A Darker Place (17 page)

From the journal of Anne Waverly (aka Ana Wakefield)

The desert was still and clear, a morning so filled with promise that one could almost believe the internal combustion engine would never be invented. Ana knew she should wander up to the communal dining hall and begin the process, but the surrounding hills called to her, and she turned her back on breakfast. After all, she did need to get the lay of the land, didn’t she? She dropped her compact bird-watching binoculars into her pocket and set out for the nearest hill.

The hill was farther than it looked, and there was no easy path leading to its top. Ana scrambled and panted and prayed that her knee and her bones would stand up to the demands she was making on them.

Finally she stopped, and if it was not exactly the top, it was close. She eased herself down onto a flat boulder, and looked out upon the Change compound.

It was bigger than Glen’s aerial photograph had indicated. The seven round buildings of the central compound had looked like African huts in the picture, which threw off the rest of the perspective, but in fact each circular building was much larger than the guest quarters where she had been lodged. She wouldn’t be surprised if sixty or eighty people could live in each one, given a propensity for cheek-by-jowl, monastic-style housing. Four of the outside buildings seemed to be complete as well as the even larger building at the hub. The remaining two were still under construction, one of them little more than a circle of foundation blocks.

It was also more beautiful. Seen from overhead, the layout had been flat, two-dimensional. From her angle, the buildings and gardens came alive and took on a relationship
to the outlying fields and the hollow of red stone in which they were laid. It still looked somewhat otherworldly, did the compound, like something inspired by space aliens, but it was at the same time clearly of this earth.

She sat on her godlike perch and watched people come and go along the red gravel paths, into the hub building and out again to one or another of the outlying sheds and barns. A group of children accompanied by a couple of taller escorts burst out of a building and swirled along one of the pathways, bright and lively dots of motion, before disappearing into the doors of the building that held the communal dining hall, their adults following sedately behind.

She lowered the small binoculars and surveyed the whole. She was satisfied with how her introduction to Change was proceeding, the familiar patterns of Anne Waverly remaining in suspension, keeping her fears and her doubts locked away to herself while her alter ego and former self Ana Wakefield walked, wide-eyed and eager, into her new and exciting experience. It was not, as she had feared, proving difficult to usher Anne behind her door. Anne was no more real than Ana Wakefield was, and now that she was in place, she remembered how restful it had been each of the earlier times to immerse herself in a passive role, knowing there was nothing she could do except absorb it all like a sponge. And when she was saturated, Glen would reach in, pull her out, and wring her dry, and she would put on Anne Waverly again and go back to the university and the trees and her dogs.

The only thing wrong with the comfortable playacting she was wrapping herself in was that child with the frizzy black hair. She always had an uncomfortable few moments when she first met the children of her newest community. The children were always the hardest part, a
strong emotional tug reaching out from her past to threaten her equilibrium. She had occasionally wondered if this was why she had ended up teaching at a university, a community that contained very few small children—her way of touching young lives while avoiding the dangerous maternal responses set off by the very young. The surprise of Dulcie, her distressing resemblance to Abby, would no doubt fade with familiarity, but the thought of the child was a bothersome little itch in the back of her mind, an irritation that kept Ana’s new skin from a complete and comfortable fit.

Speaking of children, where was Dulcie now? she wondered idly, and then, What time is it, anyway? She did have a supply of food in Rocinante, but a solitary meal was hardly the best way to begin her relationship with Change. Taking a last glance at the view, she set about climbing down to the valley, and gained the bottom unscathed by dint of never raising her gaze from her feet.

Hurrying up the road, she exchanged waves and smiles with the occupants of several exiting cars. Once past the parking area, she greeted Change members with words instead of a wave: Good morning. Beautiful morning, isn’t it? How are you? and, nearing the main building, Is there any breakfast left?

When she got to the main hall and pulled open the heavy door, she had to step back briskly and give way to a dozen or more waist-high members of the Change community, all of them chattering away at the tops of their voices and pulling on brightly colored jackets and sweaters. They took the opening door as permission, or opportunity, and washed past her as a unit, breaking into a run and sweeping out of sight around the building toward the playground noises coming from a distance. One of the lagging adults, a woman in her early twenties busily trying to fasten a buckle on a soft baby pack worn
on her chest, gave Ana a quick and apologetic smile as she, too, ducked through the conveniently open door.

“The swings are calling,” she said in brief explanation, and followed the children in the direction of the playground.

There was breakfast left, though only of the cold cereal, canned-fruit-or-bananas, and sour yogurt variety. There was no coffee, though she could have had a cup of black tea if the big urns hadn’t been cleared away. She satisfied herself with a small glass of goat’s milk and orange juice made from an inexpensive concentrate.

Ana gathered her bowl in one hand and the two glasses in the other, and surveyed the room for a minute before choosing her seat. There were only nine people sitting down, in three groups. She decided against the young couple, who appeared too wrapped up in each other to welcome an intruder, and the four men who had obviously already put in two or three sweaty hours of dirty physical labor. Instead, she gravitated around to the three women nursing their cups of tea. One of them was Laurel from the night before, who recognized Ana and moved over a fraction to welcome her to the bench.

Introductions were made—Teresa Montoya, pretty and silent, and Dominique Picard, who had an accent and an appearance as French as her name. Ana greeted them, sat down, and made a comment about the beautiful morning; with that simple prime, the well of conversation began easily to flow, even when Laurel excused herself to begin her kitchen duties.

Teresa and Dominique, it seemed, were teachers. All of the older students currently being off to basketball and Biosphere, the two women were free to bring their record books up to date and have a leisurely consultation over an extended breakfast. They were interested to hear that Ana was herself a teacher, and asked her about her experience.

“Well,” she said, “I used to teach the little guys—I started with kindergarten, then third-grade for several years. Then I wanted a change so I upgraded my certificate and taught high school in a private alternative school—history, English lit, and even beginning Spanish for a year.” The two women did not go so far as to exchange significant glances, but Ana could feel that they were definitely paying attention. “Tell me about your school here. How many kids are there?”

“We have about a hundred kids in the community, eighty-seven of them in the school,” Dominique told her.

“Really? That’s quite a good-sized school. How many people in the community in all?”

“Two hundred seventy, two hundred eighty, something like that. A high percentage of children, you are thinking, no? Do you know anything about us, Ana?”

“Not a thing, really. Carla took pity on me last night in Sedona when she saw me working on my bus’s heater, but we didn’t have a chance to talk. I did gather that this is a religious community.”

“Please, whatever you do, do not think of us as a cult. We are a community of people brought together by a common interest in spirituality and responsible living—personal transformation leading to a change in society as a whole. Steven is first among us here, but he is no cult leader.” Ana smiled to show her sympathy, and Dominique, mollified, went on.

“We have a high percentage of children here because one of the ways we take responsibility for our existence on this earth is to nurture young people who have been abandoned by their families. We take in so-called problem children—children who have been rejected by a series of foster homes, who are being released from juvenile detention centers, children too old or too ill-behaved for the adoption agencies—and we give them structure in their lives, the firm hand and good example
of mature adults, healthy food for their bodies, fresh air and open space for their spirits, education for their minds, and, when they are ready for it, the skills to personally transform their souls.”

“And basketball games,” said Ana.

Dominique looked puzzled for a moment, then grinned. “Basketball, yes—and we have a killer baseball team as well. Kids need focused relaxation, and a little friendly competition teaches them how to use aggression, not be used by it—a lot of the boys who come to us have real problems with aggression, learned from their fathers, continued by their peers. Besides which, an all-American team sport is a way we can demonstrate to the community and the state that we’re not a bunch of weirdos about to start shooting at the FBI and BATF.”

The colloquial familiarity with governmental agencies was disconcerting, particularly as Dominique had hit on the very purpose of Ana’s presence here, but it was also amusing to hear the phrase “bunch of weirdos” rendered in a French accent. Ana laughed. “I met a child named Dulcie yesterday, who I assume is being fostered here.”

“Dulcie is a sweetheart. But why do you not think she was born here?”

Without pausing to consider, Ana said, “Because she acts like an abused child.” Oh God, she then thought, what if Dulcie is actually one of their own? But both Teresa and Dominique were already nodding.

“She has only been with us about six weeks. She speaks only to her brother, who is also here, but she has begun to respond to outsiders by gestures, nodding, or pointing, and occasionally she uses a few words. That is progress.”

“Dulcie?” said Ana. “Do you have more than one Dulcie here? The girl I met last night was talking just fine.”

“Dulcie
was?” It was the first time Teresa had contributed; both women were leaning across the table as if to seize Ana by the collar.

“Yeah. When she and Carla saw me working on the engine, she asked me what I was doing. And what was the other thing? Oh yes, when I pulled a length of duct tape from the roll using my front teeth, she was a good little mother and told me I shouldn’t use my teeth like that, they’d come loose and fall out. And then she got the giggles when I actually pulled my teeth out. I have a dental plate,” she explained.

Teresa and Dominique looked at each other thoughtfully.

“Well,” said Dominique. “Interesting. Would you like to see the schoolrooms?”

“Sure,” said Ana. “Let me just take the dishes back.” She piled up her things and took the empty cups of the two women, turned to carry them over to the kitchen, and then nearly dropped her burden in astonishment.

“Good… heavens,” she said. It was the first time she had faced the high half-wall that dropped down to divide the high-ceilinged dining hall from the kitchen. Last night she had merely glanced in as she went past, and this morning she had come in at the far door, taken her food from the buffet, and walked over to the tables to sit with her back to the kitchen. Now, however, she stared at the high wall and at the ten-foot-high mural that stretched the full sixty-foot width of the room.

The theme of the painting was proclaimed in foot-high gold letters smack in the middle:
TRANSFORMATION
. At the left side of the mural a highly realistic portrayal of the untouched desert that Ana had contemplated from her high perch that morning gradually gave way to the gentle civilization of fields and crops from which tumbled baskets of fruit, tomatoes, eggplants, and grain that spilled into the central image, the kitchen. Five figures
stood with their backs to the painter and their arms raised, giving praise to a fiercely glowing
horno
, the womb-shaped bread oven found behind native dwellings throughout the Southwest, its top slightly elongated by the artist’s perception into something closer to a pear in shape. To the right stretched an abundance of cooked dishes, breads, casseroles, and pots of soup that nourished a long row of identical people, again shown from behind, and then a row of people marching renewed to the fields while in the background children played on a slide and a set of swings. The people were followed by a jagged, half-raised circular stone building, and finally, seated in a lotus position, a meditating man surrounded by a shimmering golden aura.