AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Today we’re doing a deep dive into the Gaia cult. Founded in 1981 as an environmental center, by the early 2000s, it was an insular…”
“What is this?”
“Not fiction,” he mutters. “Just watch. Shut up for a minute andwatch.”
For the next fifteen minutes, I do as told, pictures and video of a much younger Mother showing on screen, with many other people listed as leaders. As the newscaster describes unspeakable horrors including starvations, rapes, forced births, forced abortions, and more, I feel my outrage draining.
It is the moments we see The Mother that are most emotional, generating an instant panic that floods my limbs and paralyzes me.
Police officers, district attorneys, and psychologists all talk about her capacity for evil.
And then: a picture of a young teenage boy with a fringe of dark curls, a baby face twisted in grief, being held back by a large, beefy man who is bald, wearing a dark jacket.
“That’s you!”
“Yes.”
“In spite of her daughter Mira’s death by starvation, Angelina Santinos continues to claim it was her husband, Mario, who was the mastermind…”
“Your last name is Santinos? Cameron Santinos?”
He sighs. “Keep watching.”
“Though just fourteen, Mario Junior testified against his parents, insisting that it was his mother and other members of the cult who forced his sister to undergo such barbaric treatment. In the end, his testimony was not enough to overcome…”
I am so confused. Mario Junior? Cam’s real name is Mario? None of this makes sense. He’s showing me a news documentary about The Mother, but Cam is in it, and the show says that his parents are –
“You testified against The Mother?”
“Yes.”
My entire being seizes.
“Wait. Wait. You – The Mother. The Mother isyourmother?”
He cuts the television show and turns to me with the saddest eyes I have ever seen in my entire life.
“Was. Shewasmy mother.”
Thirteen years of training from her pours through every strand of DNA in my body, every cell touched by her teachings, every piece of my soul infused with her perspective.
“Was? Is she dead?”
“Unfortunately, no.”
“What do you mean,unfortunately? Who would wish death upon their own mother?”
“A fourteen-year-old kid who watched that same woman kill his sister. A thirty-one-year-old man who is learning just how cruel she’s been to you.”
Restrained and fuming, he watches me carefully as I absorb his words.
“How do I know that video is not fake? The Mother warned me that The Men would use all sorts of trickery to convince me to transgress.”
As he closes his eyes and sighs through his nose, I feel shame.
Shame for falling for his ruse if he’s lying to me.
But shame for believing a woman who did such horrible things to her own daughter and son if he’s telling the truth.
