Restoring Harmony Read online

  “And he ran away!” Michael said.

  “Bam!” Grandma held up a black trophy with a silver cheerleader on the top. I took it from Grandma and examined the little plaque in my bike lamp.

  Spirit Award

  Brianna Buckley

  Barlow High School

  2017

  I wasn’t sure what was harder to believe, that they’d all survived unhurt, or that my mother had been a cheerleader.

  It was clear, even in the dark, that there was no way we were ever going to get the car out of the ditch. Plus, the right fender was crushed against the tire. We put the kids in the back of the trailer to sleep, and the four of us sat around a campfire arguing about what to do next.

  “We’re still around eighty miles from Seattle, but only twenty or so from Olympia,” Spill said. “I think we should put Jack and Katharine and the kids on a train and meet them at Union Station.”

  “I don’t like it,” I said.

  “It makes the most sense,” he argued. “Seattle is too far for them to walk.”

  When Grandpa agreed, and Grandma added, “Yes-train,” I gave in.

  At first light, we unloaded the Studebaker while Grandpa removed his module from under the hood because he wanted to take it back to the farm. We packed as much of our gear onto my bike rack and into Spill’s trailer as we could, but the suitcase was a real problem because even though Grandma had reluctantly left behind a pile of mementoes she’d been carrying for my mother, Grandpa had added his module to the suitcase and now it was even heavier. He insisted on pulling it along behind him, though, so I didn’t argue. I figured his arms would get tired eventually and we could get rid of more stuff then.

  We were all set to go when I noticed Grandpa staring at his car. The front end was bashed in from my joyride, black goop hid the brilliant chrome and once-sparkling paint, and tears glittered in Grandpa’s eyes.

  I put my arm around his shoulder. “Grandpa, I-”

  He shrugged me off. “It’s just a car. Let’s go.”

  He turned and went after the others, but I knew he wasn’t leaving just his car behind. The Studebaker stood for everything he’d worked for. He was walking away from his home, his career, his life as an American, everything he knew. I looked for some kind of souvenir to take from the car. There wasn’t anything inside worth keeping, and just when I was about to give up, I spotted the lark hood ornament. It had come loose in the accident and I wrenched the statue off and stuffed it in my pack.

  We had to walk our bikes in order for my family to keep up with us, which is actually a lot more tiring than riding them, but even so, twenty miles wasn’t much to me or Spill. It was difficult for my grandparents, and horrible for the kids, though. After two hours, Brandy and Michael were begging to be carried. Spill put them in the back of the trailer and rode on ahead.

  By two o’clock we’d been on the road for five hours, and I was willing to bet we hadn’t walked more than halfway to Olympia. My grandparents and I finally caught up to Spill and the kids. He was chasing them around a grassy meadow.

  “We’re not going to get there today,” I told him.

  “I know. We’ll camp here. Your grandma looks worn out.”

  I’d noticed this too and made her sit down while Grandpa and I put together lunch. By the time we’d finished eating, I felt like I could nap, but the kids had to explore every inch of the little field and the creek, so instead, I rested on the bank, watching them make mud pies. “You’ll be sorry,” I said, “when I give you a bath later.” They laughed then, but I had to listen to them scream and cry while I washed them with icy water before dinner.

  After we ate, we gathered around a small campfire, trying to stay warm. “Play us a tune,” Grandpa suggested.

  Spill added a log to the fire. My arms were tired from walking the bike and I knew it was too cold to play, but we could all use a boost, so I got Jewels out. “Sing along,” I said. My bow slipped sadly across the strings, and music filled the glade, drowning out the sound of the creek.

  Let us pause in life’s pleasures and count its

  many tears,

  While we all sup sorrow with the poor;

  There’s a song that will linger forever in our

  ears;

  Oh, hard times, come again no more.

  I sang softly, but Grandpa’s deep voice rang out loud and clear. Grandma hummed, every once in a while joining us in a phrase. Spill sat silently with Michael on his lap and Brandy leaning against him for warmth.

  ’ Tis the song, the sigh of the weary,

  Hard times, hard times, come again no more.

  Many days you have lingered around my cabin

  door;

  Oh, hard times, come again no more.

  The song was almost two hundred years old, and everyone I knew had at least one reason to sing it. Hopefully, our hard times would be over soon. In the morning, against my better judgment, we would put my grandparents and the kids on a train, and all I could do was hope that we’d meet up in Seattle. If I lost them now, I might as well forget about ever going back to the farm.

  40

  October 6th-As you sow, so shall you reap.

  I STOOD OUTSIDE THE OLYMPIA STATION WITH THE bikes while Spill went in to inquire about trains. It was early afternoon on the second day of walking, and we’d finally made it. My grandparents had taken the kids inside an hour before while we’d waited down the road. I was scanning the crowd for men who looked scary enough to be in the Organization when two guys in white shirts and black pants rode up to me and stopped their bikes next to ours.

  “Hello, Brother,” the first one said to me.

  “Uh, hello.”

  “I’m Brother Paul,” he said. “And this is Brother Samuel.”

  I’d tucked my hair up inside my helmet, but it seemed unlikely I could pass for a boy. Still, I tried to make my voice deeper. “I’m . . . uhh . . . Brother James,” I said, using my older brother’s name.

  The guy was definitely scrutinizing me, but all he said was, “Nice to meet you.”

  “You too.”

  “Are you getting on the train?” Brother Samuel asked.

  “No. Uh, I’m waiting for Brother . . . Brother Quinn. He’s just using their washroom.”

  “Washroom?”

  “Bathroom,” I said, correcting myself.

  “Oh.”

  Spill came out of the doors then, and I waved, “Hi, Brother Quinn!” I called. He didn’t show even the tiniest flicker of surprise. Instead he walked right up to the boys and shook their hands warmly. Fifteen minutes later, the four of us were riding up the Portland-Seattle bike path that ran along I-5, Brothers Paul and Samuel leading the way.

  “You were amazing,” I whispered to Spill.

  “This is a great cover,” he whispered back.

  He’d assessed the situation in about ten seconds flat, immediately getting the picture when they referred to me as Brother James. He listened to their story and told them that we’d also come to the train station to spread the Word and were on our way north.

  The Brothers told us the news was that as of that morning, there’d been six confirmed cases of polio as far west as Idaho. Even if the border officials thought a person had a legitimate reason to travel, he still had to have a physical exam to get into Canada.

  They were short of doctors too, so the waits were long, and they’d set up campgrounds for people who had to wait for an exam. If even one person came down with polio in Washington, they were going to set up three-week quarantines for all the travelers. Brothers Paul and Samuel were going up there to save the souls at the camp.

  Spill and I rode side by side, and I asked if he’d seen my family inside the station.

  “Yep,” he said. “There’s a train around midnight, and they should be there by tomorrow morning,”

  “Did you talk to them?”

  Spill laughed. “No, but I definitely saw them. Subtlety isn’t your grandpa’s strong suit.”

 
“What do you mean?”

  “Well, apparently”-he smiled-“he wanted to make sure I knew he got the train tickets because he waved them around so much everyone in the station could see them.”

  I was glad they were safe, but there was one more thing I had to know. Spill had decided that it looked kind of obvious for me to have Jewels on my bike rack so my grandparents had taken her with them. I did not like this one bit. “Was my fiddle okay?”

  “Michael was holding it on his lap,” Spill said.

  “Well, I guess Jewels will be safe enough with him,” I said. “He loves that fiddle almost as much as I do.” As soon as we got home, I was going to give Michael my quarter-size fiddle from when I was his age and start teaching him to play.

  The four of us had been riding about two hours when we decided to take a break at an interstate rest stop. It was a big one, full of Transporters and lots of people on foot or traveling by bike. As soon as we stopped, we’d met up with two other missionaries also heading north. Spill’s eyes never stopped moving, even though he sat on the grass with us, drinking water and looking relaxed.

  The sun was weak, but warm, and made me sleepy. I forgot I was supposed to be a boy and was half leaning against Spill when a low, black car pulled in not ten feet from us. Out of my peripheral vision, I saw Randall and another man in a suit climb out and I felt Spill stiffen next to me, even though his expression never changed.

  “Oh, my God!” I said.

  The brothers looked up at me in surprise. The only thing that kept me from bolting was Spill’s grasp on my arm.

  “Let us pray,” Spill said. “For a safe journey.”

  “Good idea,” Brother Samuel agreed.

  The six of us stood and gathered together in a little knot, bowing our heads. Because the Brothers never took their helmets off, it was hard to tell them apart. They all had very tan arms and faces from being outside so much, and even their body types were similar, fit and muscular. Brother Paul began to murmur a prayer. All I was aware of was Spill’s hand on my arm and the sound of Randall’s voice as he talked to the other man. Cigarette smoke wafted from their direction, stinging my eyes. It would’ve been great if they had been rattling off their plans, where they were going next, and all that, but they were just talking about the weather.

  “Don’t get used to this sunshine,” the man said. “Always rains in Seattle.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Randall agreed.

  “Brother James?” one of the missionaries asked.

  I snapped my attention back to our group. “Yeah? What?”

  “The prayer’s over. We’re going.”

  I realized I still had my head bowed even though I’d been faintly aware of them saying amen. They were all getting on their bikes, and I hurried to jump on mine and go with them. Spill and I blended into the middle of the group and we got away without Randall seeing us, but my heart was still beating furiously when the black car zipped by on the interstate.

  That night, we stayed with the Brothers about fifteen miles outside of Seattle. This was a permanent campsite with Elders, and maybe sixty or seventy members, a canvas mess tent, and a wooden building for meetings. After dinner and evening prayers, we all broke off into little groups around small camp-fires and laid out our sleeping bags. It was cold, but clear, so hardly anyone bothered with tents. I could see the Elders moving from group to group and saying good night. The one called Elder Mathew was nearest to us.

  Everyone called him Elder, but I don’t think he could’ve been more than thirty. Of course, most of the Brothers looked to be about my age, so he’d probably been around for a while. He had thick blond hair, almost white, and a meaty look to him, but not really muscular. Soft, I guess was the word I was looking for. When he reached us, he asked if we minded if he sat with our group for a while.

  “Please,” Brother Samuel said.

  We all sat there, waiting for someone to speak. Finally Elder Mathew did. “Sometimes,” he said, “as with our Catholic brothers, there is a time for confession. I was wondering if anyone has something to confess.”

  No one said anything, but my heart raced right up into my throat because he was looking directly at me.

  “No one?” he asked, turning to Spill. “What about you, Brother Quinn?”

  “Nope,” Spill said easily.

  “Brother James?”

  “Uh . . . no?”

  “Well, then,” he continued, “I have a confession to make. I confess that we know you two are not members of our brotherhood.”

  “Sure we are,” Spill said.

  No one around the fire seemed to be breathing.

  “No,” he said. “And shall I tell you how I know this?”

  “Okay,” Spill said, his expression totally blank.

  Elder Mathew looked straight at me. “Because we do not have women in the brotherhood.”

  I folded my arms across my pounding chest and stared at the fire. What did they do to imposters? I had no idea how to get us out of this, so I hoped Spill had a plan.

  “Do you believe in redemption?” Spill asked Elder Mathew.

  He looked surprised. “Of course. That’s what we’re about.”

  “But I mean here on Earth,” Spill said.

  “Absolutely.”

  Spill gazed steadily at Elder Mathew. “Would you say that it is your role to help people who want redemption?”

  “Most definitely.”

  Where was he going with this?

  “So, if I were to tell you a story about two people,” Spill said, “one doing a good deed and the other trying to redeem his wicked ways, would you promise to help them?”

  Elder Mathew considered this for a minute.

  “If it did not hurt others, or put my mortal soul in peril, then yes, I would help them.”

  “Oh, it wouldn’t,” Spill said. “In fact, assisting them would be helping more people than you’ll ever know.”

  “Tell me your story, then.”

  I thought Spill was going to lie. I thought he’d been quickly coming up with fake names, stories, places, and people, but he hadn’t at all. The only thing he said that wasn’t a hundred percent true was he called himself Spill instead of Robert.

  I sat, my heart pounding, and listened to him tell our entire story from the arrival of Grandpa’s letter about Grandma having a stroke and my family thinking she was dead to us sitting there now. He included how sick Mom was, how Dr. Robinson had been kicked in the head and died, how Poppy had snuck me into the United States, our meeting on the MAX, my starving grandparents, the long, hard summer in the garden, Doug, the gambling, the kids, Spill’s years as a delivery boy, the Organization keeping us in Gresham, the escape, leaving my grandparents and the kids at the train station in Olympia, and finally meeting Brothers Paul and Samuel.

  He explained about Randall being at the rest stop and probably on his way to the train station in Seattle and how we had to rescue my grandparents and the kids somehow. And he told them how he planned to be a cobbler once we reached Canada and leave his past far behind him. It took over an hour to tell our story, and when he finished, Elder Mathew had a few questions that Spill answered. Then he asked him to swear on the Book that our story was true.

  “Your book is not my book,” Spill said. “But I’ll swear on it and keep my word.”

  “There’s always hope that you will embrace our teachings,” Elder Mathew said. He held up a copy of the Book, and Spill laid his hand upon it and took the oath.

  And then, without another word to us, Elder Mathew stood up and called to the brotherhood. “Come! Gather around!” he shouted. “Rise out of your beds and hear what I have to say. We, my dear, dear brothers, have been given a mission from God!”

  41

  October 7th-Compassion is the basis of all morality.

  -Arthur Schopenhauer

  THE “MISSION FROM GOD” BIT HAD BEEN PRETTY DRA - matic, but it was nothing compared to what happened at dawn. Sixty-five of us, dressed in the unif
orm of the Brothers, mounted our bicycles and rode in a streaming line, three bikes abreast, along the bike path right into downtown Seattle.

  The streets were mostly empty, but the few people on the sidewalks gazed at us, surprised and even a little frightened. Maybe they thought we were taking over the city. It certainly looked that way as we fanned out, filling the empty road. I doubt if anyone noticed six Brothers pulling away from the crowd, riding towards Elliott Bay while the rest of us headed for Union Station.

  We’d decided that it was too dangerous to involve Poppy’s boyfriend in our escape. On the advice of Elder Mathew, Spill had gone directly to the marina to try and secure us passage to Victoria on a boat with a captain who only cared about money and could be bribed.

  Elder Mathew had shaken his head and said, “There are plenty of those men these days.”

  I, for one, was glad to hear it.

  “I want you to understand,” he told me. “Generally, I believe that laws are laid out to serve the public and should be followed. But sometimes, like in the case of these children that you’re trying to help by giving them a stable home with your family, you have to bend the rules.”

  “We are trying to do the right thing,” I said.

  “And I’m not too worried about you all having polio,” he said, “since there aren’t any confirmed cases in Washington.”

  His words made me consider what we were doing more seriously than I had so far. We weren’t only trying to avoid possible quarantine by crossing illegally, but we were sneaking the kids and Spill into Canada too. There was a time when I would’ve thought that was wrong, but like Elder Mathew said, sometimes you have to bend the rules.

  “Remember,” Elder Mathew told a little group of Brothers when we got to the station, “stay on all sides of Molly. Don’t let her out of your sight.”

  “She’s safe with us,” they all answered.