Vivian Apple Needs a Miracle (12 page)

“I'm sorry,” I say. “We were stupid—
I
was stupid. Harp never wanted him along in the first place; it was all me. You have no idea how much I regret it.”

“You realize what this means, right?” Kimberly is unappeased. “He's all over your story, and now it turns out you were spectacularly wrong about him. People are going to wonder—what else are you two wrong about?”

There's a long pause as each and every person in the room turns to us.

“We're not lying about the Rapture, if that's what you're trying to say. And if that's what you're trying to say, why not come out and say it?” Harp's teeth are clenched; her body coils with energy. I put my hand on her shoulder, afraid she's going to rush at Kimberly.

“We don't think you're lying about what you saw, Harp,” Birdie sniffles. Kimberly shoots her a glare. “
Most
of us don't, anyway. It's just . . . you have to understand. It was going to be hard for them to believe you as it was. But now? When this person you claimed was on your side is the new face of the Church? It's going to be a lot harder. Won't people assume you're lying, or crazy? Won't people think you're just trying to get attention?”

I glance again at the TV, at Peter's face—bigger now than it was on Harp's laptop, nearly life-size. They're showing the part of the speech where he looks directly into the camera.
Trust your heart above all things.
I feel a surge of anger. I want to break down the front door; I don't want to rest until I've found him. I want him to feel what I feel, this hurricane of sorrow and humiliation and anger; I want him to know what he's done. By giving his face to the Church of America, he's made it impossible to beat them. He's taken everything I've done, everything I've sacrificed—these last desperate months, my relationship with my mother—and made them meaningless. I want him to know what he's done to me. I want to make him feel it.

That night, Amanda's army holds an impromptu memorial service for Suzy and Karen. They light candles Amanda has provided in case of power outages and crowd into the command center to sing secular songs and tell funny stories of conversations on the seawall with Suzy, of the way Karen always treated them like family. No one states the obvious—that the Peacemakers came for Harp and me, that it's because of Harp and me that their friends are dead. Winnie is warmer toward me than ever, and Julian praises my quick thinking during the attack. But I see the looks that Kimberly and Colby give us when we walk into the room, and I know they would rather it had been us who died in San Francisco.

Luckily, there are plenty of other things to worry about in Los Angeles. Everyone is hard at work preparing for the attack—they train endlessly, practice shooting targets deep in the recesses of Griffith Park, and trail Peter, Mulvey, and Blackmore in small groups. Eventually they determine the Church's headquarters to be a hotel called the Chateau Marmont, the same place where Peter was first introduced as spokesman. The pinpointed target means it's only a matter of time until Amanda chooses a date for the attack. Meanwhile, heat blasts through the windows, and there's an ongoing drought that leaves the faucets dry. The fridges are stocked with plastic water bottles, but we can't shower, and as the hot days drag on, everyone's hair goes greasy; the loft acquires a sour stench of sweat. Still, we know we're lucky: according to the Church of America News Network, which Diego keeps on at all hours, the drought has already killed thirty people and counting in Southern California. It means disease and dangerous food shortages across the nation, and that's just some of the bad news within a small radius. The Church of America News Network also reports the assassination of the British prime minister on the steps of 10 Downing Street; an aggressive new strain of malaria killing nearly ten kids a day in China; mass shootings in Texas, Ohio, and New York; and one day, causing Robbie to cry out loud, me. They show my school picture, plucked from my freshman yearbook. Diego turns up the volume.

“The Church can now publicly confirm that the first of these dangerous enemies to salvation is named Vivian Apple, age seventeen, originally a resident of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Her last known whereabouts were San Francisco, where she participated in the gruesome murders of five of the Church of America's blessed Peacemakers.”

I feel my face go numb. My mouth moves noiselessly, trying to utter the defense I'm too shocked to articulate. On the screen, my face cuts to Harp's.

“Her accomplice is one Harpreet Janda, and she is the author of a—truly disgusting—post currently making the rounds in the blogosphere.”

The shot of Harp's face fades to Peter behind a podium at the end of a long drive, an ornate white building behind him. “It's pure fiction, of course,” Peter says, sounding confident. “We've consulted with the experts—Pierce Masterson and other prominent ministers worldwide—and they agree that even
reading
it is a sin grievous enough to preclude passage on the second boat. Chapter eleven, verse eight:
‘If the secular heathens spit lies in thy ear, it is thine own sin should thou start to listen.'
”

A reporter calls out, “Can you comment specifically on the allegations that you were in a relationship with one of the enemies to salvation? A Vivian Harriet Apple?”

His expression changes then to one I've never seen on his face before, a painful smirk. “Come on, guys, you know I can't kiss and tell.” The reporters laugh. “But we all know that the Book of Frick encourages us as men to convert as many sinful temptresses as we can. Let's just say I was trying to do my duty as a Believer—does that work?”

The newscaster returns, chuckling to himself at this. “We spoke to Brendan J. Winters, a former classmate of these heathens, who can shed some light on their background and motives.”

Harp emits a pained sound, something between a scream and a growl—they've cut to B.J. Winters, a late-adopting Believer, part of the gang that killed Harp's brother, Raj, back in Pittsburgh. He looks thinner than I remember, and terrified, though it's impossible to miss the gleam of excitement in his eyes as he answers.

“Well, it was no secret that they were both staunch Non-Believers. I didn't know Vivian well, but there were rumors that she was deep into the occult—like, witches and stuff. As for Harp”—B.J. cracks a small, hateful smile—“you don't have to be as devout as I am to know she was trouble. Her brother was openly homosexual, and both she
and
Viv were known around here for being . . . you know, slutty. It was actually kind of a game for them, I think—they'd throw themselves at upstanding young Believers in the community and try to tempt them into sin using their deceitful feminine wiles. I bet you anything Vivian tried to do the same with our blessed spokesman, Peter Taggart, but clearly he's made of stronger stuff.” He pauses, maybe to gauge whether he's been brutal enough. “Plus, I can't be the first to wonder if Harp maybe had ties to Muslim extremists?”

Stunned into silence, we watch as the ticker below B.J.'s face reads
APPLE AND JANDA: CONFIRMED WHORES/POSSIBLE WITCHES/DEFINITELY VIOLENT ANTI-AMERICAN TERRORISTS?

| | | | |

We all make mistakes when it comes to dudes, often because they manage to delude us into thinking they're good people, rather than swamp monsters wearing cute boy masks. (The most recent of these mistakes for me personally, BTW, was Goliath, aka Spencer Ganz, aka Shithead.) It sucks, but such is life. Viv and I are not ones to hold a grudge—unless, of course, said swamp monsters go on national television to call us lying sluts!

We trusted Peter because he knew things about the Church we didn't, and he was nice to us. For a while, it really seemed like he was treating my girl Viv exactly how you want to see your best friend treated: with care, and respect. They never did anything but kiss—but even if they had, would that give him any right to do what he did? To lie to us, lead us into danger, turn on us, sell us out? Even if you buy their story instead of ours, what the fuck is wrong with you that you consider Viv's supposed sin (being a babe, enjoying a good make-out) a bigger transgression than all of Peter's?

And furthermore, WITCHES ARE AWESOME.

“I can't believe he tried to Magdalene me,” I say for the millionth time, watching Harp aggressively bang out her latest screed. We lie together on the bed I've claimed on the third floor, where I've spent the two weeks since Peter's press conference hiding under blankets, sobbing, trying to talk myself down from panic attacks. “How could I have been so dumb? I always thought if someone made the effort to Magdalene me, I'd see it coming a mile away.”

Harp reads over her post with a frown. Yesterday Amanda appeared for a strategy meeting and instructed Harp to keep blogging, as the Church's condemnation of us is bringing in more readers than ever before. She had a few of the more tech-savvy soldiers work to cloak the Good Book's servers, and though none of them have Suzy's talent, it's assumed she's bought us at least a little time. Amanda told Harp to avoid the subject of Peter Taggart at all costs, but I could have told her this was a lost cause.

“Girls who get Magdalened aren't
dumb,
” Harp finally replies, continuing to type. “The only mistake they make is in trusting the dudes they have sex with. It isn't their fault that the dudes are so goddamn untrustworthy.”

I catch the flint in her voice. Harp has had a lot more sex than I have at this point (which is to say any), and I know B.J.'s accusations have gotten under her skin.

“You're right,” I say. “I'm sorry. I'm just embarrassed.”

“I know.” Harp's voice softens and she stops typing, turning to look at me. “Try to turn it into anger instead. Anger's a lot more useful.”

That isn't hard. The idea that Peter's aim in complimenting and kissing me, in making me symbolic sledgehammer necklaces, was only to have sex with me, convince me I was a sinner, and prod me into conversion is infuriating. How unfair that the Church took this private, magical thing—the shivery pleasure I took in touching Peter, in being touched by him—and turned it into a weapon to wield against me. I hear the chipper voice of the Church magazines chirping in my brain:
You're in a relationship with a boy who treats you as his emotional and spiritual equal. You feel a desire to express your affection through physical acts that will bring mutual pleasure. Do you (a) go for it! Sex is a natural gift from God, and a lot of fun so long as you do it safely!; (b) get him to propose! Sex is only fun if you do it in a Church of America–approved union! Plus, babies are so cute!; or (c) seek guidance from your local pastor for your sinful thoughts and ask for tips on expressing your love in a holy, nonphysical way? TRICK QUESTION! The answer is (d) the fact that you even momentarily considered having sex out of wedlock proves that you have no place in God's eternal kingdom, you reprehensible slut.

Is that what Peter was thinking every time he put his mouth on me? Was he imagining the thumbs-up he'd get from Jesus once he managed to make me repent?

The door to the third-floor loft opens, and Winnie enters. She smiles when she sees us. “Hey, guys. What sort of occult shenanigans are you getting yourselves into this time?”

“Just your standard hocus-pocus,” Harp answers, closing her laptop and getting to her feet. She stretches. “Who's on shift in the bookstore right now?”

“Julian.”

Harp grins and tosses her hair. “That's what I was hoping you'd say.” She goes bounding out the door, leaving Winnie and me alone together. My sister looks disheveled, her long hair loose in a bun, stray wisps falling around her face. She sits on the edge of the bed.

“You okay, buddy?”

“Oh, I'm fine, you know. Dealing with my reputation as a murdering enchantress. Coping with the fact that the dude I fell for was a lying scumbag. Coming to terms with the guilt of having caused the deaths of two innocent people. The usual.”

Winnie frowns at this last bit. “You think you caused Suzy's and Karen's deaths?”

“It doesn't seem like a coincidence that the day our post about the Church gains traction is the day the Peacemakers arrive at Cliff House. We got the story read and they got killed. Is there any other explanation?”

“There are
dozens
of other explanations,” Winnie insists. “Suzy had been hacking into Church-affiliated websites for months—maybe she inadvertently left traces. Someone could have followed us—any of us, Julian, me, Diego—back from an outside trip and seen you. One of our soldiers might be selling the rest of us out. Why would you tell yourself it was all because of you?”

I look away. I know she's not wrong, but I don't feel ready to be talked out of this guilt.

“Viv,” she says. “I don't want this to come across as condescending, okay? But this is part of what being a soldier is all about. People are killed around you—suddenly, meaninglessly. And to get through it, you have to understand that sometimes there's nothing you could have done to stop it. Suzy and Karen? They were one of those times.”

“How do you know?”

“Because the other times feel different. Like . . . this planned attack, for instance.” Winnie shakes her head. “I've been trying so hard to get Diego to fight Amanda on it. It won't work. It's messy and it's pointless and innocent people are going to die.”

“Not that innocent.”

Winnie looks shrewdly at me. “No. Not that innocent. But, Viv—do you honestly want Peter to die? Like that?”

I'm angrier than I've ever been before—I'm more furious with Peter than I was with the Angels when I assumed they'd caught or killed him. My anger's not as useful as Harp says it is. It's unfocused and overwhelming. And the truth is I don't know what it means yet—right now I don't know what my fury is capable of making me want, making me do. Before I can tell Winnie this, though, I hear a clattering sound. Harp has burst into the room. She's clutching an armful of items and she has an expression on her face I can't quite decipher—some combination of joy and deep sorrow. She rushes to me and drops a hardcover book in my lap. It's the title I noticed when we entered the bookstore our first morning:
Mysteries of the Second Boat Revealed
. The author's name is Pierce Masterson.