“You say that a lot.”
“Say what?”
“That you’re fine.”
“That’s because generally I am.”
The tip of my nose was cold. My fingers felt numb. The air was not kind on my skin. Thunder crackled overhead. I hated storms. Always had.
“Hmm,” Bastian repeated.
“What?” I asked again, letting my annoyance show. The ride back to The Retreat seemed to take twice as long as it should have.
“I wonder if you really are.”
“Really what?”
I was growing tired of this conversation. Of this ride in the cold, cold dark. Of sharing a space with a man I had championed to be here in the first place and now wished I hadn’t.
“If you’re really fine. Because to me it doesn’t seem that way.”
I opened my mouth to reply. To shoot out a sassy retort. To tell him he was full of crap. He didn’t know what he was talking about. But I didn’t. It was best to keep my words to myself.
It’s what Pastor Carter would expect of his disciples. We didn’t give voice to foolish thoughts.
Bastian let out a sigh and this time I looked at him. I could barely see him in the diminished light. Just the vague outline of his prominent nose and chin.
“Maybe you’ll figure out that not everything you think is true really is,” I said with an air of superiority I didn’t quite feel.
“And maybe one day you’ll figure out that lying to yourself is almost worse than lying to someone else,” he murmured.
We fell into silence after that.
There was nothing more to say.
Ididn’t see much of Bastian or David for the first few days after they arrived.
Which was just as well. I was starting to think Bastian Scott’s presence was a herald of doom.
Nothing had felt quite right since he and his brother had shown up. I couldn’t shake the sense of disquiet that had lodged itself deep in my gut.
After we had gotten back to The Retreat all those days ago, Pastor Carter had taken the Scott brothers to a cabin on the edge of the woods. It was newly built. I had seen the men erecting the structure over the course of several weeks.
I had expected to see them at mealtime. Or prayer time. They showed up to neither.
I wondered why. It was unusual for new disciples to be kept separate. Usually they were integrated immediately. Pastor would bring them to the gathering room and we would come together, listening closely as our leader spoke to the new members. It was a ritualized beginning for a routinized way of life. We were never given a back story. The past didn’t matter. It was the present that we concentrated on. Our collective future that was the goal.
We’d pray together. We’d sing together. It allowed us all to begin to acquaint ourselves. To learn. To develop an attachment that was essential if we were to be family.
There was no immersion when it came to David and Bastian.
There was something about the Scott brothers that seemed different. I thought about Bastian the night he and David came and I knew that had to be part of the issue. Bastian wasn’t meant to be a disciple. I knew a non-believer when I saw one. He had swallowed his misgivings to follow his brother. Something about that kind of loyalty had gotten to me. Had propelled me to speak out in favor of his joining us inside the gates.
Maybe one day you’ll figure out lying to yourself is almost worse than lying to someone else.
Or maybe that tiny, rebellious part of me that wouldn’t be quashed craved the newness he brought with him. The air of dissent that sizzled in his wake.
He didn’t look at Pastor Carter as though he were the Lord incarnate. Bastian met his eyes and dared him to make a believer out of him. There was a challenge in his demeanor that I found sort of exciting.
