The Lost Causes of Bleak Creek(50)

He didn’t think Leif or Ben noticed. “But not right away,” he backtracked. “Maybe…yeah, maybe we’ll wait on showing them the footage.”

“Definitely,” Ben agreed, getting to his feet, seeming eager to leave. “We shouldn’t assume we can trust anyone. Only each other.”

“Right,” Rex said. “That’s what I was thinking.”

“I don’t want Alicia to be sacrificed,” Leif said quietly.

“We won’t let that happen.” Rex was completely serious, and yet he could feel it: He was still smiling a little. He dug a hand into the trail mix Leif was still holding and threw a bunch into his mouth, thinking it might suppress the smirk. It did, but that was mostly because he realized he was chomping down on nothing but raisins and M&M’s.





14


ALICIA COULDN’T BREATHE.

Wayne Whitewood’s gloved hands were gripping her neck.

It took everything she had not to panic, to resist the water from pouring into her nose as the headmaster leaned her back, her face just below the surface.

This was her third time in a Thinking Shed, but instead of being compressed in the unforgiving coils of the Roll, she was now immersed in a grimy basin filled with the so-called healing waters of Bleak Creek Spring.

“Are you ready to follow, Candidatus?” Whitewood asked after lifting her out of the water. Alicia coughed and sputtered, her curls heavy and matted to the sides of her face. Then she just stared at him.

Whitewood dunked her again.

Alicia’s brain was still racing to catch up to her new situation. She’d been forced to one-eighty so quickly from the anticipation of seeing Josefina to the dread of encountering Whitewood that it hadn’t sunk in yet.

And almost worse than the abuse she was currently suffering was the thought that had occurred to Alicia moments after she’d entered the bedroom:

Did Josefina set me up?

Was that what their friendship was the whole time? A con?

It was too painful to contemplate. Could it be that the only real human connection she’d made since arriving at Whitewood wasn’t real at all, that she was even more alone than she’d imagined?

Just when she thought she might gasp in a lungful of water, Whitewood lifted her up.

“Now are you ready to follow?” His tone remained calm, but Alicia thought she saw a flash of desperation in his face. She stayed silent, though she was beginning to question how long she could keep it up.

Whitewood shook his head slowly, tightening his grip on her throat, and pushed her down once more.

Aside from the horrible smell coming from the cloudy water, the sinewy hands pressing on her windpipe, and her arms being tied behind her back, it wasn’t too unlike her actual baptism, performed by Pastor Mitchell when she was ten. Just like back then, she was in waist-deep water with a fully clothed man who wanted to hear some very specific words. Pastor Mitchell had told her ahead of time that he would be asking a number of questions about Jesus, and all she had to do was say yes to each one. Whitewood hadn’t mentioned Jesus once, but he seemed to be after a similar answer. She wondered now, as she had then with Pastor Mitchell, if the best strategy was simply to go along with what the adult was looking for.

As Whitewood again lifted her from the water, her head woozy and vision blurry, she questioned how much it would really hurt to just say, “Yes, I will follow.” She could spend the rest of her time at the Whitewood School in hushed defiance.

“Candidatus,” Whitewood said, his voice oozing with charm even as his eyes conveyed the exact opposite, “I have to say, I’m glad we’re gettin’ this chance to talk. Had my eye on you since you got here. Every day I’m wonderin’ if you’ll see the light. If you’ll let us save you. But that doesn’t seem to be on your agenda.”

Alicia didn’t know how to respond, but it didn’t matter, as it was evidently just a dramatic pause. “You feel these gloves on my hands?” Whitewood asked.

Alicia nodded.

“You know why I have to wear these?”

She nodded again.

Whitewood smiled. “Of course you do. I have to wear these while my hands heal. Because of what you did to me. Let me ask you, Candidatus: Do you know how difficult it is to play the organ with gloves on?”

Alicia shook her head, a genuine response.

“Pretty darn difficult,” Whitewood said. “You can still do it, sure, but you lose the subtleties, the nuances. I can convey the basic message of the music to all the congregants, but it’s like I’m…It’s like my music is screamin’ the whole time. And sometimes I don’t want it to scream. Sometimes I want it to talk. To converse. To whisper. You understand?”

Alicia didn’t. But she nodded anyway, water dripping from her hair into her eyes.

“And you’ve taken that from me,” Whitewood said. “Because you think the rules don’t apply to you. That you’re…special. So what I want to know is…Was it worth it? Is it worth it?”

It was a very good question. But Alicia couldn’t fully consider an answer because she was transfixed by Whitewood’s flawlessly coiffed hair. The way it maintained its signature swoop despite the strained expression on his face, it almost looked fake.

“Well, I’ll tell you,” he said. “It’s not. So I hope you’re ready to fall in line. Are you? Are you ready to follow?”