The Shelter Cycle Read online

  “You were so upset about your friend, Courtney,” Francine said. “That’s what I remember.”

  “What are you doing with that bucket? What are you putting in there?”

  “I thought, for the baby, I’d take a few things. Maybe clothes that were meant for me, my baby would use them.”

  “I think you should leave those things here,” Maya said.

  “What?”

  “Mom and Dad put them here. I don’t know.”

  “It’s not getting used down here,” Francine said. “It never will.”

  “Still. That’s how I feel.”

  Francine looked away, at the line of encyclopedias on the shelf, the textbooks and notebooks, the books about the impressionists and King Arthur.

  “I talked to Wells this morning,” Maya said.

  “What?”

  “I called your cell and he picked up. You left it behind.”

  “You told him I was here?”

  “If you’d told me he didn’t know,” Maya said, “that you didn’t want him to know. You told me you’d call him—”

  “It doesn’t matter, really.”

  “He asked if you were alone.”

  “Alone?” She imagined Wells, alone in the house, holding her phone, asking Maya all these questions.

  “Francine?” Maya said. “What does that mean?”

  “All I wanted was to come back here by myself,” she said. “I didn’t want to have to talk and explain all about it. I just did.” Reaching for the bedpost, she pulled herself up, stood. “I think I’m ready to go now.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’ve been down here longer than you have.”

  “Okay.” Maya swung her legs around, her feet on the floor, and stood up.

  Francine followed her sister into the hallway. They closed the door with the brass 7 nailed to it, then walked through the kitchen, switching off lights as they went. Under the gaze of Cyclopea, onto the steps of the antechamber with the bright sky framed above, ahead the sound of wind. Francine climbed toward them.

  “Key?” Maya said, behind her.

  “What?”

  “Do you have it?”

  “Here.”

  Francine went ahead. She held the plastic bucket in front of her, where Maya wouldn’t see it, even if Maya had already seen it.

  Outside again, the day felt colder, the wind sharper, and the sun not so bright. The truck was parked next to the shelter; Maya had driven it off the road, through the scrub.

  “I brought you a sandwich,” she said. “I figured you’d need it.”

  “I do.”

  The sisters sat in the truck’s cab, out of the wind, looking through the windshield at the wide valley spread out below. The highway, the river, thin clouds blowing past.

  Maya wiped at her mouth, then set her sandwich on the dashboard. She reached into her jacket pocket, held out her phone.

  “What?”

  “You should call home.”

  “Later. I’ll do it.”

  “You want me to go outside so you can talk?” Maya opened her door; the wind whistled everywhere, blowing napkins around the cab. “Here.”

  “No,” Francine said. “Really. I don’t want to, right now. Not here.”

  Maya slammed the door, slouched down. “It’s not like you can keep them separate,” she said.

  “What?”

  “It’s not like you can come back here and solve it and leave it behind, then go back and start your family or whatever. It’s all connected—all this, and you, and what you’re doing now, and Wells, the baby, everything.”

  “I’m not saying—”

  “How do you think Wells feels?”

  “I just wanted to come back for a day or two. It doesn’t have to be that big a deal.” Francine stared out at the rickety blue and purple houses below, at the cars on the highway, the dark river, and, far away on Emigrant Peak, the pattern of trees and snow that still looked like a seahorse. “Didn’t you ever do something without knowing why?” she said.

  “Are you talking about coming back here? Or everything you’ve done since you left?”

  “I’m just asking you a question.”

  “Sometimes,” Maya said. “Sometimes I do what I want or have to even though I know it’s hurting someone, and then later I say I couldn’t help myself, or I had no control over it.”

  “That’s different.”

  “Is it?”

  Frowning, Maya turned in her seat and faced Francine. “You, you moved away. You didn’t come back. That was smart, in a way. I’m reminded all the time—places, people. You need a plumber or electrician, half the contractors in town are ex-members, people who came to work on the shelters. It’s crazy-making. It’s how we grew up, I know, but still. If you think too much about it, you can get either really confused or really angry.”

  “I like to think about it, though,” Francine said. “Sometimes, I think that was the happiest I’ve been.”

  “When you were ten? Of course you were happy.”

  “You sound mad,” Francine said.

  “I’m not mad.”

  “When I think about it, sometimes I feel just the same as I did, then.”

  “Sometimes,” Maya said, “when I’m stressed at work, or I’m driving in a snowstorm, I’ll hear my voice decreeing, saying the Archangel Michaels, and I can’t even stop myself. I hate that, like it’s inside me, just waiting.”

  She fished the key from her pocket and started the truck, shifted into gear. They jerked across the plateau, back onto the road and down the slope, toward where Francine’s car was parked. The only sound was the gravel beneath the tires.

  “I wish we didn’t have two cars,” Maya said, “that you didn’t have to drive all the way back to Bozeman.”

  “I’m not.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not going back with you.”

  “What?”

  “I’m headed home.”

  “That’s too far. Francine, sleep over, then start out in the morning.”

  “I’ll get a room at Chico, tonight, or down in Gardiner, and then tomorrow I’ll go back through Yellowstone. It’s shorter that way.”

  “If the road’s still open.” Maya pulled over, next to Francine’s car.

  “Thanks for coming,” Francine said. “It helped.”

  “Call me tomorrow. Let me know you’re home all right. Here, give me a hug.”

  Francine climbed down, then reached into the bed of the truck and lifted out the white plastic bucket. She stood beside her car, watching the brake lights of Maya’s truck blink as they rounded the curve and dropped out of sight. The truck reappeared, after a moment, going down the switchback below, and was gone again.

  15

  IN THE LOBBY of Chico Hot Springs resort, children ran back and forth, screaming; they wore bathing suits, clutched white towels, disappeared down shadowed hallways. A fire burned, casting shadows from the hearth. Out the windows, the afternoon had turned cold and dark.

  Francine stood at the desk, checking in. This was all so much fancier than she remembered, from back when she had come to the hot springs as a girl. She held her white plastic bucket in one hand, the papers almost weightless inside it, its lid snapped on tight. A man in a red mackinaw walked past, smiled. He seemed familiar; this kept happening, as if someone might suddenly know her, as if everyone knew her and she could not quite recognize them.

  Upstairs, her room had ruffles on the bed and the curtains. Small and cozy, it might have been decorated by a pioneer wife. She kicked off her clogs, set down the bucket. She pressed her forehead to the cold window, looked up a slope to where a ramshackle A-frame stood, where right now someone could be looking down, might see her pale face. Below the A-frame, black pipes snaked down the hillside, forked this way and that, went underground and resurfaced again as they brought hot water from the springs.

  Drawing the curtains, she turned, brushed her teeth in the bathroom, set a glass of water o
n the bedside table. Then, before she climbed into bed, she pried the lid from the white bucket. She set the small pile of papers on her pillow.

  The first paper was folded three times, and she opened it to reveal a cross-section of their shelter’s construction. Her father’s handwriting, in red ink, pointed out changes in the ventilation system, detailed the steps of the backfill, how to bury the whole thing without crushing it. She folded the plans away. Next were two watercolors, their paper rigid with dried paint: one by Maya, of a horse standing beneath a tree; another by Francine, her age (7) in the sky next to a sun that shone down on a girl whose smile stretched beyond the edges of her face.

  The next sheet of paper was official stationery. It was old, the address in Malibu, before the move to Montana. It took a moment for Francine to understand it, though there were only three lines: a letter from the Messenger to her parents, either telling them that they must marry or giving their marriage her blessing.

  A blue envelope held a card with a picture of a sunset on it. It was from her grandparents, to her parents, saying, You have our love even if we cannot be with you, even if we cannot agree. We appreciate your prayers and welcome them even if we do not understand.

  Next was a love note from her father to her mother, dated 1979, that she couldn’t quite bring herself to read. Not yet. And then the last piece of paper, at the bottom of the pile: another letter from the Messenger, a more recent one. It was from 1981.

  Hello My Daughter,

  I have been thinking of you and your family, Dearest Loving Hearts Who Keep the Flame of Life on Earth. Some Keepers of the Flame in the field have told me they are waiting for a signal before they plan on taking any action in terms of survival. This is not the case with you and your family, for which I am glad and for which the Masters are glad.

  Blessed heart, I have several letters from you here and must respond all at once. As for reports of Maya’s disobedience: I remind you that she is still a very young girl, and harsh measures will not avail you. Say the Heart, Head and Hand decrees with her before she goes to bed at night. Decree for her, yourself. Decree the Tube of Light over her while she sleeps.

  Most importantly, congratulations on welcoming a new soul into your family! I am in agreement that Francine is a fine name, and you have my blessing to use it for your daughter. Already I can tell that she has lived important lives in previous embodiments, and has returned to us for a reason. Your daughter will be the mother of a daughter of great Light indeed.

  All my Love forever,

  Mother

  P.S. You will soon receive (or may already have received) a mailing concerning our Royal Teton Food Storage Program. We are offering a comprehensive food program for survival created by our staff of food-production professionals and nutrition consultants. It includes organic grains, beans, and vegetables, many of which are grown right here on the ranch, and optional meat and dairy. Our food units are for sale only to registered Communicants.

  Francine set down the sheet of paper. She went into the bathroom, peed one last time, washed her hands. Carefully she then set the papers back in the bucket, unwound the scarf from her neck. She closed her eyes, drifted toward sleep.

  •

  In the morning, it took a moment to remember where she was. The scarf on the bedpost, the bucket on the floor. When she opened the curtains, the windows were frosted over; she shivered, closed them again, pulled on her clothes.

  Downstairs in the lobby, the fire was burning, and people were sitting around the hearth with newspapers and laptops, drinking coffee from paper cups. The buffet was not yet open; the door to the dining room was locked. Francine turned and went back up the stairs, down the hallway, following the arrows on the walls, past her own room. At the bottom of a narrow stairway, she pushed open the door.

  Steam was everywhere, rising from the hot water in the long pool into the dark sky overhead. Was anyone here? It was impossible to say. She stepped out of her clogs and felt the coldness of the concrete through her stocking feet.

  Voices. She squinted: a man and a woman with a baby floating in an inflatable ring. The baby laughed, splashed, disappeared into the clouds of steam.

  Francine took off her socks, rolled up her pant legs. She sat on the edge of the pool, easing her feet down into the hot water. When she was a girl, this had been one of the special places, one of the rare times they were out in the world with other people, people who weren’t members of the Activity. They were more exposed than at any other time, even if they weren’t allowed to wear bathing suits; they wore long shorts, knee socks, tights. She remembered how exciting it had been to splash along through the thick steam, uncertain whether the other children around her, their faces hard to see, were people she knew. She remembered the touch of skin underwater, of fingers suddenly around her ankle and suddenly gone. At night there were lights over the pool; she would float on her back in the hot water and stare up at the edge of the darkness, the stars.

  “Good morning,” a woman said. “A beautiful one.”

  “Yes,” Francine said.

  The woman wore a flowered bathing cap and had two long, wet white braids on her shoulders; she plowed through the water, running in slow motion. After a moment she returned, coming through the steam.

  “Cold out,” she said.

  “My butt’s freezing,” Francine said.

  “So get in.”

  “Can’t,” she said. “I don’t have a suit. And I’m not supposed to. The hot water.”

  “When are you due?”

  “Five weeks. A little more than a month.”

  The water magnified the woman’s lower body, made her legs seem to bend away at an odd angle. She kicked them, circled her arms, going through a series of motions. Exercises. She continued to look at Francine, not moving away. Her earlobes stuck out the bottom of her cap; small turquoise studs shone there.

  “You’re Francine, aren’t you?”

  “That’s my name, yes.”

  The woman laughed. “You don’t look so different from when you were a little girl. Your face. I knew you then. I knew your parents. I’m Juliet Stiller.”

  “Mrs. Stiller,” Francine said. “Courtney’s mom.”

  “I know, I don’t look the same. I’m old! I have to come down here almost every morning for my arthritis.”

  More voices. Bodies leapt into the water, colored suits flashed here and there. Francine felt wetness on her head; she looked up and cold flakes landed on her face.

  “It’s snowing.”

  “It is.”

  “I was thinking back,” Francine said. “How we used to come here.”

  “Yes—I remember times when Courtney was a teenager that I tried to keep her away, but of course that didn’t work.”

  Francine kicked her legs gently, felt the cold where her calves were wet, above the surface of the hot water. She looked down, then up at Mrs. Stiller again.

  “How is Courtney?”

  “She’s down in California—Oakland—with her girlfriend, now.” Mrs. Stiller held a long, blue foam tube under her arms; she straightened one leg so her toes broke the surface of the water, then the other. “She comes back a couple times a year, tells me how wrong I am about everything.”

  Francine tried to remember what had happened to Courtney, after she disappeared, after that night in the shelter. She was really Maya’s friend. Had she come back? Had she stayed away?

  “She’s my daughter,” Mrs. Stiller said. “The only one I have. Have to love her—you’ll see how it is when you have your daughter.” Now she splashed with her hands, drifting farther away, closer again. “I like the cold snowflakes and the hot water together,” she said. “Don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I saw you yesterday.” Mrs. Stiller swung her arms wide, then together in front of her, just under the surface of the water. “Did I say that? Your old place is gone, of course.”

  “Yes.”

  “Looked like you went up to the shelter.”


  “To think if we’d lived down there, all those years,” Francine said. “If we hadn’t been wrong—”

  “Were we wrong?” Mrs. Stiller sank lower in the water, blew bubbles, rose again. “No one knows what would’ve happened if we hadn’t built the shelters. We were trying to survive and we did survive, and now there’s a world out here, still a place where Light can be gathered. And I’ve never been with so many creative, determined folks working in the same direction. Never before, never since.”

  “You’re still involved?”

  “With the Activity? Oh, no.” Mrs. Stiller laughed. “Not exactly. After the Messenger, without her it became more like a publishing company, really—no real leader, none of the people we knew. No one down in Corwin Springs is really practicing like we did—and you know, what happened to the Messenger, the loss of her, that was more startling than the world not ending.”

  As she listened to Mrs. Stiller, as clouds of steam pressed down all around her, Francine tried to concentrate on the wetness of the water, the cold concrete beneath her. The snowflakes seemed to come down hot, like cinders, cooling slowly on her skin. The water around her legs felt cold. Icy. She reached her hands in, splashed her face, held her cold fingers over the sockets of her eyes.

  “Are you feeling all right?” Mrs. Stiller said. “Any cramping?”

  “Why?” Francine said. “Why did you say I would have a daughter?”

  “Did I say that?”

  “Just now.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “You did say it.”

  “You were friends with the Youngs’ boy,” Mrs. Stiller said. “I remember you running around together. I remember seeing your two blond heads, way up in the canyons.”

  “Colville,” Francine said. “I saw him not long ago.”