Bastian and David got to their feet as the others drew closer, their backs still pressed against the tree. As if defending their position against an oncoming attack.
Anne touched my arm. The contact startled me. I hadn’t realized she’d waited for me. “You okay?” she asked, her brow furrowed with worry.
I nodded, forcing a smile. One that was composed of false confidence. “Of course.”
“Shouldn’t we—?” Anne inclined her head.
“I—” I started to speak. Started to do exactly what I was meant to. Say exactly what I was supposed to say.
Acolyte.
Beloved.
Serene.
But the words—the lies—wouldn’t come. My eyes fixed on Bastian. His face pinched and tense as Stafford spoke to David. As Minnie smiled at him. Her eyelashes lowered. Her lips pouty. She was flirting. Something she shouldn’t be doing. He wasn’t hers to flirt with. That wasn’t her choice to make. Stafford did little to hide his displeasure.
“Sara.” Anne said my name. Soft and low. She knew me. She knew the ins and outs of my heart in a way few did. Not my mother. Not Stafford or Minnie.
Just her. Just Pastor Carter.
No one else.
The girl was tiny. She didn’t look much older than ten or eleven. Her light, brown hair was a tangled mess down her back. Her dark eyes were shadowed and careful. I watched her watch everyone else. Watched her take in her new surroundings. The new people.
Mom was by Pastor Carter’s side. As always. Their shoulders brushing together. Her smile wide and brimming with purpose.
I stood off to the side. My place was on the fringes. I was young. Only thirteen. I had no place in the arrival. The welcoming of someone new.
The girl and her father had come, as they all do, in the evening. When the sun was going to bed and the day had breathed its last. Pastor Carter said it was the time of day to slough away our old skins. To grow new ones. He insisted this was the only time for an arrival.
The small group huddled together, talking low. Their voices hushed and muffled in the room. The Gathering stood around them. No one talking, save for the four people all eyes were fixed on.
I stood ramrod straight. As I had been taught to.
But the girl hadn’t been taught to be still. To listen more than talk. To control your emotions unless asked. I could see her unhappiness. The way she clung to her father’s hand was needy and sad. And when she began to cry, I shuddered in revulsion.
The memory of walls closing in around me made me panic. Her tears traumatized me in ways my young mind couldn’t begin to understand.
I closed my eyes, even though I shouldn’t.
I tried to breathe.
Tried to ignore the girl’s pain.
I was terrified it would spread. I couldn’t go there. Not again.
Soft whispers had me opening my eyes again. If Mom saw me, not paying attention, I’d be in trouble.
Pastor Carter put his hand on the girl’s shoulder and she visibly flinched away from his touch. “I don’t want to be here, Dad,” the girl wailed.
Then Pastor turned my way and beckoned with his hand. “Sara, come here please.”
I puffed my chest up with pride at being bidden. Stafford, who stood beside me, glowered in annoyance and I had to suppress the self-satisfied laugh that threatened to explode out of me. Stafford was irritating and way too full of himself. There weren’t many kids my age at The Retreat, so we tended to stick together in our small, little pack. Whether we liked each other or not. I had no true friends in The Gathering. But I didn’t need them. Friendship wasn’t important. Family is what counted. And even though we didn’t necessarily like each other, we were joined together. Anyway, I needed to focus on things that mattered.
I worked hard to forget the time when I didn’t want to be with The Gathering. It had only been a few years before when I hated every moment of living in the woods with strangers. I saw too much of those long repressed feelings in the girl. But instead of despising her for the very weaknesses I had gotten rid of, instead it made me love her already.
I hurried to the group huddled together. Toward the girl with the tear soaked face.
