“Why wait?” Mathew asked.
“Don’t you think Dad would be more receptive to hearing that I’ve been keeping this from him if I told him after I’ve been consecrated?”
“But how do you know you’re going to get your calling this weekend?” Mathew countered weakly.
Gabi laughed because she knew she’d won. Mathew was desperate if he was resorting to cautionary tales. Rumors of those few unlucky teens who walked away from camp never having felt the hand of God steer them onto their paths surfaced every year. These youths required extensive therapy and a period of spiritual retreat after suffering such massive disappointment. Though it was preferable to be consecrated to one’s path at camp among one’s peers, the quiet ceremony held once therapy was complete was better than nothing. It was not possible to be an adult member of the Unitas Fellowship without becoming a Translator or a Messenger. It would be a contradiction to the central belief that every person was worthy to serve. Doctrine dictated that those who failed to be called must be excommunicated for the sake of the fellowship, but this never happened. Everyone got called eventually.
Gabi rose from the couch with a hiss, her cooled muscles having stiffened during her debate with Mathew. She couldn’t wait to lock herself in the bathroom with a heated bucket of bathing water for a good scouring. This meant beating Mathew to the bathroom, but she turned and extended a hand to help him off the couch in a peacemaking gesture. “You know I’m right,” she said as Mathew allowed her to pretend she was pulling him up while he did most of the work. “It makes more sense to wait until after I’m consecrated to talk to Dad. He’ll be so happy I’m finally on my path that he probably won’t even care about the pills.”
“Okay, you win,” Mathew conceded, holding up his hands. “As long as you do it the minute you get back. Otherwise, I do it myself. Honor thy father, remember?”
“Right.” Gabi nodded. “And honor thy sister by washing thyself, because thee is really stinking up the place.” Before Mathew could intercept her, Gabi faked left, dodged past him to the right, and sprinted down the hall to the bathroom.
Chapter NINE
CONSECRATION CAMP was crawling with chattering teens, and the decrepit outbuildings smelled like animal urine and mold. The choice of a rustic location on the outskirts of Cedar, a branch of the fellowship that had managed to preserve a small tract of mixed hard and softwood forest, was intentional. What better way to encourage a large group of unruly teens to stay within shouting distance of a staff member than to put them in the middle of unfamiliar terrain?
The sprawling lodge was barely big enough to accommodate the hundred or so adolescents reducing the pile of food to crumbs on the buffet table. Sixteen-year-olds bused in from every corner of the fellowship elbowed each other for access to delicacies like fried chicken, chocolate pudding, and nachos. Gabi’s frame was still waifish enough to enable her to dart in and out of the horde with ease, snatching whatever she could onto her plate without too many dirty looks cast in her direction. She piled on as much as she could hold, then found a spot on the floor by the luxurious gas-fueled fireplace to enjoy her spoils.
Gabi ate the pudding first. It was cool and creamy and had a richness to it that forever changed her definition of chocolate. The cheese on the nachos and mini pizza didn’t sit in stiff globs but oozed onto her plate and hung in gooey strands when she lifted it to her mouth. When she took her first bite of fried chicken, the crispy golden batter gave way with a savory crunch, and the flesh was so tender she could have sucked it off the bone. The chicken was the best thing Gabi had ever tasted, but eating meat off an actual bone rather than slicing into a tinned square brought Marcus’s blood-smeared lips to mind, so she set it aside after only a couple of bites.
The new counselors tried to impose order, but it was a losing battle. There was just no point until the food was gone, which was accomplished in the space of about twenty minutes. Only when the mob broke and teens scattered around the planked floor, attacking their plates like wild dogs, did the counselors start tweeting on their whistles.
“Okay, everybody, let’s start settling down! My, you’re a hungry bunch this year!” The head counselor had a voice that matched her whistle, better suited to a preschool than Consecration Camp. She looked to be about twenty years old with perfect, poreless skin and a curvaceous body shown off to advantage in a clingy T-shirt, light cardigan, and jeans. Beside her stood another counselor of about the same age, a muscled boy who looked as though he were about to start leading the group through a set of one-armed push-ups.
“I’m Ruth, and this is Zach,” Ruth chirped. “We are your head counselors, and we are so excited to get to know all of you. Welcome!” The dozens of counselors standing behind Ruth and Zach, each one of them an example of physical perfection in their own right, clapped and hooted on cue. The teens on the floor were still too preoccupied with their plates to respond in kind. Finished with her own food, Gabi leaned back against the leg of a padded armchair and took in the rustic décor of the lodge. Trophy heads were mounted high on the walls, some of which Gabi recognized, like the deer. There were still some starved herds of them that risked civilization to forage for food, though the secured greenhouses and indoor waste processing plants ensured there was little to be found. The other heads she had
