You just ignore whatever is happening around you, and just keep walking. If it's too hard with those crutches, I'll carry you myself. Sound good?"
Noah nods.
"This is all you have?" he asks, looking at his drum. "You said you packed it?"
Noah nods again.
"Don't be nervous," he soothes, with a kind of lightheartedness that comes off condescending. "You're alright. We do this all the time."
I feel like 'all the time' is a stretch.
"You're the sister?" he asks me.
"Friend," I say.
He looks at Noah as if to redirect the question to him.
"She's my sister," Noah confirms.
What?
The man looks me over, rubbing his thumb over his chin, thinking to himself. He motions for one of the other guys to come over. "Brett will walk with you," he says to me.
"Oh, I'm not going with him," I clarify, as if this is just a minor misunderstanding.
Brett arrives and nods along to what Mark whispers in his ear. With the two of them standing here now, it could draw attention. The countdown clock has started. I don't know how much time is on it, but I know it's not a lot. "Noah you guys have to go," I say, trying not to show my worry.
Noah stands, and Mark helps him with his crutches.
My heart is pounding.
"Alright, you too," Brett says to me.
I stay where I am. "I said I'm not going." I get a sick feeling. I look up at Noah for help, but he's looking the other way.
"Noah." I try to get his attention, but he only looks down shamefully.
"Sweetheart, your brother has told us all about you. We're here to help you both."
"Noah, why do they keep saying that?" I ask him. The looks, the secrets, the escape plan... What if he read too far into it? Does he think I want to leave, too?
He finally looks at me. "I packed your stuff. It's all inside your guitar."
What? I want to yell at Noah. How could he be so reckless? He could have just ruined all of this for himself. If they discover right now that Noah lied about me being his sister, they could lose trust in his whole story and decide they want nothing to do with him.
All I'd have to do is yell Addison's name for this to stop. But, if I do that, Noah doesn't get to leave. I just have to wait until Noah is close enough to the van. He has to leave first.
"Noah, you have to get out of here." A whole world of warning is flooding out of me now. I can't help it.
"Say you'll come. Don't worry, even your journals—I didn't forget them, they're inside, I swear—"
"Mark, go take him. We'll be right behind you," Brett says.
"Case, please," Noah begs. "Please, just get up. Don't make me do this alone."
Do I lie to get him to leave first? "You have to take him now," I plea to Mark. "You have to get him to the truck."
I can tell I'm unsettling him. I look back around the tree, towards our table, expecting someone to have noticed what's happening by now.
"What are you looking at?" Mark asks, before turning to Brett. "What is she looking at?"
'That's enough," Brett says, reaching down for me. "Get the kid to the van. Derek and I got the girl."
He pulls me onto my feet.
Mark is happy to go. He tells Noah to start walking, but Noah is stubborn. "Not without her."
"Noah you have to—" I start.
"Please come with me," Noah cries. "It doesn't have to be forever."
I cover my mouth. I'm so sorry...
"Noah, walk with me now," Mark says, firmly.
"Casten, please," he cries again. "Just see what it's like. It'll be different this time. Just like you said—"
Brett demands Mark top pick him up and get out of here. Before I know it, Brett is pulling my arms behind me back. I try to resist, but the third guy is on me now, too.
"I can see it, Case. I can see it in your eyes..."
"Okay," I say to Noah, tears rolling off my cheeks. "Okay." I nod so he'll believe me. "I'm coming."
For the first time I see a break in his storm, and Mark sees it too. He uses it as an opportunity, bending down to throw Noah over his shoulder, letting the crutches drop to the ground.
Noah cries out in pain. "Wait, stopstopstop, my foot—"
Mark ignores his cries of pain, and just keeps walking.
As they approach the baseball diamond, Mark maintains his steady pace. The people he passes don't have looks of horror on their faces, nor do they try to stop him to make sure everything is alright. Instead, they all give Mark a nod of sympathy, as he makes his way to the van.
With Noah gone, I can feel Brett's meaty fingers around my upper arms, holding my elbows close together behind my back. The other guy leans down for my guitar.
"Don't touch my stuff!" I yell at him.
Brett reaches into his back pocket for a cable tie. "Are you kidding me?" I say, trying to rip my arms away.
I tell myself as soon as Noah gets to the parking lot, I'll call for Addison. As long as I still have my voice, I don't care what they do. Five seconds, four seconds, three seconds...
The third guy drops my guitar back down in order to help Brett, without any care for what's inside.
"The others are going to see you any second," I warn them desperately. "If you don't go now, they're going to stop you."
"Is that a threat young lady?"
"I'm trying to help you," I stress. "You have to go now. They'll look over here."
"Now, Derek," Brett orders.
My shoulder blades pinch even tighter together as they gain control of me.
I try to jerk away, to slide out of my flannel.
"Calm down," Derek commands through gritted teeth, as he fumbles with the cable tie at my wrists.
"Listen to me. He's not my brother. He wants out, but I don't. I can leave whenever I want, I swear," I exhort.
"Stop! You're hurting her!" An onlooker chimes. A small crowd forms, making a ring around us.
One parents quickly ushers her kids away from the drama.
"What is he doing her?"
"It's okay folks. We're acting on behalf of her family—"
"He's not my family!" I say, trying to get that point across, but it falls on deaf ears. They don't care. They're going to take me anyway.
"Don't fight it, darling," One onlooker says, talking to me like she knows what's going on more than I do. "These men are going to get you help."
"I knew there was something off about those kids," another says.
I feel my skin turn red. From the struggle, from the embarrassment, the anger... "Addison!" I scream his name through new tears.
But I didn't need to yell at all, he's already pushing through the crowd, running as fast as I've ever seen him run.
Heath is right behind him.
Before the Cult Monitor men have a chance to process anything, Heath and Addison pull the men off of me and bust the cable tie open.
"Where's Noah?!" Addison demands from me. His eyes are wide, staring into mine desperately, rushing me for an answer while Brett pulls himself off the ground.
In the corner of my eye, I see Heath on top of the other guy, fists pulled back. My head turns to look, but Addison holds my face, turning me back to him.
"Look at me. Where is he."
"The van," I say.
"What van?!"
"Their van. The parking lot."
"How the fuck did that happen, Case!" he yells at me.
Addison yells at Heath to leave the guy and run to the van.
"Call Mark!" the third yells to Brett "Call him!"
Heath sees Brett pulling himself up to reach for his phone. He wrestles it from his hands, then sprints after Mark and Noah, who are only seconds away from the van. The third guy bolts after him.
Now Brett is on his feet, coming for Addison. The small crowd gasps in horror as the two engage in a full on brawl.
Someone yells that the police have been called.
This is a mess. An absolute mess.
The blonde haired boy from the coffee shop has pushed himself to the forefront, looking like his body is frozen between watching and wanting to intervene.
Addison gets a good punch in and yells at me to run back and help Anna whose already packing up the truck with Brandon.
Tires screech on the street that runs along the south side of the park. The van has pulled up onto the grass, thirty feet away.
Heath is running back across the diamond. He didn't make it to Noah in time. Noah is in the van.
Where's the third guy?
Soon the van door drags open and Derek is running out. The van must have picked him up on the way back. It takes me a second to register that I'm the one the man is running at.
"Casten, run!" Heath yells to me.
But I don't run. I don't do anything. I freeze.
Out of breath, pinning Brett to the ground, Addison yells something to me, but words have stopped making sense.
I'm standing here like that stupid civil war statue, watching this stranger charge at me because he thinks he's saving me from a cult. Thirty feet turns to twenty, and twenty turns to fifteen, and fifteen turns to five—
Before I know it, his hands are on my shoulders and my feet are moving with his. Why am I moving with him?
A few lumberjack-looking bystanders have finally managed to break Addison and Brett up. The two are being held apart from each other by people who aren't clear about who is in the wrong, although Addison seems to be getting most of the roughhousing. Brett keeps yelling accusations towards Addison, with frenzied conviction; veins popping, spit flying...
"Some of those kids haven't seen their families in years!" Brett yells. "People like you are dangerous. You're a predator! Those kids are scared! They don't know who else to call, because you fill their heads with shit that makes them fear anyone who could actually help them!"
I'm so close to the van now. So close I can see the outline of Noah through the tinted glass.
Heath beats us to it. He yanks at the door, but of course it's locked. So he reverts to banging on the windows with his fists. So hard, it looks like the glass is going to shatter.
I catch his reflection in the glass, his eyes wild and desperate; he looks crazed. Rabid. That's not the Heath I know. He's scaring everyone. And surely he's scaring Noah, too. He keeps yelling Noah's name, with an intensity that sends chills over my whole body.
I can't possibly imagine what it's like for Noah on the inside. Don't open it, Noah. Don't open the door.
The van, having no other choice, reverses off the grass to get back on the road, making Heath stumble back to save his feet from the tires that have left behind huge ruts in the grass.
With the third guy preoccupied now with Heath, I'm freed up.
I look at my guitar in the grass, to the barista boy, to the phone in the dirt, to the faces of horrified people...to Addison trying to explain himself to strangers who won't listen....
And then it finally happens. The sky breaks. It sounds like a log the size of a planet is crashing over the atmosphere, and slanted sheets of rain descend at once, in violent, cold blasts.
People run to their cars, and back to their tents. In the chaos, I run, too, leaving everything.
"Hey! Hey!" I hear a voice behind me, somehow cutting its way through the thick volume of rain. At first I think it must Heath, but when I look over my shoulder, I see it's the barista boy running after me in his converse and band tee, already soaked through.
I don't stop.
I run past the table where the Brandon and Anna are packing up the truck as fast as they can. Anna watches me pass like a comet, unsure if I'm just passing through or if I'm going to hit the earth and take everyone down with me, including her. She yells after me, and for a minute everything moves slowly. I see her through the floating strands of my hair over my eyes as I turn my head. Two seconds of stillness. Two seconds of her.
I could stop. I could just stop.
But I don't.
I reach the end of the grass and run across the road, just as the van swerves around the corner, tires skidding on the wet pavement. Protective parents yell aimlessly at the vehicle to slow down. And it does. I slows and then it stops, cutting me off. But I don't think that was its intention. I think they were just stopping as to not hit the girl in the street. I think they're just trying to leave now; get out of here as fast as they can with the one kid they could save.
I pivot and run west down the street towards houses. The van doesn't follow me, and neither does the boy from the coffee shop. I'm alone, but I still keep running.
Sirens. I can hear sirens.
Heath's voice is in my head, telling me how we have to be invisible, or at least try to be. This is the opposite of invisible. Everyone in town thinks we've done something wrong now. People are going to talk. Everyone knows what Cult Monitor is. Once you have them associated with you, it sticks. We won't be able to come back here.
I want to stop running, but I have this feeling in my stomach like I'm free falling, and I don't hate it. This feeling knows me. I've been here before. Not here as in running down this crumbling, mountain town street under skies of lightning, but here as in this feeling of running away. But I can't go on forever. My lungs are burning too fiercely.
I've made it all the way to the train tracks. My heart slams against my palm, through the lacy blue fabric of this dress. At some point, I lost my flannel, but I can't remember how, or when. I try to catch my breath. I wonder how fast a person's heart can beat before it kills them. The rain is in my eyes, but I can still make out a small derelict station, not much larger than a shack, leftover from a time when these tracks ran more than just freights. I duck inside, to get out of the rain.
I sit back against the concrete walls, and listen to the brambles and overgrown sumacs scratching against the old windows, like they're trying to get in. If this building were anywhere else—anywhere else on earth—all the windows would be broken, and the walls would be covered in graffiti left by kids just trying to prove to themselves, and to each other, that they exist. But no ones trying to carve a place for themselves here. That's the thing about these hills. This is where things get real quiet. That eerie calm that just keeps on persisting, it's everywhere. It sinks in your skin the same way those wild roses sunk in our skin, the spring before last. In places like this, the glass melts before it breaks and you remember it's a liquid. And then you start to remember all the other strange truths that don't quite fit into the reality you thought you knew.
The space fills with bright flashes.
I used to imagine that lightning was tears in the fabric of our reality, and if our eyes weren't so used to the dark, we'd be able to see glimpses of the beyond.
I saw an addict on the sidewalk once, laying there during a lightning storm, his eyes wide, the rain falling into them. His lips were smiling, sort of. I wondered if worlds were flashing above him, one frame per second, of complete newness. New colours, new emotions, new faces...
I asked him what he was seeing, but he couldn't hear me. So I sat with him, and spent the remainder of the storm watching him watch the sky, and it was beautiful.
The same way this moment is kind of beautiful, because it's not supposed to be. I don't mind sitting here, feeling the rain falling over everything like pins and needles, like the earth's limbs are all falling asleep, despite being blasted with electricity—like it's trying to wake itself up—like it doesn't know what to feel, so it's feeling everything.
But I can't stay here.
I find myself on the West side of the park. I have a decent view of the entire market from here. Everyone is taking down their tents and people are still running to their cars, using whatever they can to shield themselves from the sideways rain that's washing away the scene that broke out. Parents are holding their kids' hands too tight, dragging them along, scared the wind will take them.
It's almost like it never happened. There's no black van, no truck...
I squint to where our tent should be. It's gone. Everything's gone. All that's left is a few forgotten crates, tipped over with vegetables spilling out. And the trailer, they left it behind. It's empty and collecting water.
There's a sheriff's car on the grass between the park and the statue. The blue lights are flashing, reflecting of the dark rain and the dark puddles, and the dark everything.
The sheriff is underneath the knitting couple's tent, speaking to the woman. In one hand is a notebook, but he's not writing anything down; his writing hand is too busy holding the roof up. Instead, he listens as she gestures to the empty space beside her.
They left.
They left me here.
I can't stand here like this for much longer. I know that, but I don't know how to move. I don't know what direction to go. Back the way I came? Towards the shops? Towards the spruce trees? None of these directions mean anything to me. There's no movement I could make with my body right now that doesn't feel confused. I look lost. I am lost. It's just white noise inside my head, outside my head. I look up into the sky, feeling the rain on my face, thinking about what it was like for those raindrops just seconds ago, way up in the clouds.
I think about going behind the shops on the other side of the park, and finding my way into the coffee shop. Maybe the boy will let me in and I can explain everything, and he'll let me wait there like the last time I was alone here, and Addison will know where to find me.
I imagine towering walls of black clouds, rolling over the mountains, incurvated by the force of swirling winds. And, in the centre, I imagine a woman, naked, crucified to the eye of the storm, with all her hair, longer than her body, blowing in all directions around her, eyes closed, travelling—
I hear my name.
I whip around to find Addison running down the street to me.
He's yelling for me to run to him.
Four houses down, I see the truck backing into a driveway to turn around. They wait there, idling. Heath is in the front. Anna is next to him, and in the back is Brandon. No Noah.
"Casten, we gotta go!" Addison yells. "What are you doing?"
His face is a mix of every emotion I've ever known him to feel. His white tee shirt is ripped at the collar. There's a scratch mark on his neck that looks like it will bruise. I look at his hands; he's bleeding at the knuckles. I look back up to the sky to see if the angel is still there, but I interrupt myself because I know what crazy looks like. "There's a sheriff talking to the knit lady," I tell him over the wind.
"I know. They're looking for us. We gotta get out of here. You okay? You hurt?" he asks, looking me over, out of breath, water dripping off the ends of his hair, into his eyes.
"I can't go."
"What? What are you talking about you can't go—"
"My guitar."
"I have your guitar. It's in the truck." He's troubled that I should care so much about a guitar right now. "Case...they took Noah. He's gone," he says. "We gotta go now. There's an old service road that hooks back up to the main one..." He slows down. He can see something's not right. "Did they hurt you? What's wrong?"
I shake my head.
"Okay, Come on," he says, grabbing my hand. We're running back to the truck. He lifts me in to sit next to Anna, then squeezes in after me. Before the door is even closed, Heath is burning rubber to get out of there.
We're going home.
I look back over my shoulder as the town centre disappears from view.
There's a loud bang as the truck flies over the train tracks, and soon we're barrelling down a narrow dirt road, the wheels feeling like they're going to fall off.
Heath keeps up the intensity, his knuckles white on the wheel, until we make it to the leafy tunnel system of the hills. It's a maze. No one can trace us, now. All the secrets we've kept, and lies we've told to strangers ,will lead the cops in the opposite direction.
But I don't think they're going to look for us anyway. Why would they? We're gone. Cult Monitor is gone. Anyone who is in a position to care is gone. There's no crime without a victim or a perpetrator.
Brandon stands up in the back of the truck, his knees knocking against the window behind our heads. I tilt my head back to look up at him through the glass. Arms outstretched, he yells at the top of his lungs. No words. Just a release. This isn't how he expected today to go.
Heath follows Brandon in suit. "God Dammit!" he yells, slamming his hands down on the wheel with shocking force. Anna knows not to console him. No one talks the whole ride home.
The next time I look back at Brandon, he's sitting down with a tarp over his body as a shield, but he's still shivering.
He catches eyes with me through the glass. His expression stays miserable. It's almost like he knows it should be me out there.