The Night We Burned by S. F. Kosa

Author:S. F. Kosa
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Published: 2021-04-23T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Seventeen

The Retreat

October 3, 2000

A drop of sweat clung to the end of Darius’s nose as he bowed his head over the piglet. It lay on its side on the altar, eyes glazed as its blood ran down a funnel and into a bucket next to Kazem’s feet. He, too, had his head down, expression hidden. Parvaneh had overheard him arguing with Darius about using the pigs as channeling vessels. Kazem hadn’t thought it made any sense; he didn’t see how an animal, even a smart one like a pig, could help them touch the deep consciousness. But Darius said it was life and death that brought them closer, and any life would help them, though human life was best.

Kazem had drugged the animal so it didn’t struggle or suffer, but Parvaneh felt uneasy all the same—she’d seen the creature struggling to avoid the squirt of medicine into its mouth when she went to tell Kazem they were ready. He’d given her a look, silent and seething. She’d glared back, holding her ground. Then she’d asked him about his loyalty, his commitment. His face had gone smooth and cloudy, almost as if he had taken the sedative himself. He said his loyalty was strong as ever.

Parvaneh wanted to believe him, but as the weather had started to signal the slow but inevitable return of winter, a few people had begun to grumble, especially after Ziba, her pushy adult children with their threats, her death at the end of August. Of course it had affected Darius. Of course it had been stressful for him. And of course it had made him more short-tempered, more eager to help all of them tap that vein of the deep consciousness and drink from its wisdom. The millennium approached, bringing with it all kinds of danger. He was in charge of protecting them, and those people had just barged onto their compound and threatened to sic the authorities on them, even to have their children taken away.

Parvaneh had done her best to support him. To please him. She was terrified he was slipping away, but he explained that he’d had to meet in the evenings with Ladonna and Zana and Goli and Laleh—they needed more support than Parvaneh did. Their faith had been wavering, and he’d needed to reach out to them individually. She’d told him she understood, but she was eager to return to the times when he’d spend every evening with her alone. He’d promised that time was coming soon.

“Do you all feel that?” Darius asked, his hands on the animal’s back.

Parvaneh looked down at a smear of blood on her hands, which had been gently stroking the dying pig’s pale-pink skin. Her stomach burbled with nausea.

“Do you feel that throb?” he continued. “That’s the consciousness, telling us to dig in instead of pulling away. The only path to real enlightenment is to keep searching with a hunger and thirst that’s unquenchable save for one source: that thick vein of immortal wisdom that hides in all of us, dormant unless we focus.

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