Page 3

3

Lara

As I walk down Main Street, I see the usual suspects hanging out like they always have during the summer. There’s old Mr. Loftus sitting in his chair outside of his antique store like he has all of my life. It doesn’t matter how hot it gets. He’s always there as some kind of sentry in front of his store.

I see Sylvie Mattern and wave to her as she straightens the flower display outside her florist shop. She’s a new addition to the Main Street business district, but like the older proprietors, she’s taken to being outside whenever she can during the summer.

Manford Standish, the owner of the most popular watering hole in town, smiles at me as I walk toward him. My parents’ age, he likes to joke that he’s a descendant of the Miles Standish we learned about in grade school. I highly doubt that, but then again, who knows?

“Hello, Lara. How are you today?” he asks, and I notice how red his nose looks this afternoon.

He swears he never drinks while everyone who comes to his bar drinks like there’s no tomorrow, but that rosy nose of his says otherwise. He’s an adult, so he can do as he wants, but why lie? It’s not like anyone would care if he enjoyed a drink or two.

“I’m good. You living the dream?” I ask, using the answer he gives when people ask him how he’s doing.

The bar owner’s expression falls, like he’s hurt I stole his favorite sentence and now he doesn’t know what to say. “You know how it is.”

I give him another smile and look down at the sheet of paper in my hand. The Golden Light pamphlet gives an address on the next street over, so I turn left at the intersection and head down Mulberry Avenue toward Ravine Street to find the building. I don’t exactly know what to expect, but when I see it, I have to admit I’m surprised.

The red brick building looks like many in this area filled with early American buildings. It’s a source of pride for the town council that this town of ours has existed since the late seventeen hundreds, and they make sure to drive that point home on the signs people see coming in and out of town, in addition to on the town’s website.

Other than looking somewhat historical, the building where The Golden Light office is located is unremarkable. The windows seem new compared to others in buildings around town, and a sign above the front door with a big yellow sun and beams coming out of it looks new.

I peer through the front window for a long moment before taking a deep breath and walking inside. I can’t place why I feel uneasy, but something about this place unnerves me.

It doesn’t look like anywhere that should make me anxious, though. The white painted brick walls are covered with posters about positivity and inspiration, so my discomfort can’t be from them. Who doesn’t enjoy seeing a picture of a kitten hanging onto a rope and saying just hang in there?

Directly in front of me, a young blond woman sits behind an old wooden desk that reminds me of the one the high school principal always had in his office. The man never sat down during any meeting I ever had with him. I once mentioned it to Rina, and she remembered he never sat when she was there either. It’s an odd memory, but it fills my head as I make my way toward the woman.

“Hi! Can I help you today?” she chirps with a big smile.

It’s a good start, and it makes me hopeful I’ll be able to find out something about my sister. Holding up the paper in my hand, I return her smile and point at the sun at the top of the page.

“Hi! I’m wondering if you could tell me if you saw a young woman named Rina come in here recently? I found this pamphlet in her apartment, so I was hoping she may have gotten it here.”

The blond woman takes the sheet of paper from my hand and reads it before shaking her head. Giving it back to me, she says, “I haven’t, but I don’t think that’s from here. One of our members had an info session earlier this week. I think this is from that.”

Not the answer I was hoping for, but at least it’s not a dead end.

“Okay. Can you point me in the direction of where I might find him or her?”

“Sure!” the blond says, taking my question literally and pointing toward the corner of the building. “There’s a farm about ten miles outside of town. It’s actually really easy to find. You just drive down Main Street until you leave town and then keep going straight. The property is on the right.”

For a moment, I try to place the location, but it’s been years since I was out that way. All there is in that area are farms, and since I wouldn’t know what to do on a farm if my life depended on it, I don’t tend to think about that part of the county much.

“Okay. Thanks!”

“You’re welcome. May The Golden Light shine on you.”

I stop in mid-turn and look back at her innocent expression and wide eyes. “I forgot to ask. What is The Golden Light?”

My question makes her entire face light up as if someone flipped a switch and turned on the inside of her body. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so happy in my life.

“The Golden Light is a self-improvement group, but it’s so much more too. We work with people who want to make the most of their lives. Each of us has a special talent, and it’s our duty as humans to cultivate that talent to help ourselves and the world. We only have one planet, so we have to do all we can to make this world the best it can be.”

Her explanation sounds like a combination of a recruitment ad for the military and some quasi self-help jargon. I have a hard time believing Rina spent any time hanging out with people who are so woo-woo, but it sounds relatively innocuous. There’s nothing wrong with positivity. In fact, my sister could do with some after her breakup.

“Thank you for your help. Have a great day!” I say, attempting to be as perky as she was.

“Happy to help! May The Golden Light shine on you!”

As I walk toward the door, I see a tiny red light in the corner of the room. When I turn to look at it, I see a camera. Interesting. What’s the camera for?

It seems like a strange thing to have in a half-empty room that only has one woman sitting behind a desk. I didn’t get a sense anyone else was in the building, but then again, I didn’t look in any of the offices.

Still, something about being watched unnerves me.

All of this rolls around in my head as I drive out to the farm the blond woman told me about. I forgot to ask the name of the property owner, a stupid mistake for someone whose job is research. Worrying about my sister is definitely throwing me off my groove.

I follow the directions the woman at The Golden Light office gave me, and when I come upon a farm in the exact place she said it would be, I can’t help but be a little surprised. It’s unfair, but all that golden light stuff and her unrelenting perkiness gave me the impression she wasn’t too bright.

A dirt road leading away from the main road takes me to an old, white farmhouse with a huge wraparound porch complete with white rocking chairs. I don’t see any people around or any cars, so I wonder if this trip was all for nothing. Discouraged, I consider simply turning around and driving home, but I park the car and get out, needing to at least try to find out if anyone here has seen my sister.

I knock on the front door, but nobody answers, so I walk around the house looking for anyone. The place seems deserted, but when I peek through the window in the back door that leads to the kitchen, I see a tea kettle with steam coming out of the top on the stove.

Thrilled to know there’s at least one person in the house who may be able to help me, I knock on the back door and eagerly wait for someone to answer it. The tea kettle begins to whistle loudly, the shrill sound coming through the door loud and clear.

But still no one comes to the kitchen to take it off the burner.

I look around as I wonder where the person boiling the water could be, and right above the door I see a camera just like the one in The Golden Light office. Uncomfortable I’m likely being watched or recorded at this very moment and hating the sound of that tea kettle whistling away like it’s calling out for help, I knock hard on the door and stare through the window hoping to see someone come at any second.

After another minute of that piercing sound filling my ears, I jiggle the doorknob and find it unlocked. I shouldn’t walk into a strange house, but that kettle is going to run out of water, and I wouldn’t want it to cause a fire.

At least that’s what I tell myself as I rush into the kitchen and hurry over to the stove. I take the kettle off the burner, so the whistling ends, thankfully. Someone must be here since they were making water for tea, but I see no one when I look into the dining room.

I’m not sure I should go any further into the house, but curiosity gets the better of me and I slowly walk through the dining room to the living room at the front of the house. The home is clean and orderly, but I see stacks of that same pamphlet as my sister had in her apartment spread out all over the coffee table.

“Hello? I’m sorry I came in uninvited, but your kettle was going off, and I didn’t want it to cause a fire.”

My words seem to go unheard since no one answers me or comes down the stairs to order me out of their house. I walk over to the foot of the staircase and look up, but something tells me I shouldn’t go up there.

A sound like a sob makes my blood run cold, and I spin around to get the hell out of the house. Then a terrible thought occurs to me. Could that have been Rina? I think about that for a few moments and decide it wasn’t her. Whoever made that noise might need help, so I need to call the police as soon as I get back to my car.

The sound of a man angrily complaining about something stops me dead. Oh, God. He’s in the kitchen. I can’t leave that way.

I turn around to head for the front door but see another man walking toward the house. Damn! I’m trapped here. The man in the kitchen sounded furious, so I don’t want to run into him. I have no good reason for being in this house, and they’d have every right to not be pleased with my intruding.

Frantic, I look for somewhere to hide and see a closet behind the front door. Hopefully, neither of the men need to look for anything in there, but it’s my only choice at the moment.

Rushing over, I thankfully find nothing but a single winter coat hanging on a rod. I close the door, shutting me in the darkness, and crouch down to make myself small, silently praying to God no one finds me.

As I listen, I hear the first man continue to angrily complain about someone screwing something up. His words don’t make sense, but I can clearly understand he’s enraged. The second man joins him, but he seems less unhappy and more confused about why the first man is so upset. It’s hard to make out every word because they’re too far away in the dining room, but something bad has happened.

Pressing my ear to the door, I strain to hear their conversation, but then their words come through loud and clear when I assume the two of them stop right outside where I’m hiding. Suddenly, the man’s anger becomes all too real, and I shake, terrified he’s going to find me.

“I swear I’m going to lose my cool one of these days,” the angry man grumbles.

The other man chuckles. “You have to learn to calm down, man. Remember the golden light?”

A sound like a growl fills my ears, followed by the first man’s response. “Somebody better tell Maren about the golden light. Her screw up is going to fuck us all, you know.”

“All we have to do is get her and the girl and bring them back to the farm. Let’s not make it harder than it has to be.”

“It wouldn’t be hard if Maren hadn’t fucking gotten rough with her. You should have heard how she sounded on the phone. I’m not sure what the hell we’re going to find when we get up there.”

The heavy sound of footsteps going up the stairs makes hearing any more of their conversation impossible. I don’t know what they were talking about, but it doesn’t sound good. It certainly doesn’t sound positive.

No cute cat posters in this place.

I need to get the hell away from here and figure out what to do next to find Rina, so I wait until the footsteps are only on the second floor and then bolt out of the closet. Adrenaline courses through me as I tear through the house and out the kitchen door. I’ve never run so fast in my life, and a few seconds later I reach my car.

Still terrified someone may have seen me, I get into my car and throw it into reverse to back out of the parking spot. A man appears in one of the upstairs windows, and even yards away, I see the rage in his eyes. God help the woman who has to deal with him up in that room. I wish I could help, but all I can do is drive to the police station and tell them what I heard.

I slam my foot onto the gas pedal and speed down the access road, leaving a cloud of dirt and dust behind me. By the time I get to the main road, my heart is beating so fast I think I might vomit. I don’t know what I just heard, but I think someone is hurt and may be in danger from at least one of those men.

Glancing at my watch, I see it’s just before two. Good. I’ll include that in what I tell the police. I’ll tell them that farmhouse is connected to The Golden Light, whatever the hell that is.

Self-improvement and positivity my ass. Something very bad is going on at that house and with these golden light people.