Laurel was standing and waiting for her, Ana followed Amelia.
Her first thought on setting foot into the circular meditation hall was how amazing it was that such a room could be concealed in plain sight, surrounded as it was by one of the busiest, most public places on the entire compound, the school.
There were two stories to this building, the school below and the residences of Steven Change and his oldest companions above, but the domed roof made this central part taller yet. The top of the circular skylight was nearly forty feet above the floor. The actual diameter was not great, but full use had been made of the volume by the simple, dramatic device of a pair of circular ramplike steps winding up the walls, forming an external double helix of platforms, each roughly four feet square, many of which were occupied already by seated figures, settling into poses of meditation. Some of the platforms were empty, at irregular intervals, but mostly in the middle section, which made Ana wonder if perhaps the seats weren't specifically assigned, and their owners absent.
That was later, though. At first all she noticed was the sense of constricted space below, underscored by the near-black carpeting on the floor and the sheer, high walls rising on all sides that gave way to warm reds and gathered light above until at the very top, where outside spotlights shone down through the glass, there was an explosion of warmth and movement and golden light.
Just under the glass was suspended a shimmering golden cloud, a sparkling, breathing entity made up of dozens of fine gold rods held horizontal to the floor and turning freely in the rising air. Ana had seen something like it once in a San Francisco cathedral. That sculpture, though, had served to evoke the cool splendor and ethereal magnificence of the Holy Spirit. This one made a person yearn to be closer, to rise up from the dark commonality and strive for light and entrance to the dazzling gold cloud.
Ana was not the only one to feel the pull. She was bumped twice in the jostle near the door as others paused to throw their gaze upward. For some there was awe, for others an almost ritual throwing back of the head that reminded Ana of the pause at the font when a Roman Catholic entered a church. She watched two of the ritualists, both of whom came in the right-hand door, and saw them climb the rampways to take up seats raised above the rest. Among them, she saw, were Amelia, Suellen, and Teresa. Teresa's platform was high up enough that it would have given an acrophobe problems. Ana settled into a place on the floor with her back against the wall, tucking her knees in with care, and gave herself over to a close examination of this holy of holies at the very center of Change.
The golden mobile and the double helix of meditation steps were not the oddest thing about this room, although they were the most immediately impressive. In their shadow, an observer could easily overlook the peculiar structure that took up the center of the hall, forming a sort of axis device around which the circular room might be visualized as turning.
The axis rose out of the floor in what Ana had no doubt was the precise center of the hall, a dull black pipe about fifteen inches in diameter that ran straight up and through the middle of a circular fireplace with an overhanging hood until it divided into a Y about two-thirds of the way up the hall's height. The two arms disappeared into the dome roof just below the edges of the skylight. In the arms of the Y a circular platform had been set, connected to the walls by six narrow walkways.
The more Ana looked at this weird structure, the stranger it seemed. It was as if some mad engineer had decided to cross a huge chemical apparatus with the rat-guard of a ship's ropes and turn the result into a tree house. That it was deeply symbolic for the builders she had no doubt—nobody would go to that amount of work for mere decoration—but what that symbolism might be, and if it had any actual function aside from holding the fireplace to heat the room, she could not tell.
What she did know, what she hadn't been sure of until she had walked into this room, was that behind all its apparent oppenness, Change was full of hidden secrets.
The room began to quiet, until Ana could hear the low crackle of the fire burning behind its circle of screen. After a minute, high over her head, a man stood up. His was the highest occupied platform on his run of the helix, although three higher than his were unoccupied. (Steven and his right-hand man, Mallory, Ana wondered, off in England? And what of the third one?) This man now picking his way cautiously along the nearest walkway to the central platform was someone Ana had met during the day, in the workshop where he was working on a set of chairs. David Carteret, his name was, a big man with scars on his face that looked as if he'd gone through a window. He seemed to be in charge of leading the meditation from his high perch directly above the fireplace. Ana wrenched her mind from speculation and her gaze from the extraordinarily beautiful cloud of gold, and prepared to give herself over to meditation.
David began with a greeting sent from Steven and a couple of brief announcements from the English sister house. He then moved quickly, and with the relief of a person taking refuge from public speaking, into a chant Steven had set for them. 'I am Change,' said David; 'Change am I.'
Ana dutifully joined the others, listening to how the voices rose and rang through the dome overhead, hearing the hundred voices slowly become one. It had been a while since she had joined in a group meditation, and it took her some time to immerse her voice in the others, to lose herself in the words. Gradually, imperceptibly, she let go, and as the chant evolved from two statements into the slow two-beat rhythm of 'I am change am I am change,' she moved along with it.
Silent meditation followed, although by this time the protests of Ana's knee were loud and interfered with the purity of her contemplation. The ninety minutes seemed endless, and when finally people began to get to their feet, she followed them out gratefully, stumbling down the road on a leg that felt as if hot gravel had been inserted into the joint. All she could think about was a shot of cortisone from Rocinante's locked cabinet, a jolt of whisky from her illicit stores, and many hours stretched straight in bed.
An ancient school bus rumbled past her as she approached the guest quarters: the older children and their teachers returning from Tucson. She wished them a silent good night and took her creaking middle-aged body to bed.
Chapter Eleven
From FBI documents relating to the Change case
Ana walked into the dining hall the next morning and found the community restored to itself, voices raised in a wall of sound, dishes clattering, excited teenagers calling to each other across the room. The energy embodied in the TRANSFORMATION mural no longer seemed unlikely.
The hub building, too, was transformed. What had yesterday been a half-empty nursery school was now a purposeful seat of learning. Halfway through the morning Ana was dragged out of the office to help Teresa with her fifteen eleventh and twelfth graders, who were finding it difficult to settle back into the classroom after two days of freedom.
'I just need another adult today,' Teresa told her as they hurried around the circular hallway. 'You don't need to do anything—they'll settle down if you just go and stand next to them while I'm trying to teach.'
Not a terribly flattering judgment of Ana's abilities, perhaps, but it was true that the repressive presence of an adult—any adult—goes far to smooth down youthful high spirits. Ana dutifully stood, and drifted, and saw the classroom gradually cool off from the near-boil. By lunchtime, concentration had been achieved.
The kids exploded out the door, and Teresa dropped down into her chair with her head thrown back. Ana noticed idly that despite Carla's version of the community regulations that specified no jewelry, this woman too (whom Ana would have classified as an ardent follower of rules) was wearing a necklace, in her case a delicate gold chain. Teresa sat forward and the chain disappeared under her collar. Perhaps the rule meant only no necklaces on top of clothing?
'It is always so difficult for them to focus when they have been away,' Teresa said. 'I've come to dread field trips.'
'Sitting in a bus for all those hours,' Ana said. 'Maybe they need some 'sweat meditation' when they get in.'
Teresa looked surprised, then thoughtful. 'You could be right. Perhaps I'll mention it to Steven.'
'Do you have any idea when he'll be back?'
'It was supposed to be tomorrow, but we heard this morning it will be three or four days. Well, let us go and have some lunch.'
Three or four days. Ana was seized by an abrupt spasm of boredom at the thought of it, because it would
