The Tithe Read online

  “Behold the seven.” Minnabi Mason gestured behind him at the seven people sitting around the central table. From her angle near the head, Josh watched his eyes gleam with a holy righteousness. “They are our keys to Her grace, to our very continued existence. We are humbled by their sacred mission and unworthy of the words that they speak to us, knowing that soon, their lips will speak to Elovah’s very ear.” Yeah, that must be why he wouldn’t meet their eyes.

  “May their hearts remain cheerful in the knowledge that they are both blessed and blessings.” He waved his hands at the ceiling this time. “You have our most heartfelt gratitude and our most reverent envy, for soon you will be in the presence of the terrible, gracious, and all-powerful Elovah.”

  Josh dropped her head, as if moved to feverish prayer. Did that snake just say he envied them? Did he dare?

  “May you all find shelter and comfort in the shadow of Elovah’s frowns,” the minnabi concluded, clasping his hands to his chest and bowing very slightly. His gray hair had escaped the comb tracks to tumble about the crown of his head.

  While the audience applauded, Minnabi Mason strode back to his chair somewhere else in the room. Josh didn’t bother tracking him.

  The food followed shortly thereafter. Nowhere in the scriptures did it mention a Tithing Festival, nor did it specify high summer as its date. Josh felt pretty sure the date had been chosen arbitrarily. Also, it just sounded especially cruel, and therefore holier, to send citizens into the high desert during the height of summer.

  After living her entire life in a rab’ri, the food was much richer than Josh was accustomed to: vat beef with vegetables in a spicy brown sauce, spear-like greens dripping with oil and garlic, buttered sweet potatoes, fresh rolls with (she was pretty certain) real butter, fruit juice and hot coffee. A raisin-pocked, gooey, bread-like concoction for dessert. Not a bowl of plain oatmeal in sight.

  Throughout the meal, no one spoke to the Tithes. For the most part, the Tithes didn’t even speak to one another. Enviable holy blessings they may be, but that didn’t save any of them from their individual and collective freakishness.

  After the empty dishes had been collected by burgundy-clad workers, Eloine Crawsin d’Ijo rose to her feet, waxed poetic around a mouth full of shining white teeth about the privilege of sharing this time with the Tithes, and then asked the seven if they were ready to save their city. No one spoke.

  Someone at another table gestured to the Tithes to stand. Sighing, Josh used the edge of the table to haul herself to her wobbling feet. Her ankles clenched, and she inhaled through her teeth. Thank heaven for her boots.

  She felt the wind stir her hair before she made sense of what was happening. One of the Tithes, the man who had stood before her in line, had rushed behind her and toward the door. He maneuvered around tables and gasping townspeople. His crude rubber shoes slapped the vinyl flooring. The man reached the door and flung it open. It slammed against the wall.

  Yep, definitely not right in the head.

  The man squeaked in protest as the two walking behemoths snagged him before he hurled himself into the scalding afternoon. They each grabbed an arm and marched, them forward and him back, into the room. Fifteen feet before Eloine Crawsin d’Ijo, they halted. The man sobbed, just once.

  The room was silent, eyes and mouths open wide. Such a story to tell their neighbors, Josh thought. Time and wages well spent, indeed.

  Suddenly, Eloine’s face cracked into her polished politician’s smile. “Some of the Tithes are eager to begin their journey. Jan and Yin, thank you for offering to show them to the autobus outside.” She turned to the Tithes and ended up staring at Josh. “Please follow Yin and Jan and your fellow Tithes outside and back to the autobus. And take our thanks and our prayers with you, our holy sisters and brothers.”

  Limbs and tummies heavy, the Tithes followed the trio outside. The seven of them were being herded into the desert as town sacrifices, and the mayor of the city didn’t even know their names.

  Josh and two other Tithes required help getting on the bus. Since it was the last time she would ever ride in a vehicle, she managed to refrain—barely—from complaining or demanding to know who had thought up the brilliant idea of hauling this group around in a bus with no lift.

  No one spoke on the bus ride. Even the addled man slumped in his seat, staring out at the sun-baked scenery whirring by. Jan and Yin—she still had no idea which was whom—had joined them. One sat in the front seat, one in the back, both lending their silent solidity to the prison-like ambiance. Away from the paying crowd, there was really no need for pretense.

  The bus remained relatively cool, thank goodness. Beyond the windows, buildings and traffic grew sparser while sand and sage sprouted with increasing frequency. Barstow, one of ten towns that formed the last human civilization, existed smack dab in the middle of the Mojave Desert. They drove farther from the town and into the scorching mouth of the desert, passing clumps of Joshua trees along the way. Josh identified them from the many pictures she’d seen in old books. Ima Emm had even hung a painting in her office of a clump of Joshua trees silhouetted by a setting sun. The stunted trees ended in arm-like branches, each topped with a knot of small, spiked leaves. From a distance, the trees looked like crooked, multi-limbed beings punching their fists into the air.

  Put that way, she could imagine why the imrabi had named her after them.

  The fist analogy reminded her of something. A story, maybe? Ah, yes. Years ago, when she’d pawed through the libraries to learn more about her namesake, she’d encountered a tale written by the Twelves about a band of travelers who’d named the trees after some fierce or devout character. The Joshua from their stories apparently shook his fists at the sky, or perhaps he raised them in supplication. She really couldn’t remember.

  These Joshua trees cast lengthening, gnarled shadows along sand and scrub. They were shorter than she’d imagined and looked even more defiant in person. Too bad her first live view of them would also be her last.

  Speaking of which, when did these people plan on halting the vehicle and shoving them into the brutality of the desert? Their bus had originally headed east, away from the other towns that participated in the Tithe. However, they now drove north over dusty roads. Mountains loomed not too far in the distance. Josh definitely hadn’t expected mountains in the desert. It made no sense, and she knew better from glancing through maps in the past, but she envisioned deserts as giant sandboxes with wind-sculpted dunes pinching the landscape.

  Silly girl. It wasn’t as if the bus traveled to the sandy, furnace-hot Death Valley. Well, unless it did. She wasn’t certain, but she thought Death Valley lay north of Barstow. Death Valley, which boasted the hottest temperatures in the area, perhaps even the world. It seemed a particularly nasty way to go.

  Snorting at herself, Josh shook her head. Death was death, right?

  Over the next thirty or forty minutes, the mountain range grew larger, creeping upward in increments from the middle of the autobus’ windshield. Not long thereafter, the bus abandoned even the dirt roads they traveled, following a route scarcely traced by other vehicles’ tire tracks. Minutes passed. Finally, the bus halted at the base of one of the mountains.

  This is it, Josh thought. She considered sending up a prayer but figured she was going to meet Elovah—in theory, at least. Besides, everything had proceeded according to plan—Hers.

  Jan or Yin, whoever the woman was, rose to her considerable height from the front seat and turned to face them. Josh’s heart throbbed in her chest and temples.

  “This is it,” Jan-Yin said. Josh almost brayed laughter at the echoing of her thoughts but instead bit her tongue. Her diaphragm spasmed in protest. “Everybody off, please.”

  At least she was polite. No sense in being rude to the condemned.

  It took them a good fifteen minutes to herd everyone off the autobus. Josh wanted to descend to her death with aplomb, if not dignity, but she stumbled when she stood from her seat and
had to be half-carried by Jan-Yin to the oven-like heat of the Mojave’s late afternoon. She stood, shivering with heat, next to the other six. None spoke.

  Yin-Jan, the male half of the team, exited the bus while muttering into some metallic contraption that cradled his cheek. Probably a transmitter. Josh had read about them.

  A moment later, a diminutive, brown-skinned man emerged from behind a bend in the mountain. Given their sweaty, dusty surroundings, his khaki slacks and light green, button-up shirt seemed strangely formal. Even more bizarre was his gentle smile, which creased his middle-aged face into a series of uplifting crescents. His thin mustache crinkled upward in welcome.

  The man halted seven or eight feet from Josh and extended his hands, palm up. “Welcome, Tithes,” he boomed, a surprisingly large voice for such a small person.

  “Are you an angel?” one of the Tithes, a gray-haired, stooped woman, quavered.

  Somehow, Josh didn’t think a representative from their god would wear a cheap black wristwatch on his left wrist.

  The force of the man’s laugh almost brushed them backward. “You’re not the first to ask,” he confided, winking. “If a more unworthy man was ever blessed with such a comparison, I’d be shocked out of my loafers.”

  Josh had no idea what a loafer was in this context, let alone multiple ones, but she had no problem accepting he wasn’t a divine being.

  This day had become increasingly surreal.

  “Tithes, please come with me,” he said, gesturing with broad hand circles.

  They formed an automatic line once again, Josh at the front, and plodded woodenly behind this small, cheerful man. Josh, like most imrabi, had assumed the towns would allow the desert to take them, but perhaps their deaths would be quicker and surer. The saliva dried in her mouth.

  They retraced the man’s original steps, walking around a crop of fallen boulders. Around the corner, hidden from a casual observer by the fallen debris, lay a cave opening large enough in diameter to accommodate a large vehicle. Unlike most caves she’d seen in pictures, this one was almost perfectly symmetrical, its opening smooth and inviting. Huh. A sacrificial cave made some sense.

  Josh’s left leg spasmed, and she stumbled in her step. She ground her teeth and shoved her right foot forward. Sure, it hurt now, but she’d soon be beyond these petty concerns.

  The small man turned, and his smiles had dropped downward. “Do you need help, my dear?” he asked.

  “No,” Josh said.

  He took her arm. They moved forward once again, and as much as it burned to admit it, leaning against him made walking hurt less.

  “Who are you?” she demanded, twitchy with the idea that her executioner had made her progress more comfortable.

  They reached the cave’s mouth. Inside, someone—more likely a lot of someones—had smoothed the walls into an almost glossy sheen.

  He turned to her with a smile. “My name is Eryl. I’m in charge of welcoming you all and making you comfortable.”

  “Is that a euphemism for killing us quickly?” she asked.

  His rubbery face twisted into a look of shock. “My word, no! You shouldn’t listen to those awful rumors that say the Tithes are treated with anything but devotion and deference.”

  Uh-huh.

  Eryl drew them forward. As her eyes adjusted, Josh spied a huge, double door, at least fifteen feet wide and twelve feet tall, resting in the cave wall on her right. She snorted when Eryl propped her like some kind of corn doll against the wall next to the doors. As the group halted, he turned to them all with his crinkly smile.

  “Welcome, Tithes,” he said. He gestured toward the double doors, as if they could have possibly missed them. “This elevator will take us to your new home. Please don’t be afraid.”

  Josh felt every single Tithe tense.

  Eryl tapped a button, and the doors parted. Inside was a large room into which Eryl and the Jan-Yins ushered them. Josh’s breath knotted in her chest until Eryl stepped into it with them and pressed another button. The doors closed and the room moved.

  She had heard of elevators; she knew several buildings in town had them. Nonetheless, the sudden shaking and upward pressure sent her sprawling to the ground. Her teeth clamped down on her bottom lip as Eryl helped her to her feet. Was she the only one startled by the moving room?

  A minute must have passed. Josh stared at her boots, willing the legs inside to remain unbent. The doors finally creaked open on what Eryl had called their new home.

  Josh closed her eyes and inhaled deeply the cool, dry air that blasted over them. On shaky legs that ached with each step, she followed Eryl into the room beyond.

  Fifty, maybe sixty, people occupied the giant room before her. Some stood, some sat or lounged on a beige couch that curved around a giant, cement central beam, and one even lay sprawled on the gray concrete ground. A brushed-metal ceiling lay in jointed section above their heads, while the walls gleamed the smooth, dull gray of concrete or stone. The square room measured maybe a hundred feet on each side. Opposite them loomed a wide, open doorway that opened up to a brightly lit room. The wall on Josh’s left featured two darkened hallways, while the one on her right only sported one. On the same wall as the elevator sat a knobless door. Single chairs, most of them occupied, lay scattered throughout the room.

  And gray. The walls, the floors, the ceiling: everything shone a tired, utilitarian gray. Only the beige couch and dark green, plush chairs added any color.

  “Welcome,” Eryl repeated, and swept his hand outward.

  The Tithes exited the elevators.

  Through blurry eyes, Josh tottered to the nearest unoccupied seat, a single, armless plush chair. She collapsed into it with a soft groan before glancing around with flared nostrils, daring anyone to have heard. The person nearest her, a giant of a man with no obvious impairments, appeared oblivious to her existence. No one paid the slightest attention to her. Most of the people in the room stared at their hands or attempted to make eye contact with Eryl.

  After situating the other six Tithes in various seats across the room, Eryl and the Jan-Yins gathered once again before the elevator.

  “Only one more group of Tithes left, my friends!” Eryl announced. “Once the tenth group arrives, we’ll be all set.”

  Josh wanted to ask him what that meant, why they were storing all the county’s Tithes in some subterranean lair, when they were just going to kill them. She decided instead to devote her attention to rubbing the clenched muscles of her legs and feet.

  “That room over there—” Josh didn’t bother looking up from her boots but imagined he gestured to the bright room opposite the elevator. “—is the kitchen. If you’re hungry or thirsty, it’s well stocked. I’m going up to wait above for the final group but should be back soon.”

  With that, the group boarded the elevator and left the sixty-three Tithes staring at one another.

  After several minutes of a vigorous calf massage with her other foot, the pain finally receded just enough for Josh to raise her head and survey the room. A few of the others met her eyes, some with curiosity and a few with resentment, maybe or maybe not directed at her. It was obvious why some of them had become Tithes—some shook with constant tremors or stared with sightless eyes, a few rocked back and forth or muttered quietly to themselves, two sat in shiny metal, wheeled chairs, and at least two—one of whom lay on the floor, eyes closed and mouth open in what she hoped was sleep—were formed differently or missed a limb. However, at least half of them appeared as hearty and coherent as any non-Tithe.

  “So, what’s the deal?” she asked of the room.

  Several heads turned her way.

  After a moment, a tired-looking woman in her forties spoke. “What deal?” The woman sat on the giant, circular couch, her single leg splayed before her, her hands resting on crutches she held before her like a shield.

  Josh raised her eyebrows. “I mean,” she said carefully. “Why are we here?” She waved her hand around her. “What’s go
ing to happen to us?”

  Before the woman could respond, a masculine voice chimed in. “None of us know.”

  She turned toward the voice and found a man in his thirties, oddly blond and pretty for an adult, sitting in another armless chair a few feet to her right. He stared back at her, a lovely person, seemingly without any ailments. Yet here he was. “Nine of the ten counties have brought their Tithes here.” Yeah, she got that. “That’s all we know. Eryn brought each of the group down here and promised us he’d explain once we were all here.”

  “Eryl,” a voice said quietly. It came from a young woman seated on the circular couch. Her red curls blazed from her head as she stared down at the hands she’d clasped in her plump lap.

  The blond man nodded. “Eryl.”

  Josh considered introducing herself and then reconsidered. It’s not as though they’d know each other long. And so they waited, air-conditioned, comfortable, and well-fed, for death to show itself.