She saw people. Small groups of them gathered in huddles around the room. Some appeared to be self-segregated by race. Others lay on cots like hers, staring at the ceiling—also stone. The space was about the size of her junior high cafeteria, before the reservation was destroyed.
A persistent pain in her hip drew her attention. She lifted up her shirt and saw the insulin pump attached to her waistband. She turned it up, looking at its digital display, which showed her glucose levels, battery life, and insulin supply. All was good.
“What is that?” Elma asked.
“Insulin pump. I’m diabetic.”
“That can be hard, especially on one so young. But I wouldn’t worry about it,” Elma said. “Those of us with medical needs have been taken care of. I’m sure you will be as well.”
“I’ll be fine for a few more days, anyway,” Fiona said. To prove it, she stood. When she did, a fresh wave of nausea struck. She stumbled and was caught by Elma.
“Slow down, child, you’ll—”
Fiona yanked her arm away. “Let me do this,” she said, her little voice almost a growl. “I can do this.” Driven by a deep desire to be strong like King, she did what she’d seen him do after taking a hard hit or running a long distance. Hands on knees, head between legs, and long, deep breaths. She finished with a deep grunt and stood. She felt stronger, but still dizzy. Though she didn’t let Elma see that. Rook told her that when they were on a mission they had to swallow pain and discomfort to get things done. He made it sound easy.
It wasn’t.
But Fiona had Elma convinced as she stood up straight and rolled her little neck. When she opened her eyes again, the woman had taken a step back with a hand to her mouth. “Child, you may be the toughest person here.”
The statement helped Fiona stand still as her body threatened to buckle over and wretch. She swallowed, knowing that Rook had meant pain-swallowing as a metaphor, and forced a cocky King-style smile. “Just trying to take after my dad.”
Elma’s eyes were wide. “And … who is your father?”
“You can ask him when he—” Fiona lurched forward and vomited at the base of her cot. After three heaves and a coughing fit, she spit the remaining bile from her mouth and stood with tears in her eyes. Elma stepped forward and held her. Fiona melted into her hug. “Not as tough as you thought.”
“Nonsense,” Elma said, brushing a hand over Fiona’s straight black hair. “Some of these people did not stop crying for days. Some still cry.”
Fiona looked up at her. “How long have you been here?”
“Three months.” She motioned to the groups around the room, some of whom were looking their way. “Others are new arrivals like you. The longest have been here for a year.”
Fiona slumped in Elma’s embrace, horrified. “A year.”
“We are well cared for,” Elma said, her voice suddenly hopeful. “Look there,” she said, pointing to a door at the far end of the room that Fiona had missed during her dizzy turnabout. “We’re fed three times a day. And the food isn’t bad.” She pointed to the other end of the room where several hanging sheets divided the space. “There is a toilet with working plumbing, and a shower with drainage there. The water is cold, but it is nice to be clean. Even the lighting was carefully chosen.”
Fiona looked up at the string of lights hanging from the ceiling, spaced out every ten feet in a grid from one end to the other.
“The bulbs mimic sunlight and reduce the effect of not getting outside. It’s no replacement, but it’s better than regular bulbs.”
“Then why are we here?”
Elma shrugged. “We do not know. But it is clear our captors mean us no harm.”
“Yet…” Fiona added.
Elma grimaced and then nodded. “Yes. Yet. We are supplied with games, water, reading material, and medical supplies should the need arise.”
With her emotions reined in by the conversation and her body returning to normal, Fiona stepped away and stood on her own. “Who brings the supplies? The food?”
“We do not see who brings the food,” said a tall, skinny black man. “They come when it is dark. At night. When they shut off the lights. We cannot see them. But we hear them.”
“Buru,” Elma scolded. “Don’t frighten the girl.”
“She will be less frightened if she knows what to expect.” He turned to Fiona. “Who do you think deposited you here during the night? None of us saw you arrive. We woke, and there you were.”
Elma muttered some exasperated Italian and said, “She has only just arrived!”
When Elma threw her arms up, a black symbol could be seen on the back of her hand. It was small, about the size of a quarter, but Fiona recognized it instantly. She stepped away from Elma.
Elma’s hands stopped in midair. She’d noticed Fiona’s fear and followed the girl’s eyes to the symbol on her hand—a circle with two vertical lines through it. “What is it, child?”
Fiona just stared, her mind putting together pieces faster than she knew how to react.
“It’s a brand of a sort,” Elma said, lowering her hand and holding it out.
Buru showed her his hand. Though less visible on his dark skin, the symbol was there. “All of us have one.” He pointed to her right hand. “Even you.”
Fiona looked at her hand, the dark symbol fresh and shining like a cancer. She tried rubbing it off, but it did not smudge or dull. Tattoos, she thought, and then realized their purpose. She had helped her grandmother tag goats on the reservation once. Hated every second. But the experience was etched into her mind, impossible to forget. The tags showed ownership. And she was the only one here who knew the name of their shepherd.
Alexander Diotrephes.
And the knowledge gave her strength.
Rubbing the tattoo with her thumb, she turned to Buru. “They only enter in the dark?”
He nodded, perplexed that the little girl would return to the topic. “There is a dim light from the hallway beyond the door, but that is all.”
“Have you seen one?”
Buru looked at Elma, who threw her hands up, and walked away while shaking her head and muttering in Italian.
“Only shadows,” Buru said. “But others have seen them.”
“Dark cloaks and gray skin?”
Elma stopped and turned around slowly. Her eyes wide.
Buru was likewise stunned. “You know of these things?”
Fiona sifted through a year’s worth of Chess Team education she got on top of her regular school studies. “My father called them wraiths but that’s a misnomer because ‘wraith’ is a Scottish word for ghosts … and these are not Scottish. And they’re not ghosts.”
“What are they?” Buru asked.
She shrugged. “I dunno, but I can tell you two things for sure. First, we won’t be escaping without help. Second, help is on the way.”
Buru looked incredulous, like he’d just remembered he was speaking to a young girl. “How do you know this?”
She looked at Elma, trying her best to sound confident, to believe that King, her father, would scour the earth for her, and said, “I never did tell you who my father is.”
NINETEEN
Pope Air Force Base, North Carolina
KING RESTED HIS elbows on the table and tried the word on for size. “Golem.” He didn’t like it. “As in the legendary Jewish variety?”
“You know it?” Aleman asked.
“Just the basics,” King said. “That they’re figures, most often created from clay and brought to life when a rabbi places a piece of paper in its mouth with the word ‘Emet,’ truth, written on it. Sometimes the word is inscribed on the golem’s body instead. To destroy the golem the ‘E’ is erased, leaving the word ‘Met,’ death.” King looked up at Aleman, who was typing away on his laptop as he listened. “You know how stupid this sounds?”