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“Marsh?” Elias stood in the doorway, shoulders no longer hunched, as if in the past few minutes he’d matured five years. “That’s Soraya’s husband.”
31
Molly was sure he must have misunderstood. “No, this is the Jimmy Marsh who lives in Blackbear.”
“I know. Soraya’s husband.”
“Are they divorced? Separated?” Sam looked just as confused as Molly felt.
“They’re married,” Elias repeated. Maybe he didn’t know what divorce was. “He has to be in Blackbear for the work he does.”
“Which is what? What’s his work?”
“For the family. That’s his sacrifice, that he lives here. Everyone has to make a sacrifice sometimes. That’s what Luke says.”
True enough, thought Molly. But the way he put it sounded uncomfortably cult-like. “What’s your sacrifice?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Maybe it was leaving my first family.” He sounded so wistful that Molly’s heart broke a little bit.
Agent Bradley seemed unmoved. “Can you tell us anything more about this work that’s going on?”
Too abrupt. Too aggressive. Molly watched as Elias visibly withdrew. “I’m too young, I just help with gathering food. All I know is how to trap animals and dress them and dig holes and fall trees and hammer nails and?—”
“What about this?” On his laptop, Bradley pulled up a photo of a metal frisbee looking item. “Do you recognize this?”
Molly glanced at Sam, who whispered in her ear. “I took that photo when we were out there.”
“Sneaky. I like it,” she whispered back.
“Yeah,” said Elias. “That’s for the prophecy.”
Goosebumps rose on the skin of Molly’s arms. That word “prophecy” made her nervous. All kinds of things could be justified by a “prophecy.” She could tell Sam felt something similar, but Agent Bradley simply narrowed his eyes.
“What’s the prophecy?”
Elias looked from one to the other of them in astonishment. “You don’t know it? Doesn’t everyone know it?”
“Fill us in,” said Sam gently. He squeezed Elias’ arm. “We’d like to know more about it.”
“The prophecy says we’d find a land with a waterfall frozen in time, and that land would belong to us. Them,” he amended, his forehead wrinkling, looking suddenly confused. “I guess I’m not really one of them anymore. I never really felt like I was. Things didn’t make sense to me but when I asked questions they acted like I was stupid.”
Those questions…Molly would bet anything that was why they’d slipped him sedatives. If Elias was starting to dream about his biological parents, they would have wanted to put a stop to that. Neurodivergent children saw things others might not, but they could also miss social cues that others could easily perceive. So the “don’t ask questions” hints might not have registered with Elias.
“What else does this legend say?” Sam asked Elias.
“That we’d have to sacrifice, but once we found the Ice Falls, the land would be our reward, and it would be ours forever.”
“What land? Do you mean the Chilkoot land?” Agent Bradley asked.
Elias shook his head. “I don’t know. The person who knows the prophecy the best is Naomi. She recites it every morning so we remember it. In case any of the little ones get tired, it reminds us why we’re sacrificing. So we’ll have what should be ours, forever and ever.” He hit his head with the heel of his hand. “I keep saying ‘we.’ Them. Not me. I’m not a Chilkoot.”
Molly wondered if he was heading for a full-scale meltdown. She wouldn’t be surprised, with everything he’d gone through.
Elias grabbed Molly by the elbow, making her jump. “If I was kidnapped, do you think some others were too?”
She shared a glance with Sam and Agent Bradley, unsure how to answer that.
The children out there all looked so similar, all with some version of red hair, and drab homemade clothing, that anyone would assume they were related. But did anyone in Firelight Ridge even know the exact number of little Chilkoots? Not even Sam did, and he’d been watching them for over a year. No wonder they were so reclusive and rarely allowed anyone from outside onto their property. They could basically get away with anything out there.
