“Edie?”
Together Harp and Edie usher me to a chair, lowering me carefully into it. My throat is dry and her name comes out raspy. Edie smiles, apologetic and slightly bewildered, like the host of a surprise party gone horribly wrong.
“Is any of this blood yours?” Harp demands, examining my hands, my chest, everywhere Robbie’s blood has soaked. I look down at my own body, hardly recognizing it.
“Robbie.”
I don’t have to explain further, because Diego walks through the door then, Robbie limp in his arms. He looks particularly small this way. At the sight of him, Kimberly shouts and someone starts crying; I hear Birdie say to herself in a quiet, horrified voice: “No.” It is different than when Suzy and Karen were killed—I don’t know why, exactly. Because he was thirteen, and because Suzy and Karen are already gone. Robbie’s death is like an awful punctuation mark; it reminds us all that we were already grieving. Diego brings Robbie’s body into one of the side bedrooms, while Winnie, who has followed him inside, explains in a hushed voice what happened. I bend forward, put my head between my knees—I can’t listen to it.
I feel a hand on the back of my neck. Harp. She keeps it there the whole time, a warm presence on my skin that feels like home.
When I finally pull myself upright, the room is half-empty—most of the militia has filtered into the room where Robbie lies. Of those who remain, I pick out faces I recognize from Keystone: Estefan, sharp cheekbones and shaved head, who’d promised Edie he’d help deliver her baby; Daisy, honey-colored hair pulled into a messy ponytail, eyes rimmed pink; Kanye, tall and broad-shouldered, bouncing a restless knee; Eleanor, with her pixie haircut, frowning in a corner. But there are others, too, people I’ve never seen before—a huddle of men and women by the kitchen window, older than the majority of us, all of them in identical pale grey uniforms. They look twitchy, uncomfortable. Gallifrey stands with them, murmuring things I can’t hear.
“Who are they?”
“Well … ” Harp sounds nervous. “I don’t know how to do this now. But we have some good news. Some very good news.” She pauses. “Actually, maybe Edie should tell you. I mean”—she catches herself—“Umaymah. She goes by Umaymah now.”
“Oh, Harpreet!” exclaims the girl formerly known as Edie, beaming. “You remembered! But of course you and Viv can call me whatever you like! We’ve known each other so long.”
Harp has that frazzled look I know from our weeks on the road with Edie—our former classmate’s open-hearted sincerity completely unnerves her. But I watch as she drags a chair over, and note something strange about her manner—something careful and formal. An awed respect I’ve never seen Harp extend to anyone. Edie bows to thank her, sinking into the chair with an almost regal grace. The New Orphans crowd around her, clustering by her feet like she’s about to tell them a bedtime story. I glance at the adults in the kitchen—they watch us with the same dazed expression. Edie pauses to gaze at the baby strapped to her chest, smiles sleepily at him, then looks up at me with wide, soft eyes.
“Six weeks old. I named him Naveen. Can you believe it?”
“He’s beautiful,” I tell her.
“Thank you. My heart breaks for that boy they brought in here. Robbie, you said? Do you think anyone would mind if I went in and said a prayer for him later on?”
I shake my head. Who is there to object? We’re his only family, and as far as I’m concerned the prayers of Edie Trammell are the only ones to which God, if such a thing exists, ought to listen. Edie turns, and says, “Would someone be so good as to bring up my prayer book?”
Eleanor’s the first to her feet, though all the Orphans made an attempt; I see pouting as she flies from the room. I glance at Harp, but she stares intently at the group in the kitchen.
“So much has happened these last two months!” Edie exclaims, and the Orphans nod, like this is sage wisdom. “I hardly know where to begin. The last time we saw you, you were driving to Salt Lake City. And, of course, we know what happened next, because we’ve been reading the blog. We love it, Harp—such an achievement. But you aren’t the only busy ones. We’ve had quite a lot going on ourselves—I’m not sure if you saw, oh, about a month and a half ago now, our official ‘truce’ with the Church of America?”
Somewhere in the group of Orphans, there’s a hiss, then giggles; Edie gives no sign that she’s heard except a slight, indulgent smile—so maternal it gives me chills.
“We were … surprised by that. To put it lightly. We understood Goliath had no interest in violence, the way other branches of the Orphans did, but still we assumed he wished to be outside the influence of the Church. When we approached him with our concerns he was patient at first—but he became snide: ‘Where do you think money comes from? None of you have any idea how to get by in the real world!’ And so on. Once we began to understand what he was really about, there seemed to be nothing left to do but … ” Edie brings her palms together, as if in prayer, then pushes them apart. “Our differences were too fundamental to overcome. Goliath was furious to find we were not the docile followers he’d taken us for. He had no idea we were more than just faithful bodies.”
“He kicked you out of Keystone,” Harp says, disgusted.
But Edie looks surprised. “Kicked us out? Oh, no. As a group, we decided Goliath’s needs were no longer being served by the New Orphans organization. We invited him to seek residence elsewhere. From what we can tell, he hasn’t made it far—he comes to the gates every now and then, extremely addled, begging us to take him back. But actions,” she says sadly, “have consequences. Goliath never understood that.”
“What about the Church?” I ask in the silence that follows. “They don’t mind that you sent their Youth Leader packing?”
“They have no idea,” Edie says sweetly. “I’ve been personally answering all Goliath’s correspondence, as him, for the last six weeks. I know it’s dishonest, but … you know, I still consider myself a Christian, Vivian? I really, truly do. And I think that’s what gives me the energy to work as hard as I have against the Church of America. Because they stand for many things, but the last thing they stand for—the absolute last thing—is Christ.”
Naveen makes a soft, mewling noise, and Edie busies herself rocking him back to sleep. Eleanor bursts through the door, clutching a large scrapbook to her chest like it’s a precious relic; she pushes through the Orphans to take the spot directly at Edie’s feet. I see Harp’s eyebrows rise. Before we left her in South Dakota, I’d taken comfort in Edie’s hold over the New Orphans; I knew their respect would keep her safe. Now, watching them huddle closer, I realize I underestimated their affection. I thought they found in her a warm, calming presence; I didn’t anticipate they’d tap into some ancient store of strength in her, that she’d find it in herself to lead them.
I catch Gallifrey’s eye and he smiles, almost as if he can read my thoughts. “Before Umaymah came to us, we thought we were free. We thought Goliath had given us a home outside the rule of the Church of America. We never realized what we truly lacked: love. True liberty. Umaymah gives us all these things and more. She’s unshackled us.”
“Thank you, Umaymah,” the Orphans exclaim in perfect unison.
“It was these two who brought me to you,” Edie replies, distracted by Naveen. “Without Vivian and Harp, our paths would have never crossed.”
“Thank you, Vivian and Harp!”
In other circumstances, it would maybe be funny—all-knowing Edie, the Orphans clutching the hem of the long skirt she still wears from her Believer days. But I’m tired, and the nightmarish quality of Robbie’s death has started to fade. It is starkly real now. Plus I’m still distracted by the adults in the kitchen, keeping a disoriented distance from us.
“I still don’t understand … what are you doing here? And who are they?” I gesture to the group and they shrink back from my gaze, like I’ve shone a blinding light upon them.
“Well, that’s just it.” Edie beckons brightly to them, and they inch forward slightly. “They’re the whole point of everything, aren’t they? They’re the miracle, Viv. They’re the ones who are going to change our world.” She smiles at me encouragingly, like I’m a child on the verge of solving some elaborate math problem.
And then Harp says simply, “They were Raptured, Vivian.”
As the militia begins to drift back into the room, stunned and sniffling, Edie tells us a story. In another life, or told by another person, I might refuse to believe it. But Edie’s the one telling the story—recent shifts in moral rectitude notwithstanding, she would not lie. She begins with the way they solved it.
Under her leadership and emboldened by Goliath’s betrayal, the New Orphans committed themselves to actively undermining the Church of America however possible. They held a virtual conference with Orphans across the country, and united each chapter under a common goal: ours. Edie knew from the blog that Harp wanted to find the missing Raptured; she used the money the Church corporation thought they were paying Goliath to send her Orphans to the twelve cities Harp’s blog followers had cited. The local chapters assisted in the investigation. They had no idea what they were looking for or where they would find it. They only knew Edie wanted them to look. The New Orphans ingratiated themselves with Believers, listened to rumors, pursued every dead end. Even modest Edie doesn’t hesitate to tell us it was hard work. The Believers insisted that the missing had been saved, that they were in heaven now. Non-Believers clung to a wide range of theories, as Harp and I already know—alien abduction and spontaneous combustion. Loyal readers of Harp’s blog were positive the missing three thousand had died like the faithful in Point Reyes, like my dad. Still the Orphans kept searching.
It was Kanye who found the link that brought this group of missing Raptured to us—these twelve men and women, whom Gallifrey dutifully ushers closer at Edie’s command, all of them looking frightened and faintly embarrassed. In Santa Fe, Kanye listened sympathetically as a Left Behind widow told him of her late husband—a devout Believer, he’d proudly held a job at the Church of America textile factory outside of the city, down in the desert. It was a good job that paid well, but right before the Rapture there were massive layoffs. Redundancy, the Church of America said, and the widow admitted they must have been right, because even with the layoffs it seemed like the factory was as effective as ever—they were the number one source of Church of America brand women’s clothing, one of the corporation’s most profitable ventures. But the whole community was affected. Some were lucky enough to go quickly to their rewards, but others, like this woman’s husband, couldn’t bear the agony of being abandoned both by his Church and his God. He killed himself.
When Kanye reported back to Edie, Edie had them do a simple internet search: the Church corporation proudly boasted their twelve flagship manufacturing plants across the nation—based in exactly the twelve cities Harp’s blog followers had named. Edie had a feeling. A new mother of only a few weeks, she led the rest of the Orphans to Sante Fe. Through means that Edie is not quite clear on, and about which nobody pushes her to elaborate, the Orphans located the factory and made it past the Peacemakers. They found a large workforce there, but something was wrong. The workers were hungry, confused, dead on their feet. They skittered away in fear when Edie approached them. She tried to convince them to escape, to come with her; she promised she’d protect them, but only a handful—the group gathered with us—consented to go. Edie takes a long breath then, and looks at them. As if she’s been coached, a young woman steps out of the anonymity of the group, and into our line of sight. Edie introduces her as Joanna.
“I don’t know how to—” Joanna’s voice is tentative, but strangely loud, like she’s trying to speak over us. But we’re silent, shocked, waiting for her to continue. “My family is not religious. That was never important to them. They were content not to know the how or the why, and that worked for them, but never for me. The last few years had been hard for me, and then … then I found Frick. Everything he said made sense, and I Believed. And I pushed the Non-Believers in my life away—my parents, my friends. I thought it didn’t matter, because my day was coming; I knew I’d be embraced by God; I knew I’d be saved.
“My pastor took me aside, three weeks before the Rapture. He said I’d been selected to be blessed by Frick himself at a secret Church compound in Santa Fe. I was beside myself with joy, with pride. I packed my bags and flew there, and I didn’t tell anybody where I was going because there was nobody in my life to tell. They probably didn’t notice I was gone until after the Rapture—that was maybe the first time they thought to look.
“A shuttle picked up a group of us—maybe nine or ten—at the airport. It brought us into the desert, to the factory. A woman gave us a tour. And I felt like I was part of this larger thing—like the Church and the corporation were a wonderful machine working for the glory of God, and I was a cog in it. So when at the end of the tour the woman told us they were short-staffed, and asked us if we would help for a while, lend a hand until the Rapture came, I said okay. We all said okay.
“And when after three weeks we were still there, the woman said not to worry. She showed us a video of Frick, one I’d never seen before, where he said that God cherishes the workers; he’ll save them seats at the glorious banquet of heaven. The woman told us there was going to be a Second Boat, and we were sure to gain passage on it, giving back as much as we did. You have to understand: I thought nobody loved me except for Frick and God. I thought the harder I worked, the more they’d both love me. So I kept working. But there was never enough food, never enough water. They kept us in cramped rooms. About five hundred of us, I’d say, at that factory. All of us living right on top of one another. The dyes in the textiles made some people sick. The noise was so bad that I still hear it buzzing, even now. And at a certain point I guess it was like waking up from a dream—I realized I wasn’t going anywhere. There was no heaven waiting, no life to return to, and I still believed with all my heart that the world beyond the walls of the factory was coming to an end. I knew others who tried to escape—they never got far before the Peacekeepers found them, and we never saw them again. And others were just crazy—they thought we were in heaven; they looked for passages in the Book to prove it. After a while, I forced myself to agree. Because what else was I going to believe? That I’d been so stupid, so desperate, that I’d let them own me? That I was only there because I didn’t have the courage to run away?
“It wasn’t until Umaymah showed up,” she says, turning with a rush of gratitude towards Edie, “that I even realized anyone was looking for us. So when she asked me if I wanted to leave, I said yes, of course. I would do anything she wanted me to.”
Joanna stops speaking then, abruptly, as though there’s more she wants to say but it would take more time than we have. Edie stands and makes her way through the New Orphans at her feet to slip an arm around the woman; she whispers comfort into the Believer’s ear. The rest of us are still with astonishment. I see Winnie weeping across the room and realize that I’m crying too—I don’t know how long I’ve been crying. I feel a wretched sorrow all over my body; every bit of me aches with longing for this story to not be true. But it is true—of course it’s true. I don’t know why it never occurred to me that the answer to everything would be as terrible and as mundane as this.
“Would you be willing,” Amanda asks finally after a long silence, “to tell the world what you just told us?”
Joanna glances quickly to Edie, a terrified look on her face. But Edie doesn’t meet her eyes. She dips her head forward to kiss Naveen’s forehead softly, and nods. I see Joanna straighten. Her eyes go hard with some effort as she turns to regard us all.
“Every word,” she says.