Somewhere Past the End

I decide to watch the end of the world from the storeroom window. Outside, members of the Collective stream into the meadow. The late summer light makes it look like a fairy garden, and I remember Jennifer once saying summers in rural New York were as close as we could get to heaven. Angelica had swatted her hand at that comment, affronted that anyone would equate our temporary stop on earth with the riches awaiting us in the beyond.

Jennifer’s long gone now, of course. Far away from the meadow and far away from New York for all I know. I’m sure Angelica is out there somewhere, but I don’t see her. The window frame obscures some of the meadow, but Brother Richmond is front and center, so I keep my focus there. He’s surrounded by a ring of wildflowers and a growing assortment of his followers. His family. My family. I see Joanne walking with Eric. They’re all wrapped up in one another, like they need the support of the other to move forward. Last year, when they finally realized they were in love, I rolled my eyes. Now my chest squeezes tight at the thought of losing these people who have made up so much of my life.
I’ve never known any home but here. We lived in a few other places before Brother Richmond bought the Farm, but I have trouble recalling them. Everyone who does remember says Brother Richmond was different then. They say he sought out the downtrodden with offers of help instead of threats veiled as promises. They say he gave out love like he gave out money, freely and without strategy or manipulation. They say he walked on water, raised the dead, and performed all those miracles that belong to someone else in the worldly stories. They talk like those days were made from sunlight and hope. Maybe they were, but the few bright memories I have are too fleeting to stamp out all that’s happened since.
I cling to them all the same. I weave them together like squares of a quilt that will keep me warm when I’m gone from this place. The soft brush of my mom’s hair against my cheek as we pressed together singing hymns after Evening Table. The steady rhythm of the rocking chair on our front porch. The tiny fish glinting silver in the creek where Edwin and I played as kids.
Edwin. I peer into the growing gaggle of people. I don’t see him.
I forget about Edwin when my dad marches into the center of the meadow. He looks stoic, as always. He’s holding my mom’s hand. Her eyes dart back and forth, anxiety etched across her face. A thread of uncertainty weaves through my middle, and I feel her absence already. Her strawberry blonde hair, streaked with gray, falls across her shoulders as she turns her head. She’s looking for me.
The lines in her face look softer in the waning sun, and her hair catches the light in a way I haven’t seen since I was a child. But it’s not just the sun giving her a glow. There’s some other kind of light rising around the group, but I can’t tell where it’s coming from. I squint and people blur together across my vision, but my mom stands apart from all the rest. She looks my way, so I raise myself up on the wooden bench below the window. I place my hand on the bump I’ve been so diligent in hiding over the last seven months. I will her to hear my thoughts. She doesn’t move. Her face doesn’t change, but I know my mom. I can see the almost imperceptible flick of her eyes down to my hand. And then, in her eyes, something like hope. I step back down off the shelf before anyone else looks out of the cloying light at me. My dad is now further up on the hill, and I can’t see his face in the glare, but his shoulders sag like they do when he’s worried. My mom reaches her hand toward the window where I watch. By now Brother Richmond is there, and my mom’s hand falls back to her side. He wraps his arm around her and mouths something. I can’t hear it through the window, but I can guess what he’s saying. Something like, “It’s time.”
Brother Richmond lets go of my mom’s shoulders and moves to the center of the meadow. I know I should go now. Slip away before Brother Richmond’s big speech. Before everyone’s anxiety bubbles over. It’s a hard thing to be led to the end of days without the end ever arriving. We’ve been here before, and I was out there with everyone else then. We waited to be called up to heaven while the rest of the world perished. We waited to be proved right. In the end, I fell asleep lying in the grass at my mom’s feet and woke to Brother Richmond’s shaky voice telling us it had all been a test.
Now, Brother Richmond raises his face and arms toward the sky, like he’s conducting whatever’s happening out there. The windowpane shakes and I feel a shift in the air, like it’s vibrating at a higher frequency. It smells of burnt sugar. The glass reflects the fear flickering across my face. Some in the meadow join Brother Richmond with their eyes closed and arms raised. Their faces are ablaze with a hunger I haven’t felt in years. Others fall to the ground, their hands buried in the tangled weeds around them, as if they can somehow root themselves to the earth. I scan the group for my parents, but I no longer find them in the crowd. I let the grief of their loss wash over me. Even if nothing happens, I’ve drawn a line in the sand. I’m lost to them now.
A flash of movement catches my eye, and I look up. I spot Jason, but it can’t be him. He’s at home waiting for me. And yet, there he is, standing in the middle of the crowd, waiting for a shiny ride into the hereafter. My brain scrambles to work out why Jason and I are now on opposite sides of this glass. I can no longer see my reflection in the glass because I am pressing my face against it, anxious to prove to myself that it’s a trick of the light and not Jason after all.
We’ve been planning our escape for months. Ever since Brother Richmond made the announcement. The Homegoing was the perfect cover. Everyone would be out in the meadow for hours, and when they straggled back to their homes, exhausted and emotionally drained, we’d be gone. It was a good plan. Still, Jason worried.
“What if it’s real this time?” he whispered to me in the dark of our bedroom. His voice had the same quaver that had been there when we asked Brother Richmond permission to marry at eighteen.
I squeezed his hand. “I’ll risk fire from heaven before I let someone take our child.” Speaking out loud about the baby made my palms go clammy.
“You’d rather suffer unspeakable torture? The baby would feel that too,” he said, anger edging its way into his voice.
I scrunched the bed sheet between the fingers of my free hand in exasperation. “It’s not real, Jason. There’s no Homegoing. No cosmic plan. There’s only Brother Richmond.”
I sounded more confident than I felt. I couldn’t tell Jason I’d wanted to leave so many times before but failed every time I thought about it. Fear and love and something else I couldn’t name rooted me to these fields and, even though I hated to admit it, to Brother Richmond. I couldn’t tell Jason I sometimes woke in the deep recesses of the night, terrified Brother Richmond really was the prophet he claimed to be. In those moments, my pajamas sticky with sweat, I prayed and cried and bargained with God about the irrevocable damage I would be doing to my soul if I left. But then one day I had something more important than myself to think about. Something I hoped would unearth me from this soil.
I’m still staring, slack-jawed, when Jason looks in my direction. I don’t know if he sees me, but the pained expression on his face makes me abandon all reason. I push against the window, trying in vain to open it. Streamers of light billow around the group and encircle the meadow. Tears blur my view as I press my forehead against the glass. The heat on the other side of the window forces me to take a step back. A hazy fog ribbons itself through the beams of light. It’s beautiful, really. A sudden pounding rings out from somewhere near the center of the meadow. The pounding grows louder and louder until my field of vision vibrates with the sound. I drop my head and cup my hands over my ears to block it out. Then, as suddenly as it began, it’s gone. All is silent. I look up. The window is laced with cracks, but I can still see the meadow beyond. There’s nothing. My parents, Jason, Brother Richmond. They’re all gone.