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“It’s a real word. It’s the name of the ancestral mother in Greek mythology.”
“I know who she is. Of course I’ve been taught that. I am to become a version of her when the prophecy is fulfilled.”
“Sure, Princess,” he says with a funny laugh. “In some ways, you’re part of Gaia.”
“But you were in a cult named Gaia?”
“Yes.”
“As a child?” Memories of my parents going to Rooney’s church flood my mind, sudden and intense, the scent of coffee and donuts, the feel of people singing, the power of my father’s smile.
“I was eight when my parents joined Gaia. You were twelve when your parents brought you into Rooney’s church.”
“How do you know so much about me?”
“It’s my job to know everything about you, Paigelynn.”
“Because you are a spy?”
“Something like that.”
When he talks about me and my parents, my prophecy, my – my world, I nearly throw up.
“Tell me what it was like. Gaia.” I sit up and stare at the road, dizzy for a moment as my eyes shift. Then I lean back against the seat and close my eyes, inhaling through my nose.
“Gaia was all about how the world is one big organism. We were just pieces of a whole. Every person, every object, every element was all part of a unified spirit.”
“That sounds beautiful.”
“It was. Until it wasn’t.”
“Tell me about the good parts.”
“Why only the good parts?”
“I didn’t sayonly. I want to understand, Cam. Understand why you were in a cult and you say I am in a cult and why you’re killing people I love and smashing Makiah’s face in while making threats, and we’re speeding on the highway in a stolen car toward a safe house I know nothing about. I need to understand. I need something that makes sense.”
“Right.” He goes silent for so long that I finally open my eyes and look at him.
“Cam?”
“Gaia was beautiful. Warm and loving. My parents learned about the movement at an Earth Day festival. My older sister and I loved going to it every year. Ice cream, games, the whole bit. We biked there from our house. Dad and Mom were into being more environmentally responsible, so this was part of their shift. They wanted to teach us to be better stewards of the Earth.”
“That sounds lovely.”
He grunts. “They started taking us to programs at the Gaia center. HQ was about four hours from our home. You could tent camp on-site, for free. Loads of other families were there, too. We had a lot of fun, running around outside, swimming, hiking, canoeing – you name it – while the grownups were in these long, boring lectures.”
A memory of my own parents taking me camping makes me pair up what he’s describing with my own experience. I smell pine in my nose, taste burnt marshmallow, feel my cold feet and hot face by a campfire.
“And then one day, Mom and Dad sat us down, all excited, to tell us we were moving. Moving to live at Gaia.”
“How exciting!”
“It was. We were. Mira had made a really good friend there.”
“Mira?”
“My sister.”
