Gabi reached for the canister of fortified powdered milk and added a spoonful to the oats. The Lowells’ remaining three cinnamon sticks would have to last them six more months before spice rations were replenished. Gabi grated a dusting of cinnamon into the pot along with a splash of juice from the raisins soaking in the fridge for sweetening, then added water and set the pot to boil. The sky was fully light now, and Gabi listened for sounds from down the hall. Still quiet. This was something else that needed doing, so she did. Gabi knocked on Sam’s door, and her father opened it wide enough to peer out. He looked like he’d slept less than Gabi.
“Morning, honey,” he said, his voice gravelly with lack of sleep. “Do I smell oatmeal?” Gabi nodded, and he reached his hand out to rumple her hair. “Thanks for doing that. I should have thought of it. This is all going to take some getting used to.”
“I don’t mind,” Gabi said with a shrug. “It might not taste very good, though.”
“I’m sure it’s fine. Is your brother awake?” No light shone from under Mathew’s door.
“I don’t think so. I’ll get him.”
The only surefire technique to rouse Mathew was to turn the radio by his bed up to maximum volume while jostling him under his mound of covers. Gabi had performed this ritual while Gram put the finishing touches on breakfast or chopped ingredients for soup. It seemed a harsh way to wake him after such a brutal weekend, so Gabi decided to just do the jostling part and skip the ear-piercing Christian rock music. She pushed his door open, but even with the shade pulled down over his window, she could see that her brother’s bed was empty.
“Mathew?” A startled cough came from the corner of the room. It took Gabi’s eyes a minute to adjust enough to see that Mathew was sitting cross-legged on the floor with his Bible cradled in his lap and a lit candle on the nightstand. “What are you doing?”
“You could knock, you know.” He sounded more embarrassed than annoyed.
“Sorry. I thought you were asleep. What are you doing?”
Mathew flicked on the lamp, blew out the candle, and set his Bible on the nightstand. He was still in his pajamas, his face puffy from sleep.
“Praying and meditating, what does it look like?”
“Like Dad does?”
“Yeah.”
“Um, why?” His bed was already made, Gabi noticed, and his clothes for the day were hung over the back of his desk chair.
“What do you mean, ‘why’? That’s what we’re supposed to be doing. It’s in the doctrine. Dad doesn’t enforce it with you because you haven’t been consecrated yet, and you need your rest, but he’s been trying to get me into it for years.”
Gabi knew she should give Mathew some privacy so he could get dressed, but this was all too bizarre to let drop.
“But why now?”
Mathew avoided her gaze. “It’s just, like, if you want something to be there for you when you need it, you have to strengthen it. Like a muscle.”
“A muscle?”
“I’m talking about faith, Gab. When bad stuff happens, like with Mom or Gram, it’s too hard if you’re just trying to reason it out or make sense of it with logic. That’s why we have the doctrine. It’s why we pray and give message and translation. God is trying to help us, but He can’t if our faith isn’t strong.”
“Oh. Okay,” Gabi said uneasily. Mathew had always been passionate about his calling, but his ability as a Translator was one of the many natural gifts he didn’t have to work too hard at, like his athleticism or getting good grades in school. He’d never taken it so seriously before, though.
“You should be doing it too,” Mathew continued, laying his school uniform across his bed with care. “Everyone continues on, but where we continue on to is up to us, like the doctrine says. God calls us to his side, but he can’t act for us. We have to choose to live according to the Will. Don’t you want to see Mom and Gram again someday? It’s serious, Gab. I’m praying for you too.”
“For me? Why?”
“Because of your illness. And because you haven’t gotten your calling yet. It’s the calling that brings you closer to God.” Was he preaching? To her?
“Okay, well, thanks, I guess,” Gabi said, backing out of the room and closing the door. If there could be a new Gabi, forged by the loss of Gram and everything else, it made sense that there could be a new Mathew. Only Gabi missed the old Mathew. He was the one she needed to talk to.
On Sunday there’d been no opportunity to speak to him about what she’d seen at the Care Center. She was kept for observation Saturday night, and because of the discharge paperwork and an interview with Officer Katz about what she’d been doing on the ninth floor, Gabi didn’t get home until Sunday night. Her father had to carry her from the car to the house, and though Mathew sat by her bed staring at her as if she might vanish, she’d been unable to stay awake long enough to talk to him. Would he even believe her now? Would anyone believe she had witnessed such evil acts taking place in the heart of the temple complex?
The suspicion that her father knew about the horrors on D Wing swept over Gabi again, but just because her father had clearance to enter D Wing didn’t mean he had exercised that privilege. Yet he had seemed unduly anxious when he questioned her about her presence on the ninth floor. No. Her father was not a monster, not like those cold-blooded doctors, Yancy and Gearhart. Gabi could hear Sam arranging bowls and spoons on the kitchen counter. He
