“Would you like some breakfast?” the woman asked.
“Why are you doing this?” Joan demanded, confronting them.
The woman tried to look puzzled, but she wasn’t a good enough actress, and Joan caught the sideways glance she shot her husband.
If he really was her husband.
“Doing what, dear?”
She responded in English. “Knock it off. I’m not a moron. Whatever I’ve been drugged with made me hallucinate and put me to sleep, but it didn’t make me stupid.” Her head was pounding, but she tried to ignore it. “What are you supposed to do? Guard me? Make sure I don’t try to escape?”
She’d seen through their deception, and they knew she knew, but they were playing their parts to the hilt.
“Our place is yours,” the woman said, switching to English also. “You know that.”
Fine. Joan pushed herself off the bed, stood and, despite the thunderous sound of blood thumping in her skull, walked over to the closet and opened its door. Inside were empty hangers dangling from a long wooden bar. She closed the door and headed out into the short hall that led to the bedroom that used to be her parents’.
“Ruth—” the woman began.
“My name’s Joan,” she said frostily.
The couple looked at each other, confused. Clearly, they hadn’t been given much information. They’d probably been chosen for this only because they happened to reside in her family’s old living quarters.
Joan walked into the bedroom, noting that the bed was flat against the east wall rather than being centered in the middle of the room the way it had been when her family lived here. These people kept no flowers—her mom always had a vase of cut flowers on the dresser and a potted geranium near the window—and to Joan’s eye, the room seemed depressingly devoid of decoration. The only nonfunctional item in sight was a framed photo of Father above the bed.
She walked across the room, moved to open the closet door.
“No!’ the man said, breaking character.
Joan immediately twisted the knob and yanked the door open. The closet was dark and, at first glance, appeared to be empty. Then she saw the wooden box on the floor. It was filled with black dirt, and in the dirt grew dozens of white mushrooms of various shapes and sizes.
She frowned. What was this?
“Don’t tell Father!” the woman begged. There was fear in her voice.
Whatever was going on, Joan knew she had the upper hand, and she decided to play it. “What is this? What are you doing?” she demanded.
“We only use them for ourselves,” the woman said. “We don’t share them.”
“They help us,” the man said.
She understood. These mushrooms were hallucinogenic. They might even be the source of whatever had been used to drug her.
“It’s my own soil. I made it myself. And the mushrooms just came up. It’s not stealing. I would never steal. They’re not part of Father’s crop.”
“They’re just for us,” the woman said.
Joan relented. Like herself, like her parents, these were people unhappy with the Home, people who wanted to escape but could not do so physically. Instead, they grew mushrooms in secret and ingested them in order to numb the pain and flee the reality of their lives in the only way they could.
“I won’t tell anyone,” she said. “But I need you to talk to me. I need you to tell me the truth.”
“We can’t let you go.” The woman started crying. “Father will punish us if we do.”
Joan’s muscles tightened involuntarily at the idea of punishment. She thought of the screams she’d heard on the night she and her parents had escaped. “What are your names?” she asked kindly.
The man sighed heavily. “I am Mark. My wife is Rebekah.”
“My name is Joan. It used to be Ruth, but now it’s Joan.”
“Joan,” Mark said, nodding respectfully. Rebekah was still sobbing.
“How long have you lived in the Home?”
“I came here as a child,” he replied. “My parents were Outsiders. Rebekah was born here.”
“I don’t remember you,” Joan said. “Did you know my parents?”
“I worked with your dad on the Farm sometimes,” Mark said.
Rebekah wiped her eyes, took a deep breath, banished her tears. “Your mom helped us in the Kitchen every once in a while, but we didn’t know them well.”
“You knew we escaped, though. You knew we got out.”
They both nodded.
“Do you want to get out?”
There was a moment of hesitation, as though they still weren’t certain they could trust her.
“You’re taking drugs,” Joan said. “Against Father’s laws. You’re spending your free time growing mushrooms in your closet and anesthetizing yourselves so you won’t have to think about your lives. You’re telling me you’re happy here? You don’t want to escape?”
“Of course we do!” Rebekah said fiercely. “But we can’t! No one can!”
“We did,” Joan said simply.
“And you’re back again.”
That was true. Joan thought of her parents in the coffins. Where were they now? “I’m not staying here,” she said.
The two looked at her, expressionless.
“I was kidnapped and brought here against my will. I’m being held here against my will.” She swallowed hard. “My parents are dead. They were kidnapped. And killed.” It felt like a punch to the stomach to say those words. “All we have to do is get out and tell the police, and it’ll be all over.”
“Father will punish us,” Rebekah said again.
Joan backed off. This was too new for them, too much to handle all at once. But they were unhappy here, they were already doing something forbidden and their sympathies were with her. All she needed to do was nudge them in the proper direction and help them gather the strength to do the right thing.
She also needed to figure out what that right thing was. She needed to come up with an escape plan, the way her dad had. Unfortunately, her knowledge of the Home was not only five years out of date but incomplete. She’d been a teenager when they’d left and had not been exposed to many areas and aspects of life here—which was another reason she needed Mark and Rebekah’s help.
“What are you supposed to do with me?” she asked.
They looked at each other. “Treat you like family,” Mark said finally. “Father thinks that if we show you that this is still your home, it will make it easier for you to adjust. That’s why he put us here in your old place.”
Father thought no such thing, Joan knew. He had given her a fake family and put her back in her old bedroom for the same reason that he had paraded Kara in front of her. He wanted to twist the knife.
“How long am I supposed to live with you?” Joan asked.
“We don’t know,” Rebekah said. She still seemed reluctant to reveal information, as though she suspected Joan was a spy trying to trick them and trap them.
“And now that I’m awake? What happens now?”
Mark answered. “We’re supposed to pray with you, read some scrolls together and take you to Chapel.”
“Take me to Chapel? Are you supposed to… hand-cuff me or anything?” She remembered the humiliating discomfort of the muzzle Absalom had put on her.
“No.” Mark shook his head. “We were told that the herbs administered to you would leave you content and without the desire to escape.” He allowed himself a small smile. “We have experienced that effect ourselves.”
Thank goodness that aspect of the drug hadn’t worked.