The Bone Field by Debra Bokur (top e book reader txt) 📕

Abigail’s face. Abraham paused, regarding her with disappointment. He sighed. “Did you leave a charm with everyone, Abigail?”

“I gave him the anchor after we became friends. He carried it in his pocket. I sewed it closed for him so he would never lose it.” There was a note of hesitation in Abigail’s voice now, elusive and guarded. “I was only trying to help, Father. I was only trying to lead him along the path to God.”

Abraham listened. He nodded his head. “And the others?”

She hung her head, ashamed. “It seemed like a small thing to do to help their souls on their journey to judgment.”

Kali spoke into the silence that followed, revolted by all that she had heard. “Do you know about the legends of monsters on Lna‘i, Abraham?” said Kali, in an effort to distract him from his tray of knives. “The old stories say that evil was banished from the island, but that’s your true power—you brought all that evil back.” She took a deep breath as a new wave of dizziness swept over her. “And now you’ve brought it here, to Maui.”

There was the sound of a door opening and closing, and Ruth Waters stepped into the pool of light near Abraham, accompanied by another woman. They were dressed similarly to Abigail, their blue skirts brushing the floor. Ruth’s hair was pulled back into a knot, but the other woman’s hair flowed freely across her shoulders, snowy white and still thick despite her age.

“You’re Linda Bragden,” said Kali, her breath labored. “You were on the ferryboat.”

The woman looked at her. “Linda Waters,” she said, correcting Kali. “Yes. I saw that mark on your arm.” She smiled at Abraham.

“What are you doing here with these people?” asked Kali, attempting to appeal to the woman’s reason, if she still possessed any. “Is it because of your daughter? You couldn’t save her, so you felt a need to punish yourself? Or did Abraham help you punish Matthew Greene instead?”

Linda looked directly at her, but Kali couldn’t read her expression. The woman seemed to have blocked out her words. She said nothing, only took Ruth’s hand and moved closer to her. Ruth’s presence seemed to comfort her.

“I’m so glad we got here in time to witness this salvation,” said Ruth. Her voice still carried some of the snarl that had been present when she’d shouted at the police station. She gazed at Abraham with adoration. “Truly we are blessed.”

“Did you move the vehicle?” asked Abraham.

“We sent two of the girls to bring it here. They should be back any moment now.”

Kali looked around the room. There was a row of three narrow windows close to the ceiling. The walls were covered in cheap wood paneling, and she had the impression that the space she was in had been built partially underground. One end of the room held a wooden platform and what appeared to be an altar in front of it. Folding chairs had been stacked along one wall. There was something scraping the glass of one of the windows, as though shrubs were growing close enough for the branches to reach it. She thought about the buildings she’d seen on her visit to Abraham’s Maui address. Basements weren’t typical in Hawai‘i, and she tried to picture which building she was being held in, deciding that she must be on the lower level of either Abraham’s house or Abigail’s.

Then she realized it didn’t matter. There was little chance of reaching the windows, or making her way to the door. She tensed her arm and leg muscles and released them, doing her best to wake them up fully. Abraham didn’t seem to notice. Stepping toward the steel cart, he chose a pair of surgical gloves and slipped them on, then lifted a small knife with a thin blade. Kali felt her heart race as she watched him examine the edge of the blade.

“Killing me isn’t going to help your cause, Abraham.” Her voice sounded shaky, even to her own ears.

He turned to her, eyebrows raised. “Kill you? I’m not going to kill you. I’m going to remove your tattoo and give you the opportunity to repent, to choose the path of righteousness.” He lifted the bottle of alcohol and a cotton pad, and walked to her chair. He gestured to Nathan, who stood beside her. Nathan held up her sleeve as Abraham poured alcohol onto the pad and began to rub her arm where her tattoo snaked across the flesh of her deltoid.

“What’s the point of sterilizing my skin? If you cut away that much skin, I’ll bleed to death and you know it. You may not be a good surgeon, but I’ll bet you learned at least that much in medical school.”

He smiled at her. He looks like a crocodile prepared to devour something small and meaningless, she thought.

“If you bleed to death, it is nothing to do with me,” he said. “It is simply God’s will. I suggest you begin to pray and to ask for His forgiveness.”

“That’s the same excuse every religious fanatic uses to explain their choice to commit evil,” said Kali. She knew she should be quiet, but she couldn’t help herself. Whatever they were planning to do to her was likely to end badly on her side, and she felt an urgency to let Abraham and Ruth and Abigail know that she was aware of what they had done. She struggled to recall the facts she’d learned while discussing cults with Hara. “Let’s see—off the top of my head, the history books have Theodore Rinaldo in Washington State, arrested for rape of a minor; religious leaders William Kamm, Warren Jeffs, and Wayne Bent, who all raped children—Bent through the auspices of his Lord Our Righteousness Church; Graham Capil, who headed up the Christian Heritage Party, and who went down for sexually abusing little girls who hadn’t even reached their twelfth birthdays; plus . . .”

Nathan stepped forward. He was no longer calm. His eyes