Echo Lake: A Novel (7 page)

Come sit with me after you’ve gotten your food, he
instructed her.

Emily took off her sweater and marked her place with it. She nodded, grateful for direction.

She wished she hadn’t come— people were starting to look at her, to smile wide at her in a way that all but guaranteed that they’d be coming up to her later for a conversation. What if they thought she was Levi’s much younger girlfriend? Could Free Will Baptist pastors even have girlfriends? He didn’t wear a ring and had mentioned no wife. Oh Christ, what if that’s what they think?

Emily stood in line for food, which was laid out across one long table at the front of the room. Her bag of cookies sagged at the end, lumpy and unopened. She spooned lasagna, salad, hard dinner rolls, and a slice of quiche onto her plate. She avoided the dessert and didn’t touch the cookies. Maybe nobody would know that she’d brought them if she didn’t open them and pretended they weren’t there.

Emily sat down by Levi’s Bible and sipped at the pale, reddish drink she’d picked up from the drink table. Fruit punch. She hadn’t had fruit punch in years. The sweetness hurt her teeth.

Colleen sat down next to Emily. She’d gotten soup in a Styrofoam bowl and a piece of chocolate cake. She blew on the soup and fluttered her hands around the steaming bowl.

Colleen attempted to put the soup spoon against her lips and quickly drew it back.

It’s so hot, she said. Why’d they make it so hot?

Emily turned when Levi sat back down. The old woman continued blowing and murmuring.

Thank you for coming, he said. It’s good to have a new person here. He looked around the tables. It seems like I’ve known everyone here since they were a baby or since I was a baby.

Emily wondered what that felt like, to know a group of people all of one’s life, to see them get older, smarter, richer, or fall more and more into some kind of decline.

That sounds beautiful, she said. To have a community of people you’ve known all your life like that.

It is, he said. I’m very blessed.

Nobody had started to eat yet, so Emily didn’t eat either. As everyone seated, the room grew quiet. When the last seat was pulled back and the last plate settled down on the plastic tablecloth, Levi put his hands together.

Let’s thank the Lord for this meal, Levi said, his voice elevated. The hands around her made steeples and each person closed their eyes. Emily pressed her hands together and closed her eyes, too.

Dear Lord, he said, his voice filling the room. We thank you so much for this wonderful bounty. And we thank you for community. You’ve brought hard times on us, Lord.

Some people murmured amen.

But we thank you for the hard times and pray you’ll help to see us through them, Lord, and we know you will. We thank you for struggle and the strength that comes from struggle, and we pray you’ll bless those families who have lost loved ones. We pray especially for the missing little ones, that you’ll guide them back home to us safe and sound. Amen.

She remembered the children in the newspaper, the brother and sister in bathing suits, their hair slicked back from their heads. The Harris twins.

The crowd said amen in return. Emily opened her eyes.

Colleen touched Emily on the shoulder. So where do you live, sweetie? Over near Keno?

Emily tried to spear a piece of slippery, butter-soaked brocoli on her fork. Oh no, she said. I live here in town, in Heartshorne. I live in Fran Collins’ old house.

The old woman looked at her with watery eyes.

Fran? Over at Frannie’s house? The woman’s eyes grew wide. But Frannie’s gone, she said.

Emily hoped she hadn’t frightened the woman. Maybe she was senile.

I’m her great-niece. I guess that’s what it’s called. She was my great-aunt.

The woman stared at her. You’re a Collins, she said, almost accusingly. A Collins from around here.

Emily nodded. My family’s from here, yes. But I’d never been here before yesterday. Levi seemed to sense some confusion and leaned over Emily’s plate. His hair smelled clean, like citrus.

Colleen, this young lady just moved into Frannie’s old house, isn’t that nice? He spoke loudly and slowly. Emily was embarrassed for the woman. What was it like to not be able to hear, to not be able to think straight, to have your body no longer move and work at your own command?

Colleen nodded. I knew Frannie. Good woman. Don’t let nobody tell you different. She nodded at Emily, her face hardened as though she expected an argument. She wasn’t like the rest of them, Colleen said. She didn’t leave.

Emily began to reply, but Colleen returned to her soup, which she spooned up to her mouth methodically.

Did you know Fran well? Emily asked.

Colleen shook her head. I didn’t know her that well anymore. She kept to herself.

Emily nodded. The woman looked down at her soup and finished it quickly, lifting her bowl to her lips to drink the leftover broth. Levi touched Emily’s shoulder, turning her away from the woman, and made small talk, asking how the house was, offering to send men from the church over for repairs. Emily said it was fine, absolutely fine, and that she needed no help. Truthfully, she had already hired men from Keno to come tear out the living room carpet and restore the original floor. They exchanged pleasantries until Emily felt Colleen tug at her sleeve.

I’m afraid I’m tired, she said. It was nice to meet you, but I must get home. I’ve worn myself out. She leaned forward, past Emily’s eyesight, to catch Levi’s eye.

Pastor Richardson, I’m worn out, she said. Can one of these young men take me home?

The woman turned to Emily, her eyes cast downward. I’m sorry to have to leave so soon, she said. Don’t mind me tonight, she said. I’m just tired.

When Emily was finished eating, after she’d shaken hands with and introduced herself to dozens of people, each of whom pressed her hand and thanked her for coming as though she were an honored guest, she found Levi and told him she was going to go.

I have to unpack, she said.

This was a lie. She didn’t have to do much of anything, which was a strange feeling. She had a bottle of cheap wine on the counter at home. She wanted to get into bed with it and a book and drink and read until she fell asleep.

Can you stay just a little longer? He asked her. He looked out toward the front of the room, where the tables full of food had already been pushed aside by the men. An old-fashioned classroom projector now reflected a blank screen against the white wall.

We’re going to have a community meeting, he said, about the recent tragedies.

You mean those children missing? And Fran?

Oh, there’ve been more. He closed his eyes and shook his head. Four deaths so far.

Jesus, Emily said. Oh, I’m sorry, she said immediately, covering her mouth. Levi smiled. Have a seat, he said, please. As a favor to me. It won’t take long.

Emily nodded. She made her way to the back of the room, brushing against knees and skirts, the corduroy fabric of her pants making a zipping sound against the other fabrics.

Piety made her nervous. Being in a church remineded her of when she had accidentally stumbled into a chemistry class her freshman year of college. She’d sat down, even started to take notes, before she realized that she didn’t understand anything that the professor was saying. It had seemed so normal at first—students scribbling in notebooks, an enormous textbook with onionskin-thin pages on every desk, a teacher at the front writing things on the board. But the words coming out of people’s mouths hadn’t made any sense to her.

The overhead projector buzzed like a bug-zapper. Emily remembered that sound from High School—it meant a video about drugs or sex or the composition of a cell. The reflection it threw on the white wall was blurry at first, but one of the teenage girls fixed it by turning a knob slightly until it sharpened and revealed words, lines, a chart.

I had to do this for the fourth graders when I helped out in Miss Channing’s class, the girl at the projector said. She had braces and frizzy hair barely tamed under a french braid and a shiny slathering of gel. She wore a t-shirt featuring Jesus’ bloodied face, the thorns pressed into his forehead.

Emily felt for her—the girl probably loved church because each person had to listen to and love everyone else. God said so. Not like at school, where a girl like her, not savvy in the ways of making oneself worth notice, was probably ignored by everyone. Emily had been like that. Unspectacular, untalented with makeup and clothes. Smart, but not so smart she got noticed in good ways or bad ways. The girl watched them all with hunger, waiting for their acknowledgement that she was at the front of the room, doing something useful.

Emily smiled at the girl and squinted at the image projected . It seemed to be a timeline, and her Aunt’s name was on it. She was the last, after the names Shannon Dawkins, Christopher Jenkins, and Lillian Cosgrove.

It was a timeline of all the dead. The Harris children were on the chart, too, though a question mark hung next to their names. They were the most recent. Levi stood up. Thank ya’ll for coming, he said. The room quieted and stilled. We’re here to discuss something that people around here are afraid to talk about—these deaths, why they’ve happened, and what needs to be done to take back our community for the Lord. That’s our focus tonight: seeing what we’ve done that might have removed God’s protection from our little town.

Amens rose, some whispered and some said aloud. People nodded, their heads bobbing in the silvery light the projector threw out.

I think it’s our job, he said, hooking his thumbs on the waistband of his pants, to try to figure out what might be lurking in our community. Who else cares? Do the police care?

The audience shook their heads. No, they said, no.

So we have to be the ones who care, he said, nodding. We have to use our heads. We have to look at the world around us and see what we can understand.

Now, we all know evil here, don’t we? Even those of you not from this church family know evil—we know what The Book says is evil, and we also know what’s so evil that anyone, unbeliever and believer alike, can know it. What’s happening here is that simple evil, an evil so great that even a regular sinner can see it.

Amens rose.

But we know, as believers, that great evil can come from the more subtle evils that only we can see.

Amens again, this time louder. Emily was glad then that she was in the back, out of most everyone’s line of sight.

Some people might say these deaths, aside from the little ones and our sister Frannie, aren’t important. That they were good for nothings, the kind of people who get themselves killed all the time. But remember this: Jesus tells us that what we do for the least of these, we do for him. Some of these folks were what we might call “the least”--they were poor, they had problems with drugs and drink, they didn’t have the love of family or the support of a church family.

Nods all around, though the room was quiet.

If we care about them like we should, we would want to figure out what makes people get into these situations. What makes people turn from the Lord? What makes them turn to things outside themselves to fill that hole that only the blood of the lamb can fill?

The amens were deafening. Levi had started to pace as he spoke, and his forehead glistened. He took out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead, then folded it up neatly again and placed it in his pocket.

Now, we know a few things. First, our community has been plagued with drugs. Meth. Oxycontin. Pills of all sorts. I know you folks have experience that yourselves. I’ve counseled many a family and teen on this very topic, as you well know, church family. The church needs to open up to people in need. We need to find the people who’ve let Satan into their lives through addiction and help them to break his grip.

Now, some of you have been asking if there’s any other reason why our little community is being hit so hard with the judgment of God. I can’t say that I know for sure. I do know that a few new elements came to town right before the Harris children went missing and then the murders. Levi held up his hands as a police officer would while directing traffic, indicating that a car should stop. Not that I’m saying there is any connection, he said. I’m not making any accusations here. I’m only noting because I want my church family to be aware when I come across things that make me sit up and take notice. And by church family, I mean the whole family of Christ, wherever you choose to attend.

The crowd murmurred in response. Yes, they said. Yes.

God gave us minds to use them, Levi continued. And so I’m here now, using the mind God gave me, and making connections. Levi held a wooden pointer, something a mid-century schoolteacher might use to tap against a chalkboard, and aimed it at a house-shaped drawing below the timeline, right where the line began.

In July, he said, a new store called The Garden moved to the outskirts of Keno, just outside of Heartshorne, by the highway. It was in the town before, but now it’s practically on our doorstep.

Some of the audience began to shake their heads, though the drawing seemed simple and sweet, a child’s house with big windows above a skinny door.

As some of you might know, this is what you might call a head shop—they sell all sorts of drug paraphernalia, Levi said, pronouncing the word paraphernalia precisely. But that’s not all—they sell incense, candles, Tarot cards, books about the occult. Basically, anything that might distract and cloud the minds of our youth, they’ve got it.