Page 4 of So Far Gone

Kinnick wanted to go back a few steps. “So, wait, you’ve been in Spokane... this whole time?”

“For about five months,” Leah said. “Mom wants to go back to Grants Pass now. But Shane has been wanting us to move here for a long time. He says it’s safer up here. Because of the redoubt.”

“The—” Kinnick cocked his head.

“Redoubt,” Asher said. “The safe zone for Christians.”

“It’s different places in the mountains of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana,” Leah added helpfully. “Like a fortress

built in a bunch of different places.”

“It’s where the Rampart is,” Asher said.

“The Rampart?”

Before they could explain, Anna Gaines stepped in. “Mr. Kinnick, I have to ask, are you...” She looked around the house.

“I mean, can you take care of the kids for a while? Until Bethany comes back?”

“Tell him about my tournament,” Asher said from one of the chairs, his legs pressed together, big snow boots swinging above

the floor.

Mrs. Gaines looked pained. “Asher has a chess tournament tonight.”

“Tonight?” Rhys ran his hand through his hair.

“Yes. At six p.m.,” Asher said. “I was the number-five ranked player in Southern Oregon. This will be my first tournament

in Spokane. Mom registered me for it.”

Anna said, “He’s very worried about missing it.”

“I’m a prodigy,” the boy said.

Leah sought out her grandfather’s eyes and gave him a small shake of the head meant to convey, No. He’s not . Asher had, indeed, been the fifth-ranked eight-year-old in the Southern Oregon Chess Club. But that was among the seven

eight-year-olds who had qualified for ranking.

“Dad and Pastor Gallen are praying about whether chess is a Godly endeavor,” Asher said. “It comes from the Arabs, which Pastor

Gallen says is bad, and Dad is worried the board represents the illuminati and has graven images. But Mom says I can keep

playing while they’re discerning.”

“Discerning.” Kinnick closed his eyes, overwhelmed by all of it: redoubt and Rampart and the illuminati and discerning whether chess was a Godly endeavor. He breathed in heavily, and back out of his nose.

As she watched him, Leah remembered her mom describing Rhys as “eccentric,” “half as smart as he thinks he is,” and “twice

as antisocial.” She wondered how long it had been since he’d talked to other human beings.

Finally, he opened his eyes. “Wait. Can we back up? Your grandma got sick and a few months ago, you moved up here from Oregon

with your mom?”

“Yes,” Leah said.

“And you live in Spokane?”

“Shane wants us to move to Idaho once our lease is up,” Leah said. “He’s been bringing us there for church summer camp and

tent revivals the last two summers. To the Church of the Blessed Fire.”

Asher picked up the story now: “Dad’s a member of their men’s group, the Army of the Lord. They train out at the Rampart.”

“Blessed Fire? Rampart? Army of—” Rhys kept repeating details, as if saying them out loud would make them make sense. He turned

from Asher to Leah. “And you don’t... you don’t have any idea where Beth—where your mom went?”

“Shane thinks she might have gone back to Grants Pass,” Leah said carefully. “She has a lot of friends there. We all do.”

“Or maybe Dad killed her,” Asher said.

The air seemed to leave the room, Kinnick steadying himself on the table. Leah spun on her little brother. “Why do you say

things like that?”

Asher shrugged, looked at Rhys, at Anna Gaines, then at the ground.

Anna put a hand on Asher’s shoulder. “I’m sure that isn’t what happened, Asher.

” Then she looked at Kinnick. “We’ve been worried, even before Shane left.

Bethany has confided some things to me.

.. she’s been depressed since her mom died.

And she’s worried about Shane and this new church.

” She leaned in. “My husband and I aren’t exactly Shane’s biggest fans. He can be kind of—”

“Racist?” Kinnick asked.

“No, not that.” Mrs. Gaines gave a thin smile. “I was going to say opinionated.”

“Mom and Shane have been arguing about the new church.” Leah took a deep breath, her lips pursed. “Mom thinks the new church

is too radical. Shane just keeps saying that Mom isn’t whole with the Lord, yet.”

“Tell the rest of it, honey,” Anna Gaines said.

Leah chewed her bottom lip.

“Do you want me to tell it?” Anna asked her.

Leah sighed. Fine. She would say it. “Shane wants to betroth me.”

Kinnick cocked his head. “He wants to what ?”

“Betroth me. To the pastor’s son. David Jr. It’s not as big a deal as it sounds, but when Mom found out, she got really mad.”

“ Betroth you?” Rhys repeated.

“It’s not like that,” Leah said. So much about the new church she thought was misguided, but why did they have to talk so

much about this part. “It’s just a thing they do at this new church when two young people like each other, that’s all. It’s supposed to be

joyful. It’s like... a plan is all. That I might marry David Jr.? Like... when I’m older? And it wouldn’t even be for sure. Just... you know... if we both still

want to. When I’m older.” She could feel her face heating up.

“When you’re older,” Kinnick repeated. “Sure.”

She sighed again, angry to have to explain this. She and Davy weren’t freaked-out about it, why did other people have to be?

“See, in our new church, if a boy likes a girl they aren’t supposed to hide it. They announce it during services, and then,

if the apostolic council approves, then the congregation prays over us, and eventually, when I turn fifteen, we could have

supervised dates. And, if we still liked each other after I turned sixteen, we could go to Idaho and get married. If we wanted

to. Since we’d already be betrothed. That’s all.”

The room was quiet.

“But it would probably be after I’m sixteen. Like... when I’m eighteen.”

The room was quiet.

“I would get a promise ring now,” Leah said. “And then, if we don’t get married, I just give the ring back. But like I said, that’s a long ways off, so—” She smiled as if— see, no big deal .

“You can get married younger in Idaho than you can in Washington or Oregon,” Asher added helpfully.

Leah shot him another glare and Asher shrugged again.

Kinnick made eye contact with Anna Gaines, and they held it for a long time. “How old is the pastor’s son?” he asked finally.

“That’s not—” Now Leah’s face was burning. “He’s nineteen, but—” She sighed. “It’s not like—” She knew how bad this all sounded,

but Davy had just turned nineteen and she was almost fourteen and— “He’s not— We haven’t even—”

She let out a deep breath. To her mother’s point, no, she didn’t necessarily want to get married at sixteen , but she didn’t see the harm in getting a promise ring from a nice boy like David Jr., who was smart and sensitive, and a

reader like her, and who had bright green eyes the color of the outside feathers on a peacock. They’d met at Bible Camp last

summer, when she’d talked about the book she wanted to write, and they had spoken again this winter, when he came home from

Covenant College, in Tacoma, where he was a sophomore studying theology. And, unbeknownst to her mom and Shane, they wrote

emails back and forth, talking about books and the college classes he was taking and her future post-Apocalyptic novel. They

liked each other. That’s all. Why did everyone have to make such a big, gross deal about it? Sometimes, Leah felt like the whole

world was a shirt she’d outgrown, squeezing tight around her chest.

There was no sound in the old house except the faint whistle of firewood burning in the stove. Suddenly, Leah spun toward her little brother. “Shane did not kill Mom! Why would you say that? That’s a terrible thing to say! And it’s not true!”

Asher looked at his grandfather and shrugged once more.

***

Asher was relieved as they walked Mrs. Gaines to her car and watched her drive away, a wake of dust rising on the driveway

behind her. He liked Mr. and Mrs. Gaines, but the way they talked about Asher’s dad, like he was a dangerous kook, made Asher

nervous. And when Asher felt nervous, he couldn’t stop talking, and he said dumb things like the thing about his dad murdering

their mom, which wasn’t at all what he thought had happened, but what he thought other people might think had happened, and sometimes, when he got really nervous, other people’s thoughts seemed to rush into Asher’s mouth, and he felt the urge to say what he thought people were

thinking before they said it.

Asher knew that his father’s beliefs upset people, like thinking they needed to move to the mountain redoubt to prepare for

the coming holy war, and that God had commanded Shane to be the master of his wife, and that Shane should not spare the rod

to his children and that Earth might be flat and that chess came from the Arabs or from a secret Satanic society. But the

rest of the family just let him talk and it mostly didn’t affect them. And his dad didn’t seem to mind that they believed

other things. He didn’t say anything when Asher read books about dinosaurs, or when he made a book report saying volcanos

were millions of years old, and a lot of what Shane talked about, he didn’t even do—like not sparing the rod? He’d never hit

Asher. Some of the other kids from Bible Study got hit a lot, but his dad hardly ever even spanked him, only one time that

Asher could remember, when Asher was interrupting, and it wasn’t even very hard, more like a swat so that Shane could tell

the other guys at church that he’d done it.

But none of that was what Asher worried about.

The thing Asher worried about was the sort of trouble they’d had last year in Grants Pass, when his dad got upset that they were teaching about sex in Leah’s science and health class and he made a big fuss at school, and tried to pray in her classroom, and the teacher said she felt threatened, and after that, they’d had to get homeschooled.

Asher didn’t like home school as much as he liked school school.