Revelation Way

By Marcus Damanda

Four Days till the Lamb ...

On Angel Island, the Ceremony is ready. The cameras are in place. For Ruth Black and her husband, the Reverend Matthew, there’s just one problem: their intended sacrifice has plans of his own.

Huddled around a forbidden computer in the compound’s junk shop, five teenage prisoners launch an escape against impossible obstacles: a barricaded church, the electrified perimeter fence, the Key Tower guards, an invisible wall in the water that surrounds the island prison—and against the soldiers of Open Light of Day, led by the most ruthless collector of wayward children in all of New America.

They have to run during the ceremony. Far from keeping it secret, they need as many people to know the truth as possible, or there’ll be nowhere to run. For Rebecca Riggs, Daniel Forester, and their fellow Forgottens, the road home leads through Revelation Way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Evernight Teen
• Release date: Sep 21, 2018
• ISBN: 9781773398006

Book preview

Prologue

The Infinite Second

Trinidad, Colorado

All her life, it had been her job to take care of things, and people.

She arranged the artifacts on a wide folding metal table in the basement. She had a small pile of hard copies of all of Daniel’s letters, which occupied one of the corners. She’d gotten them via encrypted email. The password was different each time, the changes consistent and predictable, if one knew the pattern of the change.

She scanned the first sentence of the most recent letter, adding it to her electronic scrapbook:

"There comes a time, right before that first step into any great adventure, the moment before the final plunge into battle, when time stops. There is an infinite second to catch your breath."

She had a recent photo of him. She scanned that too, adjusting the frame’s length and width to make it fit just so. This must be what it was like to lay out and arrange a comic book, she thought, back when there were comic books. She had never seen one, except in video files.

She plugged the scanner into the computer to download the newest videos that had come over from the Children’s Crusade’s outposts in Philadelphia and Annapolis.

The first one had to have been confiscated through the Pennsylvania Office of Citizen Registry, then inadvertently recovered with more important material sometime after the Battle of Gas Masks. It was a video phone recording, showing a man standing outside a chain-link fence with a radiation warning on it. Whoever held the phone was shooting through the open window of a car.

From the person holding the phone: Pete, come back. Come on. Don’t be stupid.

And from the man, Pete: It’s safe, honey. It’s bullshit. All of this—everything. It’s all bullshit. He started to dance, a mockery of celebration. Keep filming, Sherrie.

"I don’t care about the radiation. You could probably use it. There could be security cameras, you jackass!"

From behind her, crying. The camera panned to the back of the car. There sat a boy, no more than eight or nine years old. He was distraught. He was … familiar. Daniel?

"Stop it, Dad," he called. We’ll get in trouble.

So Pete was Big Pete—Little Pete’s grandfather. Daniel Forester’s father.

Big Pete returned to the car. He apologized. Then he said, It’s the truth. The truth matters.

Wow, the caretaker thought. Who found this?

Whoever had discovered it, whatever reason they might have had for sending it, Little Pete wouldn’t see it. Not until he was older, anyway.

She switched to the second video, the one from Annapolis.

It was an execution.

It started with a courtroom. The defendant was a middle-aged woman wearing modest, ordinary clothes and a pair of handcuffs. Her face was both defiant and afraid. She stood on a rubber mat laid out over the marble floor in front of the spectator’s gallery.

It was a silent video feed, the speakers’ lips pixelated to nothing. Underneath it, a text crawl: Riley Garland, age thirty-nine, guilty of sedition and raising three undeclared children out of wedlock.

At the top of the feed, an unmoving pair of text lines pronounced: The First Change, Post-Scourge, Early Revival Era. Open Light of Day Put into Practice in State of Maryland, 15th to Reach Compliance Standards.

In the front row of the gallery, three witnesses identified in a bottom screen text crawl: two brothers and their sister. The brothers stared, their faces stoic. Perhaps they were in shock. But their sister was screaming enough for all three, so far as the caretaker could tell. Briefly, the video labeled her: Alison Garland, age 20, Undeclared Female Bastard Child of Miss Garland.

But then the camera returned to the defendant—or, as it turned out, the convicted.

At a nod from the judge, the bailiff walked right up to her and shot her twice in the side of the head.

One of her stoic sons in the gallery collapsed.

Alison was still screaming, for all the good it did her, her face awash in tears.

The text crawl continued: Justice. Justice. Justice.

And then, a black screen and a scrolling wall of text:

Alison was given into the custody of a local church family directly following these proceedings. Pastor Jefferson Riggs’s son, a student at seminary, found a godly sympathy and interest in young Miss Garland. The two were soon married and began their own ministry. Jeremiah 29:11: For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Then, a final line:

Blessings of the Lord.

Well, the caretaker thought, Little Pete won’t be watching that anytime soon either.

She unhooked the palm scanner and took inventory, sweeping through the documents and images she had added over time. Among these, her favorites were Little Pete’s drawings, which he kept in a bedside drawer upstairs. They were so lifelike, based only on the descriptions his father had provided in his letters.

Here was Daniel again, back at the age he and Rebecca had met, with his corn-colored hair, mostly hacked away to Angel Island–shortness, and the struggling peach fuzz that couldn’t quite qualify as a beard. His face gaunt but his eyes deep, a piercing blue like his son’s. In the drawing, he was wearing the khakis and the red T-shirt all sixteen-year-olds wore on the island. The boy had even remembered the insignia: Second Chances at Second Salvations.

Daniel had been forced to fake being born again. He’d never been a really good faker, but boy, he had tried.

Also in red, his friend Max—whom everyone called Vex out of habit, even when the Threshers and the grownups weren’t around—with the bowl-cut black hair and his camera-equipped sunglasses and his cane and his sometimes-blind eyes. He’d been on the island three weeks longer than Daniel, scoping and photographing the place for his father, Charlie the Ferryman.

She swiped again, stopping on Timothy Gnash Dunn. She traced her fingers over the bandages on the boy’s wrists. What must it have been like, being tortured by doctors in Sunday punishments while the whole camp—including his friends—looked on and did nothing to help? Little Pete had drawn Gnash in front of his junkshop. The faint glow in the background suggested the broken computer that secretly worked, which linked them to the Children’s Crusade and their supposed only hope of escape.

She didn’t linger on the Scruggs twins, Mrs. Black’s Angels of Death—Barney and Wendy, in their unassuming polo shirts and their ever-present sidearms—who were, themselves, graduates of the island and Second Salvations; nor did she spend much time on Mrs. Black, in her stiff suits, or her husband, Reverend Matthew, with his three sets of false teeth. She skimmed past the head Threshers, with their gray tunics and their sandals and their fancy badges in the shape of a scythe: Asher and Magda, the top boy and girl of Angel Island, and both candidates to be named the Lamb at the annual ceremony of sacrifice that would leave one or the other of them dead—for nothing.

But she stopped on Caroline. Sweet, innocent, self-doubting Caroline—loyal Caroline, who kept the sheep with Thresher Philis. How beautiful her hair had been, all brown curls and ringlets before they’d cut it down to almost nothing. She’d never stood much of a chance against the evils that surrounded her on Angel Island, or so people had thought. She’d had a surprise or two in store before it was over, though. Maybe there was a hidden fire in her that was just impossible for others to see coming—or even for herself to see.

And, leaning against her shoulder on a pair of cheap metal crutches with the cushions worn off, was Rebecca Riggs. At fifteen, she and Caroline had both been assigned blue shirts, which almost but didn’t quite go with the orange sneakers Nurse Mason had lent to her. This is what the truth is, she’d said in a live video message to the whole world before they’d caught her and taken her off the grid. Second Salvations murdered my parents, and I’m running away.

That had started everything. Nothing was the same after that. The world had changed. But as for Rebecca, she hardly even knew it, at first.

She’d run long—more than a day, in fact—but she hadn’t run far. Mrs. Black’s Dogcatcher, DC, had been the one to get her. But if this government-appointed collector, this so-called cop, had thought the story over, he’d been wrong.

From the moment she’d arrived on Angel Island, before they’d even chopped off her ponytail and delivered her to the camp on the back of a skimmer-ski, she was already playing the game. She’d gotten the others to play it before long: think of a plan, one step at a time, taking turns. A special plan. An escape plan.

It was unthinkable, but they’d thought about it anyway.

And Rebecca was a good runner—no, more than good. She was incredible.

How Mrs. Black had wanted to ruin her.

****

The table was a wreck. The caretaker had a tendency to lose hours in there, and the basement often ended up in worse shape at the time of her departure than when she’d arrived. But the files on her scanner were well organized. There was almost a whole story there.

Her phone beeped. Another encrypted email, and right on time. She paid attention to the news and figured this was coming. She keyed in the new password, then started up the stairs.

The middle floor was empty. It was late. Her own child was in bed, and Little Pete Forester would be in his room too—doing God only knew what. Her husband was still out east, doing what he could, in his way.

The far east of America, and the far west, were still dangerous.

Here, she could still look out the windows and not have to see the clouds of smoke. She could watch children playing in the neighborhood during the day. The boys could take their shirts off at the pool, if they wanted to—and that could be a big deal with teenage boys, she’d learned through motherhood. And with girls.

She could see the patrols on the streets, though. Laser-guided AA guns on the roofs of the civic center and police station. The faint sound of rotor blades, swelling at first and then diminishing with distance, never coming directly over her house.

They had peace, for a time. Things were going well. It just didn’t do to be unprepared, even here. Still, this was as safe a place as she could think of for Little Pete.

If they ever found out, she’d have to move again.

On the uppermost floor, she found Pete’s door open. He was at his homework screen, doing his calculus. He was ten years old, a bona fide prodigy—and a hopeless procrastinator. They might well have predicted it, considering how his parents had scored on their Solomon tests.

As for little, that didn’t apply so much anymore. He was going to be tall, like his father. He was already lean and wiry and athletic, like his mother. Had her ash-blond hair too, and wore it in a ponytail.

He turned to her while she was still standing in the doorway, but didn’t speak. He smiled at her and signed: Almost done. Don’t worry. How’s the scrapbook coming?

She shrugged, then went to him and keyed on the wall projector from his desk and opened the email. She never looked at them first. She preferred they read the letters together.

"Do you want me to leave?" she signed. It’s okay.

He rolled his eyes, answering, No, you can stay.

He never made her leave. But it was his father. It ought to be his choice.

The heretofore blank wall flashed with the newest letter. It was the longest one yet. Daniel had been busy.

Peter,

I’m sorry it’s been so long. I hope you understand. I needed to finish this for you, and for others.

The gunfire has stopped. The ground doesn’t shake. The cracked ceiling of this concrete bunker we laughingly call home around here no longer dribbles dust. I can see through the cameras that the fires outside burn low, but it will be a long time before the hanging ash clears. Hopefully in your lifetime. Hopefully in mine.

It’s been months since I promised you a full account of what happened those terrible last few days on Angel Island, when your mother and I were still young, scarcely more than children, and had hardly met. I’ve been at it ever since.

Soon, perhaps, it will be safe enough for you to tell me where you are. I’ll come for you when it is. I miss you. Soon, we’ll remember what family feels like.

But—not quite yet.

So, the story first, all that’s left of it. Where did we leave off? Oh, yeah. I remember …

Your mother had the guts to say I love you before I did—don’t blush, kid, it’ll be okay—right as we were standing in Gnash’s junk shop, listening to old, forbidden music while the camp outside was gathering for morning devotions. After the killing of the boy we knew only as Squint. After his murder at the hands of DC, the cop who’d arrested us both.

By saying those words, your mother gave me the courage to say them back. The thing is, I might have said it second, but I loved her first. I loved her from the beginning.

After we said it, things got bad in a hurry. The trouble wasn’t long in coming.

This is what happened.

****

At this point Pete stopped being such a grownup and reverted somewhat to little Pete again. He opened his desk drawers and took out the pictures he had drawn: his mother, his father, their friends and enemies, every one. He laid them all out in front of him for reference, as if he needed any such thing.

The caretaker was curious how Daniel Forester would remember it. Would his memories differ much from hers? Her account, and his, and all the smaller contributions from others that she’d scanned into the scrapbook—including a bit of speculation and educated guesswork to fill in the blanks—would it amount to anything coherent? Would it be complete?

The boy started scrolling again, even as his caretaker pulled up a chair next to him and tried to keep up. She got the feeling, early on, that he went slower than he had to. He was a kind and generous soul. And she took some credit for that, proudly and unabashed. She’d earned it.

All her life, it had been her job to take care of things, and people.

The former Miss Paula didn’t mind.

Part One

Counting Down

Chapter One

The Burning

Wednesday, August 26

Second Salvations Camp 6: Angel Island

Countdown: 4 Days Till the Lamb.

He’d said it.

For half a minute, half a lifetime, she simply stood there, processing what it might mean—not only to her, but to this place. To the game. To their very lives.

He’d said it, just as she was starting to think he never would. And for the first time since she could not remember when, Rebecca Riggs was happy. She allowed herself to feel it. Love wasn’t a sin.

But it was dangerous.

She hurried away from the junk shop, only taking to her crutches once she came within sight of the other Forgottens. They were everywhere, and apart from the squelching of their feet on the damp dirt road, they were dead silent. Rebecca could hear the wind blow. Distantly, she could even hear the lake.

She was relieved. She couldn’t afford to be tardy to morning devotions, not with her tally count at six. By the time she’d hobbled back onto Bethlehem Street, she knew she was in the clear. Some of the kids were still emerging from their cabins and from less obvious hiding places, tentative and scared. If she was tardy, they all were.

Nothing like a couple gunshots to throw a program off-schedule, she thought, propelling herself forward at her best possible clip. Surely Nurse Mason would take her crutches back today. Rebecca’s feet were fine. She’d felt 100 percent for a day at least, and the crutches, she was sure, had been an overreaction from the start.

At 12D, sitting on the cabin’s front steps, she found Caroline. I hope you’re not waiting for me, she called out. You could get old doing that these days.

Caroline joined her. "And you need to watch it, she said, quietly and earnest. Then she pointed. Look."

Rebecca cocked her head and saw Daniel, also hurrying, join a stream of kids making a direct line for the quad. He waved at her—and nearly slipped where the grass became the damp, muddy road. Rebecca winked at him.

Boy can hardly walk, Caroline muttered, her voice grim. What did you do to him?

Oh, please, Rebecca said, unable to keep the reflexive blush from rising in her cheeks. Later, Caroline. Where are we going, anyway?

Morning devotions were either held by the lake in split groups, one for the boys and the other for the girls, or else co-ed by the clock tower. Either way, they’d have to go through the quad.

Rebecca got moving again, and Caroline kept pace, shaking her head. I have no idea where to be anymore.

Angel Island was a disaster. The streets were littered with cabin debris: broken furniture, bedding, and in some cases, personal items, all piled in heaps outside every cabin door. The cops were out again, scattered randomly throughout the camp, most with their arms folded across their chests, as though daring someone to make more trouble. The speakers on top of the clock tower still rained sparks, fizzling and popping, and the area immediately surrounding it had been taped off.

Looks like we’re going to the lake, Rebecca said.

A quarter of a mile ahead, she saw Daniel leading Vex—and not far from them, Gnash, keeping his distance yet heading in the same general direction.

Keep playing the game, she reminded herself, favoring her left foot and keeping her right foot up. Before long, they were joined by their other cabin sister, Gab, but she didn’t say anything. As the shoreline and the lake came into view, Rebecca could make out Magda taking charge of the girls and Nero taking charge of the boys. Where was Asher?

The Moses Boat was there too. Its lights and fans were off. It floated placidly in the water, empty and abandoned-looking. Hadn’t the Ferryman just left?

And there, scattered across a small stretch of the shoreline, were the news people. Rebecca counted seven of them, including Mr. Murray, who’d interviewed her, and also Deborah Fisher, whom she’d been lucky enough to avoid so far. But Rebecca could have sworn there were eight news people, not seven.

The boys and the girls separated like a fork in a river. Minutes later, Rebecca, Caroline, and Gab sat down in the grass before the shoreline and waited with the rest of the girls for Magda to begin by leading them in prayer.

Time for our morning enlightenment. Caroline sighed.

Normally this would have produced a full-length pep talk from Gab—but she still said nothing. She stared at the ground, plucked grass with her fingers. Her lips moved, ever so slightly, as if she had begun praying already.

But they didn’t have long to wait for Magda to start it officially.

Murderer, Rebecca thought, not for the first time, doing her best not to glare. You and DC and Mrs. Black. This whole place is full of murderers. We’re surrounded by killers.

Her devil’s half whispered, Kill them first.

She closed her eyes against that thought. She tried to block it out, to banish it so it would never return, even as Magda began the morning service. But it wouldn’t go away.

You might have to, that voice in her head persisted. They might not give you a choice.

She’d had a choice once. She could have prevented the death of a fellow camper whose Angel Island name had been Chipper. Rebecca didn’t know her real name. She hadn’t thought Magda would actually kill her, but she had.

Rebecca could have saved her, but she hadn’t.

For now, along with Caroline and Gab and the rest, she gave the correct responses as Magda led them in prayer.

****

From the other side of the office window, currently set to mirror-mode, Ruth Black watched the campers of Angel Island file past. At the tail end of them came Asher, his head down. Stupid, insolent little whelp, she thought. Ingrate. Suck it up. You should be leading them, not following like a beaten dog.

You found nothing, she said. It wasn’t a question.

She could see DC’s reflection, standing behind her in the open doorway. She could see him yawn and shake his head. Just rinky-dink stuff, he said. Minor contraband. Most are first offenders. They’re scared to death. If they have any real information, we’ll get it out of them quickly.

But you don’t think they do.

No. I don’t.

Squint said he knew something.

He lied, Mrs. Black. Better to make an example of him. Look, you know how we can get to the bottom of this. I’ve already told—

She turned to face him, waving off his words. No. You’re wrong about that.

But she suspected he was right. The way to the truth might well run through the Ferryman. Who better than he would know which campers had secret stashes? Who better than he might be convinced, given the proper motivation, to help them find one little camera?

The Ferryman, however, had to remain off-limits. There must be another way.

"Ride it out," her husband had advised. There won’t be another incident. No one would dare anymore.

She wanted to believe that.

DC’s lips were shut in a straight line. Was he entertaining the illusion that he was suddenly in charge on the island? Surely not. Either way, it would take a landside approval to interrogate the Ferryman. DC wouldn’t even try for it without her support, or the Reverend’s.

So, what’s your next move? he asked. There’s not much more I can do here, Mrs. Black.

In the meanwhile, she said, you have made quite a mess.

You give me too much credit. We both know the mess isn’t mine.

Ruth jabbed her finger back at the window. "I’m talking about that mess, Officer Carr, the real one. Look at it."

I’ve already seen it, he answered evenly. There’s nothing out there that can’t be fixed or replaced inside the work week, if you send in the order. Government business. Requisitions for Second Salvations. They’ll send a crew by Friday. No one will bat an eye.

From here, she could see past the quad just a little ways up both Bethlehem Street and Revelation Lane. She surveyed the wreckage, narrowing her eyes at it. I have a better idea, she said. "Fix nothing, DC. Replace nothing. Let them all have nothing until I say otherwise."

He shrugged. Up to you. I won’t be here that long.

Until after the ceremony, she said, nodding in agreement with herself. We’ll make an impression on every last one of them, starting this morning.

And then maybe ride it out after all, if the Reverend can win over the landside authorities. If he can convince them to embrace their ministry in public instead of growing their army in secret—well, that was all that really mattered.

You don’t need much more help from me, then, said DC.

Are you taking orders again? she dared to hope. It was one of the things he was good at, among certain other skills.

Burn it all, she said. Immediately, so the campers can see the smoke from morning devotions—so they walk through it on their way to breakfast. I want to watch them choke on it.

He sighed. I’ll need the Reverend’s go-ahead on that. You don’t have a fire department. It could get out of—

"Do it! she barked at him, hands balled into fists at her sides. Little bonfires all up and down Bethlehem Street and Revelation Lane—middle of the road, away from the cabins themselves. You’re trying too hard to think, DC. We need to act."

And the Reverend was still asleep. Mustn’t disturb her beloved husband.

DC frowned at her. Didn’t answer.

We’ve got everything you need for you to make a quick job of it. She channeled her earpiece. Barney? she called. Wendy?

It was Wendy who answered first, her soft voice tired but agreeable.

"Yes, Mrs. Black?"

****

The hymn was called Day by Day, but Daniel wouldn’t have been much good at getting the words out of his mouth if Nero and Drab hadn’t met him at boys’ devotions with printed pamphlets. The inside had the lyrics. The front showed a boat pitching in a storm. According to the caption, the author had lost her father at sea. Daniel could recognize Nero’s hand in the illustration.

Vex wasn’t singing. Daniel nudged him, raising the volume of his own voice. Normally this would have been embarrassing—his singing voice was even worse than Caroline’s—but Vex was in trouble. He caught Gnash looking their way, playing along but equally concerned.

Vex’s hand trembled atop the cane he no longer needed. He stared straight ahead. If he turned his head up or down, people would see that Vex could see, and Vex must have been feeling it. He’d been walking a fine line ever since he’d gotten here, Daniel knew, but now he was in real danger, every second.

I’m scared, he said. Daniel could hardly hear the words over the hymn, over his own voice in his ears, but the words were simple, easy to lip-read. I can’t keep this up, man.

A tear dripped out from under his sunglasses.

Crying is okay, Daniel said to himself, fighting the panic down, remembering the way his mother had summoned tears at the Church of Eternal Witness. It had been an act. People cried at church all the time.

But Vex—after all this time, after being so cool since long before Daniel had gotten here, for three and a half weeks—was perilously close to freaking out.

Daniel put a hand on his shoulder and squeezed.

Vex shook it off, wiped the tears away, and started singing. Thankfully, he knew the words.

If he’d looked at the pamphlet, that might have been it.

****

Charlie joined the boys at morning devotions, saying nothing, singing nothing.

He scanned the crowd until he found his son—and there he was. He hadn’t been caught yet, then. Charlie let out a deep exhalation, only realizing at that moment he’d been holding it in.

The midnight raid had been thorough. The boy must have gotten rid of the camera glasses and his medicine—the eye drops that made everyone think he was blind—before it had begun. As the Ferryman, Charlie could put in another order, flag it as urgent, and probably get it by next week.

That would be too late.

From behind: You know him, sir?

It was Asher. His hair was unkempt, his face drawn, his eyes bloodshot. Even his Thresher’s tunic sagged tiredly off his body.

Know who? he answered. I know a lot of people.

Asher managed a chuckle. You weren’t gone long.

Got an emergency order of pillows and sleeping bags to fill, he said offhandedly. Inside, he wanted to ask if Asher had reconsidered. It looked like he might have, judging by the wreck of his physical appearance. But there were people around. He and Asher stood at the very back of the boys’ devotional group—most of the four hundred-some kids facing the other way, toward Nero, as though Nero were Jesus and this was the Sermon on the Mount—yet he still didn’t dare to speak his mind more clearly. You don’t look so good, son.

What about him? Asher returned, nodding vaguely in what was his real son’s general direction. Answer the question, sir. Do you know him?

No irony or attitude. That should have been no surprise, not from Asher. It was the only way he knew how to be when dealing with adults.

Yes, Charlie said. I do.

Asher nodded. He reached into the pocket of his tunic. These are his?

Charlie looked into the young man’s open palm and had to work hard restrain a gasp. It was also a real effort not to reach out and snatch the glasses from him. He made himself look away. His son didn’t need those glasses anymore. He’d filmed everything worth filming. He needed the goddamned eye drops.

Is this blackmail? Charlie asked. If so, he wasn’t used to being on this end of it.

I didn’t steal them, Asher said. You can have them, if you want.

Charlie studied Asher’s eyes. They were guileless. He wasn’t kidding.

What about you? he asked. You need to make a decision, Asher. There’s no more time.

Yes, sir, Asher replied, nodding again. I made it hours ago. I spoke with the Children’s Crusade. I contacted Seraph.

Charlie didn’t push. Asher needed to say the words without prompting. Charlie made himself be patient.

Asher’s voice caught when he next spoke, but he managed to get the words out after all. Get me out of here, Charlie, he said. I don’t want anything to do with this anymore.

Thank God, Charlie thought. Common sense at last.

Then put those away, he said, suddenly insistent, indicating the glasses.

Asher obeyed. Behind him, beyond the praise-and-worship building and the Reverend’s house, there arose a golden glow, as though of flame. Sounds of fuel ignition, of gasoline or kerosene catching fire, followed. At first it was a mere pulsation, but it quickly grew and acquired strength.

Devotions stopped. Everyone turned to look at it. Four hundred voices muttered confusion.

Charlie stayed focused. And for Christ’s sake, he growled, put on your big-boy pants and play the part you’re supposed to play. He put his hand on the back of Asher’s neck, like a coach might do at the game’s critical moment. It’s your best chance. Got me?

Yes, sir, Asher said. No problem.

And just like that, he reassumed his command.

For a few minutes, Charlie watched him do it, marveling at how easily he slipped back into the role, forcing his way past the campers to direct Nero and Drab in making order out of the chaos. As soon as he asserted himself, they responded. All the boys looked to him for direction.

Good, Charlie thought. Next stop, Nurse Mason. Make sure she’s still in play.

****

We don’t have names, Paula thought. Not even Angel Island names. I don’t know what to call any of these people, even in my head.

She’d suspected from the beginning, but it had only been confirmed at her first lessons in sign language. Among the help, the head lady was Number One. Paula was Number Four. There were nine of them, all told. Paula deduced there must have been a different Number Four at one time and she had replaced her, but she hadn’t learned enough signs to ask about it yet.

Paula smoothed down her pullover and cinched the cord. She put on her hairnet, watching Number One make a change on the menu board. Breakfast Wednesday: Ham & Eggs & Wheat Toast became Breakfast Wednesday: Oatmeal & Dried Fruit & Wheat Toast. That was an unexpected relief. The oatmeal came already prepared. All they had to do was heat it up and sprinkle in whatever the flavor of the day would be, like cinnamon or maple or brown sugar.

But instead, at Number One’s direction, the assembly line ladled it into the bowls cold and without the flavoring.

Penance, she guessed. For the whole camp? Paula had twice heard gunfire this morning, two shots each time. She had a fair idea what had happened when the shots silenced the music a little while ago, but the time before that? No clue. Both times there had been screams.

Paula moved for the ladling line but was instead waved through the door, toward one of the serving lines. That was a change as well, but she gave no attitude about it. She didn’t even point at the schedule wall. She just did as she’d been told.

The kids weren’t here yet. She couldn’t anticipate quite how she would react when Rebecca and Caroline came in to get their breakfast. She knew how she was supposed to react: head down, no eye contact, no expectations of thanks, and no acknowledgment that she knew anyone, anywhere.

She looked at the Absolution Tally Board, scanning the newer names. She’d learned Caroline’s and Rebecca’s from Nurse Mason, and it didn’t take her long to find them up there. Wren had only one, but Rags had six. A week ago, Paula would have thought that unlike her. She’d been so good at DTR. Until her last night, anyway.

She might be planning something. Paula would be surprised if she wasn’t. The poor girl would probably get herself killed.

Paula noted then, too, that the stoves in the kitchen were gas, not electric.

She thought of the friend she’d had once, years ago, who had come back from this place at age eighteen so different from when she’d been shipped off eighteen months before. She thought of her boyfriend Greg, who worked at Prodigal Sons on the other side of New Sinai. Did he know what had become of her yet?

That was when she heard