Down from the Mountain (10 page)

Fourteen

The next several days are terrible. I know it’s the sin of pride to be this crushed by my appearance, but I can’t seem to pray my way out of it. It’s another mealtime and the twins gape at me again, even though they’ve been corrected over and over by one or another mother for staring. “Is she a boy now?” David asks. A room full of “shhhhhh’s” is followed by complete silence.

I lose all interest in eating.

Whenever I see Ezekiel, I wonder again why he chose such a severe punishment to teach me a lesson. Did it have to do with Jacob? Did he want me to be less attractive to Jacob? If so, it worked. Jacob avoids me completely now. I know I asked him to ignore me after he kissed me, but now I think he can’t bear to look at me like this.

Unlike Jacob, Ezekiel looks at me all the time. His attention makes me smolder inside. At first his eyes and mouth told me he was satisfied, that he was glad about the horrible punishment he chose for me. But yesterday he went out of his way to walk next to me on the way out of chapel. He let me know that he was glad that the jewelry I made is so popular with the heathens. He let me know that my work was providing a service to help Righteous Path.

My body stiffens and my guts roil even now when I think of it. Is he trying to say he’s sorry? Is he trying to win back my love? I’m not sure about much anymore, but I’m sure that I feel no love for him.

Something keeps gnawing at me. If Aslan and Jesus are supposed to be alike and Ezekiel is getting messages directly from Jesus, then why is Ezekiel so harsh and Aslan so loving? I know that Aslan is just a character in a book, but there is something so true and right about the way he loves and protects and teaches and forgives. The author, C. S. Lewis, must have seen God as loving, or he would have made Aslan different.

That awful lump takes over my throat again, and I couldn’t speak if I wanted to. Is this God’s way of telling me that my thoughts are heresy? Or am I choking on beliefs that no longer fit for me?

I give up trying to eat my oatmeal but it would be sinful to waste it, so I have to see if someone else wants it. Mother Martha is actually here this morning, and she looks pretty healthy. I approach her table with my bowl. “Any chance you’re up for seconds?” Her smile is a healing balm.

“Sure,” she says. “It’s great to have an appetite again.”

Ezekiel and Jacob are talking in the doorway to the dining room, and I feel trapped inside until they move. I have no idea what they’re talking about, but they seem animated and relaxed, which is a long way from where they were a few weeks ago. I’m happy for Jacob. He’s always craved Ezekiel’s approval.

Ezekiel catches me watching the two of them. “Go get Annie,” he says. “You girls are going to learn how to shoot today.”

Oh no. I hope he doesn’t plan on participating. I head to the barn where I know Annie’s doing chores.

“Well, who’s going to feed these poor animals?” Annie complains. She hates it when somebody uproots her day, and she’s certainly not happy about the idea of shooting a gun.

“Don’t worry. We’ll tell someone,” I reassure her.

“I wonder how Brother Paul can give us shooting lessons when he’s patrolling the property,” Annie says. The mystery is solved as soon as we get back to the dining room.

“I’ve heard that Jacob is quite the marksman,” Ezekiel says. “I want to see him shoot, then I’ll watch him teach you two.”

“Yes, sir,” Annie and I both say.

Jacob breaks into a wide smile that he shares with Ezekiel and Annie. He avoids looking at me. He walks a few steps behind Ezekiel, with Annie and me trailing behind him. Annie chews on her fingernails the way she does when she’s nervous. I take it as a cue that I should try to lighten things up so she doesn’t go into an asthma attack. But under the circumstances I can’t think of anything to do, so I just squeeze her hand and smile.

I don’t really care if I can shoot well or not. I just want to get through the lesson as quickly as possible and away from Ezekiel and Jacob.

We walk about a half mile into the hay fields to the place Brother Paul has set up for target practice. I expect to see the same kind of target that was on the side of the outhouse when we first moved in. Brother Paul said it had been there since he was a kid. That target had circles and a bull’s-eye. But these targets are different. They’re attached to trees at various distances, and they are drawings of human bodies with holes all over from previous shooters.

Jacob attaches new pictures of human forms to each of the targets. “Where do you want me to start?” he asks Ezekiel.

“At the beginning,” Ezekiel says.

Jacob gives a little nod. “This one’s going between the heathen’s eyes.” BAM! The hit is perfect. He aims toward the next target. “This one’s going into the heathen’s heart.” Another perfect shot.

Ezekiel paces back and forth while Jacob is getting set up.

Jacob hits the first three targets just the way he called them. The first one between the eyes, the next two straight through the heart. I sneak a peek at Ezekiel. A thin smile threatens to break through his seriousness. “Continue,” he says. “But go ahead and skip to the farthest target. And this time hit him between the eyes.”

“Yes, sir,” Jacob says. He pulls out the other gun from his two-gun holster. And though the target is so far away that I can barely pinpoint the space between the target’s eyes, Jacob hits it.

I’m surprised. Instead of the loud bang the other shots made, this one makes a little “pop” sound and that’s it.

“Aren’t those silencers amazing?” Ezekiel says. “You wouldn’t know what that was if you were ten feet away.” He lumbers over to the wooden box that sits on the ground near the first target and opens the lid. Inside is a collection of items Brother Paul put together for shooting practice. From where I’m standing, I see a roll of papers with the outline of a body, a hammer, nails, and a can of red spray paint. Ezekiel picks up the paint and walks well beyond the targets to a huge maple tree. He sprays an
X
the size of a small orange on the trunk. “Can you hit this?” he asks Jacob.

“I think so,” Jacob says. Ezekiel resumes his position, pacing behind Annie and me, and watches as Jacob aims and shoots.

“Perfect!” Ezekiel hollers. “Absolutely perfect! Take a look at that, girls.”

Annie and I stand in awed silence as we look at Jacob’s work. I run my fingers over the bullet holes, and goose bumps run up and down my arms and legs. If these were real people, they’d be dead.

I don’t want to shoot anyone. I don’t even want to shoot a paper person.

“How in the world did you learn this?” Ezekiel asks.

“I don’t know,” Jacob says. “Brother Paul says I’m just a natural. And he’s let me practice quite a lot.”

“God has given you this gift so that you can protect Righteous Path, my son.”

I’ve never heard him call Jacob his son. And Jacob instantly looks taller. He’s so happy.

“I want you to teach the girls how to shoot. Do you think you can do that?”

Jacob responds with an enthusiastic yes.

“Good, because Brother Paul has spent so much time with you shooting that these two haven’t had one lesson.”

It’s the moment I’ve been dreading, but I want Jacob to continue to shine so I listen carefully to his instructions and follow them closely. He still avoids eye contact, but I can’t blame him with the way I look and with Ezekiel right here.

After twenty minutes I get a bit more comfortable shooting, but I haven’t hit anywhere near the heart or the head. I hit the left leg once, the chin another time, and I graze the right shoulder once.

That’s a lot better than Annie. It’s hard to know where her bullets end up. After several efforts, it’s clear that she’s only becoming more upset, so Jacob takes the gun from her and suggests that he give her a lesson another day.

Ezekiel gets irritated with Annie—not because of her shooting, but because she cries so easily. “If we get attacked,” Ezekiel says, “you’re dead meat. You’ve got to toughen up, girl.”

But to Jacob he says, “You are a good teacher. Your instructions are clear. You know when to push and when to stop.” He pretend-punches Jacob’s shoulder, smiling.

I’m happy for Jacob. He’s found himself a niche and Ezekiel is finally proud of him. I just wish I hadn’t been turned into an ugly person so that Ezekiel could stop worrying about Jacob and me wanting to be together.

“Eva,” Annie says that night, “is Ezekiel making you go to Boulder tomorrow?”

“Yes.”

“It must be horrible for you to be seen in public right now.”

“Don’t worry,” I say as if it’s no big deal. But it is. This will be the first time I’ll be in public since my hair was butchered. Rachel went bead and grocery shopping without me on Monday because I simply couldn’t face it. I had to pretend I was sick and gave Rachel detailed instructions about the beads and supplies I wanted. She was great about it. But she hated having Mother Esther as her partner. Mother Esther didn’t like it any better. She had to squeeze into my street clothes, which she referred to as an “abomination.” Rachel said that I would have gotten a good laugh if I’d seen her.

I dip my toothbrush in the dreaded baking soda that we now use instead of toothpaste. I begin brushing my teeth vigorously, looking at Annie’s face to avoid the mirror. I shrug my shoulders and spit in the sink. Then I turn on the faucet and quickly catch some water in cupped hands to get rid of the awful taste.

“Rachel said she’d make me a scarf if I want.”

Annie’s eyes grow huge. “She could get in so much trouble for that!”

“Oh, she wouldn’t make it without permission.” I add to cover my tracks. I’m a bit surprised at Annie’s reaction. It’s not like her to make a big deal out of a little infraction. There was something else I was going to share with her but now I hesitate. It’s that Mother Esther told Rachel that the money Ezekiel gave them for groceries was the end of our savings from the ranch contract last summer. Rachel said that even Mother Esther wondered aloud if maybe they shouldn’t have bought so many guns.

But now I decide not to share this with Annie. Because she seems skittish about the rules.

Actually, I’m not as upset as Annie thinks about going to Boulder. I’m nervous about my hair, but it’s the first time I’ll get to wear the heathen clothes Ezekiel and Esther picked out for me. I was actually looking forward to fitting in, but now that my hair’s been chopped, I’m afraid I’ll look like a freak. For some reason, Trevor, the guy from the Wi-Fi Café, comes to mind. He’d be so shocked to see me like this.

Now Annie puts her arm around my waist. “I think you’re still beautiful.”

Tears sting my eyes. I stare down at her gorgeous head of hair. Perfect hair—long, black, shiny, never dry or frizzy. She’s been careful to wait till I’m in bed to brush it herself these past few days. I’ve been touched by her kindness, but tonight when we get to our room, I reach for the brush on our shared dresser and motion her to sit on the edge of her bed. She loosens her braids and lets her hair fall over her shoulders. I start brushing.

When I kneel beside my bed and try to say my prayers, I picture God as angry, the way Ezekiel often portrays him. My whole body starts to tremble. After a while I give up trying to pray and crawl into bed. When I close my eyes, Aslan is there again. He seems to live right beneath my eyes when I close them, as real as real can be. We’re back in Narnia. The land is thawing.

After so many years of winter under the control of the White Witch, the land is waking up, remembering spring, all because Aslan has returned. In this Narnia, the air is warm, the snow is almost gone, and streams that had been frozen for so long are flowing freely. As far as I can see are green meadows. Clusters of wildflowers pop up everywhere, and I actually witness them growing right before my eyes. I could sit here forever drinking in their perfume.

I drift into a peaceful sleep.

Fifteen

When I meet Rachel in the garage for our trip to Boulder, I find her in a rare mood.

“Too bad we don’t have some of the stuff heathens put in their hair to make it stand up straight. A little gel would make your hair perfect for Boulder,” she teases.

I’m so happy to be getting away from all the tension on the compound that I’m not even worrying about my hair. I scrunch up one leg of my tights the way Rachel does, then sit on the floor to stretch them over one leg, then the other. I love how soft and warm the fabric feels, but they barely cover my thighs. When Rachel sees my stricken face, she erupts into giggles.

“You have to stretch them up a tiny bit at a time starting at the ankles. Then they’ll fit.”

Rachel laughs hysterically, watching me dance my way into them.

“I can’t believe any fabric can stretch this much. Whew! I’m glad you’ve had experience in the outside world.”

For some reason, after that we giggle over every little thing on the way to Boulder. It’s the lightest I’ve felt for a long time and it feels good. The mood keeps up all the way to town, since the roads are thankfully decent today.

We don’t get serious until we start setting up our booth in Boulder. Now that the weather has gotten so cold, the flea market is no longer outdoors. It’s in the basement of a library. But we’ve still been getting lots of business. It helps that Christmas is right around the corner. When we’re all set up and have been selling for about a half hour, I notice that Rachel looks pale.

“Cramps,” she tells me. “And I’m totally unprepared.” She excuses herself to use the bathroom.

At first I panic. Left to sell by myself, I’m self-conscious and humiliated about my appearance. But it gets busy suddenly and the only ones who pay attention to my appearance are regulars. Shocked, they look me up and down to take in the new outfit and new almost-bald head. Thankfully, no one says anything, so I resist the urge to crawl under the table.

Because we had so little money to invest in the project, I got the idea to buy cord and leather laces as well as sterling silver chain so that we could space out the expensive beads and keep the costs down. We did save money and the jewelry is still beautiful, but it’s different from what we’d sold before. It doesn’t take long for people to notice.

“Where are those necklaces I saw here last week?” a middle-aged blond woman asks. “I’m looking for the one with lapis and crystal, but I don’t see it.”

I recognize her. She’s back with her darling little girl and tiny dog. The dog has bows on her ears and wears a jeweled collar. She is so white that she looks like she has a bath every single day. I’ve never seen anything like it. Even when the woman studies a piece of jewelry, she continues to hold the dog or hands her over to her daughter to hold. I wonder if either of them knows that dogs can walk.

“We don’t have anything like that this time,” I apologize. “But we do have lapis earrings, and this chain necklace has a few lapis stones.”

She groans but continues examining each piece, setting aside a few things to buy when she’s finished looking.

By the time I look up and see Rachel returning, I have already sold a number of pieces. Rather than running back and forth to the cash box with each purchase, I’d simply slipped the money in my pocket for the last several transactions.

Rachel motions me to her when she reaches the booth. “There are no supplies in the bathroom,” she whispers. “I have to find a store. Can you handle this by yourself a while longer?”

My heart sinks a little. I wish I could be the one leaving. I could use a break. But there’s nothing to be done so I agree.

It’s strictly against the rules to be without a partner in public, but there is no better option. I force a half smile and begin waiting on a customer. Rachel stops to count the money in the cash box. I want to tell her about the money in my pocket, but I can’t without interrupting my client. When she’s done counting, she holds up the five-dollar bill she’s taking for her personal supplies and mouths “good job.” I smile, knowing that she’ll be even more pleased when she finds out how much I’ve really taken in.

I’m searching for a specific bracelet under the table when Annie begins to wheeze. Then I remember that Annie’s not here. When I look up, I see that the little girl is doing the wheezing.

The woman drops her stack of purchases on the counter.

“Oh, Tiffany,” the mother says. She holds the dog out in front of me. “Would you hold Shapoopsy while I dig out Tiffany’s inhaler?”

Shapoopsy can’t weigh more than four pounds and she smells like flowers. She licks my hand and cuddles against my chest like it’s the most natural thing in the world to be passed from one person to another.

Tiffany’s asthma gets bad fast. Her mother routs around in her handbag while talking in a soft voice to her daughter. After what seems an eternity, she pulls out a plastic contraption. It has a wide top. Tiffany opens her mouth and breathes in the substance when her mother pushes down on the top. I can hear the little puff emitted from the inhaler. They repeat the process. This time Tiffany manages a deeper breath. I pet Shapoopsy and watch in amazement as Tiffany’s breathing continues to improve over the next couple of minutes.

I must look as shocked as I feel because the woman laughs when she sees my face. “You’ve never seen an inhaler before?”

I shake my head and repeat the word inhaler.

“The marvels of modern medicine!” she says, smiling brightly. “I don’t know what we’d do without it.”

She takes sleeping Shapoopsy back from me and hands me two one-hundred-dollar bills. I count out fifty dollars in change and hold it out to her.

“No, honey, that’s for you,” she chirps. “Merry Christmas! And keep making the beautiful gemstone pieces!”

A Christmas gift. For me? And it’s fifty whole dollars. I have to give it to Ezekiel, of course. But the
idea
of someone giving me this much money to spend any way I want—it’s wonderful! By the time I open my mouth to say “thank you,” they’ve already moved on. I holler “Thank you!” anyway and hope they can hear me through the crowd.

I can’t seem to let go of my gift. Instead, I place the money in my left skirt pocket, keeping it separate from the jewelry money in my right pocket. I add up all the jewelry money, except for my gift, and discover that we have more than six hundred dollars. Since there are no customers at the moment, I collapse into one of the folding chairs Rachel and I brought from the compound and imagine what I could do with the fifty dollars if I kept it.

After all, Rachel used tip money to pay for our lunch that day. There’s so much I could do with the money. I could find a way to buy extra food for Mother. I could buy more expensive beads and make gorgeous pieces to sell. Maybe I could even get one of those inhaler things for Annie.

It was a miracle how that inhaler worked on Tiffany. One minute she couldn’t breathe. Then she used the inhaler, and she could breathe normally after only a couple of minutes.

“Modern medicine,” the woman had said lightly. It made me want to cry. If Annie had modern medicine, she wouldn’t suffer so much. “Annie is suffering for her sins,” Ezekiel always says. But it’s hard to imagine why God would want Annie to suffer while Tiffany is able to get instant relief. If modern medicine could do this for asthma, what more could it do for Mother’s difficult pregnancy?

Ezekiel’s argument is that all women must suffer in childbirth because of Eve tempting Adam in the Garden of Eden. I remember him announcing that he named me Eva to remind all members of how Eve stole the Garden of Eden from Adam and the rest of the world by tempting him. I felt so ashamed. For weeks I cringed each time someone said my name.

I shrug off the old feelings of shame. Instead I close my eyes and picture Aslan.

If God is loving like Aslan, he would want Annie to be healthy. If God is loving like Aslan, he wouldn’t want Mother, or any women, to suffer in childbirth.

I jerk into the present moment when I hear a male voice.

“Excuse me, would you happen to know …”

I look up into the shocked face of the waiter from the Wi-Fi Café. “Trevor!”

“Eva?”

He looks me up and down. “You’ve changed!”

The world is frozen in the moment. I’m happy to see him, but in a flash, I remember what I look like. In my worst moments I’ve imagined the horrified expression I’d see on Trevor’s face when he saw my shorn hair. Instead, Trevor explodes into laughter. He looks me up and down.

I bristle, thinking he’s making fun of me. But he’s not. I realize this because his eyes are sparkling and his smile is warm. In fact, he seems delighted. Seeing this, my legs recover strength and my heart slows down its racing.

“I thought you must have skipped this week. I’ve been up and down these booths three times. I just didn’t recognize you because of your new look.”

He scans my hair, my clothes, and my shoes, which happen to be killing me. “Look at you! That funky hairdo is going to take a little getting used to, but I think I like it.”

“Funky?” I search my mind, trying to remember if I’ve heard that word before.

“You know, cool. Funky.” He leans across the table. “Have you left the, the …”

“Righteous Path.” I shake my head.

“Righteous Path,” he repeats. “So that’s the name of your religious community.”

My stomach does flip-flops. I have just given private information to this, this outsider. Rachel and I discussed what to say if a regular customer asked about our clothes. Now it comes back to me. “Our community is becoming more modern.” My words come out sounding practiced.

“You’ve changed too.” I nod toward his hair. Where he flaunted a single pink streak on the left side of his head before, now his hair is dyed in two streaks of blue. Where he used to wear one earring in his right ear, he now wears two.

Trevor smiles. It’s an easy, confident smile, like someone who never has to worry about going to hell. “Do you like it?”

I smile back and turn his own words back on him. “It’ll take a little getting used to, but I think I’ll like it. I don’t see a lot of blue hair.”

“I bet you don’t,” he says. His eyes scan the booth. “Where’s Rachel?”

Oh. Disappointment sinks heavily inside my chest. He’s interested in Rachel, not me.

Stop it! If he likes someone, it’s not important.

“She’ll be back soon,” I say lightly. I look around as far as I can see. Come to think of it, she’s been gone for a long time.

Trevor pulls out his cell phone. “Eleven twenty. I have to meet someone for lunch downtown at noon, but I wanted to talk to you two about getting your beading supplies online. I remember you said you couldn’t because you didn’t have a credit card, and I thought I could help.”

Two college-aged girls stop at the booth to browse. I hold up a finger signaling to Trevor to wait a second while I attend to them.

Why is he doing this? He seems so nice, too nice. I can hear Ezekiel warning me to stay pure. He’d tell me Trevor was from the devil. I have to get rid of him before Rachel gets back. This has to be God testing me.

“We’re just looking,” one of the girls says.

“Let me know if I can help you with anything,” I say.

To my surprise, I find that Trevor has placed a small computer on the table and is tapping away.

The crowd is thinning, and there’s still no sign of Rachel. She’s been gone for hours. Two booths down, the man selling local honey and homemade sausage is already folding up his table. My mouth waters at the idea of sausage, and a second later my stomach grumbles. But I can’t have any food. Not in the middle of a fast.

“What are you doing?” I finally ask.

He looks momentarily puzzled. “I’m looking up some beading stuff for you.”

“Why?” I ask.

“Just a second,” he says. He hits a few keys and drums his fingers on the table impatiently while he waits for something to come up on the computer. “There!” he says, turning the screen so that I can see it too. “I wanted to make sure I could order the wire and chain too. I noticed you’re using quite a bit of both along with the beads.”

The screen is filled with different widths of silver chain. Prices and quantities are in big red letters. I gawk, amazed again at how easy it is to shop on a computer and how inexpensive everything is if you’re willing to buy in quantity.

Trevor looks me straight in the eye. “Hey, it’s an easy thing for me to do, and it’s impossible for you to do without help.”

His face is honest. He seems sincere.

“Plus,” he continues, “I’ve never known anyone from an alternative religion before, and honestly, I figured it would be interesting to get to know you.”

An alternative religion. Is that what outsiders call us? “I never thought of Righteous Path as a religion, or an alternative religion. It’s just the right path for the chosen.”

Trevor breaks into a wide smile. “That’s what’s so interesting. Right there. You’ve been so sheltered that you don’t know anything about other people’s beliefs.”

“I’ve never known anyone who’s not in Righteous Path. Since I was five anyway.” And I’ve always wanted to know a heathen. But that part I keep to myself.

“Okay, thanks. But I still don’t have a credit card,” I add.

“That’s okay because I have one.”

A guy in a brown leather coat stands in front of me holding out a sausage and jar of honey. I recognize him from two booths down. It’s the booth with the brightly colored sign that says
Homemade Sausage and Local Honey
. “Merry Christmas,” he says, placing them on my table. And he’s off.

I holler “Merry Christmas!” to his backside and look longingly at the sausage.

This is my second gift of the day from generous people. The third gift, if I count the one Trevor is offering me. From heathens. From people Ezekiel says are damned for eternity.

Trevor closes the top of his computer. “I don’t want to pressure you, Eva. You can think about it and I’ll come back another time.”

“Wait!” The idea of him leaving wakes me up. I want this. Not just the cheap beads so the community will have more money, but the chance to learn more about the outside world from someone as kind as Trevor. “It’s just that, it’s that … You …” I blurt it out. “You have no idea how much trouble I could get into. If Rachel finds out, she could turn me in.” I’ve been gesturing, and now he notices my trembling hands.