You might wonder if our condition hurt, or if it was awkward, and the answer is no. It never hurt being attached to Taema. Though I could get so mad at her I could spit—and I had before but then she’d spit back and we’d be staring at each other’s spit-covered faces and then usually burst into laughter at the stupidity of it all—I couldn’t stomp off. There was no way for either of us to have the last word on anything.
Taema looked resolutely away. “Let’s not.”
“Why not?”
“Just don’t, OK?”
I was tempted to push her, but then we’d have fought and she’d have been even more pigheaded than before. “Fine.”
I stared at the tablet again. Please state your search terms clearly, the screen reminded us. How did it even do that? Our parents told us about the internet and radio waves, how they floated through the air. Dad said that within the compound, the internet didn’t work, but the tech dampeners only worked so far in the forest. If this place was meant to be so Pure, why hadn’t Mana-ma stopped service out in the woods, too?
Taema’s cheekbone grazed mine. She kept trying to look away but couldn’t help herself. Even though we had the whole world at our fingertips, we didn’t know what about the world we should learn.
That’s it. I’d start with what I did know.
“Tablet. Search for Mana’s Hearth,” I said.
Information came up immediately: a list of some kind. I touched the first one with my fingertip, tentatively, and more information loaded. I felt Taema turn closer to the screen. She couldn’t resist. We read, side by side.
Mana’s Hearth—The Infamous Cult of the San Francisco Bay Area
“What’s a cult?” Taema whispered.
I shook my head, confused. “I don’t know, but they seem to think it’s bad.” I read through an origin story of the Hearth, written by someone called Tobias Diaz, which fitted mostly with what Mana-ma had told us in sermon:
Not much is known of the secretive commune set where Muir Woods was once open to the public. The First Mana-ma was Elspeth Foley, a mistress of a prominent politician who was also a member of the Bohemian Grove.
“What’s that?” Taema asked. We took a brief break to search for Bohemian Grove. They were a group of rich and powerful politicians who met in the redwoods at Monte Rio once a year to network while pretending they weren’t networking. Some of their ceremonies seemed a little similar to what we did in the Hearth, such as the “Cremation of Care,” where they burned a large fire to let go of their worries. We did that every summer equinox down in the meadow, though we didn’t wear such stupid outfits. After a few false starts, I managed to bring the screen back to the original page we’d been reading.
As a woman, Elspeth Foley had no chance of ever becoming a full member of the Bohemian Grove, and she was not sure if she wanted to. She began her own commune a few years later, and recruited several prominent relatives of the very same Bohemian Grove members who would not accept her. Over the next few decades, she gradually recruited more members and closed them off from society, until, by her death, it could only be considered a cult.
When one Mana-ma perishes, she will have already chosen and groomed her successor. There have now been eight Mana-mas, with the current one in power for the last thirty-five years. They were settled in the Mojave Desert, by Chimney Rock, but after the Great Upheaval they moved to the redwood grove across the bay from San Francisco.
Mana-mas often have a husband, who is called the Brother, as they are meant to be a Brother to the whole community. They are not actual siblings. The current Mana-ma’s Brother died around twenty years ago, though this information is difficult to verify, and she has not taken another.
Many rumors have circulated about day-to-day life in the Hearth. Some say they perform animal or human sacrifice, but that is entirely unsubstantiated. The Hearth does ban any technology invented past 1969, or the Summer of Love. They live the same way that the original Mana-ma lived in the First Hearth. Every Mana-ma has said that the first commune was perfect and it shouldn’t change. Their houses have electricity, they play antiquated record players, but there are no computers, and definitely no implants. The Hearth believes that to alter oneself in any way is sacrilege. They avoid modern medicine, relying instead on natural herbs from the earth. No make-up, no flashy fashion, no waxworked features at flesh parlors.
What we do know is that in the decades since the Hearth started, barely anyone has ever left. It is rare for a cult to remain stable for so many years. A decade ago, after complaints of curious people trying to sneak onto the grounds, the government constructed a large artificial swamp around the perimeter, making the former site of Muir Woods technically an island. With several thousand members, the commune is largely self-sufficient, but must order in some supplies from outside. Within the grounds, people will occasionally disappear, and no one knows where they have gone. Some claim that Mana-ma kills them herself, though again, is this only sensationalism?
“The swamp is artificial?” Taema asked.