Starbird Murphy and the World Outside (37 page)

“He may have already convinced them,” said Paul. “Most of them will do anything EARTH says. Saturn Salt would walk to Mexico on her hands if he told her it was her Calling.”

“I have to tell you guys something.” I had to stop the shame burning a little hole in my belly. “I still love EARTH. I'm still a Believer. He told me he's my dad.”

The sound of the road ate up the silence.

“I wouldn't take that too seriously,” said Sun. “EARTH says a lot of things.”

“But he wouldn't lie about that, would he?” I said, trying to dispel my own doubt.

“Well, if it is true, then it sounds like it's time for you and me to have a sibling chat,” said Sun. “Haven't you guessed it by my name yet?” He looked in the rearview mirror at me. “I was seven years old when my dad came home and told me and my mom that the Cosmos was speaking to him. Can you imagine how that sounds to a seven-year-old?”

Sun checked his side mirror and changed lanes. The van struggled to keep highway speed. Of course,
Sun
. It didn't occur to me before. I had never heard it talked about on the Farm that EARTH had a child before he was EARTH.

“My parents were only nineteen when they had me. Dad had to start working, buy a house, try to be responsible. But then he got laid off when I was six and spent a year on unemployment. At first, he spent his days calling about jobs, taking his résumé around, but after a while, he started just watching television. My mom was the one who suggested he get a hobby.” Sun laughed after he said the word
hobby
.

“First, he took these self-improvement classes through this group called EST, and from there he got into motivational speakers and then sweat lodges and fasting. His biggest obsession was a woman named Kathy who was channeling spirits. He took us to see her right after I turned seven. She sat onstage and closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, her voice sounded Russian or something, and she talked a lot about death and the other side. I got scared and started crying, and my dad got so angry, he took me out to the car and spanked me. A few days later, he started talking about the Cosmos.”

“At first, Mom seemed to be humoring him, like she would say, ‘That's so interesting Arnold, maybe you can tell us about it over dinner.' She and I even laughed about it one time when he was out. She said, ‘The Cosmos said you should help your mom fold laundry.' But one night I heard him yelling at her in their room, and when she came out, her eyes were red and she never joked about it again. When the meetings of the Planet Elders started up in our living room, she changed her name to Uranus Peak. I remember the day my dad sat me down and told me that I couldn't call him dad anymore, that I would have to call him EARTH.”

Sun grabbed his travel mug from its holder and took a sip of coffee. “So, I became Sun because that's what the whispering Cosmos told my father to call me. I don't know at what point EARTH told my mother that he wanted an open marriage, but I saw how he acted with Neptune and Venus. When he moved to the Farm two years later, he left Mom and me in Seattle. Did you know that I basically grew up at Beacon House?”

“No,” I said, but that was the least of the things I didn't know. I had never wondered about EARTH's life before the Family because I had been taught that what we did in the World Outside, before the Family, didn't matter. But it mattered to Sun.

Sun looked at me again in the mirror. “Sorry, Starbird. You never heard that version on Story Night.”

“So why did you move out?” I asked. “You never come to any Family gatherings anymore.”

“Why did I choose to leave the Family? I didn't. Mom and I were at the Farm for a Translation when I was about your age. My mom had been struggling to raise me among the crowd of strangers that kept moving in and out of Beacon House while my dad lived in his palatial room at the Farm, constantly with different women.”

“In EARTH's defense, we were all doing that, not just him,” Seta said gently from the passenger seat.

“Not my mother. She wasn't doing that,” he said.

Seta nodded.

“I actually wanted to be like him at first,” Sun said. “I thought I might be the one Translating someday. I used to sit in my room and try to listen to the Cosmos.” He laughed and shook his head. “I guess the Cosmos didn't choose to speak to me.”

I was glad for the night because it meant Sun couldn't see me going pale. I thought about how badly I had wanted EARTH to be my father.

“Anyway, at that Translation, EARTH told us he was leaving for a Mission to eastern Washington, and that he was taking Mars Wolf and a woman named Eclipse Pine. And, right in the middle of the Translation, I lost it. I stood up and said, ‘Why don't you take my mother on a Mission? Why are you always with a new woman?'

“I'll never forget his eyes when he looked at me. He didn't seem surprised at all. He said, ‘Like Thomas the Apostle, my son has been infected by doubt. The Cosmos warned me this would happen. How many of you in the congregation also thought Sun would question his faith?' Hands sprouted up all around me, almost every person there. Not my mom, though; she didn't raise her hand. But then EARTH called her out.

“‘Uranus Peak,' he said from the platform, ‘do you feel that I have forsaken our love?' My mom stood in front of everyone and said no without looking at me. So EARTH asked her, ‘Do you feel I have put you aside for other women?' She said no again. And then EARTH turned to me. ‘You are sixteen now, a man, and I won't keep any man in the Family against his will. I grant you my permission to leave us for the World Outside if you find that you are not a true Believer.'

“
I grant you permission
. Can you believe he said it that way? It's pretty hard to find a place to go when you're sixteen,” Sun said.

Seta reached over from the passenger seat and patted Sun's shoulder. He drove with his left hand and pushed the cigarette lighter into the dash with his right. I thought about Doug being forced out into the world at sixteen. Had I lost my brother again? Why did I let him run off? A painful twist started in my belly. Everything was wrong. Everything.

We drove on in silence for a while, people looking out the window or dozing. It was another half hour before we took the exit off I-5 toward Bellingham.

The sun was lifting a lazy eyelid over the Cascades as we rolled into town. We turned onto the country road that would lead us to the Farm, and our little van started stirring with activity as people yawned and stretched. We passed the spot for our usual roadside stands, the sign that said
FREE FAMILY FARM
, and turned right onto our land. Sun jumped out to open the gate that kept our goats from wandering off.

“It's locked,” he yelled back toward the van.

The gate was never locked. It didn't even have a lock. I climbed over Paul's legs and jumped out of the van's side door. Sun was holding some sort of chain with a padlock on it. Devin climbed from the back of the van with an iron bolt cutter.

“I had a feeling they might beat us here,” he said, handing the tool to Sun.

“This isn't going to be easy, Starbird. You should not underestimate my father. Or maybe
our
father.” Sun placed the bolt cutter's mouth on the metal chain and brought down the teeth with a snap.

We crept slowly along the gravel drive, trying to make as little noise as possible. Sun didn't continue all the way to the farmhouse or even to the Sanctuary. Instead, he cut the engine, turned off the lights, and rolled quietly to park near the woods by Iron's cabin.

We all piled out of the van, with Devin helping Seta. Six sets of feet crunched over the gravel in the early morning light. It was chilly out and fall had settled everywhere on the farm. I shivered with cold and exhaustion. Chocolate crowed by the coop, followed by Bad Boy, like they knew I was there. Everything I loved about mornings on the farm presented itself. I felt all the joy and sadness of coming home.

“Do you have a plan?” Sun walked next to me. We were getting closer to the barn and passing a number of cars and vans, even a bus with a Canadian license plate. Apparently, word of EARTH's Translation had spread quickly. No one was standing outside and the Sanctuary door was closed. They had started already. EARTH must have left Seattle in the middle of the night.

“Plan? Me?”

“If EARTH sees me, he's going to know something's up. He'll send Mars Wolf out, or he'll turn the congregation on me. Same thing with Paul, Devin, and Seta. They all left the Family and they weren't called to the Translation. Either we go in there with our guns blazing for a fight, or you go in there quietly alone.”

“I could go,” said V. “It would make sense if I drove Starbird here.”

“You've only been to a handful of Translations in your whole life,” said Devin.

“I say we all go in,” said Paul. “We call Mars Wolf out immediately and make EARTH explain about Arnold Muller.”

“Then we give EARTH the advantage. He'll have some great explanation ready and make us look like non-Believing troublemakers. It's not like we have many allies in there,” said Sun.

“But maybe EARTH does have good explanations,” I said. “I want to expose Mars Wolf, but I don't want to do battle with EARTH. I just want to convince him to keep the Family together.”

The others exchanged silent looks around the circle, except for V who looked at the ground.

“I think she's too susceptible to him,” said Sun. “I don't think we can trust her in there.”

“Don't act like I'm not here,” I said. “I know about mind control.”

“Knowing about it doesn't mean you can resist it,” said Sun.

“You're not giving her enough credit,” said V.

“Maybe she's right,” said Paul. “Everyone knows she's a Believer and they all love her since the apple pressing.”

“They do?” I said.

“Keeping the Family together can't be our only goal here. EARTH wants to keep the Family together, too, and look at all the terrible shit he's done to accomplish it,” said Sun.

“Yeah, but you'll never be able to kick EARTH out of the Family,” said Devin. “EARTH
is
the Family. We should focus on what we
can
do, which is try to save the Farm.”

“I don't want to get rid of EARTH,” I said. “I want
us to stay together, and keep the Farm.”

“You think you're going to get EARTH to give up Mars Wolf and California?” said Sun. “Not going to happen.”

“She's got to try,” said Seta. “That's why we came here.”

I looked around at my little team, who looked at one another.

“We'll be right outside the door,” said Seta.

“I should go to Iron's cabin,” said V. “We have to make sure he knows.”

I wanted to beg them all to come, but I knew I had to go alone. None of them really wanted what I wanted. I turned around and started walking toward the Sanctuary.