The Prey (The Hunt 2)

“Shall we?” he says, moving to the side, his arm swinging slowly to indicate the way. The bridge arches like a rainbow before us, splashing down in a sea of smiles.

Cautiously at first, then with building excitement, we start to cross the bridge. Sissy and the boys, having lived in a dome their whole lives, have never entered a crowd before, and wariness causes them to pause at the apex of the bridge. From here, we catch a whiff of succulent food odors the likes of which I’ve never smelled before. Our stomachs grumble.

“This has to be it!” Ben cries. “It just has to be. The Land of Milk and Honey, Fruit and Sunshine.” He tugs at Sissy’s sleeve. “This is the place, isn’t it? Where the Scientist promised to bring us?”

She doesn’t say anything but her eyes glimmer wetly.

“It is, isn’t it?” David urges her.

At last, she gives a nod, barely detectable. “Maybe. We still need to be—”

But that’s all David and Jacob need to hear. Immediately, they’re grabbing our hands, pulling us across the bridge.

The crowd parts to allow us through, but only slightly. As we push through, the villagers reach out to touch us, their eager hands patting us on our backs and shoulders, their heads nodding and even bouncing with excitement, their teeth shining with a whitened cleanliness. Every which way we look, there are welcoming eyes and affirming nods. At one point, Ben tugs my arm. He’s all smiles now, tears tracking down his cheeks; he’s saying something but I can’t hear for all the clamor about us. I bend down and catch a phrase—“Land of Milk and Honey, Fruit and Sunshine, we must”—before his words are swallowed up.

And I think he’s right. As the sun rises above us, gaining in warmth, spreading its light over the mountain, over the village, over the crowds of smiling people, as I hear the sound of affirming laughter so loud as to vibrate my bones, as I catch Sissy smiling at me with the purity of the bluest sky, I feel a sensation unlike anything I’ve ever felt before.

It feels like a homecoming.

15

KRUGMAN LEADS US through the village on the main path paved with bricks and flagstones. He’s an enthusiastic guide, occasionally taking the time to teach us the names of new sights and sounds. Closer up, it’s clear that the cottages are well constructed, built on stone foundations with half-timbering in the upper stories. Wildflowers placed in small ceramic vases adorn windowsills, a colorful array of lilies, lupines, geraniums, marigolds, and mignonettes. Everything is neat, clean, bright, orderly. Faces—virtually all of them young girls—peer at us through the tall mullioned windows. More girls follow us, a few of the older ones staring at me, whispering to one another.

Epap has been a bobblehead since we arrived. He’s never seen another girl besides Sissy, and the onslaught of females is a sensory overload for him. He gawks at them, his eyes wide and dazed, a nervous smirk pulling at his mouth.

Krugman introduces the buildings: the storehouses, the clinic, the carpentry cottage, the maternity ward, the garment chalet. Each is slightly larger than the residential cottages. As we leave the northern end of the village, the cottages suddenly drop off, the flagstone-and-brick path ceding to the natural dirt and soil of farmland. A smell rises in the air: blood and meat and animal dung. Several small cottages sit in the middle of the farmland: the butchery shacks, Krugman says without looking. We pass more farmlands, aligned with neat rows of what Krugman tells us are corn and potatoes and cabbage heads, and an array of apple, pear, and plum trees. A few figures move between these rows, small as ants.

As Krugman circles back through rows of blackberry bushes and a field of rye, a glacial lake suddenly merges into view unannounced. The lake water is crystal clear; multihued stones by the shore shimmer through the shallow water. A mountain breeze gusts, rippling the mirrorlike surface, distorting the upside-down reflection of mountains, clouds, and sky. A few boats are tied to a small dock that’s made out of driftwood logs. By this time, our stomachs are rumbling with hunger, louder than ever. Krugman smiles at the sound and leads us back to the village square, cutting across a swath of grassy meadows.

We’re taken to a large dining hall inside of which are lined rows of empty tables and benches. Young girls bring out plates of food from the kitchen, stealing curious glances at us as they whisper the name of each dish. We scarf the food down. Even though I’m coughing up a storm, I can’t hold back. My eyes are watering, my nose is running and dripping into the dishes, and my head is spinning around like drunken mosquito. But I can’t stop stuffing my face. Porridge and scrambled eggs and bacon and rolls of bread. These are the names of the dishes uttered as they’re placed before us. The villagers remain outside, their faces squeezed in the window frames observing us. All so pretty and young.

And that’s when it first hits me. An oddity. Almost everyone here is female and young.

I study the youthful faces squeezed into window frames. Toddlers, prepubescent youth, teenagers, predominantly female. There’s only a scattering of young boys, none older than seven or eight years.

The interior of the dining hall is a study in contrast. Instead of young girls, about a dozen older men stand around the perimeter of the room, balding, paunch-bellied, in their forties and fifties. None of them come close to resembling my father. These men are doughy and bearded whereas my father was muscularly cut and clean-shaven. In the far corner, two particularly paunchy men stand on each side of Krugman. All cheeriness seems to have left him. His eyes and mouth are level and somber, his thick arms folded across his chest. He says something—just a word or two—and one of the men leaves his side and heads outside.

That is when I notice the painted portraits. About a dozen, spread along the length of the wall and interspersed by tall windows. Magnificent oil paintings of men, dignified and posed, hung high and framed with hand-carved wooden frames. I casually gaze at a few of them before turning my attention back to my plate of food.

I freeze.

With my heart suddenly hammering away, I push my chair back and stand up. Nobody seems to notice, not Sissy or the boys, who are too busy scarfing down food and drink.

It is the slowest walk, it is the longest walk. One foot in front of the other, my eyes fixed on a single portrait hidden in the shadows. The dining hall suddenly grows quiet; everyone is watching me as I make my way to the portrait, trancelike.

I cough, hacking up a lungful of phlegm. But I keep walking, and the portrait looms closer, the face seeming, in my feverish state, to float toward me. And as it does, the darkness around it dissipates like tendrils of mist unfurling off a mountain peak. A face emerges, staring at me with familiar eyes that are kind and authoritative, the sunken cheeks brooding and muscular. Large cheekbones on a chiseled face, the hair now gray, the crow’s-feet at the corners of each eye more pronounced.

My father.

Footsteps behind me, heavy, stopping a few meters away. “Do you know him?” Krugman asks.

I ignore the question with my own. “Who is he?”

“He is Elder Joseph.”

Joseph. Joseph. I run the name in my mind as if the very incantation will conjure up memories. Nothing. My head spins, feverishly, throbbing.

“Where is he?” Sissy asks. She is standing behind me, her face ashen. Behind her, the boys are half standing, half sitting at the table, their eyes fixed on the painting.

“How do you know him?” Krugman asks.

And I ask the only question that matters, the question that I have asked and wondered for years in unbroken silence and unremitting darkness. “Where is he?”

Krugman’s voice is gravelly and sullen. “He’s no longer with us.”

“Where is he?” And this time, it’s Sissy who’s asking, her voice urgent, fear tingeing her words.

Krugman turns slowly to her, his massive bulk shifting like a continent. “He died. In a tragic … incident,” Krugman says.

I take a step back. But I do not feel my feet moving. I do not feel them touching anything.

A

pain shoots into my head, piercing, as if a section of my skull has been removed and a plank of splintery wood run against my exposed brain. The room suddenly brightens with a red light that blinks hypnotically. My collapse is a maddeningly slow spiral in which I see their faces, white smears and moons, swirling about in a world gone empty.

16

MY FATHER WOKE me with a shake on the shoulder.

“What is it?” I asked. I was not afraid; there was a look of excitement on his face.

“We’re going out,” he answered.

“We are? Why?”