Posted on August 15, 2007

Part 29

“I’m sure you heard it wrong.”

“They killed people with shovels, Evajean.”

She sighed, loud and annoyed. “What did you want them to do?” she said. “Leave you there in that– was it a cave? In that cave?”

Elliot couldn’t figure out why she wasn’t getting it. Frustrated, he stood up and inspected the books on the shelf. The Pearl of Great Price. The Doctrine and Covenants. “Look at this,” he said, taking one and holding it out to her.

“So they’re Mormons,” she said. “So what? There are a lot of them. They’re like Presbyterians.”

“I don’t like it,” he said again. He dropped the Book of Mormon onto the couch and sat down. “Aren’t they the polygamists?”

“I don’t think so,” she said. “They don’t do that anymore.”

The dog nuzzled up against his thigh and whined. “You need to take him out,” Evajean told him. “No matter what these people are into, I don’t think they’ll appreciate our dog pooping on their floor.”

Elliot gathered up the dog and carried it out to the garden in the front of the house. He let it roam while he looked over the town, trying to pin down what exactly had him so on edge. The violence, yes, but wasn’t that expected? You can’t fight off a cave full of crazies without drawing some blood. The blood atonement comment, however, was out of place even there–and clearly ominous. It could be a religious thing, maybe, now that he knew that’s what this community was about. Mormons were friendly people, though. He’d had them stop by his door, young kids overdressed for the heat, with funny tags indicating he should call them “Elder.” He’d chatted with them briefly, politely, and they hadn’t come across as any odder than the Jehovah’s Witnesses passing out Watchtowers or Girl Scouts selling cookies.

He could see some of them, walking through Nahom, carrying baskets or armfuls of firewood. The town was like an Amish place he’d visited with his parents when he was a teenager, though not quite as out of step with the world’s technology and fashion sense. It was more like just a very small town, the kind you might expect in the mountains of Virginia.

The dog barked at something and ran. Elliot started after it but quit after a few steps, knowing it’d come back when hunger loomed. He stood, watching the minimal bustle of the town, thinking maybe he could convince himself Evajean was right about all of it. Maybe they should stay for a week or two, let the normality of the situation do some good. As long as these folks didn’t try to convert him to anything, he could manage. If that was the best thing for Evajean right now, if that would settle her down and make her content before they started their drive–and he hoped it was a drive and not a very long walk–then the creepiness could be worth it.

He heard the door open and looked back to see Evajean standing on the front step of the house. She inhaled deeply, let it out, and said, “I haven’t given up.”

“Given up?”

“On what this was all about,” she said. “On finding the Hole.”

He nodded. The dog bounced out from behind a low shrub, preceded by a darting and terrified chipmunk. Evajean laughed.

“We still need to name him,” she said. “He’s been through a lot to be nameless.”

“You said you had an idea,” Elliot said, glad the subject had changed for now, but weary of why.

“Yeah,” she said, “I do– I did. But it sounds kind of cheesy now.”

“What was it?” The dog had given up on the chipmunk and took a position by Evajean’s leg, scratching its chin with a hind leg.

She bent down and scratched its head. “Hope,” she said. “Like for good luck.” She looked up at him and grinned. “There was this story, a myth, my mom read me when I was a kid and I always remembered it. Pandora’s Box. A woman’s given a box and is told not to open it but she does and all the bad stuff in the world, like hunger and fear and disease, comes out. And all that’s left in the box, down in the bottom, is hope. So the world is no longer perfect and is a kind of miserable place, but we still have hope to keep us going.”

“Why’s it left?” he asked.

“Why?”

“If all the bad stuff wasn’t in the world because it was in the box and now it’s in the world, why is hope still in the box? How can hope be in the world, too, if it hasn’t been set free like, what did you say, like hunger and disease?”

Evajean picked up the dog. It barked once, surprised, and then settled against her breasts. “I don’t know, Elliot. It’s just a story, one I liked. And because you had to go and try and ruin it, that’s the name I’m giving the dog. Hope. To remind us of what we have.”

“Hope,” he said, and reached out to pet the puppy. It turned its face up to his. “Hi, Hope,” he said. “You may not make a lot of sense, but there you are.” Then to Evajean, “So what are we supposed to do now?”

“What do you mean?” she said.

“Since we’re staying on your say so, I thought you might have a plan for what to do besides stand in front of our little house with Hope. You were here before I was; did they tell you anything?”

“No,” she said, “I mostly slept. All they said was they were going to find you and that I should stay here and they’d make sure you were safe.”

“Fine,” he said, “then I’m going to see what I can figure out. There has to be someone around here who can tell me what’s going on. They seem to have more experience with the crazies that we do, maybe they know more about them, too. Can’t hurt to ask.”