That one video was all it took.
David had a purpose.
At first, I tried to shake off any misgiving and told Mom and Dad that at least he was getting into something. Even if that something were the sermons of a man that sounded—to me—a little bit crazy.
“We are all born to die. Some early. Some later. But our ultimate journey is the one beyond the veil. The one that comes once our eyes close and our heart beats its last. Then our soul can be free of this wicked, sinful coil that we are bound to.” David listened to those words on repeat.
I continued to come home on the weekends and was more than a little startled by the change in David. He was still too thin. Still sleeping too much. Still an empty husk of the person I used to know. But now he was filled with fanaticism.
And Mom was starting to share my concern. “He wants to donate the money he saved from his service to this church,” she whispered to me one Sunday before I left to go back to school.
“What?” I had exclaimed a little too loudly.
Mom shushed me and pulled me into a room away from David, who was sitting on the couch watching another video of the enigmatic Pastor Carter. There weren’t a lot of videos out there. Just four. And David had taken to watching them over and over again.
Mom was wringing her hands. For the first time, I noticed how wan she was. How her eyes seemed to sink into her face. David wasn’t the only one struggling. We were all affected by the shift in my brother. My dad spent less time at home, finding it too overwhelming.
And me…maybe I had changed almost as much as David.
I had stopped being the fun guy and had at some point become the one my family depended on. The stable one. The dependable one.
The one who—somehow—would make it all better.
I wasn’t sure how I felt about that new role. My life didn’t feel like my own. Like it was being sucked out of me little by little as I tried to support my parents. As I tried to help my brother.
“Do you know anything about these people? This Pastor Carter?” she asked, her eyes darting into the other room to where David was. He hadn’t moved. He seemed unaware of anything but his computer screen.
I shook my head. “I’ve never heard of him. The video says he’s the head of something called The Gathering of the Sun. Is it a church? A group of random weirdos?”
Mom’s lips were trembling. “I have no idea. Maybe you could find out something? He can’t donate his money. He barely has enough to live on as it is. Your father and I love him but we can’t support him indefinitely. We’re on a fixed income ourselves—”
I put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll take care of it, Mom. Let me see what I can find out.”
So, I went back to school and I started doing some research. There wasn’t much of a web presence for The Gathering of the Sun. Aside from the videos posted on YouTube, there didn’t seem to be anything else.
But there was a phone number. In the description underneath the video.
If you’re lost and looking to be found please call us.
I called.
No one answered the first time. Or the second time.
On the third time a woman picked up. She didn’t say hello like a normal person. That was my first indication that something wasn’t right.
“Are you searching for the path?”
“Excuse me?” I asked, sitting up straighter. I hadn’t expected anyone to answer, so I was more than a little thrown by the weird greeting.
“Are you searching for the path?” she repeated, her voice muffled. I had to strain to hear her. As if she were speaking through cotton.
“Um…I don’t know. What’s the path?” I guess I sounded a little belligerent because she hung up. And when I called back she hung up again.
I wasn’t feeling particularly warm and fuzzy about this Gathering of the Sun. But I watched the videos again.
And again.
In some strange way, I could see what David saw in the message.
