Chapter 51
51
WARNING: THIS IS PRIVATE!!! KEEP OUT OR YOU WILL BE CURSED!!!!!
Hours after Moon had left, sick of my pulsating anxiety, I’d pulled out the diary and started reading through. One entry stood out, from a few weeks after we’d started communion classes with Pastor John.
Something crazy happened today. Pastor John got MAD!! He is usually so cool and calm but he LOST IT. So PJ was talking about Jesus’s decision to sacrifice himself to save us and Adam was laughing with Scott and PJ said: Is this a joke to you?? And Adam said no and PJ YELLED: You think it’s so funny!! Would you have had the guts to do what Jesus did!! Knowing how horrible it would be!! Would ANY of you do it!! No one said anything. He said: I didn’t think so. Then he went back to teaching. But I thought about his question for the rest of the day. WOULD I have done it? Probably not. But maybe? I don’t know. It made me truly understand how brave Jesus was to go through so much pain, knowing he could stop it at any time but dying anyway to save us.
I paused, looking at the flat blue sky outside the window. Was this where my martyr tendencies had originated from? My wanting to help Catherine so badly that I’d stayed in a clearly threatening situation at the Center? Had she sensed this trait in me in the first place?
The door opened. I shoved the diary behind me.
Catherine peered in.
“Hi.” I tried to keep my voice soft, even as my heart thumped in my chest. “Come in.”
She walked in slowly, uncertainly, like a toddler just starting to use her legs. She held up a bag. “I brought you some granola.”
“Great. So, listen.” I pressed my hands together, feeling like an elementary schoolteacher trying hard to hold it together. “I need you to call 911. You can use the SOS function. I can show you if you bring me a phone.”
Catherine slumped into a chair at the table. Her eyes were red, her cheeks flushed. She tossed the granola bag, which landed by my feet.
I tried to smile, knowing it must look like a scared rictus. “Can you do that, Catherine?”
“I’m sorry.” She lowered her head into her arms. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay. Just get—”
“No.” She picked up her head, wiped at her wet face. “I wanted to be wrong, you know. I prayed in here every day that you wouldn’t show up. But I knew you would. I shouldn’t have left that note. I shouldn’t have done it.”
“So that was you sending me a clue?” I asked.
She nodded. “But even after you got here I wanted to be wrong.” Her lips pulled down, a sad clown face. “I searched your room and took the diary so Moon and Sol wouldn’t get it. But it proved who you were. So I started praying that you’d leave. But when they brought you to my room, when I saw you, I knew. I knew it was too late.” She shook her head. “I should’ve known you wouldn’t leave, no matter how many times I told you. But I wanted to protect you.” She curled into her lap and sobbed.
“Thank you.” I tried to make my voice as soothing as possible. “Thank you for trying to protect me.”
“But…” It took her a minute to be able to talk. “I couldn’t. I couldn’t get you to leave because you were worried about me.”
And it was true. I had been worried about Catherine. But as I watched her crumpled-over body, a new surety arose: it hadn’t been purely that which had kept me pinned here.
So what else was it? Had I been so excited to jump into a juicy mystery that I’d ignored danger at every turn? So bored with my life I’d jetted off on a wild-goose chase of a celebrity I didn’t know? So ridiculously overconfident that I’d imagined myself to be her sole savior?
I could’ve gotten in the car with Dawne, Mikki, and Ramit. I could be in New York at this very moment.
But no. I’d been seduced by Catherine’s mystery, then literally seduced by Jonah, Moon, and Sol. It had felt good to be called special, even by people who were clearly not well.
“You were the one watching me?” I asked, my voice dull. “From behind the purple door? And looking in my yurt that first night?”
She nodded, her eyes squeezed shut.
Catherine wasn’t going to call the police. That was suddenly very clear. All I could hope for was more answers, more info that might help me.
“Did they push you into that hole?” I asked.
“Yes.” She shuddered.
“What’s in there?” My scalp shrunk in fear, but I kept my voice steady.
“Nothing. It’s just this tiny space. I pretended I was in a womb.” She sniffed. “It made me feel better. I told myself I was waiting to be born.”
“How did you get out? Was there a tunnel?”
“There’s no way out.” She wiped at her nose.
“Then how did you get out?” Frustration surged through my chest.
“I don’t know ,” she cried. “I was in there, and then suddenly I was with you. I thought you were Grace for a second. That’s why I tried to… I was upset. They tricked me. They pretended Grace was going to go, and then they pushed me. She pushed me.” Catherine nibbled at her thumbnail. She looked suddenly young, a brooding preteen.
“So you have no memory of leaving the tiny space,” I prompted.
“It must’ve spit me out.” She pulled at a greasy lock of hair. “I wasn’t the right one.”
“Catherine.” I could hear the quiet desperation in my voice. “You’re a good person. You don’t want to do to me what Grace did to you, right?”
Catherine just stared at the table, the ends of her hair in her mouth.
“Why are you listening to Moon and Sol?” This was my last chance, my Hail Mary. “They lied to us in that other lifetime, right? Why is everyone trusting them now? They’re bad people. We know that.”
“But it really happened.” Catherine glanced at me, her face haggard. “You remember it. In the desert, that spirit offered us the choice.”
“But how do you know I accepted it?” My voice rose. “I didn’t get to that part because I fucking passed out!”
Catherine stood, stumbling slightly. “Because you’re a better person than me.”
“I’m not!” The exasperation jumped out, an uncaged animal. “I’m a self-involved piece of shit just like you! Just like everyone here!”
“I’m sorry.” Catherine backed towards the doorway. She was shaking, her shoulders vibrating. “I’m sorry, Thea. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“Catherine, wait!” I was half standing, straining against the handcuff. “Wait, just talk to me! Stop, just—”
She shut the door quietly behind her.