The Gathering: Beloved Childe Stories, #1

By Wessel Ebersohn

When Beloved Childe agrees to help a mother find her missing daughter she does not know what lies ahead and how complex the search will become.

 

The web of lies and homicidal violence she enters only becomes clear when she is called in by government agents. They know of the young woman's disappearance. They also know other things that Beloved has not yet guessed at. It is a shock to discover that the missing girl has joined a cult that its members refer to simply as the Gathering. It is a still greater shock to discover that some of its members have been murdered. Who has killed them? The agents believe that if they can get Beloved on the inside they will find the missing woman and bring down the cult.

 

It soon becomes clear to Beloved that achieving membership of the cult is going to take sexual relations with its leading members. Since her early teenage years she has had a succession of lovers so sex is not a problem, excepting that in this case her partners will be killers. She has never been intimate with a man she knew to be a murderer, but now it seems to be unavoidable.

 

Beloved anticipates the dangers that lie ahead, but she cannot anticipate all the surprises the Gathering has in store for her. This is new territory for her, more puzzling than any previous case, and intensely more life threatening.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gold City Publishers
• Release date: Mar 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9780639766102

Book preview

ONE

It was too dark. The lower branches of the trees were barely visible against the night sky. Martha Robinson knew she should move more slowly, the fallen branches, the scattered rocks on the path and the low-hanging branches were all hazards that had to be avoided.    But going slowly was impossible. Already she had fallen too far behind. At least, she thought she had. For a few minutes now, as far as she could see the path ahead had been empty. The last time she had seen any movement was a momentary moving shadow as she passed through the gate in her back fence. But even that was uncertain. The view had been so brief and the light so poor that it could have been anything or nothing at all.

Go back, she told herself. Go back and get the car. She knew the road and the part of the wood through which it passed. With the car she could circle round. She would reach the other side far more quickly than she could on foot. Perhaps, then I can get there before she does. But the headlights would give her away, and while she was getting the car out of the garage and driving round the wood she would see nothing, and perhaps miss her only opportunity.

She saw a new movement, no more than the flicker of a dark shadow. In a landscape of greys and blacks it could have been the coat Jeanne was wearing when she left the house. In the faint remnant of daylight that remained, the figure, less than a figure, had seemed to be among the trees, then was gone. Then she saw it again.  Or perhaps not, she thought, perhaps I am only seeing what I want to see.

The place where she thought she had seen the movement was across a hollow littered with fallen sticks and branches, then up a smooth slope to where the trees grew close together. They are too close for her to pass through, Martha thought. She could not have gotten through there.

The trees’ proximity had caused their trunks to be thin and growing straight upwards. Martha passed through the hollow, lifting her feet to avoid tripping over the forest debris. The slope was just ahead. She could see the trees against the sky where she thought she had seen a movement. But now she saw nothing. In the windless air nothing moved.

Do not do this, her mind said. She was trying to project her thoughts to the figure she was pursuing. Do not leave this way, without explanation or even stopping to tell me when you might return, or if you will ever return. Things between us have not been bad lately. You cannot say they’ve been bad.

Standing in the quiet darkness among the trees, Martha cried out, just once. The name of her daughter, Jeanne, fractured the silence for that one moment. She was unable to call again. The first cry had been, to her own ears, a blasphemous destruction of the night’s peace. No, she thought, this is not peace. It is quiet and it is stillness, but it is not peace. 

A stump, hard and gnarled, caught her just above knee height, forcing her sharply to her left and throwing her off balance. She fell, tried to rise, but slipped and fell again. I’m too old for this, she thought. I must not fall again. Something might break. I have to be more careful.

On her hands and knees on the forest floor, she remained unmoving and listened for anything above the night sounds. A car moved in the distance, but behind her, perhaps on the street between the wood and the houses. She heard running water, no more than a trickle, somewhere ahead. There was a stream. She had walked along it many times. But the sound that dominated all the others was the sound of her own breathing, a deep rasping of breath, harsher than she ever remembered hearing it.

It took Martha a long while to get her breathing under control. Then she rose slowly and stood still. She moved a few steps forward. The knee hurt, but it seemed to be working properly.

Now the forest revealed no sign of movement. She thought of it as a forest, but it was really no more than a glade between an abandoned brickworks and the last row of houses, where her own home stood. With her breathing back to normal she walked more slowly now to where the path ended against the street she would have taken, had she gone back for the car. The night was quiet and the street empty. She turned back towards her home and walked slowly in that direction.

From time to time she stopped to listen again and look amongst the trees. As the light faded the shrubbery was becoming denser and less penetrable. Again she saw no movement and heard only sounds from among the houses: a snatch of music, the barking of a dog whose evening had been disturbed, perhaps by herself, and voices too far away to discern the words.

She’s gone, Martha thought. She’s gone and will never return. I know it. In the past she has always come back, but not this time. I should have been more careful. I should have contained my anger. But I could not, or rather I did not. And now she’s gone.

TWO

The police officer was young, too young to have experience of such matters, but he had been trained in what to say. In our experience, Ma’am, when an adult disappears it is usually of their own choice. In the case of young adults they usually return within a day or two. 

But this time she is not coming back, Martha said.

Ma’am, did she say that? The officer was doing his best to look and sound concerned.

She said she is going and I will not see her again.

Ma’am, suppose we found her. She has committed no crime and she’s an adult. We could ask her to come home, but nothing more. We certainly couldn’t arrest her and bring her home by force.

I just want her found.

And what then? The officer looked out of the window where the morning commuter traffic was flowing strongly. He was already tiring of a conversation he knew was going nowhere. It would be better if the lady left and he could get on with his work. One of his seniors stopped outside the glass panel in the door, raised his eyebrows momentarily at the sight of Martha still seated there. The gesture was aimed at the young officer who knew he should already have been rid of her. She had been with him for almost half an hour and he had more pressing work to do. He turned his attention back to Martha. She has run off before, I believe.

Many times.

But she has always returned?

Yes.

He looked at her with what was intended to be a meaningful expression. She should understand now, he was thinking, how little they could do for her. And she is guilty of no crime.

No, I told you that. She’s not a criminal. She’s a disturbed girl.

She has not been committed to an institution though, has she?

No, no, no. She’s not crazy. She is just emotionally unstable. She has a history of seeing psychiatrists.

Like most of the population, the officer thought. Ma’am, could we do this – give it a few days, say a week, and if she has not yet returned, come back to us and I will take it up with my bosses and ask them if we can treat it as a priority? I promise I’ll do that. I hope to God I don’t have to, he was thinking.

This kid doesn’t understand, Martha thought. What point is there in speaking to him. Your boss, she said. Could I speak to him?

Ma’am, we have a heavy work load. He almost added that their workload consisted of dealing with real crime. In the meantime there was nothing he could do about that or about finding her either. She’ll come back, Ma’am. I’m sure she will. Just give her a little time. She’ll come back. It looks like she always does.

––––––––

Martha found an empty table in an establishment where the prices were reasonable and the food was good enough. Just bring me coffee, she told the waiter. I’ll have breakfast later. Just bring me coffee while I wait for my friend."

What she told the waiter was not completely true. She had not yet arranged for a friend to join her. So in order to turn her lie belatedly into the truth, she called Joyce, her most reliable friend, and asked if she could buy her breakfast. It took Joyce half an hour to get there, but she came. Martha appreciated her, and she would have appreciated her even more if she knew how reluctantly her friend had come.

Joyce had heard so much about Jeanne and knew that the aim of breakfast was almost certainly for Martha to unburden herself about her daughter’s latest disappearance.  She was sympathetic, but could not help being bored by the subject.

As she sat down Joyce asked, Run off again?

Last night. My own analyst told me that for my own sake I should cut her out of my life. I should change my locks and not allow her in. She says I need to do it for my own peace of mind.

Seeing Martha’s distress, Joyce felt a little ashamed of how grudgingly she had been to come. Will that give you peace of mind? she asked.

No. I think changing my analyst might.

Daughters are harder to change than analysts, Joyce said.

Oh Joyce, Martha said. I don’t know what to do. I never have.

The cops?

Not interested.

Not surprising either, is it?

They don’t want to help me. I know why. It’s because I’ve knocked on their door before. Too often, I suppose.

The waiter, a young man who wore a habitually bored expression, had been calling on Martha every five minutes since she sat down. He arrived again. Anything to eat, ladies?

I’ve been here from time to time, Joyce said. The Eggs Benedict is good.

I’ll have them, Martha said, and more coffee. After the waiter had left for the kitchen she spoke again. I don’t know what to do. Jeanne’s intelligent, attractive and she has more willpower than anyone I’ve ever known. But now she’s using it in ways I know nothing about. She tells me she’s busy with important work and I am ignorant. Perhaps she’s right.

So you don’t know what she’s doing?

No. I only know it’s important to her and that she’s away from me more than she’s with me now. She says she has friends who think like she does, but I’ve never met them. And I don’t even know what they think. Or what she thinks.

Her studies?

I think she’s dropped them. She won’t discuss them with me. She won’t discuss anything with me.

Have you contacted the college?

No. I’m afraid to. She says I’m just a stupid old woman who knows nothing. And maybe she’s right.

Martha, I’m so sorry, Joyce said. She meant it deeply. Her own daughters were ordinary girls, married young mothers who led ordinary lives and worked ordinary jobs. Jeanne had always been more brilliant than her girls. Although Jeanne had avoided making friends at school, she achieved more, while Joyce’s girls coasted along somewhere in the middle ground of suburban achievement. Right now Joyce was delighted with the ordinariness of her girls.

The worst thing is – when she left, she fled as if I was chasing her.

Were you?

Oh God, yes. Of course I was. I didn’t want her going like that. But she just disappeared into the trees. I don’t know if anyone was waiting for her. I don’t even know if she has a car and, if she has one, where she could have left it.

Martha, is she capable of looking after herself?

She’s strong. She’s always been strong. I’ve always thought of her as capable of looking after herself. But I don’t know in which way. I was thinking about her last night after she left and, the truth is I don’t really know anything about my daughter. She covered her face with her hands. When she took them away her face seemed paler than before, but she had not been crying. I’d like to be small again. I was not a good mother. Maybe I could be better if I had the chance to try again.

THREE

Martha did not change the locks on her home. Instead, she watched for her daughter’s return. In the daylight hours, she did what she could to keep herself occupied. Her routine involved gardening, visiting the local library and a neighbourhood park, reading, and meeting Joyce and other acquaintances for bridge. She also often walked the path in the woods where she had last seen her daughter. In the evenings she read, watched the occasional television movie, listened to the songs that had been popular in her youth and waited. Most of all, she waited.

At times she felt resentful towards the police, but during her more rational moments she knew that the young officer she had last seen was right. What would they do if they found Jeanne, but she would not come home? And why would they spend their precious resources on looking for someone who had done nothing wrong and was only of interest to one other person, her mother? It was, after all, no crime for a young adult to leave home and no crime to be neurotic. Martha realised that she too could be classified that way. Neurotic? she thought. Maybe I’m worse than that.

When reading, the book sometimes slipped from her grasp to land in her lap before she realised that her attention had long since deserted the plot. Movies too had to be especially appealing to hold her attention for more than a few minutes. Perhaps her garden was her most satisfying way of passing the time. She loved seeing things grow. Flowers that needed regular replanting were best. They took up time and being down on hands and knees, digging into the rich dark soil somehow kept her thoughts away from Jeanne more than anything else. Seeing the new life bursting from the earth gave her a sense of hope that she lacked otherwise.

Walking in the woods had its own disadvantage. She found that, going for walks, she always followed the path Jeanne had taken on the night she left. At every step she looked for signs of the girl’s passing. Perhaps a scrap of clothing might have clung to a twig to reveal the route she had taken or the imprint of a shoe might show where she had passed. Martha knew there was no point to any of it, but she looked anyway. Jeanne must have come this way, she thought every time she saw the smallest sign of a footprint, broken twig or bent-over tuft of grass on which she may have trodden. But if any signs remained, what difference would that make? Wherever Jeanne was, she would be far from here and an old footprint in a soft surface would make no difference. And footprints did not remain visible for long. With her regular walks on the path, soon the only prints on the muddy sections were her own.

The young police officer had not kept his promise about referring the matter of Jeanne’s disappearance to his boss. Other more important issues were always getting in the way. The only response she ever got, was we’re doing the best we can, Ma’am. Which Martha interpreted as being nothing at all.

––––––––

Days passed with no sign of Jeanne and no lessening of Martha’s anxiety. Questions without end pursued each other through her mind. Where are you, my child, what are you doing this time? Who are you with? Is it a man? If it is, let him please be one who is kind to you, one who is not violent. Please be careful in the man you choose to be with. Do not just go with anyone.

Again and again she revisited scenes from Jeanne’s life so far. The kid had been different from the beginning. She acknowledged that. Some said she was strange, but Martha had always defended her daughter, saying that it was no crime to be different. She had always been more intelligent than her friends. She had also always been stronger willed. Everyone who knew her, could see that. School teachers, friends, Father Kelly their local priest: all saw her special qualities. And not least of these was compassion. On many occasions the child had shown great sympathy for others less fortunate than herself. She also had a desire to understand everything she could about life. So what if her understanding was affected by her own singular way of thinking? Wasn’t that true of everyone?

Most troubling to her were the memories of her own behaviour towards her child. But I don’t need to think about that, she would tell herself. I’m a parent and there are no perfect parents. It’s the hardest job in the world. I did not always make the best choices in dealing with Jeanne, but no one does. I won’t think about it.

Late one evening with her mind exploring the incidents in Jeanne’s life that stood out most clearly, she remembered a visit from one of Jeanne’s preparatory school teachers. The teacher had told her that three bigger kids had been picking on a small Jewish child and Jeanne had come between them to protect her. One of the bigger kids had struck Jeanne, but she had not backed down. Other children said that Jeanne called them cowards and drove them away without even raising her voice.

It was while Martha was busy with this memory, taking pleasure in the recollection, that the unexpected happened. A key turned in the front door. She rose to face the hall. Apart from herself, only Jeanne had a key.

There was no voice from the door to tell her mother that she was home, only the sound of the door’s opening and closing, then being locked behind her. She came quietly into the living room where Martha was waiting. Her only luggage was a kit bag slung over one shoulder. She lowered the bag slowly to the floor and faced her mother.

Martha looked for answers in the face she knew so well. Jeanne was as calm as always, the smooth skin of her face and the steady, rarely blinking eyes revealing no emotion. All her life a procession of mental health professionals had tried to help Martha make sense of what she saw as her daughter’s aberrant behaviour. All had commented on the girl’s calmness and sooner or later, all had questioned her about her own behaviour while Jeanne was growing up. Why are these questions necessary, she had asked more than one of them. Jeanne is the patient, not me. That had raised a few eyebrows, but it had not stopped their questions. Many people had been concerned for Jeanne, but the girl herself had never shown any uncertainty.

And now here she was, after six weeks of absence and silence and all of her strange childhood, ending in the flight through the woods, and yet as far as Martha could see, she was unaffected by any of it.

Martha, her daughter asked, are you well?

Martha had rehearsed what she would say if her daughter returned, trying out various possibilities. She had settled on Jeanne, I’m delighted to have you home again. That had been the intention, but when faced with her daughter she could do no more than repeat her name, Jeanne. Then wait in silence for her daughter to speak.

"I’ve come for a visit. I hope