The little girl, sprawled on the bare living room floor, wondered if her uncle’s phone always rang so much. It had been silent the evening before when she had arrived at the ancient farmhouse and had remained so until just before dawn. She bobbed her head from side to side flipping her ponytail to the tune she hummed as she finished the picture she had traced, cut, and pieced back together.

“Hey Uncle Terry, what’s this one?”

The picture was of a symbol in an old book, hand written in gibberish. Though she hadn’t a clue what it meant, she loved it for its swirls and seemingly random placement of dots. It was far more interesting than the straight uniformity of the letters and numbers she was forced to write at school. She found printing the standard alphabet even more boring since writing it otherwise was now punishable.

She loved her own style so much that her father had been called to conference on the subject the year before, the teacher warning that she would be retained if she insisted on adding curls and loops to everything she wrote. When that led to her writing in an entirely made up writing system, the principal was called in. She couldn’t understand why everyone made such a big deal over how every little thing was done or why it was so important that her printing be exactly like everyone else’s. It was readable.

“Huh? Shh, uh, I’m on the phone.” She listened and waited for the one-sided conversation to end, impatiently thumping the backs of her feet on the cushion next to him.

He moved to the doorway and lowered his voice. “Yeah but I can’t now. I got my niece here.” The cord pulled tight, threatening to rip from the wall as he ducked into his room and closed the door. The irresistible possibility of a juicy secret drew her silently across the smooth planked floor in his direction. “I know... I am... I just...” Something small and light thumped against the other side of the door. “What am I gonna do, take her out there with me? Even if I could she... all right. Soon’s I can.” An exasperated sigh and a groan followed the clunk of the receiver being dropped into its cradle. “What am I gonna do?”

Straining in the silence, ear against the bedroom door, she imagined him sitting, face cradled in hands as he often did when upset, and waited excitedly for the next clue. She loved a good mystery. The bed creaked, and the little girl slid back to her puzzle before the heavy boot steps reached the door. He walked slowly, hesitantly back into the room. Back on her belly, she kept her face down, thumbing through the book and swinging her feet in the air as if she hadn’t moved. He lowered himself into a squeaky chair across the room and sat silently. She looked up when the feeling of being watched didn’t pass.

“Uh...” His eyes darted over the floor. “Can you keep a secret Angel?”

“Sure.” She answered in her most responsible grown up voice. He said my name. He never says my name.

He hesitated, still searching.

“I’m a really good secret keeper, I keep ‘em all locked up in a vault in my head like Scrooge McDuck, and nobody gets in and I never tell.”

“This is a really big one... I’m just not sure...”

“That’s okay. I have all kinds; little ones, medium ones, and big giant ones.” She spread her hands as wide as they would stretch. “I won’t even tell God.”

His hesitation knotted her stomach. She coveted and treasured secrets above all else; even the smallest was worth more than the entire contents of any candy shop. The brightest of gems were the ones painstakingly kept by adults. His whispering and dodginess told her the mine she was about to inherit would put the Seven Dwarfs to shame. He studied her face for what seemed like a lifetime, and then suddenly sprang to his feet. “Okay, um...” He turned in a circle looking around. “Where’s my hat?”

“Behind the door.” She answered automatically, looking toward the doorway she’d just been eavesdropping from.

He looked accusingly at her and headed for the room. Outside, he fired up the rusty old farm truck and gave her one last look. “You’re sure?”

“Yep!”

“Okay then.”

She kept her face turned to the window to hide the triumphant Cheshire Cat grin as they hurried down the long straight stretch of rural highway that cut through endless fields of corn. The rickety truck slowed only to pass through his small hometown and stopped at the far end of the farmers market. Angel sat as instructed, peeling and unpeeling her legs from the cracked vinyl seat.

He spoke quietly to a grain and feed merchant as they filled the truck bed with large burlap bags. It had never occurred to her in the city that burlap bags were used for anything other than sack races at school. She rolled her eyes wondering if this was the big secret. At last, he shook the man’s hand and left without paying.

They drove on silently past miles of hay fields toward the mountains. She squirmed in the springy seat kicking her dangling feet and trying not to hum the song stuck in her head anymore. Angel’s patience held just until they left paved road.

“What’s in the bags?” The words gushed from the wide-eyed little girl, as curiosity now demanded center stage.

“Supplies.” He smiled and glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, clearly expecting the outburst.

“For who?”

“That’s the secret,” her uncle said, raising a mysterious eyebrow in her direction.

He explained to her as they went that there were many different kinds of people in the world. There were ‘regular’ people like them who live in apartments and houses with things like electricity and cars. People who drive to stores and buy things with money. Some carrying their own set of beliefs, some believing in nothing, and others not knowing what they believe. “The world is full of anger and violence and few people in it know that they’re ever safe,” he told her.

He went on to tell her about native tribes in the jungles of Africa and South America, living hidden away where change and modernism couldn’t reach them. “Their traditions and way of life is passed down unchanged. They live free in their secret world. In nature where people belong.”

He told her about monks, the Amish, and hippy communes. “Then there are others,” he explained, “Secret groups of people no one knows about. They live here,” he gestured to the forest around them. “Safely tucked away, believing things the world wouldn’t understand. That makes it dangerous for them. They don’t want to live in unsafe places where people kill, do drugs, steal from each other, and believe in nothing. Do you understand?”

She thought over all he had said and decided it mostly made sense. “Yeah. We’re going to see them aren’t we?”

He nodded with a now anxious glance, before his tone turned gravely serious. “You can never say a word. Not a hint of a secret... or someone might find them. They’ve been hidden away longer than anyone knows. Moving from place to place when people get too close. They were found once and almost all destroyed. Some survived; took their sacred books and split up. They went in different directions and started over. There’s a group here that came with a family before this was even a state. They claimed enough land to be sure they’d stay hidden and they’re still here helping each other.”

Deeply immersed in the story, Angel caught herself holding her breath when she attempted to speak. She loved stories, the wilder and stranger the better. Most anything involving oddity captured her attention intensely. Angel let out the breath and sucked in another as quickly as possible before releasing her next question. “How?”

He chuckled at her reaction and dropped a white knuckled hand drop from the wheel as some of the tension gripping him seemed to dissipate. “Well, they help each other build houses, they help him farm his land, he gets them supplies they need and mail from the other groups.”

She fell asleep sometime after gravel gave way to a rutty dirt pathway, and woke to the baying of six large hounds. They were being tied to the roof support on the porch of a cabin by a gritty old man. His face deeply lined and weather-beaten, reminded her of a pair of chaps she’d seen once in a museum. They had been needlessly labeled “authentic” and she recalled thinking they looked as though they had been worn by the first cowboy ever to ride and passed thereon to every generation since. By the time they were retired, the leather was cracked and worn to nothing in some areas. The history stated that they had been last worn by a “most unfortunate man” who “didn’t make it” through a record-breaking snowstorm. That’s this guy for sure.

“He’s a little rough around the edges... doesn’t see many people up here,” her uncle assured her as she slid out. “But he’s a good guy. You can trust him. Now go on in and meet his girls if they’re around.”

Overhearing the last part, the old man grumbled. “They’ll be out back by the crick.” He nodded toward the back left side of the run-down structure.

Whoa, what a freak. I bet this guy never leaves his house. Hope we don’t gotta stay here, the roof’s gonna fall on us!

Angel was careful to keep a distance from the decaying building as she wove her way through a thick labyrinth of blackberry bushes that encircled the sides and back of the building. Nearing the end of the simple maze, she wondered why they wouldn’t just mow them down. When the sounds of voices and splashing drifted to her ears, she ducked behind a mass of thorny brush and crept slowly forward, imagining what kind of family a man like that could have. They could be people eaters!

She found three young girls within a few years of her own age with sunbaked skin under thin cotton dresses. Purple wildflowers were woven through their long unkempt hair. If not for the mud caked up to their knees, she might have mistaken the gracefully moving girls for fairies.

They laughed and spoke quickly in a mix of broken English and a seemingly complex and unfamiliar language. She watched their mouths form sounds she had never heard, trying to place the accent. It was hopeless, even being from a city full of different languages, it sounded to her like a mix of all languages and some she wasn’t entirely sure were human sounds.

“Who we spyin’?” a small voice whispered in her ear.

Startled, Angel lost her balance and tumbled over. She gawked as one of the small fairy-like girls, almost undetectable in knee-high grass, stood to nearly her own height. “How’d you do that?”

“I can fit anywhere,” the girl told her proudly. “And I can sneak anywhere. Dad says I was a ferret before.” She was thin and every bit as wild looking as her sisters. “Wanna pick berries with us?”

“Um yeah I guess.” Angel followed her around the other side of the brush and joined the others.

“So how come you’re here?” the girl asked as they joined her sisters.

She jumped again when the answer came from behind. “Came with Uncle Terry.” The group had been snuck up on by an older version of the other four.

“How many of you are there?” Looking around uneasily, she expected an army of the clones to materialize.

“Just us five.” The fifth appeared to be the eldest. Apart from size, there was not a distinguishing characteristic among them. All had the same tangle of wavy sun-bleached hair, angular features, and eyes as green and reflective as light shining through emeralds. Their simple dresses were all varying shades of red, with ties on each side that held the skirts up just above the knee.

“Wait.” She lifted a hand in confusion, sure she would have remembered hearing about these cousins. “Uncle Terry?”

“Yeah, everyone that comes out here’s Uncle Somethin’. Hardly anybody does, but they’re all Uncle Somethin’s,” one of the girls explained.

“What does that make me then?” she asked uncertainly, hoping the answer would mean acceptance.

“What’cher name?”

“Angel.”

“Where have I heard that before?” the youngest asked the others.

Oh no. She braced herself for the inevitable teasing that would follow.

“It’s the one with the one god,” they began answering.

“Like people with wings,” another explained.

“Christianity,” informed the eldest.

Angel turned and began walking quickly away. It was enough to endure the jokes at school with the kids she had grown up with, but coming from strangers was more than an eight year old can take. Her mind instantly flooded with memories of schoolyard teasing. She could hear the voices of the cruel kids in her ears as if she were surrounded.

“Where’s your wings Angel? Why don’t you fly away and see your dead mom Angel? If you were an angel God wouldn’t have killed your mom. You’re not an angel, angels are pretty. You’re an ogre!”

Even in a city ripe with diversity, she had been alienated. Between the jealousy of her father’s success and her social awkwardness, she had always been an outsider among her peers. With the sudden realization that even hermit children were no different than the hateful lot of the city, Angel, as always, wanted to hide. She felt stupid for thinking they could have liked her. No one had ever liked her.

“Hey, where ya goin’?” they called after her almost in unison.

She shook her head and kept moving, head down, as she had done countless times before in situations like this. Angel had learned early on that self-defense only led to physical confrontation. Don’t stop. Don’t cry. Crying was a sign of weakness. One she would never give in to.

The youngest grabbed her hand in both of hers and yanked her to a stop. Angel tensed and shut her eyes tight against whatever was to come next. When nothing happened she opened them tentatively.

“Wanna help us with our chores?” They stood smiling as though Angel hadn’t moved at all. “We gotta pick berries and fill up the grain barrels.” She smiled looking down and wiggling her mud-caked toes. Something in the earthiness of the girls eased her tension, though she was careful to keep her guard up. Things were rarely what they seemed. “We kinda forgot about the berries when we got to the crick.”

“Anyways,” interrupted the eldest, “I’m Ena,” Pointing a finger at her sisters in order from the just smaller than herself to the youngest, she introduced them. “This is Tatsna, Imber, Sane, and Lilla.”

“We got a brother and three sisters too,” added the sneaky one.

The way they took turns speaking reminded her of twins finishing each other’s sentences, and though they were identical in looks and a couple of them couldn’t have been much more than a year apart, none of them could have been the exact same age.

“They went away to the others.”

“The others?” She thought of aliens and remembering the looks of their father, considered human sacrifice.

“Yeah, didn’t Uncle Terry tell you about the others?”

“Yeah, kinda.”

She remembered her uncle’s story about the group separating and settling in different places. Are these the people he was talking about? They’re weird but they’re not jungle people.

They passed the afternoon filling baskets with a variety of wild berries from around the yard and vegetables from their garden, while asking a battery of questions about Angel’s school and life in the city. They had never seen either. Her own questions went unanswered as they rapidly changed subjects when she tried to or was about to ask anything about them or what her uncle had told her.

Angel and her uncle spent the night in the empty bed of his truck and left early the next morning.

“Where’s their mom?” Angel asked on the long trip down the mountain.

“Gone honey. Just like yours.”

“What happened?”

“Uh,” he sighed heavily under the weight of a memory and stared down the dirt road into a distant past. “Their mother was from another settlement in the east.”

“But wait,” she interrupted, “So they’re not the secret people you told me about?”

“Johnson and the girls?” he chuckled, “Nah, but their mom was. He’s the landowner. They live out in the woods there. Anyway, he needed a wife, someone... it’s complicated.” He frowned, looking for the right words to make an eight year old understand without saying too much. It was a look she had gotten used to as her ever-curious mind constantly turned out questions no adult expected from a child so small. “Um... it’s better if most of them marry people from other groups so they don’t end up marrying their brothers and cousins. Get it?”

Angel nodded and rolled her eyes at how carefully he had chosen his words. Most children her age may not be familiar with the term, but the subject of inbreeding was common knowledge to anyone her age who watched television. They lived in the wrong part of the country to see much of it, but everything could be seen on the forbidden cable channels and animal planet.

“Okay, so she was raised from a baby there back east in a big family and sent out here when she was about seventeen. One day she found out the family that brought her up wasn’t her real family.”

“She was adopted?” Angel turned in the big seat, sitting on her feet to watch his expressions and gestures as the story got more interesting.

“Yeah kinda. Anyway, she met their dad and they ended up married and living in the cabin. They wor...”

“How come?”

“How come what?”

“How come they lived in that old cabin instead of with the secret people?”

He sighed, patience holding, and glanced quickly at her. “Cause they just did. Do you wanna hear this story or not?”

She crossed her arms and flopped against the back of the seat impatiently.

“Okay, so they worked the land there together and started a family. They had nine kids you know about and one more no one talks about. The last was a boy. He died when he was just a couple days old.”

“How come?”

“I don’t know.” He shook his head sadly and shrugged. “Sometimes those things just happen.”

She studied his face as he looked quietly off into the distance, taken back to some place in time that she couldn’t imagine and wondered why he had never married or had any kids of his own. Come to think of it, she had never known her uncle to have a girlfriend. All his time was spent puttering around the farm and writing letters. Angel was about to begin interrogating him on his lack of personal life when he picked the story back up.

“When they lost the baby she got real sad. Started thinkin’ maybe it was her fault. Maybe it was somethin’ wrong with her that came from her parents. After a while, all she could think about was where she came from and how she ended up with the people.

“How’d she end up with ‘em?”

“Turns out her mom went to a clinic, had her, and went out a window. Left her behind without a note or anything. They looked for her for days but couldn’t find her. Just happens one of the women working there was the daughter of a landowner for one of the groups nearby. One night when she was there alone, she took her home and said the woman came back for her. She found her a family who loved her and raised her. They never told her where she came from until she was older. When that baby died, she needed to know who her mother was and why she left her. She left one day to go see the woman who worked at the clinic and try to find her mother. While she was gone, she got sick. The people don’t ever get sick. They’re not around people who carry viruses everyday like me and you so when she got sick there was nothing anyone could do.”

“What if I’m sick and I don’t know it yet?”

He smiled. “Don’t worry about that.”

Angel wondered where they could be living that would keep them far enough away from people to avoid being seen or getting sick. She imagined them watching the little farm from caves overlooking the rest of the mountain. When imagined winds shifted and blew up in their direction, she shook the thought from her head.

“How come he didn’t get a new wife?”

“Sehm says he’ll never marry again.”

“Wish my dad said that,” she confided, thinking about the woman her father had replaced her mother with. The problem with Maya wasn’t so much that the little girl didn’t want her mother’s place to be taken as it was that the woman who did embodied everything fairy tale stepmothers were, and worse, she had come with a clone.

“I don’t think your mom would have wanted him to be lonely.”

“He wasn’t. He had me.”

“Well, he wanted you to have a mom again. And a new sister.”

“But they hate me, and I don’t like ‘em either.” She crossed her arms and glared out the window.

He looked over at her and chuckled. “Stubborn as a mule, just like your dad.”

“Am not.”

Angel went home the next week and wrote stories about orphans being adopted by wild fairy people and living happily ever after. She drew pictures of lambs ganging up on wolves in sheep costumes, and spent hours decorating the frames of her mother’s pictures in her room. She went to the library to research ways to contact her mother’s spirit, but was disappointed to find nothing on the subject. When the librarian looked at her like she was an alien and attempted a lecture on letting go, she vowed never to set foot in a library again.

A few Saturday mornings a month, Angel went alone to a small cemetery near her apartment. She pulled the weeds from her mother’s grave, placed a single purple rose to rest against the marble head stone, and spoke softly.

“You died four years, six months, and eleven days ago. I don’t know if you know that. Is time different where you are?” She paused a few moments as a family walked somberly by. People made her feel self-conscious, even outside the graveyard. “Could you ask God to make me a psychic so I can see you? I miss you so much.” She whispered, fighting back tears. She breathed deeply and carefully smoothed the folds of her dress to recompose herself. “Dad’s doin’ good. I’m doin’ good in school. My teacher says I’m a better writer than the other kids in my class., but I don’t think so. I like drawing better. Like you. I met some new friends. Their mom is dead too. Maybe you could hang out with her then when I go see them again, then it would be like we’re all together.”

“Hey Angel!”

Oh no! She looked over her shoulder to see three kids from her class standing on the iron fence near the front gate. She had gone early this week in an attempt to avoid the torture of her classmates. Her mother’s death had painted a target on her forehead, bringing a seemingly endless barrage of harassment.

“Bye mom.” She rose quickly and headed for the back entrance. She couldn’t get away fast enough to escape the taunts that drifted from behind.

“Why don’t you just fly up to see her? Or is that where she really is?”

“Bet they won’t even let you in to see her anyways ‘cause you’re too weird.”

“Freak!”

Once she was out of sight, she ran for home as fast as her small legs would carry her. For the next thirty minutes, she buried her head in pillows to drown out the cruel words that echoed up the drainpipe from the street below. Through it all, Angel refused to cry. She never cried.

On Mother’s day, she made a chocolate birthday cake, filled it with strawberries, covered it with sprinkles, and put four small candles on top. While her stepmother and stepsister were out, she and her father lit the candles and sang happy birthday in honor of the one her mother had missed. They bought two purple rose bushes, one large, one dwarf and planted them together on the grave. She fell asleep in his arms as he told stories of her mother before she was born.

~2~

Strange Customs

The following summer Angel made the twelve-hour trip by bus to her favorite uncle’s farm for an eight-day visit. When he walked through the door of the bus depot forty-five minutes late she was hurt and angry.

“Why didn’t you want me?” she demanded, dragging her duffle bag by its long strap in his direction.

“What?”

“Maya told me you didn’t want me this summer.” An offensive hand moved to her hip as she glared up at him. “Then you forgot about me!”

His eyes darted around at the people whose attention her outburst had drawn. Terry had always been one to avoid crowds whenever possible, going out at sunrise to do his shopping while the world lay in bed debating the importance of leaving warmth and comfort or still hitting the snooze button. Even then, he would go to the smallest markets on the edges of town and order what couldn’t be bought there.

Angel often wondered how it was possible her father and uncle could have been related, let alone twins. Her father was a businessman, surrounded constantly by assistants and clients. Unlike his brother, he avoided leaving the city. Most of the family, her grandmother included, had gone off in search of bigger better lives and left her uncle and grandfather to the quiet simplicity of the old farm and their secluded existence. Angel hadn’t known her grandfather but from what she had been told, he lived an even more privatized life than her uncle.

“I didn’t forget, I just had something to do on the way and it took longer than I thought. And I didn’t not want you this year; I just needed it to be later in the summer.”

“Why?” she grunted, picking up and purposely dropping the heavy bag on his foot.

“Come on.” He picked up the bag easily and slung it over his shoulder. “Let’s get this bag of bricks in the truck and I’ll tell you on the way.”

She wrenched off the shirt that had been keeping her warm in the cold waiting area, threw it at him and headed for the parking lot. Outside, she slammed the creaky door and started in as soon as his opened.

“Why later?”

“Cause I have some stuff to take care of that I don’t want to do while you’re here. But Maya threw a fit about that trip to Florida and here you are, so I guess we’ll just have to make do.”

“Make do with what? What stuff?” He had never had “stuff” before. In fact, prior to the previous summer’s adventure, he had spent most of his time parked on his faded couch reading and writing letters.

“Stuff like I got to go out of town and you can’t go with me.”

“Where? Why can’t I go?” He had never left her behind before. Even when she had stayed whole summers with him. She had spent countless afternoons waiting in the truck as he made his rounds, but had always ridden along.

Her uncle gripped the wheel tightly as they headed out of town. Confrontation was something he tried to avoid at all costs. “I got to go somewhere on business and your grandma went off on a cruise with Aunt Linda so there’s nobody to watch you. That’s why I was late.”

“So where am I gonna go if I can’t go with you and I can’t go with them?”

“Well you’re nine now, how ‘bout we rent you a couple movies and watch yourself?”

She wrinkled her face into a pout of utter helplessness. “In your creaky old house by myself? In the dark? By myself?”

“Keep all the lights on then.”

“What if a murderer comes and chops me up in little pieces and eats me for breakfast before you get home?”

“I’d...”

“What if he wraps me up and leaves some in the fridge and you eat it ‘cause you don’t know it’s me?”

She wasn’t really afraid of being left alone; in any other situation the break from adult supervision would have been welcome. It would leave her free to explore the property and the prohibited areas of the house without chance of being discovered, but at the moment there were more interesting places and ways of passing the time.

“I don’t eat meat.” He laughed.

“So,” she pleaded, “I could still get murdered.”

“What am I supposed to do with you then?”

She smiled, finally hearing the words she had been leading him to. “I could go to... the Johnson’s.” She knew what his initial answer would be, but was prepared to argue and pull out whatever it took to get where she wanted to go.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s overnight.”

A smile excitement threatened to break through but she carefully held it in check. “We went there overnight before.”

“Yeah, but you didn’t stay alone.”

“I wouldn’t be alone, he’ll be there and the girls will be there and...”

“No he’ll be with me, that’s the kind of business it is and I don’t think you should be there without me. They’re not like other people Angel.” While the use of her name by an adult generally marked immovability on a subject, she heard the signs of weakening in his voice she was looking for.

The six girls began the two-hour hike down into the valley that held the family’s secret before the dust settled in the long driveway.

“It’s a lot different out here than where you’re from.” Imber began as they made their way down the narrow path. “We get up before the sun, go to ceremony, eat, the little ones have learning time, and big kids do chores with the grownups. After last meal the babies go to sleep, we go to ceremony again when the sun’s goin’ down, then we sit outside and the old people tell stories.”

“Doesn’t sound that weird to me.”

“You’ll see.”

The hike was long but went quickly as the girls described the daily life and some of the differences between the ways of the people and the outside world.

“Wow, is that it?” Angel gazed down through a clearing at a tiny village on the valley floor.

A large stone wall wide enough to walk on surrounded twenty-six log cabin style buildings of varying size and shape. A wide stream flowed along one side, disappearing under the wall into a building and flowing back out again. The buildings stood along the great wall facing a large open courtyard as large as a city park. Around the outside, men were spinning large wheels pouring water from the creek into a primitive irrigation system. On the three other sides and behind the fortress grew fields of vegetables.

As the girls reached the farmers, they were greeted with cautious smiles and the complex language, the origin of which Ena had been trying to explain to Angel.

“It’s the original language of their people. The holy books say they came here from another world and when they got here, everyone was talking different languages and where they came from they didn’t talk like people do, so they didn’t have their own. So they took a little from all of ‘em and they kinda put ‘em together. And that’s how they got it. It’s about impossible to speak if you weren’t born hearin’ it.”

“That’s what people say about English though.”

“Yeah but it’s harder.”

Thick wooden gates as high as the twenty foot wall opened for them as they neared. Angel held her breath to contain her awe at everything she saw. It was like taking a step back in time. Everyone in sight wore thin hand-made all cotton clothing, devoid of buttons, zippers or elastic of any kind. They worked the courtyard’s inner garden by hand and like the cabin, the presence of electricity was nowhere to be seen. Her head swam with so many questions they couldn’t sort themselves out.

“Come on, we have to get you changed.” Tatsna took her arm and led her to a small cabin. It was roughly twenty feet long and twelve feet wide, made from old sturdy logs with peeling bark, and mud filling in the gaps. Like all the others, it had a covered porch and nothing more of a door than a heavy curtain. The curtain was made from knotted strips of faded blue, green, and brown fabric. The inside was dark and cool, with a rich scent of cedar and dried flowers.

“Oh! Your shoes! You can’t wear shoes in here.”

She hadn’t noticed until then that the five sisters had been barefoot. On her own feet was a pair of large white high-topped tennis shoes with wide electric tangerine laces.

“You can just leave ‘em on the porch and I’ll find somethin’ in here that can fit you.”

Angel set them under a small bench outside with a row of odd wooden shoes. Still sitting on the bench, she picked on up to examine it. The bottom was a rounded boat shaped piece of hand carved wood with a flat underside. The back, sides, and front curled up leaving the top open. Through holes punched in the sides, were braided strips of fabric that served as laces to tie the boat onto the foot.

“Those are cold weather shoes,” Sane informed her, popping her head through the curtained doorway. “We don’t wear shoes when it’s warm.”

She set the shoe back in its place and returned to the dim cabin. The only light came from two small windows, one on the far wall and one to the left. Each with coverings of the same color and make as the door hanging, but were held back to reveal glassless frames. The room was just big enough to fit six cot-sized beds, one small desk like table, and the chair that lined its walls. The beds, all of which were sinking in the middle, were covered in patchwork quilts of blues, greens, reds, and browns. Above them hung shelves with books, baskets of thin woven branches, flowers, and carved wooden figurines. The walls themselves were smooth and bore intricately carved nature scenes.

“Pants or a dress?”

“Huh?”

“You want pants or a dress to wear? You don’t wanna wear those here do you?”

Seeing the girls mostly wore shirts and pants, she chose the same. Being a stranger in this place made her stand out enough.

“This is huge.” She held up a thin cotton shirt that would hang halfway to her knees.

“It’s supposed to,” the girl her size laughed. “It fits me, it’ll fit you.”

Angel reluctantly changed in to the clothes she was given. “I feel naked in this.”

The outfit was feather-light and stitched from the thinnest cotton she had ever seen. It felt as though it had been made from a pair of threadbare sheets. A far stretch from the jeans she was used to.

“I don’t know how you wear those heavy clothes all day.”

She tied the drawstring of the pants and shirt neck and followed the girls out in the sunlight. Sitting cross-legged on the porch was a lanky brown haired boy pulling at the tongue of her left shoe. He looked up at her and the other girls curiously and spoke to them in his strange native language.

“He says your shoes are weird. He’s askin’ what they’re made of.” Imber translated, and laughed as she answered the question for her. He examined the pleather more closely, poking and sniffing at the rubber bottom.

He’s like a cave man.

“I told him same as a tire. He wants to know what you use to make the laces that color. Here everything is colored with flowers and plants and he’s never seen a flower that bright.”

The boy said something that resulted in the girls bursting with laughter.

“He wants to know how your feet breathe in your tire shoes.”

“They don’t, that’s why I wear socks.”

He made a disgusted face at Imber’s explanation and tossed the lace and shoe at her feet.

“He said that’s gross and outsiders are dirty.”

Angel wanted to point out the dirt covering his pants from knee to foot, but remembered the girls were nearly as dirty as he was.

The boy, joined by a group of curious children followed from a distance as the girls took her on a tour of the tiny village. Most of the buildings were family bedrooms like the one they had changed in, lined with beds, shelves, and baskets. From there the girls showed her the water room. Inside was a large wheel like the ones used to irrigate the fields. Next to the wheel was a box taking up half the room with a funnel on top and a spout at the bottom.

“See,” Lilla stepped up on a stool and pulled a rope with both hands. “You just pull this and it starts the wheel.” The wheel began turning, lifting, and pouring water into the funnel. “It goes through the rocks and sand and stuff and comes out down here.” She jumped down and pointed to the spout at the bottom.

Nasty! “Why’s it go through rocks and sand?” She kept her voice neutral and curious thought the thought of filtering water through dirt and sand was enough to put the taste in her mouth. The imagined feel of grit made her throat dry, but nothing would make her drink that water.

“Cleans it,” she explained energetically, “See this pipe? It goes to the cleaning room. Come on I’ll show you.” On the other side of the wall, the pipe ended in a spout that emptied into a trough sitting on a large stone firebox. Along the other walls were four bathtubs made from sections of a giant carved-out tree trunk. By the varying widths, she could tell the four tubs had been made from the same ancient tree. Next to each was a table piled high with cotton linen and two buckets of gritty powders which she eyed suspiciously but didn’t dare touch.

The curious group of kids listened from the other side of the curtained doorway, and scattered when they emerged. The next few buildings were set apart from the others and pointed out but not entered.

“That’s Ajusta’s. In the back is where we go when we get hurt, and he has a garden back there.”

“Who’s Ajusta?”

“He’s like a doctor.”

Though they seemed ignorant and lived primitively, they were nowhere near the strange and barbaric people she had expected. As they passed in and out of buildings and through the courtyard, they were watched by all who pretended to have business outdoors.

“These are where the elders stay except at meals... and ceremony and when they go up the mountain.” Instead of being lined up along the walls like everything else, the three tiny cabins occupied one corner so that they faced each other.

“Elders?”

“Yeah you’ll see later.”

They walked her through two large storage rooms filled with columns of barrels and large wood boxes, and heaps of burlap sacks. The dark, cool rooms smelled of corn, flour, and dust. “This is the storage rooms, where we keep most of the food and stuff.”

When they left the last building, the courtyard was empty. “Time for last meal.” Two of the girls each grabbed an arm and pulled her toward the largest building. “Hurry.”

A man in his mid to late forties approached as they brushed the dirt from their bare feet outside the door. He was of average size and shape with a touch of distinguishing gray in the sides of his black hair. He carried himself with an air of authority but without the usual arrogance found in a leader. She could tell by the time he reached the porch that he was an important man among his people.

“I see you are learning some of our ancestral customs.” He spoke slowly in carefully annunciated, though heavily accented English.

“You speak English?” She blurted before thinking. Her hand flew to her mouth and her face flushed with embarrassment. Duh!

“No need.” He lowered her hand. “We are a free speaking people. No thing you say could offend us. To answer your question, yes I speak English. As well as a few other common languages.” His face and tone were welcoming, though it seemed translating his thoughts into words was somewhat difficult. “I took medical studies on the outside in my youth and found it necessary. I am Ajusta.” He inclined his head slightly and for a moment, his formality brought to mind the image of him in a tuxedo complete with tails. She smiled at the idea of this man in this place in what she often referred to as a penguin suit. “What you might call an herbalist or perhaps a physician.”

He gestured grandly for her to enter the large room before him. As she took in the room, he seated himself at the end of a long stretch of adjoining dining tables. Two seats down from him was the only empty seat in the room, Ena was seated to the left of the open place already chatting animatedly with her sisters and another girl and boy.

“We eat our meals together.” Ajusta began as soon as she had lowered herself onto one of the long wooden benches that lined each side of the row of connected tables. “It encourages a sense of community. Of oneness.”

A wooden plate and spoon were placed in front of her; on it was an orange substance resembling thick mashed potatoes and a stack of green flat bread. Shoulda known they wouldn’t eat normal food. What do they make green bread out of? She looked up to find Ajusta watching her curiously.

“Forgive me.” He smiled pleasantly. “It is not often we have occasion to observe outsiders.”

Angel shrugged a shoulder dismissively, trying to cover the self-consciousness that she was sure he saw clearly. Without looking up, she knew other eyes watched her as well. He tore a piece of bread and used it to scoop a bit of the orange substance.

“You will likely find the bread somewhat tasteless, and the paste sour.”

Okay, sour and tasteless, I can do this.

She folded a tiny bit of the paste into her bread and tested it. Her entire face imploded into an involuntary pucker and the long table erupted with laughter from her end to the other like fans doing The Wave at a baseball game. The loudest of the voices belonged to the boy she had found examining her shoe and following her every move throughout the day. She dropped what remained back to her plate and glared red-faced at it. She was starving but had never tasted anything so repugnant.

“It seems you do not eat many spiced and pickled foods.”

She shook her head.

“Perhaps a sprinkle of this will provide adequate balance.” He slid a small bowl of green and white powder toward her plate.

She looked at it skeptically, and then glanced up at him. “No cheeseburgers?”

Her question seemed to amuse him, though she couldn’t understand why it would.

“We do not consume the flesh of animals or utilize any part of their bodies.” He smiled politely and inclined his head to impart the importance of what he was saying. “As you would not have done to you. Try the mixture.”

It was mildly sweet and helped lessen the bite of the paste. Ajusta seemed pleased at her willingness to eat what was clearly still disagreeable to her.

“I have arranged a host family for you.”

He introduced the members of a large family surrounding her, including the boy she had come to despise. Like the rest, they chatted cheerfully with those around them, offering friendly smiles but otherwise no attempts at further communication.

After the meal, the dishes were cleared and the tables and benches stacked high against the wall at one end of the rectangular room. Angel and the girls changed into white dresses and filed back into the large building. The bare wood floor was now covered in a thick rug made of vibrant strips of knotted fabric. From the center, it radiated shades of yellows, oranges, and bright reds. The entire village assembled in white, with the exception of three elderly men standing in the center in a shade of yellow that perfectly matched the middle of the rug.

As the service went on the people alternated between kneeling as the men read from a book that looked older than the process of bookbinding could have been, and bending into the fully submissive posture of prayer. During prayer, they crouched as low as possible with knees, elbows, and foreheads to the floor. Their hands stretched out in front of them as if offering something to an unseen deity.

Though Angel couldn’t remember what a church service was like out in the world, she was sure without any doubt that she had never seen anything like this on TV or anywhere else. Sitting cross-legged on a corner in the back, she listened to the rhythmic rise and fall of their voices and wished she could understand some of the language or that it was familiar enough to figure out any of what was being said or done. The room seemed to vibrate with a tangible energy at the height of worship and slowly dissipate as it came to a close.

“Is this what ceremony is like outside?” Imber translated for the boy once outside.

“No,” she replied defensively, “And you can tell him outside we don’t follow people around laughing at ‘em all day.” She turned to walk away from the irritant but was caught by the hair.

“Ow!” She spun back around and shoved him hard to the ground. He laughed through obvious confusion and her companion sighed, hands on hips and eyes rolling in exasperation.

“Your hair thing. This is why we changed your clothes. Ziadas... none of ‘em, have seen stuff like that before.”

Angel ripped the elastic band from her hair and threw it at him as he stood and brushed the dirt from his backside. “It’s called a scrunchy. Now leave me alone!”

Ajusta caught her stomping away and after bidding the other girls goodnight, led her back to the room she had changed in.

“It is custom to sleep unclothed. For cleanliness,” he explained in the heavy, strange accent of his people. “We have no... excess beds. Only what is necessary. You must choose one.”

None were empty. Angel’s stomach began tightening; she looked up with a weak effort at stubbornness. “I’ll sleep on the floor then.”

“That will not be acceptable. The floor is unclean. You must choose a bed.” He turned on his heel and disappeared through the curtained doorway.

She stood frozen, unable to decide. How can I choose who to sleep naked with! Naked! The word exploded and echoed through her mind like dynamite in a canyon.

She looked first to the host parents, tucked in against the far wall, smiling and whispering softly as if she weren’t there. Hanging over them in the corner was a small triangular hammock-like nest held by three wooden pegs in the log wall. She wished they had a nest for her. In this one slept a newborn. Their only daughter. To the left and right was a pair of twin boys no older than five or six. Peering over their covers, they watched and giggled. The stares made her feel as though she were on display in a sideshow or stuck behind glass in a zoo exhibit with nowhere to hide.

From them her eyes came to rest on the last remaining female in the room. The girl, she had been told at dinner, was brought to the group in hopes of marrying their fourteen-year-old son, who lay next to her whispering conspiringly into her ear. Angel wondered if they were planning a joke at her expense. She would be ready when it came. In the bed at the foot of theirs was a pair of mocking brown eyes and tightly pursed lips that failed to hide a stifled laugh.

Ziadas!

The sound of his name in her mind arose anger. Of all families, why did his have to be the one she got stuck with? She wondered if it had been intentional, if Ajusta were a fake and harbored a secret hatred of outsiders. Across from him was the only other option. The eldest son. Tall, with the build of a laborer, and the face of a teen movie god. He looked up at her disinterestedly from a drawing, placed the sketch on his shelf, and rolled over to sleep.

I can’t choose! Maybe someone will pick me. Oh no, what if someone picks me!

A moment later, the father grumbled something and blew out the only light source. Plunged into absolute darkness, she stood frozen. Terrified. Clouds covered the crescent moon so completely that even the end of her nose had become invisible. Standing still, mind blank, the room grew suddenly colder.

Help me! Help me! Help me!

Wood creaked to her left, followed by the sound of quiet footsteps on bare floor. Not him! She pleaded silently. Anyone but him!

As he approached, she prepared for the worst. Whatever that might be. He had been mocking her all day and she had no reason to expect any different now. A searching hand found her hip first, then her hand. She tensed and stood her ground. When a gentle pull didn’t budge her, a hard tug from the older boy threw her off balance and she reluctantly let herself be led to his corner.

She clenched her teeth so hard they hurt and scrunched her face and eyes tight shut, sure would somehow end when her dress was lifted away. The bed creaked again and the invisible hand yanked her down into it. She barely bit back a scream, instinctively pulling herself away from his unclothed body and clinging to the edge of the bed frame.

His, like all the others was built in traditional custom and design. A net of ropes stretched over a rectangular box frame little wider than a cot. Over the ropes was a mattress stuffed with grasses, flowers, leaves, and discarded fabric scraps. Ziadas’s bed was in desperate need of tightening. It sunk nearly a foot in the center. She struggled against tiredness and cold to hold herself up and away from him.

It wasn’t long before he pried her cold, aching fingers from the edge, sliding her back down to where he lay. He snaked his left arm under her, grabbing her right shoulder in time to keep her from flying up out of bed. He adjusted his lower half away from her and whispered an indecipherable order in her ear. Releasing his grip, he covered her with half the narrow quilt and settled his free hand at his side.

Her mind swam with the terrifying possibilities of things to come if she let herself fall asleep, but the slow rhythm of his breathing and body heat like a dryer-fresh blanket made fighting sleep impossible.

A hand on her shoulder brought her gently awake. The host mother laid a stack of clean, neatly folded clothes on her legs. She smiled down at her as if she were alone, not snuggled against her unclothed son for warmth. Ziadas groaned and frowned at Angel, pushing her away when his mother gave him a gentle shake and left the room. When he climbed over her to get out of bed, something poked her in the ribs through the blanket. He laughed at the look on her face when she realized what it was.

“What’s funny?” Ena entered the room and repeated the question to him as he dressed with his back to Angel. She hid her face under the quilt in case he turned around. Ena laughed harder than he had when he answered the question.

“So you ended up here huh?” Her voice rose to a teasing tone. “Thought you didn’t like him?”

“I don’t.”

He said something that made Ena frown and brought a chuckle from his older brother as he followed him out.

“Get dressed, ceremony’s gonna start soon.”

“That what he said?”

“No, he said even if it wasn’t forbidden, you couldn’t get him.”

“Eew.”

The violet sky gave little light through the uncovered windows as the ceremony began. Ena whispered in translation, explaining the prayers to the many gods they worshiped. Giving thanks for life, health, and children, asking for rain, natural balance, and safety for all the groups from the outsiders. When it was finished lamps were lit, the rug rolled up against the far wall, and the tables and benches set up.

After a breakfast of sweet fruity breads, she changed back into her clothes and they began the long hike up out of the valley. The girls spent the day at the run down cabin scrubbing the bare wood surfaces of floors, baseboards, tables, counters, hollowed bathtubs, and shelves. They took breaks to play in the creek and sit amongst the ferns in the shade of tall redwoods snacking on wild salmonberries.

“Is this what you always do?”

They laughed.

“No,” Tatnsa answered for them all. “Usually we’re in the valley cleanin’ other people’s stuff.”

“Why?”

“Cause that’s our home.”

“This is just a house we sleep in. It’s dad’s house and someday it’ll be Ena’s but we’ll go live in the valley when everyone thinks we’re goin’ away for school.”

“Not me,” Sane interjected, “I’m gonna go to a other group.”

“Why?”

“She wants to go find mom’s family.” Ena explained around a mouthful of berries. “The one that raised her.”

Angel thought of her own lost mother’s family, like theirs, it was mostly unknown to her. She wondered what it would be like to leave such a close family and community to live with strangers. She was saddened at the realization that she would never know what it would be like to leave a family like theirs unless she grew up and created her own. A slim possibility in the treacherous and hateful world she lived in. Why can’t everyone be like they are? Except not naked. She shivered at the thought.

When evening came and the men still hadn’t returned, Ena announced that they should head back down into the valley for the night.

“Do we have to sleep there? Can’t we just stay here?”

The last thing she wanted was to have to climb back into bed with the only unfriendly person she had met in the village.

“It’s not really safe to stay up here alone. If someone came and we’re alone then others will come.”

She imagined the property overrun with police, helicopters circle with spotlights as villagers are picked off trying to escape into the surrounding forest. A swat team blows open the gates, bloody holy books are torn from the clutches of the elders and the people marched up out of the valley by hundreds of men with bulletproof vests and itchy trigger fingers.

“I’m not hungry,” she told them back in the village courtyard. She was tense inside and out and was sure she would throw up anything she tried to eat, no matter the flavor.

“Come sit with us.”

“I don’t wanna go in there.”

“Cause he’s in there huh? We’ll just sit somewhere else.”

There were empty seats near Ajusta and the host family. Ziadas was among the missing. Angel sat sleepily, not touching her food, hoping her uncle would come through the door red-faced and ready to drag her away. Any punishment was better than another night with Ziadas.

“Did you not sleep well?”

She instinctively slunk away from the hand Ajusta put to her cheek. He frowned thoughtfully and looked to Tatsna who answered for her.

“No. It was cold.”

A truth, but not the reason. So used to her misfortunes being broadcast like a daytime talk show, the omission came as a surprise. She understood now why they lived away from the world, and baring another night of bed sharing, wished she could stay.

“I see. You chose Ziadas then?”

“No.” She frowned deeply, shaking her head. “He picked me.”

“I will see that you get an extra covering for the night.”

“How’d you know I slept there?”

“The cold. He has a much thinner covering. Ziadas came from the north when he was small to be apprentice to our religious leaders. He has never tolerated the heat well. It is surprising that his elevated body temperature failed to sustain you.”

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