The Family (6 page)

Ryan liked boys. No specific boy in the Family, but he knew he was homosexual. Adam said there was nothing wrong with Ryan’s feelings, that they were natural for him, part of his fabric. It was a roll of the dice whether people came out homosexual or heterosexual, but when he came of age, Ryan would have to change. The Family needed heterosexual couplings for procreation, and that was that. Adam said if he didn’t strictly enforce this rule, they would die out. He simply couldn’t recruit enough new members to keep them thriving as a group. If you lived in the Family, you needed to be in a heterosexual coupling—period.

But then, there were sisters like Avery and Evelyn, who were both single. The logic didn’t quite click for Twig. Why hadn’t Adam remarried her mother or Evelyn? Were they too old to make babies now, so it didn’t matter? And would Tina soon join them?

Evelyn was a miserable woman, but she was one hundred percent committed to the Family, committed to Adam. According to Evelyn’s lore, she had lost her husband in a war between the United States and Iraq. She was pregnant with Rose at the time of his death. That was when she had joined the Family.

Neither Rose nor Twig had fathers. They didn’t ever talk about it, but it was something they shared, and it was why their mothers had been housed together. Twig’s father had left Avery when he found out she was pregnant, which is when Avery joined the Family. Evelyn and Avery were the only two single women over the age of eighteen in the Family, and for reasons Twig did not know, Adam had never remarried them, not even when new members joined the compound.

“Come on, Twig!” Ryan yelled. Twig dug her heels into Sapphire, and the horse obediently sprinted after him.

They rode for an hour and then circled back. It was still warm and humid, but the sky had turned a threatening gray. The group formed a tight cadre as they ambled back to the stables. Everyone chatted casually, laughter bubbling up from the pack now and then.

“I’m going to walk Sapph over to the stream for some water,” Twig said.

She steered Sapphire away from the group and headed toward a wide stream that lay to their right. The water was frothy with the turbulent current. As Twig and her horse neared the stream, she felt raindrops on her head. Sapphire stuck her black, velvety muzzle in the water and began to drink. The raindrops came harder and faster. Twig loved the rain; she wasn’t fazed when it started to come down in sheets.

She thought she heard someone calling her name. Twig pulled Sapphire’s reins to steer her back toward the group, but Sapphire resisted. She had become interested in something in the grass. Suddenly, a flock of birds emerged from the trees. Their wings snapped loudly, like clothes on a line pulled taut in the wind. The sound startled Twig. The birds disappeared into the sky, which had turned gunmetal gray.

“Come on, Sapph. We’d better go. It’s getting a bit wild out here.” Sapphire continued to resist. She began to snort and scratch one of her front hoofs at the ground.

“What is it, girl?” Twig leaned sideways to try to get a look at what was upsetting Sapphire. The rain made it hard to see, and Sapphire was so agitated that she wasn’t responding. Twig was just about to pull harder on the reins, to demand that Sapphire come with her, when she saw what was happening. By then, it was too late. The horse had put her muzzle into a hive of bees that must have fallen from a tree. Sapphire reared up as the bees swarmed. Twig tried to hang on, but she was in the wrong position. She felt a sharp, unnatural twisting in her back as she was thrown from the horse.

She heard screams.

Everything went black.

12

Twig looked down at her light brown pony with its shaggy white mane and long white bangs. The girl in front of her rode a white pony with big black spots. They were riding slowly around a ring. Six impeccably groomed ponies carrying six elegant children dressed in party clothes
.

Twig looked down at her frothy, raspberry-pink party dress. A tulle ballerina skirt parachuted around her small body
.

“Livvy! My birthday girl! My baby girl!” A tall young man with warm golden skin and prematurely gray hair held Twig carefully atop the pony, making sure she didn’t fall. His eyes, like bright green marbles, were full of love. They were magical eyes
.

“Daddy!”

Twig saw her mother outside the ring. She was dressed in a fitted strapless, chocolate brown dress. Avery’s hair was almost platinum, buttery, blonde, and pulled up in a high ponytail. A beatific grin spread across her gorgeous tanned face. Twig wanted to go to her
.

“Mommy!”

“Just another round, Livvy. Then you can go to Mommy.”

13

A sharp pain in Twig’s arm shot into her consciousness. Her head throbbed. She was parched.

“Mommy?” Twig was barely able to utter the word. Her mouth was so dry, despite the rain that continued to pelt her. She didn’t know where she was, and she was in a lot of pain. She was so dizzy.

“Twig, I’m here. Everything is going to be okay.” Twig thought she heard her mother, but she wasn’t sure.

“Mommy, I want Daddy. Where is Daddy? I want my daddy!” Twig had begun to scream. A panic was setting in that she couldn’t control.

Commotion. People swarmed around her, creating a canopy and blocking the rain. Twig couldn’t see the sky. She wanted desperately to see the sky. She wished the people would move, give her some air. She felt like her lungs were collapsing. She couldn’t get a breath.

“Doc is coming! He’ll be here in a minute,” Twig heard someone shout through the rain, through the pain in her head, her arm.

Twig tried to crawl deeper into Avery’s arms. She was terrified. She didn’t know any of the people she saw crowded around her. “Where’s Daddy?” she sobbed.

“Shh, shh,” Avery cooed. “It’s okay, baby. Everything is going to be okay.” Avery’s voice sounded panicked. Twig thought it sounded like Avery was crying. Avery never cried.

“Mommy, just take me home. Where are we? Take me home! Now!”

“What’s happened?” Another man’s voice that Twig didn’t recognize.

“She got bucked off Sapphire,” Twig heard her mother yell into the rain. “She’s shivering, Doc. Why is she shivering when it’s ninety degrees out? She doesn’t know where she is. We have to get her to a hospital!”

The man came closer. “Get away from me! I want my daddy!” Twig screamed, and Avery pulled Twig closer.

“What do we do, Doc?”

“Mommy, I can’t breathe. Please help me, Mommy.”

“Doc!” Avery’s voice teemed with urgency.

“She’s breathing, Avery. She’s breathing. She’s in shock from the fall, and she’s having a panic attack. But look, she’s breathing.”

“What the hell is going on here?” Another man’s voice, furious. Twig clung even tighter to Avery.

“Adam, we need to get her to the hospital. She’s had a bad fall. She’s completely disoriented and isn’t recognizing anyone besides Avery. She’s having some sort of amnesic episode.”

Twig felt like she was going to pass out again. The man called Adam kneeled down next to Avery, and Twig’s head popped up. “You get away from me!” she shrieked. “All of you get away from me! Mommy, help me. Why won’t you help me?”

“Adam, we don’t have much time,” Doc said. “I’m going to sedate her.”

Twig felt herself slipping away again.

“Can’t you treat her here? Give this a little time to see what happens?”

“She could have severe brain damage, and she could be bleeding internally. Adam, she could die. We need to get her to the hospital. Now. If we don’t hurry, we might lose her.”

Those were the last words Twig heard before she slipped into unconsciousness.

14

“Thank God they brought her in. They look Amish or something.”

“Sorry, doctor? Amish?” Twig heard a woman’s voice respond.

Twig felt fuzzy but wonderfully calm. She kept her eyes closed. It felt like too much effort to open them.

“Right, you wouldn’t know that reference. They…never mind. Listen, her father said they’re Costa Rican, but I don’t buy it. I was born and bred in the States, a dyed-in-the-wool Texan. I know a group of expats when I see one.”

The man stopped talking, and the room became quiet.

“The CT scan shows a subdural hematoma. I want her on Mannitol and Keppra IVs to prevent any seizing. She was very lucky. Let’s keep the oxygen going for the night. She should be fine, but I want to take every precaution. We’ll do another CT scan in the morning, and I want a follow up CT next month.” The man paused. “Pretty girl.”

“Yes, doctor.”

Twig wondered whom they were talking about.

She let her eyes flutter open. She was in an alarmingly white room. A very tanned man with white-blond hair, maybe in his fifties, stood near her. He wore a white coat and stared at a clipboard. A younger woman with warm brown skin and shiny black hair pulled into a bun stood next to him, looking at the clipboard over his shoulder. The woman was dressed all in white with a small white hat fixed into her hair. They didn’t notice Twig looking at them.

Twig was too tired to be scared. She just wanted to sleep. The pain was gone, and she just wanted to go back to sleep. She felt as if she were floating.

“I want her here overnight. There’s something about this crew. I just can’t shake the feeling that something is…” He tapped his pen on the clipboard. “…not quite right with them.”

The man and the woman looked up from the clipboard toward Twig.

“Look who’s awake,” the man said with new warmth in his voice.

Twig smiled out of a habit of politeness and fell back to sleep.

15

Twig was dreaming of steam. Irazú, the volcano. She had finally made it. She hovered above the huge basin filled with swirling clouds of white vapor. This high up, with the mouth of the volcano gaping beneath her, Twig had never felt so powerful.

Then voices began lifting out of the steam, pulling at her. Doc. Avery. Adam. Twig felt herself being dragged into the volcano, the steam climbing out of the stone basin to envelop her. She tried to push it away, covering her face.

“Twig. It’s mom. It’s okay.”

Something was on her face. Twig tore at it.

“It’s okay to remove the mask,” said a man’s voice that Twig didn’t recognize. Avery removed the mask from Twig’s face as Twig squinted, trying to open her eyes fully.

“Mom, where are we?” Twig was scared and thirsty. Her head was swimming.

“Twig, you had an accident, but you are okay. We are at a place called a hospital. This man is a doctor. He is helping us.”

A man in a white coat stood at the foot of Twig’s bed. Twig gripped Avery.
An outsider
.

“But, Mom,” Twig started to say, but the man began to approach Twig, and she gasped. She began to hold her arm up to tell the man to stop, but she was attached to some sort of tube. She started to feel faint.

“Okay, let’s slow this down,” the man in the white coat said.

“Twig, do you know who I am?” Adam was suddenly at Twig’s side.

Twig squinted at Adam. “Of course,” she whispered. “Father, I don’t understand. Why are we…” The man in the white coat laid his hand on Adam’s shoulder.

“Why don’t we give her a little room, give her a moment with her mom.” Adam glared at the man’s hand. He quickly removed it.

“We can come back in a few minutes,” Doc added.

“But she might fall asleep again. I need to talk to her.”

“Adam!” Avery said, exasperated.

“Okay, okay.” With a tense smile, Adam stood up. “Twig, I’ll be right outside the door. I’ll be back in a few minutes, okay?”

Twig nodded, completely confused. “Is this man okay?” she asked Adam. “Is he safe?”

“Yes,” Avery said. “Yes, he is helping us. He is a good man.”

“Well, I don’t know if he’s a good man, but he seems to be a good enough doctor,” Adam said, his voice as tense as his facial expression.

Doc steered Adam toward the door. “We’ll be right back,” Adam said, his eyes boring into the doctor.

“Intense guy,” the doctor said once Adam and Doc left the room.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Avery answered. Twig was shocked that Avery seemed comfortable with this man.

“Let’s start over. Twig, I’m Dr. Young. Are you in a lot of pain?”

Twig nodded, but the effort made her head throb. Her body was aching and sore. “Can I have something to drink?”

“Let’s start with some ice chips.”

Avery quickly began to spoon a chip of ice from a pea-green plastic pitcher near the bed. She held it to Twig’s mouth. Twig took it gratefully and sucked on it. She took a deep breath, feeling calmer.

“What’s happened to me? What kind of accident? Am I okay?” As Twig spoke, her anxiety began to grow again.

“Yes, you are absolutely okay—”

“She’s never been to a hospital before, Dr. Young. She doesn’t know what any of this is.”

“I understand,” Dr. Young said warmly.

He seemed…nice. Twig tried to match this man to the descriptions of the demonic people she knew lived in the outside world. Had Adam purified him before she woke up?

“What is this?” Twig held up her hand. There was a needle pricking out of it, which was connected to a small tube. It was then that she realized her other hand was in a cast. She began to cry a little bit, feeling completely overwhelmed. “What happened to me?” She sniffed.

“Like your mother said, you had an accident. You fell off your horse, Twig. You bumped your head pretty good, and you sprained your wrist. You must be tough though, because from what I hear, it was a nasty fall, and that’s all that happened.” Dr. Young paused. “Now, it was a severe sprain, so I want that cast on there for about three weeks.”

“But why this needle? Why am I here? Is Sapphire okay?” Twig began to look at the room around her while Avery fed her another ice chip. Everything was foreign. The sheets in the bed were stiff and itchy. The lights were blinding and a strange shade of greenish-yellow. Hard, cold-looking tile covered the floor. The walls were painted a sterile white and looked oddly glossy.