SOFI
Sleep that night was slow in coming, and restless when it finally did. I must have risen from my bed what seemed like dozens of times, rereading the letters in the dim glow of the bedside lamp before I finally shoved them all back in the box and buried it in my drawer under a pile of sweaters. Even then, I could still see the words on the back of my eyelids.
She thinks it was a boy from school.
Your daughter is three weeks old now.
Your daughter…
I clenched my hands into fists to keep them from trembling.
The sun was barely peeking over the horizon, sending wavering rays of light out to reach tentative fingers over the manicured lawns of my neighborhood, when the resentment and anger that was lodged in my chest finally drove me out of bed. I threw on my clothes in a blind rush and was out the door on silent feet and into my car before the thought had formed fully in my head. I didn’t know where to go; I just needed to get away. Away from the ridiculous tangle my world had become—secrets and betrayal woven together into a tapestry I could no longer recognize as my own life.
The problem was my whole world was Vaikesti. I could count the number of times I’d been beyond our city limits on one hand. Where could I possibly go?
My phone had GPS though, and I loaded up the map as I drove, turning out onto the main thoroughfare that ran through town, driving too fast on the deserted roads. I turned right, then right again, and took the ramp onto the interstate, a move I’d never done outside of driver’s ed. I let the roiling thoughts in my brain drown out the little voice that questioned what the hell I was doing, and sped up, merging into traffic with a wobbly jerk of the steering wheel, and then I was out of Vaikesti, heading south and away.
It was only when I took the exit a little over an hour later and found myself driving through the narrow, tree-lined streets of Springfield University that the little voice in my head pushed through to the forefront. What the hell was I doing?
I wasn’t sure what had possessed me to seek out Stephen of all people, except that while we had dragged him into this mess, he wasn’t really part of it. Not the way I was. He was the only non-Vaikesti person I’d ever really known, and while I still wasn’t sure I trusted the guy any further than I could throw him, maybe an outside perspective was exactly what I needed.
The problem was I had no idea where he lived.
I pulled into a large empty parking lot and turned off the car. The lot was surrounded by enormous buildings with large placards outside of their arched front entryways. I skimmed the signs.
Bellmont School of Engineering.
College of Liberal Arts.
Springfield Memorial Student Union.
The buildings were all constructed of red brick—larger certainly, but not otherwise unlike the buildings at home—and yet I still felt like I had entered a foreign world. The sun had barely risen over the treetops, but I could see a few people about, likely students heading to class. For a moment I imagined a different reality, where I was one of those students, heading to a science lecture without a care in the world. What would it be like?
I blew out a breath, then pulled myself together and retrieved my phone from the passenger seat, where it had been acting as navigator. I opened my contact list and let my thumb hover over the newest entry, added just a couple of days ago after our revelation at Mirtel’s wagon.
Stephen Jennings.
Would he even be awake yet? Maybe he was in class. I shouldn’t even be here. Would he think I was crazy? Well, more crazy than he probably already thought?
In the end, I couldn’t bring myself to call, so I settled on a text message.
It’s Sofi Ilves. I’m here, on campus. Can we talk?
To my immense relief, he answered immediately.
Sofi! I’m in the grad apartments at 242 Littleton Street. Apt 4. Come on over.
GPS got me there with no issues, but my hands were shaking as I climbed out of my car in front of a depressing-looking series of low, brown buildings with identical small windows and metal stairs. By the time I found myself standing outside of apartment 4, so identified by a tiny tarnished plaque on the door, my palms were damp and I could feel my heartbeat thudding in my ears. This was a mistake.
I’d barely knocked before the door swung open.
Stephen didn’t look much better than I felt. His eyes were wide and slightly manic behind glasses that sat crookedly on the bridge of his nose, and his hair was a wild mess. When he saw me though, he smiled a bit self-consciously and straightened his glasses, pushing them further up on his nose.
“Sofi. Come in. Sorry it’s…I wasn’t expecting you.”
He stepped aside to give me room to enter, and I moved into the brightly lit space.
I hadn’t really stopped to think what his apartment might look like, but if I had, I imagine this would be exactly what I would have pictured. The place was small, with an open kitchen and living room, and a short hallway that presumably led to the bedroom and bathroom. It wasn’t dirty, exactly—no piles of clothes, no dishes in the sink—just unkempt, with overflowing bookshelves and papers littering nearly every surface. He clearly lived alone. A shiver chased up my spine. I’d never been in a boy’s apartment before.
Stephen entered behind me and shut the door, but I stayed by the relative safety of the wall.
“Are you…is there…?” He glanced around cautiously, and I understood what he was asking.
“No, Darja’s not here. It’s just me.”
He paused, then nodded. “Did you want to see the translation?” And just like that, I felt more at ease. No questioning why I was there, no comment about how it was barely seven in the morning or how it was strange that I would be here at all.
“Yes,” I said, trying to keep the relief from my voice. He beckoned me further into the room and I followed, my eyes landing on the couch that dominated the space. It was thick and plush and comfy looking, strewn with blankets and papers. The large coffee table had been pulled up close, and was stacked high with books and other documents, sheaves of paper covered with pencil scratches and other notations. Our Vaikesti book was laid open in the center, next to a laptop, and I could barely see the top of the table through the mess. It looked like months of work had taken place here, and he’d only had the book for what—two days? Suddenly his red eyes and messy hair made sense. I glanced between him and the table.
“Have you even slept?”
He gave a short laugh and sat at the edge of the couch, reaching over the coffee table to move books out of the way and pull papers toward him as if the whole mess made sense to him, before shooting a quick glance my way.
“I, uh…I really wanted to get to work on it. Here’s what I’ve got so far.”
I sat down on the edge of the couch and he pushed a heavy binder in front of me. Carefully, I flipped it open, revealing page after page of translated text. Many pages had lines scribbled out, or post-it notes affixed to the edges, and comments filled the margins. But the amount of work that had been done was staggering.
“Holy shit. Did you already translate the whole book?”
He laughed again. “No. I mean, well, I only have a few pages of the, uh…the…dead portions of the text. I got them from Mirtel yesterday. She and…Aggie…are working on writing down the rest. So I’ve just been working on the parts I can see. I’m probably two thirds of the way through it.”
I was stunned. I leaned over the book, reading a few lines to myself. His handwriting was small and cramped, but easy enough to read. I flipped through the pages, seeing where he’d left spaces for the missing sections to be filled in. “That’s…that’s really amazing. Thank you for helping us with this, Stephen.”
“No, thank you, Sofi, for trusting me with this. It means more than you can imagine.”
I wondered again what he was getting out of this. I mean, he’d said he was doing research on the Vaikesti, but…why?
The silence stretched between us, and finally I gave voice to my thoughts. “Why are you so interested in us? Why have you been taking pictures, and why are you doing this for us?”
He didn’t answer right away, and I glanced up at him. He wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were focused on the mess of papers, but it didn’t seem like he was really seeing them. After a moment he turned and cautiously met my eyes.
“I told you I was a graduate student here.”
It wasn’t a question, but I nodded anyway.
“I’m doing my thesis on…” He trailed off.
“On the Vaikesti?” I asked.
He gave a half shrug and I could see a faint flush crawling up out of the collar of his shirt. “On religious cults.”
“What?” I sat up straight. “We’re not a cult. We don’t predict the end of the world and poison people with kool-aid.”
“Doomsday cults are only one category,” he said, pushing his glasses up his nose, and his voice took on a slightly lecturing tone. “A cult is really just a social group that has…unusual religious or spiritual beliefs. There are other common characteristics, but—”
“Our spiritual beliefs aren’t unusual,” I countered hotly, and even I could hear the false note in my voice. “It’s not like we b-brainwash people or…or murder…” And just like that I was crying again. I ducked my head, turning away, as the pain in my chest from the previous night’s revelation—hell, from the previous week’s revelations—mingled with the supreme embarrassment of being unable to control my emotions in front of Stephen.
Stephen. Who had been skulking around, taking photos, and writing papers about us like we were bugs under a microscope—because of course Vaikesti was a cult—and who I didn’t even like, and yet who hesitantly slid closer and put a tentative but surprisingly comforting arm around my shoulder.
“I’m sorry,” I managed a minute later, wiping my nose on my sleeve before Stephen rose and offered me a tissue. I studied him as he came back to the couch, and he watched me in return as if he wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do next.
“Why us?” I asked. “Why the Vaikesti?”
One corner of his mouth rose in a smile. “Well, you’re really close by, for one thing. So that’s convenient. And for another… you’re really secretive. No one really knows anything about the Vaikesti. Except for me,” he added quietly.
“You know you can’t tell anyone about all this,” I said, narrowing my eyes. “You can’t write about it in your thesis. You can’t show anyone this translation.”
He nodded. “I know.”
“Then why help us?”
He shrugged, and didn’t quite meet my eyes. “I’ve been interested in this stuff for a long time. Besides,” he added, looking at me again, his expression intense,” if everything you told me is true, this is bigger than a grade, or a thesis. This is…life-changing.”
I nodded. I couldn’t argue with that. We fell silent again, and I twisted my hands in my lap as he continued to watch me. Finally he said softly, “Why did you really come here?”
“What?”
“You didn’t come to see the translation. There’s nothing to see until it’s done, and this was a long drive for you to make, alone, when the sun is barely up. Did something happen?”
That was all it took for the story to come pouring out. I stared down at my lap as I talked, twisting the hem of my shirt in my hands, and I told him about the letters, and my dad, and Darja’s mom, and what it could mean for the bonded pairs, and what it meant to me.
Stephen was nothing if not a good listener. He didn’t interrupt as I recounted the anger and betrayal.
“And I just had to leave, you know? I’ve barely been outside of Vaikesti my whole life, and it’s suffocating, all the secrets and lies. And you’re the only person I know who isn’t part of all that.” I glanced down at the open binder on the table. “Though I guess you are now, aren’t you?”
He didn’t get a chance to answer before I felt the change in the air and spun around to see Darja standing by the window that looked out over the parking lot. She seemed so out of place with her flowing white dress, slightly transparent flowers still threaded through her carefully styled hair, against the backdrop of a modern student’s apartment. And yet, her presence still calmed me.
I glanced back to Stephen, who had not missed my odd reaction. “Darja’s here,” I told him, and his eyes widened a fraction.
But Darja didn’t move from her spot by the window, just turned to peer out and gestured with a hand. “Someone’s watching the apartment.”