The Innocent: A Vanessa Michael Munroe Novel (5 page)

Sunshine was speaking to Zadok again, real words, not Spirit Words, so Hannah turned her eyes toward the book of Instructives in her lap, and her ears to the front. The sounds came in pieces.
The Lord’s will. Small packet. United States. Prophet will be pleased. Only a few times a year
.

None of it really meant anything for certain, but Hannah could guess; that was the good thing about being quiet and listening when they forgot about you—you could learn things.

This same kind of special outing had happened before, in late summer, right before Auntie Sunshine went on a two-week visit to another place. That last time, Sunshine had taken Teen Rachel on the trip into town, and Hannah had to fill in on Rachel’s work duty so that she could go. It had seemed that Rachel was special for being chosen, and even though it was wrong, Hannah had been a little jealous. On that day, just like today, everything had been Secret and hush-hush—more than the usual—so maybe today was the same kind of thing, whatever that thing was, and this made Hannah feel good, because maybe it meant she was special too.

Zadok parked the van, but he didn’t get out when Sunshine did, which probably meant that he was staying behind, which was kind of unusual.

Sunshine motioned for Hannah, so she slid out of the far back and made her way to the door and then the sidewalk.

They were in front of a five-story building, old and very expensive it seemed, and that made Hannah’s clothes feel all the more awkward and embarrassing. The dress was borrowed, a bit too small and pretty in a girly way that was uncomfortable. But Sunshine had told her to wear it, and there wasn’t room for possible discussion, so that was that. At least it was new-looking and not as worn out as Hannah’s own hand-me-downs.

Sunshine took hold of Hannah’s hand and led her forward, and this made her feel even more uncomfortable than the clothes, but she knew better than to squirm, so she endured the bad feelings, shoving them away.

Sunshine said, “Sweetie, you want to serve the Lord and be a good little soldier for Jesus, right?”

Hannah hated that word
little
and everything that it implied, hated the way Sunshine talked down to her as if she were a two-year-old, but she nodded.

“That’s good. It means God can bless you. He can only bless us when we’re obedient to Him and to The Prophet, yes?”

The uncomfortable feeling was growing and made it hard to talk, so Hannah just nodded again.

“Being here is a very special privilege and The Prophet wants your dedication and your obedience,” Sunshine said. “He needs you to be completely yielded, and to be Secret—talking about today is disobedience, you understand?”

Another nod, this time solemnly.

Sunshine’s voice grew sterner, if that were possible. “What happens when we’re disobedient to the Lord and The Prophet?”

“God can’t bless or protect us,” Hannah said, and her words came out in a hoarse whisper.

Sunshine nodded as if she was satisfied, and although Hannah should have felt relieved that Sunshine was pleased, she didn’t. Instead she felt worse, though she didn’t understand why, because Sunshine wasn’t behaving as if Hannah had done something wrong or as if there was trouble coming.

It’s just, things didn’t feel right, which meant the uncomfortable was very strong and growing worse—that sick feeling that started in the pit of her stomach and worked its way outward until everything was irritating and it was difficult to think or breathe. The only thing she knew to do when this happened was to obey and then get through whatever it was, one moment at a time, until it was over and the uncomfortable went away.

They’d reached the building, Sunshine had pushed the front door open, and as they stepped inside she looked down at Hannah, a stern and unforgiving look that Hannah didn’t have to think about to understand.
Be very obedient, because Sunshine could make a whole lot of trouble happen
.

On the second floor, a hallway spanned in both directions off the stairwell, and along the hallway were solid doors, each with a brass plate and the name of a business.

Sunshine still gripped Hannah’s hand, and the heat and sweat of
the close contact made Hannah want to scream or tug away, but she held quiet.

Sunshine went to the farthest door, which had a plaque with no name and opened onto a room with a desk backed close to the shaded windows, like it was supposed to be an office reception, but there wasn’t anybody at the desk.

To Hannah the furniture, lamps, and wall coverings were more like a rich person’s house than any office she had seen, and on each side of the room was another door, but those were closed, and the whole place was very quiet.

Sunshine pointed at a divan. “Sit there and don’t touch anything,” she said, and then she walked to the door on the right and knocked. A voice called out, then Sunshine opened the door, stepped inside, and returned a few moments later with two men following. One man was older, like Sunshine, the other was like the young adults at the Haven.

While Sunshine stood aside with the younger, the older man came to Hannah and knelt so that he was at eye level. Not unkindly, he asked her name, and after she answered, he took her hand and lifted it gently. Hannah looked to Sunshine for assurance, and Sunshine nodded. Understanding the man’s intention, Hannah stood.

His eyes went from her head down, down to her feet and then back up again. He touched Hannah’s hair, just a little flick against the strands by her ear, and then turned to Sunshine.

“Much better,” he said.

Sunshine said, “Hannah, I need to run some errands; you stay here with Mr. Cárcan, and I’ll be back in a bit.”

Hannah felt a spike of panic, not because she was afraid of this man or that she minded being away from Sunshine—definitely not that—but because she was being left alone with an outsider from the Void, and that was very much against the rules. Everyone kept a buddy in the Void, everywhere and always. It was one of The Prophet’s principles of obedience, and to break this meant God couldn’t protect you.

But Sunshine said to do it, and Hannah could only do as instructed.

When Sunshine had gone, the man said, “Do you like ice cream?”

Hannah nodded, and his eyes moved kind of funny. “Come,” he said. “I have a freezer in my office.”

She followed him into a room that could only be called an office because of the big desk, but everything else about it made it look like a living room. The man’s phone rang and he took the call while opening the little freezer. He pulled a frozen bar from inside, handed it to Hannah, and motioned her to sit while he nodded to the voice on the other end, and then he laughed.

“Yes, of course,” he said, “they’re too simple and naïve to know better, but they are very close to God and I like to have God on my side.” He’d switched to Spanish without appearing to care if Hannah understood; he probably assumed that she didn’t, because he didn’t bother whispering or stepping outside the room.

Still on the phone, the man laughed again and said, “Yes, but in any case it’s like having your own personal priest, and I can’t help that I like them. Religion, sex, and a simple mule, it doesn’t get any better than that.”

Hannah didn’t understand the meaning of the words, but just as when listening to Zadok or Sunshine, it was always best to look dumb and pretend to not care.

She was on the couch, face toward the wall, fully focused on the ice cream bar, tasting it slowly to make the rare treat last as long as possible, when she realized that the room was silent and she couldn’t remember for how long. She turned to look around.

The man was off the phone, sitting on the edge of his desk, studying her, rubbing his thumb slowly up, slowly down, between his legs. All the feelings of discomfort and trouble, and the uneasiness that she couldn’t pinpoint, which had gone away a little with the ice cream, came back even more, and the knot in her stomach made it impossible to take another taste.

Hannah felt like she might throw up, so she just held the bar, unsure of what to do with it.

The man continued to stare, continued to do what he was doing, and finally, when slow drips began to trickle down her hand, he stood, took the mess from her, and said, “Take off your dress.”

The words were like a smack across the face. Like trouble. Bad trouble. And the uncomfortable feelings were so bad now that Hannah couldn’t move.

“You love your Prophet?” the man said.

Hannah nodded.

“And your auntie, she told you to obey, yes?”

She nodded again.

“Then do the will of The Prophet, and obey,” the man said.

The words were right, but they were confusing coming from this outsider in the Void, and the uncomfortable feelings were now both inside and outside. It wasn’t fear, but yes, it was fear. She should do what he said, she needed to obey, he might hit her, or worse he might tell Sunshine, but Hannah still couldn’t move.

The man tossed the ice cream into a trash can and wiped his fingers on his pant leg. He reached for her hand and, more roughly than he’d done in the reception room, pulled her to her feet.

“Come,” he said. “I will help you.”

His hands were impatient as he turned her around so that her back faced him. It was not new, what he was doing, even if this experience outside the Haven and with this man were new. He tugged the dress zipper and Hannah closed her eyes. Behind her lids the tears burned hot, but she would never let them surface. She breathed long and slow, and let her mind run away, far away, to the hidden and forbidden daydreams where nothing bad happened, where there was no trouble, where she was special and wanted, and always, always safe.

L
ogan pulled the picture from his wallet and placed it on the table. The photo had been taken when Hannah was five years old, just three days before she’d been walked out of class, down the hall, through the school’s front doors, and, as they’d later learned, driven over the border and into Mexico.

From across the table, Gideon, the IT director, pulled a printout of a scanned photograph from his computer bag. He placed it on the table next to Hannah. The photo was old, dated in the way most photographs are—by hair and clothing, and the odd color it assumed over time.

“David Law,” he said.

A breeze caught the edge of the paper, lifting it slightly, and Gideon placed his glass on the corner to hold it in place.

Munroe’s eyes came alive, and she reached for the page, David Law’s picture, that spark the first hint of hope that Logan had sensed since she’d arrived on the terrace.

She’d seen the photo of Hannah now three times, but this was the first time she’d been shown David Law’s, and even a casual observer would have spotted the intensity with which her eyes roamed over his picture.

Her glance darted back and forth between David and Logan and their striking similarities: blond hair, green eyes, similar bone structure.

“David and I aren’t related,” Logan said to her unasked question, “at least not that I know of. David was Charity’s boyfriend at the time—a cult baby, like us. He’s the one who kidnapped Hannah and took her back inside.”

“Where is Charity?” Munroe asked. “Why isn’t she here?”

“She wanted to be here,” Logan said. “But she couldn’t make it and so asked me to speak on her behalf. She says ‘hi’ by the way.”

Munroe nodded.

Logan paused, mentally framing the context and where to continue. Over the years Munroe had heard snippets of this story, and twice her path had briefly crossed with Charity’s. Munroe knew vague details of Hannah’s kidnapping because during an unusual outburst of frustration Logan had railed against the injustice of it all, but beyond that, he’d told her little.

“It took me four years to coax Charity out,” Logan said. He tapped his head. “For many of us the thickest bars are in here. It takes time to overcome the fear and the guilt that a life of conditioning has put into you—especially when all you’ve ever known has you terrified of the outside. Anyway, I had an apartment ready, a job lined up for Charity and day care for Hannah, and when Charity finally made her break, David came along. Five months after they’d gotten settled, David took off with Hannah and went back.”

“What do you mean, ‘he came along’?”

“David was Charity’s boyfriend, not Hannah’s father,” Logan said. “And he and Charity hadn’t been together long—maybe a year total, if that—so he kind of just hitched a ride, so to speak.”

“You’re certain he wasn’t Hannah’s father? No chance at all?”

“Not according to Charity.”

“Then why did he feel he had a right to take her?”

“No idea,” Logan said. “Because he didn’t have one. He got hold of her passport and then forged a power of attorney, took her across the border, and from there hopscotched into South America.”

“So this wasn’t a custody issue of two parents fighting over who keeps the kid?”

“Not at all,” Logan said. “It was out-and-out child abduction.” He paused and tried to find the words. “It’s hard to find the ground under your feet when you leave,” he said. “Life comes at you so fast, there’s so much you weren’t prepared for, and it sometimes feels like every day is a new attempt to break up to the surface for air. But since I’d already made the way for Charity, David didn’t have that problem. If he’d really wanted to do something with his life on the outside, he had more opportunity than any of us did, had it very easy by comparison—”

Heidi, the project manager who was sitting next to Gideon, interrupted. “David never really fit in though,” she said.

Munroe said, “You knew him?”

Heidi nodded. “He didn’t seem to care much, didn’t make much of an effort to do anything, just kind of mooched off Charity, really. Not everyone can make it out here. Some go back. A lot of it depends on why they left in the first place.”

“We don’t know why he left—why he came with her,” Logan said. “He could have loved her for a while, or it could have been curiosity, or maybe he didn’t like being ordered around every day …”

“Never a good reason,” Heidi said.