She’d started going with him to the church at his request. Vanessa hated it. She was always there. And it seemed that she resented her husband for bringing his assistant. In spite of all the turmoil between Dr. Wolsieffer and his wife, they stayed together. Their fates entangled with each other in a way that Birdie couldn’t yet understand.
The preacher that led the congregation was an old man. He went by Brother Martin, though Birdie was uncertain there was much of any order in who was called what within the Unitarian church. A charismatic man, he took Dr. Wolsieffer under his wing.
Brother Martin surprised Birdie. He didn’t look at her the way that so many older religious men did. When Martin spoke, he looked Birdie directly in the eye. He asked her opinion on things. He treated her like an equal, like a human being instead of a woman. It seemed all too often that in religion, the word woman was something dirty to be spat out like a curse. But Brother Martin wasn’t like that at all, and Birdie found herself drawn to him just as Dr. Wolsieffer had been.
And then Martin got sick.
Dr. Wolsieffer had ingratiated himself within the flock. He’d become Brother Martin’s right-hand man. The way he juggled the responsibilities of professor and preacher’s assistant baffled Birdie. The two positions seemed to be so delicately juxtaposed that a stiff wind would have made the entire thing fall apart.
But when Brother Martin died, quite the opposite happened.
Dr. Wolsieffer took the pulpit.
He preached in a way that Brother Martin had only dreamed of. The way that he commanded his classroom was only a preview of Dr. Wolsieffer the proselytizer. The Sunday morning that he took over, Birdie would remember always.
Martin had asked him to take his place. The congregation expected it. They’d begun to look to Dr. Wolsieffer—Tom to them—as a surrogate leader. He’d become inextricably linked to the church. He began to let some of his other responsibilities within the university slide. Birdie picked up the slack, becoming more and more invaluable to him each day.
On this Sunday, though, she was a spectator.
He took the pulpit, the crowd barely murmuring. And then he looked out over them.
“Good morning,” he said.
The crowd echoed it back at him.
“As you all know, we lost a great man last week,” Dr. Wolsieffer said. “A great man that had become a mentor to me and showed me a way of living that I never knew before. I met Brother Martin at a university function, and he invited me here. I came as an outsider and left as one of you,” he said.
A few people muttered Amen.
“Before Martin died, though, he gave something to me,” Dr. Wolsieffer held up a traveler’s notebook. Pieces of paper struggled to burst from the binding. It was filled to maximum capacity with Martin’s writings. “He showed me something in these notebooks that I want to share with you,” he said.
He unbound the book and opened it.
“This is the way, as it was laid down to me by God,” he read. He went on to preach the first sermon in what would become The Way. Brother Martin had laid out the plan to live a life free from pain and Dr. Wolsieffer had taken up the mantle. He stirred the passions of the congregation, riding the wave of Martin’s charisma and melting it into his own.
“This is the true way!” he cried out, holding the book over his head. The people cheered and listened eagerly. “This is the path that God has chosen for us to follow!”
Birdie watched as the people who’d come as members of a congregation left as disciples of Tom Wolsieffer.
It was shortly after that when Dr. Wolsieffer came to Birdie with her first real assignment as his assistant. This no longer had to do with getting his laundry or his caffeine fix; this was important.
“I want you to help me write this,” he said one evening in his office when they’d worked late.
“Write what?” Birdie asked.
Dr. Wolsieffer thumbed through Brother Martin’s notebook.
“The Way,” he said.
“Isn’t it already written?” Birdie asked.
“It needs to be cleaned up,” he said.
“I’d be happy to,” Birdie said.
That night, she didn’t realize what she’d agreed to. She didn’t realize that she would be doing almost all of the writing, adapting the passages to a modern audience, making changes where Dr. Wolsieffer decreed them.
She told him goodnight and turned for the door.
“Birdie,” he said.
She stopped.
“One more thing,” he said. “Call me Tom.”
Birdie smiled. She hated herself for it, but there was some small victory in earning the level of intimacy with him that he and her friend had shared. A small sense of pride swelled in her chest.
She left that night, not realizing what they’d started. It would be some time before she did. But she could say with certainty, years later, that she’d witnessed the very beginning.
IONE
“This is it,” Ollie says.
We stand on the edge of the compound. A series of cabins line the trees and a larger house—Tom’s house—looms at the end of them next to a series of buildings that I assume function as common areas, a cafeteria maybe.
We walk past the cabins. People sit on porches in lawn chairs. They seem to be in good spirits. In the distance, I can make out the shapes of official looking vehicles close to the front of the property. Some of the people walking around Tom’s compound carry guns with them. I notice a handgun holstered at the hip of one woman and a rifle on the back of another. A man with what looks
