Sent Rising (Dove Strong) Read online

  The Joyners’ property was at the bottom of a four-mile slope from my family’s home, so getting here had been as easy as finding a mosquito in June. Gravity had done the work.

  But returning home?

  The return trip meant a significant amount of vertical tree climbing at each section of line in order to gain enough height for gravity to pull us to the next section. And we would travel on different cables than we’d used to get here—unchecked cables that might be frayed or cut by vandals—cables impossible to see in the dark. The whole thing was impossible tonight. At least it was for the city guy crouching next to me.

  We—I—needed to stay here at the Joyners’ until morning light, when traveling would be safer. I lifted my head from my worn sleeves.

  Wolfe nodded. “God agrees with me? I always knew your God had sense.”

  Though my mind had peace about the decision to stay here tonight...and had accepted the hope that my family really was just a few miles away...my hands still trembled. Weak. When had I last eaten?

  I stood and headed for the acorn-sized kitchen. Fragrant ropes of drying vegetables hung above the wall shelves. Mrs. Joyner wouldn’t mind if I borrowed enough for dinner. Anyway, they were from my family’s garden.

  I tore off two onions. “You like onion stew?”

  “Not really.”

  “While I make it, you light that lantern and hang it next to the unshuttered window. If the Joyners return tonight, that’ll give them warning they’ve got guests. We don’t want to surprise Mr. Joyner when he walks in.” I began to slice the onions.

  “Is he... like Gilead?”

  “He’s way smaller.”

  “Oh good.”

  “But he’s the Ochoco champion for spear throwing. Never misses. He taught Gilead after my dad died, which is half the reason Gil is so good.”

  Wolfe’s footsteps hurried toward the window. “C’mon, c’mon.” He fumbled with the lantern. “Ah. There we go.”

  I glanced up from the onions. A flame throbbed inside the lantern’s glass, casting a yellow glow on everything except the orange sunset that filtered through the open window.

  I added the vegetables, crushed garlic, and salt to the lump of deer lard sizzling in a pot. A few tendrils of herbs grew from Mrs. Joyner’s garden shelf. I threw in some plucked leaves and pushed the mess around with a whittled-out utensil.

  “Hey. That actually smells all right.”

  “Better than all right.” It’d been weeks since I’d ingested a hot meal. Gilead, Trinity, Micah and I existed on raw vegetables and fruits from our garden and daily gifts from Wolfe—snacks like doughnuts and canned tuna that we could consume without cooking. A fire in our shelter during the drought would’ve been suicidal.

  Jezebel had once tried to bully me into her home for “a surprise” homecooked meal one afternoon, but I’d fought and won that battle. By choice, I hadn’t stepped inside the Picketts’ home all month. If fanatic-haters wanted to vandalize my garden...fine. But I wouldn’t give anyone reason to destroy the expensive structure my friends called home. The Picketts hadn’t had to lie when neighbors asked if radicals lived inside. No. The radicals did not.

  My ears followed Wolfe’s whistling as he moved from the window to the hammock. He stopped at the crib.

  With a sigh, he flopped into the bearskin-covered rocker. “Nice place they’ve got here.”

  Another understatement. The aroma of caramelized onions, the golden light, the small shelter full of signs of a happy couple’s life, complete with a hammock I’d sleep on tonight instead of the ground...this place was a cozy patch of Heaven.

  The rocker creaked back and forth. “I could see myself living in a place like this someday. How about you? Would you like a place like this? Someday?”

  I stiffened. Then I lifted the water jug and sniffed to determine if its contents had spoiled. I splashed some into the pot. A cloud of steam rose up, blocking Wolfe from sight. I added some more salt, gave another stir...then couldn’t find anything more to do with the stew. I set down the stirring stick.

  Wolfe quit rocking. “Would you? Would you like a place like this? Someday?”

  “Uh...” Why were my knees wobbling again? I plunked down in the bear-skin rocker opposite Wolfe’s before he noticed my weak reaction to a simple question.

  Would I like to live in a home like this? Yes, of course I would. I belonged in the treetops. I even preferred the tight quarters of this space to my own family’s sprawling tree home. But I sensed an intimacy here that belonged to a married couple—a couple devoted to each other. A couple in love.

  The fact was evident from the marriage certificate displayed above the door, to the crib crafted for their baby, to the pair of matching chairs, to—worst of all—the wide hammock woven for two.

  My eyes traced a pattern in the bright rug Mrs. Joyner had made, probably to keep Mr. Joyner’s feet off the chilly winter floorboards while he soothed their baby. Was Wolfe asking me what I thought? Did I ever wish to live in a place like this...with him?

  He stood up. With a loud scrape, he repositioned his rocker next to mine even though it was a tight squeeze. He plunked back down. Side by side we gazed out the un-shuttered rectanglar hole at the indigo sky. His fingers twisted around mine.

  We held hands sometimes. I also held hands with Jezebel and Trinity...and a hundred years ago, with Melody and Stone. But in this moment, our linked hands seemed to symbolize a hazy future. This could be us, joined together, in our own house in the trees...someday. If I spoke up.

  The pot rattled.

  “Stew.” I tugged out of his handhold and wobbled for the stove.

  Wolfe followed and leaned against the wall next to the tiny flame. “I didn’t know you could cook.”

  I let out the breath I’d been holding. “Doesn’t every kid try? Even Gilead fried up a mess of earthworms once. But my mom...she cooks for us and so does my aunt.”

  As I uttered the word mom, a whispered warning caught my ear. Unequally yoked.

  I dropped the stirring stick and frowned up into the tanned, cheerful features that my eyes sought more than anyone else’s. I found my words.

  “I like this place. I like you. But I can’t have a place like this with you. Not ever. I can’t be unequally yoked.”

  Wolfe laughed, the guffaw brittle and forced. “What about unequal yolks?”

  “Not egg yolks. Yokes. Those wooden things that oxen wore in the old days to pull loads. The oxen wearing yokes had to be paired right, the strong with the strong. The weak with the weak. Balanced. It means I can’t ever end up in a relationship with a non-Christian.”

  “But what if I’m not a non-Christian?”

  “Huh?”

  “Listen. I’m not an idiot. I get God is important to you. That you love Him. I’ve given up on the idea of you ever ditching Him. So, I’m willing to share you. Even if that means me becoming like Stone or Micah in order to share.”

  The impossible idea of him becoming like either of those serious, bearded Christians made my lips twitch.

  “You approve? Just tell me what I need to do—is there a ceremony? Do we find a priest or something and have him say the right religious words? Growing out my chin hair might take a few weeks, but I’m serious. I’ll do it. For you, I’ll become a fanatic.”

  For me? My heart lurched. “You can’t say magic words. Or decide to become a Christian because you love me. You have to love God. Then tell Him you know you’re a sinner. Believe that his son Jesus Christ died for your sins. And invite Jesus to control your life through the Holy Spirit.”

  “Control my life? Are you sure we can’t just find a priest and—ow!”

  I tossed my spoon-weapon on the counter and lifted the pot.

  Wolfe lurched away.

  Instead of throwing its contents at him, I filled two wooden bowls to the brim with the steaming stew. I pushed one at him. “Here. Eat instead of talking.”

  We carried our bowls to the table and sat down. He waite
d for me to finish praying and then lifted his eyes to the rafters. “Like she said. Gracias.”

  I’d expected to drain my bowl of the hot, salty broth in seconds. But because of the knot in my gut, I could only sip at it.

  “And I never said I love you.” He grinned at my spoon frozen in midair. “You said I couldn’t become a Christian only because I love you. I never said I did.”

  “Oh.”

  “Although I do.”

  “Enough, Wolfe! Or I’m zip lining out of here tonight, and you can find your own way to my home tomorrow morning. I’ve enough problems with my family missing. I don’t need you...you—” I tossed my spoon into my unfinished broth and pointed at the Joyners’ bed with an unsteady hand. “I’m going to sleep. Do you want the hammock? Or the floor?”

  He picked up our unfinished stew and carried the bowls to kitchen. “No, you get a good night sleep for once. Enjoy the hammock. I’m sure the rug and I will be very comfortable together.”

  I hurled the bearskin onto the rug and then flopped down on the hammock’s woven strands. Why did my idiotic heart still gallop in my chest? I forced my mind to the stars instead of following Wolfe’s movements around the cozy home.

  Keep me strong. Protect Trinity underground. And give me a dream of red, so I know where to go on my journey to find my family. Show me the way.

  5

  I awoke from a dreamless sleep to a tap, tap, tap. Not a knock on the door, only a woodpecker.

  My head’s jerk had started my bed swaying. I stretched in the giant hammock and relaxed into the familiar, rocking motion. I wasn’t curled up on the ground. I was back in the treetops where I belonged. At the Joyners’, although they hadn’t returned.

  I continued to grin at the sloped ceiling boards. God hadn’t sent me a dream. No informative dream meant I wouldn’t have to go on a long journey to find my family, didn’t it? Wolfe was right. They were safe, most likely at the Braes’ place with Trinity. If I hurried, I might see them before lunchtime.

  As my hammock swung toward the spot where Wolfe sprawled across most of the floor, I jumped over him. Thud. He opened his eyes and glanced at the burned-out lantern, at the closed door, and then at me in the kitchen. He shut them again. “Onion stew. For breakfast?”

  I gulped another mouthful of my unfinished broth from last night. “Flavor is even better the next day cold. Yours is right here waiting.”

  “You eat it.”

  “I plan to. But you better be up and ready to go by the time I’m finished. Getting home isn’t going to be as quick—or as fun for you—as yesterday’s trip.”

  ~*~

  The throbbing sun veered for the western horizon by the time we collapsed back home on my family’s deserted platforms. I half-crawled to a bench hewed out of new pine and curled up. My thighs and calves ached from the amount of tree climbing I’d accomplished.

  Wolfe flung himself beside me. There was a red burn line across one palm where he’d brainlessly grabbed the cable toward the end of the last line. “Looks like Trinity isn’t back with the family yet.”

  “Nope.”

  He blew on his wound. “I can’t believe Mr. and Mrs. Joyner do that every time they visit.”

  I reached out and examined his palm. He was lucky it wasn’t worse. “Mrs. Joyner stopped visiting after she got pregnant.”

  “Still. Tough lady. Uh...and why couldn’t we have just walked to your home?”

  “It takes a lot longer. There’s a couple of undercut ledges and sheer drop offs on the way.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Also, we’d run the risk of Heathen attacking us.”

  “Dove, I’m a Heathen. What a dumb reason. You’re telling me we could have just hiked?”

  I shrugged. “Thought you were pumped about the zip lines.”

  “I changed my mind. And about that stew, too. I’m ready for some, even cold. I’ve never been so starved in my entire life. I’m already skinny enough and look like one of those stick bugs—”

  “Trinity!” New strength surged through my muscles at the sight of my cousin emerging from behind the rusty camper in the distance. I leaped over Wolfe’s legs and flung myself against the rail. My eyes scanned the junk piles and nearby forest. Where were the others she’d found at the Braes?

  “Oh.” I stumbled back to the bench. “She’s alone. You...we were wrong.”

  Wolfe patted my hair a few times while we waited. “Hey, Trinity. How were the tunnels?”

  My cousin stood before us, her usually intricate loops of shining braids were now fuzzy and dull with tunnel grime. Her torn pantleg hung like a flag, and mud streaked her tunic front. Yet her dirt-smeared face pulled into a tight grin.

  “Hideous. It doesn’t matter because…beautiful news. The lost have been found.”

  6

  I launched myself off the bench as if I had wings and my destination was the moon. “You found Mom? And Saul? And Grandpa? And—”

  While I bounced in circles, Wolfe swung Trinity off her feet. “You found them. You found them! I said you would!”

  A small potato blurred past my shoulder. It hit Wolfe’s ear and burst into pieces.

  “What did you not understand about my warning, Heathen? Put my cousin down.”

  Gilead stood on the ladder’s threshold holding three rabbit carcasses. Micah, further down on the rungs, scowled past my brother’s hip. The crook of his arm supported a pile of pine cone-sized potatoes.

  I scooped up the largest fragment of potato off the floor and chucked it back at my brother. It flew wide. Micah snorted at my aim.

  “Let it go, Dove. Don’t fight. What does it matter if the jerk throws potatoes at me? Because your family is OK. That’s what matters.” With a grimace at Micah, Wolfe retreated to stand at the top of the back-entrance ladder.

  Trinity stepped over the starchy mess and sank onto the pine bench. She laid her head back as if her hair coils were heavy. “No, no, Dove. You guys don’t understand. I found some of them. Not everyone.”

  My glare switched from my brother to my cousin. “Sky alive, Trinity! You said you found them.”

  Gilead cleared his throat. “Explain. Where have you been searching, Trinity? And what have you found—or not found? Was it Saul? You girls were supposed to wait for me here.”

  I summed up the situation for my brother so Trinity could get back to more important explanations. “The whole family has disappeared. I checked the Joyners’ place for them, but they’re gone, too. Trinity just got back from checking Micah’s place and was telling us who she found when you barged in.”

  Micah trudged past an immobile Gilead to the bench. “Gone? My dad? My...my mom?”

  Trinity’s grime-covered body shuddered. “Micah? Your home is a terrible place to live. Terrible.”

  “I know.”

  “The dirt and complete blackness is like a suffocating tomb. There’s no color or sunlight or anything to make you want to live. And the lighting...it’s bad.”

  “I know.”

  I threw up my hands. “We all know. Rotten place to live. Tell about our family, Trinity. Who’d you find?”

  “Jovie—”

  “Only Jovie?”

  “Let me finish, Dove.” She held up a finger of warning, frowned at the ugly, half-moon of dirt around her fingertip, and began to shine it with the bottom of her shirt.

  “Trinity! Quick. Tell us.”

  She sighed. “I found Jovie, Zion, Abel, and Isaac.”

  “Only your sister and brothers. No one else?” My question came out as a squeak.

  “They’re living with Micah’s mom and sisters. And Millie, the Joyners’ baby, was there. Every adult except Mrs. Brae has been taken away.”

  “Where?” My brother spoke for the first time since threatening Wolfe, his voice now deadly calm. “How could Grandpa have allowed it?”

  I settled on the floor next to Wolfe’s shoes and rested against the wall planks to listen. I had to know...but my hands itched to cover my ear
s.

  “I asked Zion to tell me what happened,” Trinity said. “He and my brothers and Jovie were in the camper fixing up their fort a couple weeks ago when vehicles rolled onto our property. People in uniforms got out. Grandpa let those uniformed people into our home without trying to stop them.”

  Gilead looked down at his hands, fisted and resting on the tops of his knees. “Because I wasn’t there to help him stop them.”

  Trinity shrugged. “While the trespassers met with Grandpa up here, Jovie discovered the Joyners alone, locked inside one of the strangers’ cars.”

  Wolfe low-whistled next to me and was cut off by a glance from my brother.

  “Mrs. Joyner pleaded with Jovie to go hide and take care of Baby Millie once everyone was gone. So the kids hid inside the camper. Zion made them stay under the tarp for a long time in case the people in uniforms searched the place.”

  Gilead grunted. “Smart kid.”

  “When they came out of hiding and climbed up here, everyone was gone. Including my dad. And your dad, Micah. He’d been visiting that night and must’ve been taken by the people in uniforms, too. I think he’s been lonely since you and your sister left. Maybe that’s why he visited that night.”

  Micah fiddled with his potatoes.

  “After that, you can guess. Jovie ziplined to the Joyner’s place, got Millie, and brought her back home. She did her best to feed the baby and the other kids, but after a week, even Zion was worried no one had returned. He decided they should check if Mrs. Brae was still around underground, and she was. Since then, she’s been keeping the kids safe and fed, although I think Jovie and Zion are really the ones in charge down there. It’s quite...interesting.”

  Zion and Jovie were in charge? Zion was only fourteen, and Jovie was the youngest of all the children. Nice kids, but both of them were bossy. No doubt they found joy doling out the days’ chores to their siblings, despite the darkness and the problem of missing parents.

  Micah and Gilead exchanged a long look. My brother nodded. “Who were they, Trinity? The people in the uniforms?”

  “Zion didn’t know. Mrs. Brae thinks Heathen officials. Possibly cops. Or government workers.”