The Cult of Rohesia: Michelle (1/3)

"Are you sure that's it?" I ask my mom. The house is so far away from the road I can barely see it, let alone read the address. I don't even see a number (not that I'd be able to, from this distance). It's practically a quarter mile away from the highway.

"I'm certain, Michelle. And if it's not, there's no harm in going up the driveway to check."

Which is exactly what we do. Every inch closer feels more like I'm trespassing. The house is weirdly tall. Three stories. I guess that's not completely beyond the pale, but the base is small. You'd think they'd make the foundation bigger and not bother with the third floor or something. It's fieldstone on the bottom, white-painted wood siding on top, with a grey shingled roof. Well cared for, especially if it's as old as Mom seems to think it is. Or maybe these people relocated at some point.

I don't see a number anywhere. "How do we know it's the right one?"

"Go up and knock," Mom says.

"I don't want to. This is nuts."

"It's not nuts, Michelle. Thomas knew things we didn't even know about our own family, and you've got a chance to be just like him. You can't pass this up."

"Thomas is dead." I never knew him very well. Saw him around church, I guess. I remember his face, and I have a general impression he was always nice to me. That's about it.

Mom sighs. "You know that's not what I mean."

"How do you know his number didn't just go to someone different and they're not, like, human traffickers or something?" It could have happened.

"Michelle, we both know they're not human traffickers. Now go knock on the door so they can let you in."

I huff and get out of the van just because sitting here parked in some stranger's driveway was getting more uncomfortable by the second. A woman who looks like she's in her sixties or so opens it. "Michelle! So nice to see you. Come on in." I think I know her face from church, too, but I could be imagining it. I haven't been in a while. "My name is Louise. You're the first to arrive. Welcome."

I turn to wave at my mom, but she's already backing out of the long driveway. Eeesh. The front door opens into an entryway. On the far left is a closed door. On the immediate right, a staircase with stairs stained a coppery shade of brown. On the wall opposite the front door, a typical row of coat hooks with shoes on a rag rug on the floor under it. Two coats—an ivory windbreaker that I'm guessing belongs to Louise and a brown leather jacket—and three pairs of shoes: also brown leather, but different styles (a dainty pair of oxfords in a lighter shade, a chunky dark pair with bubble toes that looks straight out of the late nineties, and a pair of work boots with leather tassels under the laces). I add my black rubber ankle boots to the line but keep my coat. There's a bench with storage space under the two windows looking out into the front yard, too.

The stairs go dark once you get past the ones next to the entryway. There's a window at the top, but it's too dark outside for it to help. At the landing, there's a door and another set of stairs to the left. Louise takes me through the door and into a hall along the back wall of the house, with a row of white-curtained windows to the right and three doors to the left. We go all the way to the end of the hall and through the last door, into a dining room with wood-paneled walls, a linoleum floor, and thick brown curtains closed over the windows. I think I see a kitchen through the doorway on the left wall of the room, next to what appears to be a bricked-in, plastered-over fireplace. So apparently everything that should go on the ground floor is on the second floor in this house.

The table has two people and six places set, but no food. Which is disappointing, because I've had to fast since the early supper I had last night. There's a skinny girl on the left corner facing away from me with light brown hair piled in a messy bun on top of her head. And at the opposite corner, there's a man in a maroon sweater with dirty blonde hair just long enough to hang in his eyes.

"Pleasure to meet you, Michelle," he says. "I'm Nicolas. Have a seat."

I don't like those eyes one bit. It's not that they're literally dark—I mean they are, but that's not what I'm talking about. I feel like I could fall into them. How old is he, anyway? The girl definitely looks like she's my age, but—

"Emilie," Nicolas says, pointedly, at the girl.

Emilie extends her arm across the seat between us (I sat right across from Nicolas because I'm an idiot, or maybe I was just picking up the frosty 'don't-sit-by-me' vibes this girl is giving off). Palm down. Am I supposed to shake it? I think I am. She lets me close my fingers around hers and shake her hand exactly once, then pulls away. And she doesn't look at me at all. She didn't even turn her head.

Which is all very strange, but I'm still more put off by the way I can't tell how old Nicolas is. He absolutely isn't a teenager. Nor is he wrinkly or greying. I can only find age lines in his face if I look for them. His eyes are just a little baggy. And I can't shake the feeling there's something deeply wrong about that.

Louise brings up a pair of pale twins with short black hair. They look like a boy in my class, but I'm almost positive Mark doesn't have a twin brother.

"Mark. Michael. Welcome," Nicolas says. After they sit down on his side of the table, he adds, "You would have looked identical enough without getting matching haircuts, you know."

"Ooooh. Someone's mad he can't tell us apart," the one who sat in the middle tells the one on the end, who's sitting across from Emilie.

I catch her smiling out of the corner of my eye, but before I can get a better look, she's making the same face as before and staring at the table instead of the wall.

"We didn't actually do this on purpose," the other one tells Nicolas.

"You've given yourself away, Michael," Nicolas says as he reaches to shake the middle twin's outstretched hand.

Mark is staring at the table, too. Maybe even at the same bit of table cloth as Emilie. The Mark at my school is also quiet. That's probably part of why I don't know him well enough to be sure if he's the one here. I don't notice myself staring until it's too late.

"It's Michelle, right?" he asks me after looking up and wincing at our accidental eye contact.

"Yeah. You go to Rohesia High?" Speaking loudly enough so he can hear me over Michael without actually interrupting him is a delicate operation.

He nods and looks back at the table cloth, then shrugs at Emilie after a couple seconds. We listen to Michael tell Nicolas how his grandma wanted to know what his secret for looking so youthful was. Nicolas says maybe he'll tell him later. Then Michael's stomach gurgles loud enough for all of us to hear.

"So, uh, I heard there'd be food," he says.

"We'll start once Dora gets here," Nicolas tells him. I take it the place between me and Emilie isn't for Louise, then. She's standing off to the side, near Emilie and the kitchen doorway, but not sitting down. I wonder why?

It takes five minutes (I counted every one of them on my phone as they passed) for the last person to show up, and she does not look happy. And here I thought I was annoyed about all of this. I'm almost glad I can't really see her eyes behind her yellow-blonde bangs and thick-rimmed glasses. Her posture and the look on her face radiate enough anger on their own.

"Thanks for joining us, Dora," Nicolas says, possibly sarcastically. "Have a seat."

The empty chair between me and Emilie scrapes against the linoleum as Dora pulls it out. Her coat rustles as she thumps into the chair, then the chair legs thud against the floor a couple times when she scoots in. Is she always this loud, or is this just for us?

Louise comes out of the kitchen with a basket of bread, which Michael immediately makes a grab for, then a bottle of wine.

Dora scowls and puts her hand over her glass when Louise tries to fill hers. "I don't drink," she grumbles.

Louise smiles sweetly while she snatches the wine glass from under Dora's hand, then pours her a splash and puts it back on the table. I'm next. She tops off Nicolas's glass after me even though she already got to him. He'd already drunk half his glass.

"It's not poisoned," Nicolas says, pointing at the bread basket. He's talking to Dora, not me. Funnily enough, I don't think he's eaten any of the bread himself, though I'm sure it's only because he was too busy guzzling wine.

Dora stares at him, pokerfaced and arms crossed. Her hands stay pinned under her elbows. "So why're you guys blackmailing my mom, anyway?" she asks Nicolas.

At this point, I wouldn't put blackmail past Nicolas or Louise (maybe not even Emilie, though she doesn't look any happier to be here than the rest of us). Nicolas's calm reaction isn't helping him. He doesn't look surprised at all. "I can assure you I haven't spoken a word to your mother," he says.

"No, you haven't, because you left letters," Dora spits out.

Emilie looks way too interested in this. "Well maybe if your mom didn't set all those—"

"Emilie," Nicolas says reproachfully, like when she was ignoring me earlier. Is she all animated because she's defending Nicolas? What's their relationship, anyway? Or is she the one behind the blackmail?

"I just—" Dora pauses and collects herself, "—can you explain to me what the point of all this even is? Is it political? If it's money you want, we don't have any. Seriously. We've been housesitting for her friend since I started high school, that's the only reason we're not living out of her car."

Emilie is thrilled for some reason. "Living out of her car? How ironic!" Is she always this callous?

"Emilie." Nicolas's tone is a little sharper this time.

"Oh come on, Nicolas, can you believe it? I can't."

"It doesn't matter," he tells Emilie. "Dora, politics don't matter here. What we're presenting you with is an opportunity—"

Dora doesn't even let him finish his sentence. "Politics matter!" Wait, why are politics even relevant here? I'm definitely missing something—

What was that noise? What happened to—Mark. Yeah, Mark, not Michael. Something knocked him and his wine glass over. The wine's spreading across the table cloth. Kind of like a blood stain, actually.

Is Mark—no. No, I don't think he's okay. Michael's shaking his shoulder and saying his name. He isn't responding. Michael's face is almost as white as his.

Nicolas (unsurprised again) gets up and pulls Mark's chair out with him in it. "Grab his legs for me," he tells Michael as he starts pulling Mark out of his seat by his armpits. Michael doesn't seem to notice. After a few seconds, Emilie gets up and helps Nicolas instead.

When they're going through the door, Michael notices. His lips are forming words, but no sound passes them. "He—Michelle, right? He—I couldn't find his pulse, Michelle," he finally manages, looking at the door to the hallway the whole time.

"He'll be back on Sunday," Louise tells us cheerily. "The five of you are so lucky."

"And why is that, Louise?" Dora asks icily.

"You're inheriting protection from death. From aging, even. Illness, too. And when death does finally come for you, it'll be quick and gentle. But that won't be for a century or more," Louise says.

Dora pushes her bangs out of her face and looks at me. There's a general softness to her eyes that I wasn't expecting, but I think they're also just round with fear. I'm not sure what she's expecting from me, but I nod at her anyway. She nods back, and her face hardens again when she looks at Louise. "Can I go now?"

"You'll miss my lasagna," Louise says. My poor stomach. But whatever, I'm hungry. I'll scrape the cheese off. "But if you really want to, I don't see why not."

Dora gets up and leaves without looking back. It must be all she can do not to run.

"I'm going to call an ambulance," I tell Michael, who still seems a little slow on the uptake. I'm assuming it's uncharacteristic for him based on how chatty he was earlier.

"You'll only make things worse if you do." Louise took a step toward me as she spoke, then stopped. Why did she do that?

Michael gets up and heads for the door without a word. When he passes me, he tugs on my sleeve, so I follow him. What was Louise going to do? Make a grab for my phone?

We go upstairs instead of down. Not what I was expecting, but I should have. Michael wouldn't want to leave Mark like this. That leads to a living room with a polished wood floor covered in a white rug, with windows on three sides. Past the living room is a short hallway going down the middle of the remainder of the house. There's a fireplace (not bricked in) to the left of the hallway, and a dove grey couch with a white afghan draped over it against the wall to our right. Mark is taking up all of it, laying on his back and starting to look blue in the face. Emilie is sitting on the floor in front of the couch watching Mark.

Michael hurries to her side and tries to take Mark's pulse again. "Emilie, right? Do you know why he's like this?"

Emilie glances at him and shakes her head, then looks back at Mark.

"But you don't look alarmed," Michael says. "I thought you two were friends?"

"We grew up together," Emilie tells him.

"So—uh—he has no pulse and he's way colder than any living person has any right to be. That doesn't worry you?"

Emilie's gaze turns fearsome and switches to Nicolas, who's standing next to the couch and watching her and Michael. "Of course it does."

Nicolas looks away.

"Can you explain this, Nicolas?" she finally asks.

"No," Nicolas says, still not looking at her. Emilie and Michael exchange a wide-eyed look. "But it's happened before. He'll be back."

"When?" Emilie demands.

"Sunday."

"No, I mean when has this ever happened to Mark before, and why didn't I know about it?"

Nicolas tries looking at her but quickly looks away again. "I meant other people, not Mark.”

"Like who?" Emilie asks.

"Like me. Like your mother."

Emilie doesn't say anything else. She goes back to staring at Mark after a few seconds. She can't possibly be satisfied with that answer, can she? What if Nicolas's lying?

"What I'd like to know is why we're not calling an ambulance," I finally say, since no one else is bringing it up.

"We're not calling an ambulance, Michelle, because if we do, Mark will wake up in a cold metal drawer on Sunday morning,” Nicolas tells me.

"Yeah, great, okay. Fine. You and Louise keep saying he'll come back, but what proof of that can you actually offer?"

Nicolas stares me in the eyes like he's trying to boil them away with his gaze. "None, until Sunday. Until then, you'll have to wait."

"If we wait any longer, then Mark really will be dead. That's how not having a pulse works!"

Is he smiling? He's smiling. Trying not to, but I can still tell. "But it isn't how this house works, Michelle."

"What does this have to do with the house?" Is he just trying to distract me with a non-sequitur?

"Everything," Nicolas says. Then he notices Michael holding his phone up to his ear and grabs it out of his hand. "Mrs. Olmstead? Hello. This is Nicolas. I was just calling to let you know that Mark and Michael will be staying here with Emilie for the weekend. Everything is going perfectly, yes. We'll see you at church on Sunday." His hand shakes as he hangs up.

"When the fuck did I say I was staying over for the weekend?"

"You mean you were planning on leaving Mark here?" Nicolas asks him. Michael clenches his jaw and looks back down at Mark.

"Now that we've argued about it for a good long while," Nicolas continues, "I don't think he's still in a state where paramedics could revive him from a normal death. Why don't we go eat before Louise's lasagna gets cold?"

Oh fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. He got me. I should have just called the ambulance before Michael and I even came up here. Why would he want Mark to die, anyway? I can't believe he's going to just come back from this. None of it makes any sense. I go back to the kitchen with the others because what do I have to gain from doing anything else at this point? I'm too hungry to worry if the food was poisoned, and it probably wasn't what did Mark in anyway since he was the only one affected.

No one says much of anything while we eat. I don't know if it's the tension or the fact that we all haven't eaten in an entire day.

"Michelle," Nicolas says when I'm on the last couple bites of lasagna. "How old do you think I am?"

Oh fuck me. That is the last question I wanted to hear. "I dunno. Thirty-five?"

"Don't flatter me."

"Forty?" Too late, I recall what Louise said about us not aging, but I refuse to dignify her delusion by factoring it into my guesses anyway.

"Ninety-seven," Michael says, jokingly.

Nicolas smiles theatrically. "Older."

Michael's brow furrows. "No."

"Why do you think your grandparents were so eager to send you and Mark here?" Nicolas asks him. "Unlike Michelle's parents, both of them have been going to Rohesia Lutheran Church since they were kids."

"Okay, I'm finding the thought of you going to church on a regular basis for decades about as unbelievable as you being a hundred years old or whatever," Michael says.

"You'd find it easier to believe if you'd known Thom—" Nicolas's smile fades. "—nevermind. It's not important." That was definitely a lie, but none of us correct him. "I'm one hundred and eighteen years old."

"Got proof?" Michael asks.

"Ask your grandparents when you get home," Nicolas says, "and wait until Mark comes back from the dead on Sunday. If he can do that, then surely it's not so strange that I could be a hundred eighteen?"

"What's your point?" I ask. There's definitely more to this. Am I really supposed to believe if we just let Mark die, he'll come back to life on Sunday and we'll all live decades longer than we have any right to expect?

Nicolas frowns. "You're not interested?"

Let's play a different game, Nicolas. “If you're really a hundred eighteen, that must mean you don't have anyone left from when you were our age. Even the others from the last group are dead now, right?” Otherwise I assume they'd be here, to corroborate his story if nothing else. And his facial expression is deflating so spectacularly that I know I'm right. “Is your world still worth living in without them?”

I'd feel guilty if he gave me the space for it, but he won't stop staring me in the eyes. And I can't look away. There's so much pain in his eyes. He could throw some of it back at me, if he wanted. Yell. Scream. Say something as cutting as I just did. I don't know what, but I feel like he could come up with something that would knock the air out of my lungs if he wanted. Like he can read me like a book. But he doesn't do any of that. He doesn't have to. He just stares.

"I got a century with Thomas, thanks to the power,” Nicolas finally says. “It was more than we would have gotten otherwise." Then he picks up his wine glass and leaves.

"I hope you're happy," Louise tells me as soon as he's gone.

I try to ignore the heat rising in my ears and cheeks while I scarf down the last of my food. Then I text my mom to come pick me up. It's cold out, but not cold enough to stop me from waiting at the side of the road for her. To my relief, Nicolas is nowhere in sight when I leave the dining room. I don't want to find out what happens if I have to talk to him again.

Michael follows me downstairs. "Hey. Give me your number before you leave. Or at least take mine."

I don't want to. I'd rather just forget any of this happened. But unlike me, he's actually been wronged tonight. And maybe he'll need a witness for it later or something. I don't know. Ugh, I don't want to think about it, but I guess it's inevitable. Stopping us from calling for help has to be illegal somehow. Or would I be at fault for not trying hard enough?

No. Unlikely. We swap phones and add our numbers into each other's contact lists. Michael claps my shoulder as I head out the door.

"Stay sharp," he says.