Bitter Falls (Stillhouse Lake)

Bitter Falls (Stillhouse Lake)

Rachel Caine



PROLOGUE

It was just coming up morning when they fetched him from the cell.

He’d spent all night on his knees shivering in the cold in that thin white nightgown they’d made him wear. The few times he’d fallen asleep, a prod from the barrel of a rifle had been enough to wake him right up.

He ached all over, but then he did most days from the hard work. He’d gone from strong and athletic and cut to . . . this. He could see knobs of bone on his wrists, his fingers. His collarbone was showing sharp enough to slice paper. They hadn’t even fed him the handful of rice they usually did this time. No water either.

It’s a fast, they’d told him, but nobody fasted when they were already starving. They just starved more.

He tried not to think about food. About how he’d used to not even worry about where the next meal was coming from, about burgers and pizza and sandwiches any damn time of the day or night. French fries and beer. That whole time seemed a hazy dream. Going to classes. Girls. Parties. Flag football and Frisbee golf and the bar, the last bar that was so damn crowded with his friends. Did they ever miss him? Did they even notice he was gone?

God, he was hungry, and he just wanted to sleep.

Then they came for him.

Six men, shadows in the dark, but he knew they had clubs and guns. They always did. They pulled him to feet that he couldn’t even feel anymore and made him stomp until the numbness went away. It hurt so bad it stole his breath. It felt unreal. This isn’t me. I have a life. I have a family. I can’t be here.

Outside the shed, dawn was a faint whisper over the trees, but it was still dark, and he could hardly see the ground as he stumbled over it. Music rose up like fog. The whole damn camp was singing. He didn’t recognize the hymn; he’d been raised Catholic and right now he wanted desperately to pray. He hadn’t prayed all night, even though they’d ordered him to. God, please help me. Please.

His feet were bare, and the rocks on the path cut deep and left blood behind, but they dragged him on anyway. Downhill. Off to his right a solid metal fence rose impossibly tall and featureless. The heavy wall that kept the whole world out. The one he’d thought he might be able to climb, once upon a time when he was a different person. He still had the scars.

Maybe they’re letting me go, he thought. Deep inside he knew it wasn’t true. Didn’t want to know, so he stumbled along praying and hoping, all those singing voices falling behind. Now it was just him and the faithful with their guns and silence. All he could hear was his breath rattling in the bony cage of his chest.

Trees closed out the fragile light. It felt like he was going into a grave, and he wanted to run, scream, fight, do anything because fuck it, he’d been somebody, he’d been strong and sure and unafraid once, hadn’t he?

He didn’t run.

Better to go quietly.

The sharp chill bit like icy teeth. He just had on the thin smock, and his hands and feet were mostly numb again with the cold. The menthol scent of the trees should have been as comforting as Christmas, but all he could really smell was his own sweat and rank fear. His dry mouth felt like cotton padding. Maybe I’m dreaming, he thought. Maybe it’s all been a dream, maybe I got drunk at Charlie’s Tavern and I’m going to wake up in the dorm next to Brie and all this will be just some stupid nightmare.

Brie. His girlfriend. He wondered what she was doing right now. If she ever missed him at all. He thought about his parents, and the way they must be looking for him, still looking.

That hurt.

They emerged from the shadows of the trees, and he had to stop and stare. A small lake stretched out in cool ripples, painted pink with morning. And there was a waterfall . . . a waterfall that rumbled and roared over the rocks above and broke into white spray that floated weightless in the air. A faint rainbow danced on the mist.

It felt warmer here. Peaceful.

Father Tom waited at the edge of the lake. He wore a white shirt and white trousers, and his pale hair glowed the same shade. Old hair, old face, young dark eyes that seemed to know all the secrets of the universe. The eyes of a saint, the Assembly liked to say.

Father Tom was fucking batshit crazy.

“Brother,” Father Tom said. “Welcome. You’ve labored long and fruitfully, and though you came to us a stranger, you will leave us forever part of our family. Today you’ll be baptized into the Assembly, and wherever you may go, you’ll always be one of us. Your old life is gone. Let your new life begin.”

“New life,” somebody near him said, and the others mumbled it too. He was too numb. Did this mean they were just letting him go? Could that happen?

Yeah, let me go, you crazy fucks. Let me go and I run straight to the cops and I put your busted asses in jail so fast even God won’t know where to find you.

That was the person he used to be talking, the strong young man who’d fought and yelled and believed he could do anything. Survive anything.

But the person he was now just shivered like a lamb in the slaughterhouse. He couldn’t make himself be that man again.

Maybe they’d just let him go after all if he complied. And maybe he’d never say a word about what happened here either if he got to walk away.

He walked into the water with Father Tom until it was waist deep. He could see there was a drop-off not far away, a navy-blue hole drilled down by thousands of years of relentlessly falling water. Who knew how deep it went? He was right on the edge of the abyss. God, it was cold enough to numb even the shakes out of his body. Cold enough that the water started to feel warm.