“I’ve missed you, too.”
And it’s not a lie.
Not a day has passed in the last seven years that the shadow of my relationship with Tom hasn’t grown long over someone else’s love. I immediately think of Wes.
Tom leans close to me, his breath in my ear.
“I don’t want to miss you like that again,” he says.
The words hold the hint of violence. The idea that he wouldn’t let me leave this place even if I wanted to. Not now that I’ve come. Not now that he’s been relieved after waiting for me for so long. Dread creeps up my spine like someone scaling a rock face, using my ribs as hand and footholds.
He bends down, his face only an inch away. I lean back.
He holds my hand and brings it to his mouth. He kisses the back of it and lets it fall.
“There’s something I want to show you,” he says.
I reel from the force that moves between us as he steps around me in the darkness. I turn to see him pull back the wool curtain, daylight spilling into the sweat lodge.
“Come with me,” he says, a smile playing at his lips.
I follow him, and together, we leave the darkness behind.
VANESSA
After lunch, Vanessa goes for a walk. Aside from her yoga practice, walking is the second-best form of meditation for her. And she has a lot she wants to clear out of her mind. The clutter created by her encounter with Birdie and the fact that she had slaughtered an animal need to be purged. She mentally waves a smudge stick around the dusty recesses where she keeps such thoughts before they become memories, wiping her subconscious clean like a chalkboard after a particularly strenuous math lesson. Just like a chalkboard, though, the ghostly images linger of what she’s done.
She passes several groups of people murmuring to each other. When she approaches, they back off of the conversations, greeting her. Finally, at the last group, she presses them about the topic they discuss.
“Is something going on?” she asks, her voice high and cheerful as a windchime.
One of the younger girls in the group speaks up before the others can silence her.
“A journalist. The guys found one down by the creek, apparently. They brought her back up here.”
A journalist? Vanessa thinks. Her first reaction is a bristling against the idea of an outsider coming in. She guards herself against such reactions, noting that it’s a side effect of living in such a remote place. This could be beneficial, she tells herself. A journalist might be just the distraction that Tom needs for her to be able to get Birdie out from under his thumb.
She turns on the path and heads back for the house.
Inside, their home is quiet. She goes to Tom’s study, looking for him. Jeff stands, shelving some books that had been open on the desk.
“Where’s Tom?” Vanessa asks.
Jeff looks up from his task, startled. Vanessa’s presence casts a dark aura on the room, she knows. She’s aware that people treat her differently than Tom. She’s also aware that she would have handled the entire situation better than he has so far.
It wouldn’t have escalated to this point. Irritation prickles her skin like an unwanted advance from a potential lover. She’s suddenly aware of the balmy temperature in the room.
“He went to meet with the journalist,” Jeff says, his eyes not entirely meeting Vanessa’s.
“Where did they go?” she asks.
“Sweat lodge,” Jeff looks out the window, gesturing towards the structure.
Vanessa turns on her heel, the information enough. She makes no attempt at thanking Jeff or bridging the gap that looms between them. It seems that while these people worship the ground that Tom walks on, they treat her in the an entirely different fashion: like a crazy person one tick of the clock away from exploding.
The thought arouses a sense of paranoia that Vanessa has long since tried to banish. It’s a paranoia that she hasn’t felt since Mark. A sense of being watched and judged and ganged up on that she’s done her best to overcome. But if she’s being honest with herself, if there’s any place where it might be true, it’s Kenton.
Her pace quickens, her footsteps punctuating each suspicious thought. She wonders what he’s saying to the journalist and how she can subvert him. How she can take this situation and mold it like a clay figurine into what she needs it to be.
She reaches the sweat lodge and pulls back the wool curtain, taking one last breath of the clear outside air before stepping into the heat of the structure in front of her. Inside, it’s almost pitch-black. Three candles burn at the center, casting a ghostly glow only a matter of feet outward. Warmth envelopes her like a womb. Her eyes adjust, picking up the lines of light at the base of the lodge.
There’s no one here.
She throws the wool curtain back open, stepping into the sunlight. Her eyes adjust to the brightness just as slowly. Pain sparks behind them, a dull reminder that she should shield them.
She brings a hand up and the world comes into focus. People litter the porches of the cabins. There’s laughter, even despite the situation. Vanessa walks on past the row of homes on toward the cafeteria and the library.
And that’s when she sees him.
Tom.
And the journalist.
They slip into the library and Vanessa catches sight of a golden ponytail that sparks a memory that feels like fire.
She knows that hair.
She knows that girl.
That very girl ruined her marriage.
IONE
I follow Tom up to the building. He leads me to an aluminum structure. It’s something that, in Oklahoma, you wonder how it will survive the spring. But just like the movement Tom has fostered, it seems to be doing just fine.
He opens the door and inside is a library. Shelf after shelf of books stand, neatly ordered, across the room. Bookshelves climb the walls like ivy, reaching the ceiling. Ladders stand on either side, making access
