The Chosen One

  “Amen,” Patrick says.

  “Please, God, please. I’m sorry. Help us. Please.”

  “Kyra,” Patrick says. “Get my cell phone.”

  With his head he nods to the glove compartment. I open it. There it is. A slim black phone. “Not too much farther up the road and we’ll get service,” he says. “Turn it on now. When we get close enough, the phone will make a chirrup sound. The face will light up. Then you call nine-one-one.”

  “All right,” I say.

  I press the On button. My hands shake as I watch the cell phone.

  There’s no service at all.

  “Just a little farther, baby,” Patrick says to the Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels.

  “Come on, baby,” I say.

  A Hummer slams into the side of the van.

  We swerve. More books fall from the shelves. The Big Gulp cup topples, splashing soda on my dress and legs.

  I squeeze my eyes shut. “Oh God. Dearest Father. Please help us. Please get us to safety.” My hands are clenched so tight I feel my nails cutting into my palms. My shoulder belt presses against my ribs and it hurts.

  The Hummer hits us again. The picture of Emily and Nathan flutters to the floor.

  Patrick slams on the brakes and the car behind us hits us. We swerve, running off the road. Back on. Dust billows. My mouth won’t close. A small sound escapes me. The car comes to a halt next to a ditch and the van teeters. And then slides into the hole. Books scatter everywhere. Patrick and I are trapped. And there’s still no service on the phone.

  Patrick is suspended above me, his seat belt holding him. He kicks himself free. I’m lying on the door. He’s bleeding. Blood drips down his chin, splats on my face and on the window next to me.

  “Sorry,” he says. And then, “Hide that phone. Run when they get us out of here, Kyra. And there’s an extra key in the Ks.”

  “What?”

  Patrick doesn’t answer and I only have a chance to tuck the phone away.

  Then they have us both out. On our knees. Hands locked behind us. Heads bent. In the sun of the late afternoon.

  _______

  BROTHER FELIX TAKES ME away in the police car. I watch Patrick as we leave. I see them kick him over and over. I see him fall to the side. One of the God Squad pulls Patrick to his knees again.

  My screaming won’t stop. Not even when the sheriff hits me in the mouth, resplitting my lips. I taste blood. But I can’t stop watching Patrick, who goes in and out of view because of the dust we’ve kicked up. I watch and scream his name.

  Watch as they circle him.

  I watch until I can’t see him anymore.

  What have I done?

  More blood on my hands?

  Dear God. What have I done?

  “HE’S A PROPHET, you know that, don’t you?”

  I won’t look at Sheriff Felix. I refuse to look at him. Don’t look, just ignore him, I hate him, I hate his guts.

  Instead, I stare out the window where Patrick was before. My eyes strain to see past the nothing that is there. We’ve gone too far for me to see him. We’re headed back. Headed back.

  I look and imagine that he’s there.

  He’s fine, Patrick is fine. I see him getting up, standing, fighting his way free. I keep my eyes looking to where he might be. He’s in the Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels, tipping it back on the tires. He’s driving to save me.

  “You hear me, Kyra?” Brother Felix says.

  “I hear you,” I say.

  “I got a testimony of him,” Brother Felix says. And his voice goes foggy with emotion.

  Now I look at the police officer.

  He glances at me, and I see his eyes have filled with tears.

  “I know he rules. That he stands beside Jesus in power.”

  I say nothing, just listen.

  “I’d do anything to serve him,” he says. “I love him.”

  Behind me, what’s happening?

  I close my ears to Brother Felix.

  Then I close my eyes.

  After a moment, I pray again.

  Dear God. Dear God. Please help him. Dear God, please don’t let this prayer be too late. Please keep him safe. Please, for Nathan. For his Emily. For me.

  _______

  THEY DO NOTHING to me.

  Nothing.

  Just send me home to Father and say, “Watch her.”

  Mother Claire comes to me later. “Don’t try it again, Kyra,” she says. She’s wringing her hands. She never does that. “They’ve beaten you once. I’m surprised they didn’t beat you when they got you back.” She bites at her bottom lip. “Honey,” she says, “I have a really bad feeling. A really bad feeling. Promise me you won’t do it again.”

  Her words scare the spit out of me. I mean I cannot even work up enough moisture to wet my tongue. I can’t answer her.

  All I have in my head is Patrick. What happened to Patrick?

  The next day, as soon as I see the Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels van hidden near my stand of Russian Olives, like they’re trying to cover it but not, I know something is bad wrong.

  The hairs rise on my neck. I slow my walk, pretending not to look, but looking anyway.

  And then here comes the God Squad. Stepping out of the shadows the van makes. Two of Prophet Childs’s bodyguards. They’re big. I see them see me pretending I don’t see the van.

  They watch me walk. Brother Nelson raises his sunglasses so I can see his eyes. He moves his head in a gesture like he’s saying, “You.”

  They’ve parked it here on purpose. Where I can see it. To show me. So I know. Without saying a word they’re telling me to behave, to do what I’m told. Or else. Or else whatever they’ve done to Patrick, they’ll do to me.

  I keep my walk steady, though I want to run back to my trees. Or run to the van. Search for Patrick. My lips have gone numb. I’m dizzy. My hands feel like they’re asleep.

  I feel sick to my stomach. I’m going to throw up. Right here. Right now. Right in my yard with them watching me pretending not to see anything.

  But I can’t vomit.

  I have to just go on back in the house. Just go on back. With that cell phone that won’t even work tucked in my dress like I used to tuck Patrick’s books. Acting like I don’t know anything.

  Oh, but I do.

  I do.

  I know, without seeing the body, that Patrick is dead.

  WHEN THEY ARE GONE, as evening sets in, I sneak over to the van and peer in the window. The books are still spilled, all over the back on the floor. They didn’t throw away Patrick’s Big Gulp cup. It’s crushed on the passenger’s side of the van. Did I step on it after it fell? I don’t remember.

  They didn’t even clean the blood out of the van. I see it spattered all over the windshield, gone brown. On the seat. In a puddle on the carpet. Pooled and dried and cracking on the floor.

  It’s Patrick’s blood, I know.

  Did they kill him in here? Where’s his body?

  Somehow, I make it over to my Russian Olive tree and climb as high as I am able. Straight up into the branches. Into the thorns. Even when I am stabbed, I don’t care.

  My friend is dead.

  I cry with my mouth open, but I don’t make a sound. Not a sound. I cry until I’m gasping for breath, and once, I almost fall from my tree. I cry until I am hoarse, even though I’ve not made one bit of noise.

  My family calls for me in hushed tones, “Kyra. Kyra, come home.”

  I don’t. I stay in the tree and cry.

  Poor Nathan. Poor Emily. Waiting for Patrick to come home. I cry until the moon is high in the sky.

  Then I go back home.

  I crawl into bed beside Laura. That is when I realize, lying next to my sister, that I am not me anymore.

  I’m not sure who I am. Mother Claire and Father and dead Abigail and Emily and Laura and Joshua and music and Patrick and books and death—no, murder!—it all has changed me. If I looked into the mirror, I am prett
y sure that everything about me, under the bruises and cuts, would be changed. I would not have the same eyes. Would not have the same face shape. Would not have the same hair color.

  I am not me anymore.

  I go to sleep knowing that.

  I am not me. Any. More.

  I HAVE NO IDEA what time I wake up. It might be ten minutes after I went to sleep, it might be almost morning. One thing I know is that I am still changed. I am not me, still. I think I’ve grown hollow.

  In the semidarkness I see my wedding dress hanging from a coat hanger on the closet door. It’s like a ghost.

  Quiet, I get out of bed and go looking for Mother’s sewing scissors. On the living-room floor, where Mother laid out the fabric before Abigail died, I cut the wedding dress into strips. Thin strips. Too thin for even a quilt. So thin you could only start a fire.

  “Kyra?” Laura stands in the doorway of our room.

  I start. My hands are full of fabric. I see I’ve dropped some of it. It’s there on the floor, at Laura’s feet.

  “What are you doing?”

  When I open my mouth, no words come out at first. There! Now Laura will see my change. She’ll see I’m different. How does she recognize me? At last I say, “I’m leaving.”

  She pads across the floor, puts her arms around me and the strips of fabric. Presses her lips to my face.

  “Where are you going?” Her breath is warm and I close my eyes.

  “Away from here,” I say because the changed me doesn’t care where. Just out. Just get out.

  When I look at her, there are tears on Laura’s face. “Don’t go,” she says. But she kisses me good-bye. Again and again.

  “I love you,” she says.

  “I love you, too,” I say.

  She stands on the porch and watches me walk away. Her voice follows me into the near darkness. “Good-bye, my Kyra.” Her voice tells me she’s still crying.

  I stop off at Uncle Hyrum’s place. Spread the fabric all over the steps, all over the bushes near the front, on the lush grass of his yard. If he hadn’t wanted to marry me, I wouldn’t be leaving. If he hadn’t wanted me, Joshua might still be here. Baby Abigail would be alive. Patrick would be alive.

  But no, that’s not completely right.

  This all goes past Uncle Hyrum.

  It’s not just his fault. Maybe not his fault at all.

  I stop and squeeze my hands tight, then start back toward my Russian Olive trees. Mother and Father believe. They believe they are doing right. I am sure of this.

  Or I was before I changed.

  THE DOOR TO THE Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels opens without even a noise. I pull it shut behind me, but not quite all the way. Then I untuck Patrick’s cell phone from where I’d hidden it in my dress and turn it on. My hands shake like crazy.

  No service. That’s what it says. I look back at the spilled books.

  There’s an extra key in the Ks. He said that. Patrick said it. A key to the van, I’m sure.

  It’s hard to walk in the almost dark, through all these novels. Do I step on stories I’ve read? Is that first book, Bridge to Terabithia, in this mound?

  A few books move under my foot and I slip to one knee. I crawl to where the Ks are. The shelf is near the ground.

  Using the cell phone as light, I pull the titles out and stack them into a neat pile. Dick King-Smith, Gordon Korman, Uma Krishnaswami. And then there it is. Taped to the shelf. A key.

  It’s cool and a little sticky in my hand. I crawl back over the books and climb into the driver’s seat. Into Patrick’s seat. I put the phone in the cup holder where those Big Gulp cups sat.

  I squeeze my eyes shut. “Just get to cell-phone service,” I whisper. The shaking has moved from my hands to my knees. It’s like my legs have no bone.

  Outside, it’s dark enough that if I didn’t know this Compound like my own sisters’ faces, I would be in trouble.

  “Oh, you’re in trouble, all right,” I say. The new me almost smiles. I ease the van into neutral.

  The Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels, banged up and dented all around, starts the first time I turn the key. The sound is like a bomb going off to my ears. Hopefully I’m far enough away from the God Squad that I’ll have some time.

  I put the van into drive. It lurches almost from under me and I slam on the brakes, jerking forward in the seat. “You’ve driven with Mother,” I say. Then I grasp the wheel with all my power and hold on for dear life. For my own dear life.

  “You can do this, Kyra Leigh Carlson. You can.”

  You have to, I think.

  Thank goodness they parked the van here, so close to my home. There’s no fencing this side of my home, just at the front of the Compound. I creep along. Afraid to go too fast. I steer near the trailer. Laura is on the steps, waiting. She watches as I drive past her and I think my heart might give me up right this second. I look as hard as I can at her, hard as I can as I drive away. Put my hand on the window. And she watches me, too. Standing there. My sister. Her hand raised to me. I think we can almost touch.

  Then she is gone. And I move away from my home, my father’s trailers. My brothers and sister. My mothers.

  I ease the van past everyone’s property, behind gardens but near to fields, going so slow, my foot shaking on the gas pedal. With a gasp I suck in air, realizing I haven’t been breathing. Now—it seems an eternity—now I drive past the fence and turn the direction I went with my mothers just a few days ago. The direction I went with Patrick, poor Patrick, yesterday.

  Still I am cautious. Still I am slow. Hoping this engine makes no sound. Hoping no one but Laura knows I’m gone. Hands shaking, my knees weak. I pull out on the road and when I think no one can hear this old bookmobile, I push the pedal down and I am free, going forty-five miles per hour. Away.

  “DID YOU THINK you would get free without a fight?” That’s what I say to myself when I see the headlights come up on the road behind me.

  “As if I wasn’t shaking enough before,” I say to the blood on the window.

  This is as close as I’m getting to Patrick. Talking to his blood.

  In the rearview mirror I see the car lights blink off and on.

  “I’m not pulling over,” I say.

  I don’t speed up at all. Just keep the Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels going at that easy forty-five miles per hour.

  “You realize,” I say to what is left of Patrick, “that they’ll kill me, too.”

  The Hummer pulls up to the side window. They snap on the interior light. I can’t quite look at them. I’ll wreck sure. When I ease up on the gas, my leg jumps, I’m so scared. I can just see Brother Laramie in the passenger seat. He points to the side of the road, making his finger like a gun.

  “All you have to do,” Patrick says in my head, “is get to the Ironton County line. We were almost there before. We almost made it.”

  “I can do that,” I say. “I’m not so good at driving, but I can get there.”

  “Just get to service for the phone. Then dial nine-one-one.”

  If you’re there, God, I think, please help me. But He didn’t help Patrick, did He?

  “You only have a few more miles to go.” Patrick’s voice is like a whisper in my brain.

  In the bed of the Ironton County Mobile Library on Wheels, I can hear books sliding this way and that as I drive along this pot-holed road. My hands are clenched so tight they feel frozen. And in my head, right behind Patrick’s voice, there is a small pain, growing.

  “Is that where they’ll shoot me?” I say.

  “You’ll be fine,” Patrick says. “Just fine.”

  Beside me, Brother Laramie has rolled down the window. He calls out. “Kyra,” he says. “Sister Carlson.”

  I refuse to look at him.

  “Patrick?” I say. “Patrick?”

  “Pull on over, girl,” Brother Laramie says. “You don’t have much gas.”

  He’s right. I can see that on the control panel. Look
ing down causes me to almost hit the God Squad’s car. They drop back some.

  “Slow and steady wins the race.” This is Mother Sarah’s voice. Telling me the tortoise and the hare story. In my head I see her standing near to Patrick. And then there’s Father.

  “Run, Kyra. Get out of here. Get free.” His voice is as soft as the other two, but the words are more urgent.

  “I’m trying, Father,” I say, gripping the steering wheel.

  I speed the van up. Go a little faster. In the distance I can see the sun turning the sky a clear blue.

  “Drive to town,” says Joshua.

  Joshua’s here!

  “I am,” I say.

  I’m nowhere near where they stopped us before, where they stopped Patrick and me before, when the phone lets out a little singsong sound. I see it there in the cup holder, all lit up.

  “It can’t be,” I say.

  “Pull over, Kyra,” someone yells out at me.

  But that is all the time I have for them in the car next to me.

  I’m careful when I dial. Careful when I push the speaker button on the phone. Careful when I set the phone back into the Big Gulp cup holder.

  “This is nine-one-one. What’s your emergency?”

  “I’m running away,” I say.

  “Please speak louder.”

  Under my hands, the steering wheel shakes as I drive over the washboard dirt road.

  “Stop the vehicle now.”

  I glance at Brother Laramie. I can just see Brother Nelson. And a gun. He has a gun!

  “Help me.” My voice is loud.

  I don’t want to die.

  (Patrick didn’t want to die either. He had a wife and a son.)

  “They have a gun,” I say. “They have a gun.” Will I get this far and follow Patrick?

  “Where are you?”

  I tell the woman that I’m heading toward town. What I am driving.

  “You’re in a mobile book van?” she says.

  Brother Laramie points to the side of the road with the gun.

  I pretend like he’s not there.

  “They’ve killed people already,” I say. I tell her Patrick’s name. Give them Ellen’s name, too, though they wouldn’t know her. “If I stop, they’ll kill me. I know it.”