I hugged her. In so many ways I was closer to her than anyone. Anne was the family my mom wasn’t.
I loved my mother but she wasn’t mine to claim. She hadn’t been since I was eight years old.
She belonged to The Gathering. Her position as highest ranking elder meant most of her time was spent in prayer and solitude. And when she wasn’t in the Sun Sanctuary, she was by Pastor Carter’s side. His right hand. Teaching and sharing the word of God as received by Pastor.
She was still a woman of ebbs and flows. Her love could be given so easily. It could be taken away without hesitation.
The disciples accepted her “fits” as something beyond mental illness. That was too narrow a definition for what my mother experienced. Pastor recognized her for what she was. A truth-sayer. A prophet. A purveyor of the holy.
Because of that, Pastor Carter elevated her status within the Gathering of the Sun soon after our arrival. He claimed that her scattered mental state was a result of her brain trying to process messages from God. Her body couldn’t contain such divinity. He said history was littered with stories of people dismissed as crazy when they were really filled with a mystical truth.
What had been diagnosed as depression and paranoia was in actuality something greater. Something amazing.
Pastor Carter embraced those things the rest of the world misunderstood. The people they turned their back on. The shunned people. The marginalized. That’s why we loved him. That’s why we knew he would lead us to better things.
No one could dissuade us from that one absolute fact.
“What’s going on?” Anne asked, stopping before we entered the dining hall—a long, narrow building made of clap board and off cuts of wood.
There was a commotion by the Sun Sanctuary. I saw two men surrounded by a group of disciples. I could hear distressed murmurs.
“Let’s go find out.” I pulled on Anne’s hand and we hurried over.
“What happened?” I asked the closest person, Bobbie Mann, a disciple only a year older than me. He stood nearby watching the scene with a blank expression. He wasn’t a man prone to emotive responses, yet the firmness around his mouth alarmed me.
“They went to town to get some supplies Pastor needed,” he answered, his voice low.
I looked at the two men—Adam Brewer and Tyler Rhea—and noted that both appeared to be hobbling. Adam had a busted nose that bled sluggishly. Tyler was cradling his left arm to his chest.
They had gone into Whistle Valley, the small town at the base of the mountain. I didn’t need any more explanation than that.
It wasn’t the first time a disciple had gone into town only to return battered and bruised.
The people of that tiny, tiny town hated our family. They tried on numerous occasions to evict us from the land. Public officials had shown up at the gate, demanding to be let inside. There had been reports of child abuse. Of ritualist murder. Of every terrible, depraved thing you could imagine.
Pastor Carter always handled it.
We stayed away from Whistle Valley as much as possible. People only went when absolutely necessary. Venturing into the outside world wasn’t something any of us relished doing.
Seeing Adam and Tyler only reinforced every single horrible thing I had ever been taught about the peopleout there.
My mother rushed over. Her long hair knotted and tangled down her back. Her leggings, torn at the knee and her thin, cotton dress dirty. She clearly hadn’t bathed in several days. Nor changed clothes. She was in the midst of a prayer journey. Sometimes they lasted days. Sometimes weeks.
Everyone parted the way for her, allowing her access to the injured men. She put her hands on their foreheads and closed her eyes, her lips moving silently.
All noise ceased.
We held our collective breaths and waited. We needed direction. We needed to be told what we must do.
We would not make the decision ourselves.
Mom began to hum. It was a pleasing sound. Melodic and high pitched. As if tuning into a frequency only she could hear.
I recognized the wild look in her eyes. Her mind was most likely brimming with some new message. New words to share with our family.
I watched the woman who had given birth to me with a mixture of awe and fear. My early childhood—in the days before The Gathering—was peppered with memories of her like this. It had scared me then.
I hadn’t understood why she was the way she was. I had curled into a tiny ball and waited for the madness to pass. I had wanted to make myself as small and insignificant as possible to wait out the storm.
