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As much as my blood ran cold when my eyes landed on those words, I felt a sense of relief, too. Erin said those magic words to my mother.
The next thing I discover after inspecting the scant images that I could find of the conferences held by the Quantum Leap Success team was that of a redhead standing in a crowded room of women all clutching Styrofoam cups of coffee and seemingly networking and having the time of their lives.
Sure, Erin is a brunette, but that can be easily taken care of with a box from the drugstore. What can’t be easily taken care of is the fact it’s my sister’s face without a doubt.
Erin Baxter isn’t missing anymore.
She’s gone to Paradise.
And as much as I’d like to run over there with Jack in the morning while waving my badge, I have a feeling I’m going to need to take a much more clandestine approach. Instead, I hop online and do a little digging until I find a group on social media that’s offering the exact courses I’m looking to take me to the next level of consciousness. And just my luck, they offer a one-on-one mentorship program to go along with it. This is my in.
Erin might have joined a cult.
And by the looks of things, I’ll have to join one, too.
13
Patricia Flanagan
The sun warms my back as Kim and I lean against the fence of the compound, watching the kids run wild and free across the soft spring prairie grass. I look for Annie while Kim looks for Roy. Our babies. The ones who came from our own bodies, fathers unknown.
I sigh as I spot the dark-haired boy screaming and laughing to the left. The children run in throngs, happy as can be, unaware of the hell we’ve bore them into. A small flock of women have been assigned as watchers, essentially babysitters who work for free, one of which is me. Kim is a forager, but she usually doesn’t head out until late noon so she likes to join me.
We watch a cluster of women as they herd the children before breaking off into groups and whispering amongst themselves like Kim and I are doing now. They all look like costumed actresses playing a part in some yesteryear show that takes place on a prairie. At first, Kim and I were both one hundred percent behind the mandatory ankle-length skirts and the billowy blouses, but once we realized we would live in these clothes until they turned into rags, they sort of lost their appeal.
“He’s over by the tents,” I say, careful not to point him out. If anyone knew what we were doing, we could end up in Nightshade. A fate worse than death because death doesn’t allow for torment.
I glance up at the house that sits crooked on the hill. The House of Horror as Kim and I have grown to call it.
Malcolm insists Nightshade is an organic being that the universe sent to protect us all. But at the end of the day, it’s a dilapidated mansion that was left to him by his ailing mother.
I did my research before I got sucked in by the undertow.
I suppose he could have called it Hell House, but that would have been far too literal. The real reason he calls it Nightshade is because the select few luminaries that are privileged enough to reside in it are only allowed in after dark.
In fact, only Malcolm, his wife Patty, and the supreme leader are inside at all hours. They claim Nightshade cleanses itself during the day with the sun’s purifying rays as do we, and that’s why every last member of Paradise is mandated to be out in the fields during the day, each assigned to a chore ranging from menial tasks to hard labor. They save the latter for those whose minds are still full of darkness, claiming physical labor brings you closer to the light.
I scan the field for Annie.
No sign yet.
She just turned four. Roy is three.
An entire sea of pregnant women sit to the right on quilts made by some of the members. They’re to spend the duration of their terms lounging and being served by the rest of us. It sounds like heaven, but it was a special kind of hell for both Kim and me. I wanted to walk, to run, to explore nature, but all I was allowed to do was sit on that damn glorified towel and wait for my next sour meal.
Once the babies were born, we weren’t allowed to nurse our own biological child. It’s highly encouraged that we forget who we gave birth to and love all of the children here in Paradise as if we had pushed them from our loins.
But a mother never forgets.
The tents in the distance catch my eye once again. When I first saw them, it reminded me of a ragtag circus. They seemed wholesome, and most of them are, but the dusty, faded, navy tents near the woods are anything but.
Both Kim and I arrived in Ironwood Springs at the same time. We grew up in Kansas City together, lifelong friends from opposite sides of the track. My father ran a mortgage company that garnered him millions. My mother ran the social circles and that garnered her a million fake friends. She never cared for me from the get-go, starting with the way I looked. My features were a little too large, a little too drawn-out. She insisted on plastic surgery, new friends, and an elite Ivy League college for grad school. She got none of the above. And when my father passed away, I got zero inheritance as revenge.
“I know what you’re thinking.” Kim butts her shoulder to mine, and I steal the moment to take in her sweet scent. Kim has always held the scent of home to me. “It’s going to take a lot more than sunshine to heal that hovel from all that ails it.” She nods to Nightshade and we share a laugh.
It’s true. The house may be supersized, but it’s seen its glory days. The siding is dirty, the shutters are falling off their hinges, half the windows are boarded up, and the porch has a hole in it that’s been covered with plywood, which is currently held down with bricks.
“I hope to never walk through that door,” I say as a shiver rides through me. “I’m shocked it hasn’t swallowed Malcolm and Patty alive. I think it eats souls for breakfast.”
