Chapter 14: Eighth Family

In-Gathering

“The first children have arrived,” Adam said when Gee answered his phone Sunday afternoon. “We’ll need volunteers soon.”

“How many children?” Gee asked.

“So far, we have twin girls, about six years old. They have a little language skill but it has mostly been used to ask where Aunt Ann is. The feds compiled a dossier on the children from what they could locate and were kind enough to include a couple of toys from the girls’ room. These two were being raised by a couple in Ohio as their nieces and have completed first grade requirements as homeschooled children.”

“It sounds like they might not be in bad shape, then,” Gee said.

“Don’t count on it. They show other signs of having been ... abused.”

“Damn it!” Gee exclaimed. It was unusual for him to swear and Karen looked up, alarmed.

“Three more older kids have just arrived. It will take an hour to get checkups and clothes for them,” Adam continued. “Leah got here first thing this morning with half a department store worth of children’s clothes and shoes. The hard part may be keeping the children from being overwhelmed. Or overwhelming ourselves.”

“Thank you, Adam. I’ll be there in half an hour to help coordinate the volunteer nannies and meet the children. We’ll figure out when Karen comes over and I think Rae wants to visit as well. I’m not sure Rose and Ash will let her out of their sight, though,” Gee said.

“It’s not like I’m superstitious or believe in any metaphysical hoohaa about the Forest,” Adam said, “—after all, I’m a doctor and scientist—but ... I think you should bring your hickory staff with you. Just in case one of the children uh ... recognizes it.”

Beneath Still Waters

The FBI sting operation expanded throughout Sunday and by the end of the day Monday, the hospital had taken in some thirty children, the last flown in from Seattle and driven from the airport to Rosebud Falls, weeping the entire way. At least they had not arrived all at once.

Gee was not happy to learn agents had questioned each child extensively before giving them even the smallest comforts. The children arrived sullen and uncooperative. As Gee looked through the files on each child, he discovered they had little information to give.

The teen flown in from Seattle had been used as a human shield when agents approached the home where she’d been held near the Canadian border in Idaho. A sniper had killed the man holding her and she’d been covered in his blood. Inside the house, agents found the dead bodies of a woman and three more children. When the teen arrived at the hospital, her clothes were crusted with blood and she had not stopped crying. Ellie took charge of her personally and bathed and comforted her.

Gee had been on the go the entire time, first, simply meeting the children and then reading to small groups. No matter the age, the children all seemed mesmerized by his voice when he read, enjoying equally the simplest picture books and chapter books provided by Ms. Tomczyk, the librarian. His walking stick was casually leaned against the wall behind his reading chair and a few children were brave enough to reach out and touch it. There were no miraculous healings or opened memories.

Nor was Gee alone in his efforts. Ruth Ann, Sally Ann, and Dale Metzger helped Sunday afternoon. Sally Ann immediately bonded with the little twins, insisting she needed to stay with them Sunday night in the hospital. The Panzas all participated in meeting and reading to the children. Even Marian’s father, Rupert Grimm and his young wife Onyx, took a turn meeting the children and caring for them.

Monday, volunteers arrived almost a fast as the children. Colleen Zimmer took the week off school and her husband, Luke, joined in reading and talking to the children. The Nussbaum Quartet, Cameron, Elaine, Krystal, and Gail, sang in every child’s room, often getting them to sing along. Mead and Rita Oliver stopped by, pledging to return as needed during the week.

Tuesday afternoon, Gee, Karen, and Rae went to the hospital to visit the children and then to complete the mission they had started on Sunday and been waylaid—they planned to formally invite Rena to live with them. John, Jane, and Gen joined the adults, leaving the other children in the care of Nina and Raven. The children were eager to meet the new rescues and moved easily from room to room, whispering to them. They spent a long time talking to an adolescent boy and a young girl. Then they joined the adults to visit Rena. Adam tagged along to confirm to Rena that she was ready to be released. Mead Oliver joined the group to sign off on Rena being independent and willing to join them.

Rena sat in a chair with a reading table pulled over the arms. She was intent on her paper and pencils and didn’t look up until Dr. Poltanys spoke to her.

“Oh! I was busy. Gee! Look what I’ve drawn!” Gee moved over to the budding artist and leafed through her sketchbook. Not only had the girl made beautiful illustrations, she had included the story, neatly printed in blank areas of each drawing.

“Rena, these are beautiful,” Gee whispered. “You have such great talent. We should test the story and pictures with some of the children. Would you like to do that?”

“Oh, yes. Gee, can we really publish the story?”

“I think so. Karen?”

“Definitely. This will make a beautiful children’s book. The transformation of the woods from sinister to friendly is amazing. Would you like to come home with us?”

“Um ... Visit?” Rena asked. “Can I do that, Doctor?”

“Not only to visit, Rena,” Adam said. “I believe Gee and Karen are offering you a place to live. And I would bet a studio to continue your art.”

“Really?” Rena asked. “After everything I’ve done and who my friends were, you’d still let me live in your home?”

“Absolutely, Rena. You just have to know that in addition to John and Jane and little Gen, there are five other children living with us, as well as Timmy Raven and my sister, Rae. It’s a big house, but there are a lot of people.”

“How soon can I be with you?” she asked. Dr. Poltanys had her discharge papers with him and signed off on them. Rena had very little to pack. Karen, Ellie, and Julia had brought her a few new clothes over the past few weeks and Karen helped her pack a small bag while Gee joined his sister, Adam, and Mead in the hall.

“George! George! Where are you?” an old voice called from a nearby room. Gee recognized it as August Poltanys. Adam sighed.

“He rouses himself to call out two or three times a day,” Adam said. “I honestly don’t know what’s keeping him in this world. He’s ninety-one years old as of yesterday but didn’t recognize anyone in the family who came to visit.” Gee drifted toward the door, drawn by the old man’s plaintive voice. As soon as he could be seen through the door, August started calling.

“George! George! Come here. Don’t eat the nut, George. We can’t come here anymore. We have to stay away.” His words were nonsense, but his eyes were fixed on Gee. Gee moved over near the bed to comfort the old man. As soon as he was near enough, August reached out and grabbed Gee’s walking stick in a viselike grip.

“Ahh!” he sighed as he struggled to sit. Rae moved to the other side of the bed and helped Gee get the man upright. Adam took a hand and checked his grandfather’s pulse. “A final moment of clarity before I pass,” August said, his voice calm. “You’ve come for the children,” he said looking from Gee to Rae and back. “They’re not in the woods. They were buried in the quarry on the lowest level, just as the water was starting to fill it. Terrible disease in the Wild Woods. Everyone was banned and they built a fence. The few people who lived there either fled or died and the Savage gave them peaceful burial. No one knew what happened. One day there were people living in the Wild Woods and the next there were none. We thought we’d lost you all. George wanted to tell everyone what happened but that was when we got the news that the seven heroes had all died in France—including my older brother. Everything was chaos and George decided to eat the nut to prove he was the rightful new heir. He died. I didn’t want to be head of the Family. Never challenged him. Begged him not to eat it. And I’m sad I passed the Family to my son at such a young age.” He looked up at Adam. “You’re a good doctor. You look like my son. I hope we’re related.” With that the old man’s grip on the staff loosened and he slumped back. Gee and Rae laid him gently on the bed and watched him sleep.

“It won’t be long now,” Adam said. “If you’ll excuse me, I should call Dad and Zach. They’ll want to be here.” The doctor paused at the door and turned back. “Thank you, Gee.”

“Come home to me, said The Tree. I will make you safe and warm. I will not let you be hurt again. And the children came home and found the fearsome dragon had been sent away. The Wild Woods was once again a place where they could be safe and play together. The end,” Gee said as he showed them the last picture Rena had drawn of children sitting together in a huge tree. It was remarkably like the Patriarch, but the tree was red and Rena said she’d never seen the Patriarch. Nonetheless, the children wanted to see all the pictures again and the older kids all had a comment about what they saw.

Rae was quiet as the new family organized itself for bed. Rena was shown to her suite and spent an hour crying on Karen’s shoulder, thankful for her new chance at life and remorseful for all the mistakes she had made. Ultimately, Jane settled Rena down through the simple expedient of placing the baby in her arms. Startled, Rena sat and rocked little Gen until both were nearly asleep. Perhaps it was because she was so young that Jane had almost no hesitation to hand her baby to any adult who was interested, including the older teens. Earlier in the day, Rae had fed the baby as her own shadow, Rose, looked on.

Rose and Ash were an inexplicable phenomenon to Rae. At forty, she had resigned herself to never having children. She’d never met a man she was that interested in. But Rose had adopted her and tagging along behind was Ash. Rae continued to read one last story to the children before she tucked them in. She suddenly had a three-bedroom apartment and two children. She returned to the sitting room to find Karen, Gee, and Raven having a glass of wine. Gee quickly poured Rae a glass and invited her to join them.

“Are your little ones asleep?” Karen asked.

“My little ones,” Rae mused. “I never expected when Gee and I set out to find the children, what the quest would mean.”

“Can you fill in some of the gaps? You know Gee has no memory of his life before he came to Rosebud Falls,” Karen said.

“So you say. Yet the story you wrote and Rena illustrated could have come straight from our family legends,” Rae said. “The memories are lurking inside. We are called the People of the Red Tree. Our people are not forgotten.”

“We sent inquiries to all reservations when we discovered Gee’s DNA had Native American markers,” Karen said. “Why didn’t they respond?”

“Two reasons, I suspect,” Rae said. “By the way, had I heard of it, I would have come immediately but I was gone on my own version of the quest. First, our family has lived off the grid for at least seventy-five years. With few records, it is hard to know if it was our grandparents or great-grandparents who sought shelter as refugees. The woman we call Grandmother is likely not related to us at all. But the tribe sheltered and protected us when our people fled from the Wild Woods. The second reason is selfish but I can’t blame them. They would not betray the source of their funding. Each year the tribe receives a substantial payment from a trust fund with the caveat that it continues to care for the People of the Red Tree. They might not have spent all the money on our people, but we never went without.”

“Someone paid to keep us hidden?” Gee asked. “Why? Are we criminals?”

“No. And that is the quest we went on. There have never been many of us but now there are scarcely a dozen left. When our parents died, Grandmother continued to educate us. She told us the stories and sang them to us from the time we were little. We learned to read and write and do math. We had all the modern conveniences but we were never registered as part of the tribe. We were refugees.”

Rae’s voice took on the same story-telling tones that Gee used when he read to the children—a voice that kept them mesmerized.

The People of the Red Tree lived in the Wild Woods much as they had for generations. The powerful Families of the nearby settlement kept their corner of the woods free while their European neighbors cultivated and groomed the fields and Forest nearby. There was plenty for both and they intermarried, some leaving the woods and some few Europeans staying with their native spouses in the simple dwellings they built there.

The men of stone asked the natives for a license to dig a hole and take the stone for buildings in the growing city. Their promise in return was to always take care of the People—to defend them from the greed of their neighbors. And with this agreement, the People continued to live a peaceful life.

But there rose men in the city who lusted for the woodland of the People. The only way they could have that land was if the People were gone. And so, they conspired to poison the People with disease and take their land. Many died. Those who lived, fled and became refugees in the lands of distant cousins.

The people of stone, however, kept their promise. They protected the Wild Woods from the greed of the city men and sent white man’s money to care for the refugees at every turn of the seasons. Still the People lost their homeland. They lost their memory of where the homeland lay. And they mourned their failure to bury their dead and honor their ancestors.

When at last there were only a few of the People surviving, the wise woman sent a brother and sister on a quest. They must find the children of the People and be sure they had been buried and honored in their deaths. The brother and sister chose different paths in their search. The sister followed the trail of dollars that had sustained them over the years, journeying to the large city and finding the trust that provided for them.

The brother, however, took the fruits of The Red Tree, the heart of their people, and followed the path of vision quest. He went away into the mountains to seek the vision and was not heard from again.

“You and Gee?” Karen whispered. Rae nodded. Gee looked on with a faraway gaze that said maybe some part of the story had opened a curtain on his life.

“I found the manager of the trust after weeks of searching. Everything is done automatically by computer now. The young woman who managed it did nothing more than balance the accounts and verify payments. But she listened to my story and suggested that her grandfather had once managed the trust and might be able to tell me more. I had to wait for the grandfather to return from traveling abroad. While waiting, I studied with the manager and learned how the trust was set up and administered.”

“And you found us here?” Karen asked.

“When the grandfather returned at Christmas, he agreed to speak to me but didn’t trust that I was from the People of the Red Tree until he had asked me many questions. He checked my answers against journals and diaries, many of which he had to retrieve from a storage room. Finally, we pieced together the location of the woods and the continued payments that the Savages made to provide for the People.”

“The people of stone,” Gee mused. “Pàl told me his grandfather incorporated the company, which had been privately held, and leased the quarry and Wild Woods from a blind trust. Payments are still made every quarter for the lease and a percentage of the profits from mineral rights. Even though the former board of directors bent provisions of the lease, the terms were ironclad and penalties for failure to pay would put an end to the company.”

“And that, apparently, is why the fence was erected between the Forest and the Wild Woods,” Karen said. “Savage or SSG has fought every attempt to annex the land for nearly a hundred years.”

“According to the old man in the hospital, our dead were buried at the bottom of the quarry,” Rae said. “We have found our lost family. But in searching for our own children of the woods, Gee has found other lost children. You found the treasure of the Wild Woods, my brother.”

“And he was the one who cast the votes at SSG to favor annexation and replace the board. That opened the Wild Woods and let him find the lost children,” Raven said, caught up in the romance and adventure of the story.

“Your name suggests you and your son might also be related to the People,” Rae said. “Have you had your DNA tested to see if you are related to us?”

“No. How could... ? You mean I might be related to you and Gee? That would be ... I just ... I hardly...” Lynda Raven seemed unable to complete a sentence. The idea that she might be part of this legend was overwhelming. But so had been the thought of raising a son by herself and she had done that. With determination in her voice she collected herself. “I’ll test but it makes no difference. I have a good job here with Gee and Karen and a whole bunch of children to take care of. You have your mission. I have mine.”

On Wednesday, Gee was surprised to see Wayne and Jo at the hospital.

“It turns out that I have a bigger home than I thought,” Wayne said. “Once their investigation of Lance Beck was complete, the police released his mansion to its rightful owners. Granda recognized it as soon as he saw the windows overlooking the lake. So, Jo and I have decided to move in together and see about helping some children. Oh, by the way, Karen, we found the Family tree.”

“That’s wonderful, Wayne. Are you sure you are ready for this Jo?” Karen asked.

“Tell me you’re ready, even now, Karen,” Jo said. “I’ve figured one thing out and it’s going to take me a long way. I’ve fallen in love with Wayne. And I believe he feels the same about me. I’ve known for sure since the night you brought Nina to our home. This is right for us.”

It would still take the better part of the week to get the children out of the hospital and into approved foster care with Dr. Salinger interviewing each proposed household and each child.

The biggest surprise to all four adults was Nina. She took it upon herself to teach the other children, both at home and in the hospital. She shared bits of her own story with them. She taught them to count, though some did so silently, holding up the right number of fingers when she asked them to identify a number. And though her reading level was elementary, she selected books and read to her new brothers and sisters.

Over half the children had been moved to foster care before the week was out and most of the others were spoken for.

Carrying on the Work of the Lord

“I want you to know that Pastor Beck and I had our disagreements. No one is perfect. But we were brothers in Christ Jesus,” Reverend Curt Probst said from the pulpit of the First Assembly Sunday morning. “It is tragic to see what the power of evil can do in our world. We are told that he abused children. We are told that he drugged his congregation. We are told that his deacon trafficked in children and drugs and burned his church. It is a stretch of the imagination to believe such things of the baptized believers in Christ Jesus.”

“Amen!”

“I hear you. But God did not appoint me Pastor Beck’s judge. That soul has gone before the great throne to show his innocence or be convicted of his guilt. I am not a man to exonerate what the courts of public opinion have decreed. I am here only to exhort, to uplift the people of God and hold a light on their path that they might not stumble in their march for truth.”

“Praise God!”

“We, children of the beloved cross, must ever be watchful lest we fall to the devil’s subtle temptations. And in this city we call our home on earth, we know those fine-sounding temptations are the work of the devil. Do they come from the great families—the founders of this place? Sadly, many temptations do. Do they come from the unholy reverence our neighbors have for trees that bear poison fruit? I pray for their souls. Do they come from the doctors and lawyers and judges and police and bankers and politicians and rulers in corporate offices? Dear God! Save us from those who would lure us away from you.”

“Amen. Praise the Lord. Halleluiah.”

“We are told that children have been brought to our city, in need of the love and care of Christian parents. Yet they have been given over to the guardianship of the very people who brought this curse upon our town. Why have the people of God not been called upon? Why have the children been prevented from hearing the loving message of Christ? Or do these evil overlords of Rosebud Falls know in their hearts that once the truth is spoken, the children will turn against them?”

“Speak the truth, Reverend!”

“The truth is this. There is only one path. Only one light. Only one way to salvation. Jesus said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No man comes to the Father but by me.’ We, as the children of God, must be ever mindful to shine God’s light on the City of Rosebud Falls. We must be vigilant in correcting its errors. We must stand for truth when all around us is a lie. Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the day may come when we—when you yourself—are the last bastion standing between our beloved city and eternal damnation. We may never—I dare say that we will never know the truth about what happened at Calvary Tabernacle. But we will fight. I say, fight!”

“Fight, Brother!”

“We will fight for the very lives and souls of the children who have been planted in this town against their wills, against their parents and guardians, and against the nature of God. We will stand in the streets. We will campaign at the polls. We will shout until the very Forest echoes our complaint. Render unto God what is God’s. Let the little children come to me!”

Kendra Mazzenga sat in the back of the church. Few people knew she was the district attorney, nor that she was preparing a campaign for the judgeship in two years. If the election were this year, she’d be whipping the congregation up herself. But she had to walk a careful path. She needed a conservative movement that was not tied to the Families in order to run a successful campaign.

And she needed to be just liberal enough that even the people who were most appalled by the activities of Calvary Tabernacle were convinced she was a champion—the real champion—of the city and the people. Right now, she needed a local case she could try publicly and get a guilty verdict. All the people related to the trafficking were dead or moved to other jurisdictions. Someone in this town—preferably someone related to the Families—needed to pay the penalty of guilt.

Then she could win an election. She only needed to keep a watchful eye on the disposition of the children, the behavior of their foster parents, and on the conservative congregations like this one who were so easily influenced. She needed a target and timing was everything.