“I—I don’t know—” I get an embarrassed flush in my cheeks. Will, Penny, and I always asked each other everywhere. It was an unwritten rule. Sure, sometimes Will would have soccer practice, or Penny would have family dinner, but the separations were always involuntary.
“It’s fine,” he says. “I think she and her friend were working on programming some crowd-sourcing game she likes where you get rated on, like, the outfits you put together or something.” He leans his head back on the headrest. “Glad to get out of hearing any more about that, if you know what I mean.”
I try to laugh but can’t help feeling that something about what Harrison says has caught me and needled its way under my skin, where it itches like a small, bothersome tick. Nerves, I think. I’m just letting my nerves get the best of me. Because the truth is that I’m unsettled by the idea of visiting the commune.
And so we drive in relative silence. We hug the coastline. Signs of our beach town, with its pastel condos and tourist shops, fade, replaced by a shoreline that grows more rugged with each mile. Patches of European beachgrass sprout from between rocks, and the brown tendrils of wrack that collect near the road help to form dunes along the upper beach. On the side of the road opposite the vast stretch of ocean, acres of farmland unfold. We pass groups of chocolate-and-white cows munching in the fields and the occasional spotted pony.
Harrison watches his phone for directions, finally telling Ringo to turn left at a rickety road sign that reads Zyle Lane. Ringo sits up straighter.
On either side of the dirt road on which we’ve turned are bunches of sticks standing together like totems. We pass them every thirty seconds or so. I twist my hands around the door handle and lean forward to see farther over the dash.
“Have you been here before?” I ask Harrison quietly.
“Once,” he says. “I was a lot younger. The last time I saw him, my uncle came to visit us at home. It’s better that way, I promise.”
The first person we come upon is a man, walking barefoot with his back to us in the grass and dressed all in white, linen pants and a tunic. His gray hair is pulled back into a wiry ponytail. We slow down as we pass by. The man doesn’t look over at the lone car pulling up beside him, and then we pass and he continues wandering along the roadside seemingly without noticing our intrusion at all.
“There’s a general store. You’ll see it. That’s where we go first,” Harrison says. “It has the only phone in the whole commune.”
Up ahead there are groups of dwellings. Doublewide trailers have tented canopies extended off the side. Around them are a few freestanding wooden cabins with lopsided shingles. Men and women mill around outside, each wearing a matching tunic and pants. Everyone seems to be moving at dream speed, slow and unhurried. A girl pumps water from a hand well into a bucket on the ground.
“Wouldn’t it be easier to just, like, book a weekend at a day spa?” Ringo asks, sneaking glances as he drives at the odd assortment of people gathered outside.
Harrison snorts. I crack a smile. “Did your mom join a commune?” Harrison asks.
“Not unless you count the cult of Big Gulps and soap operas,” Ringo answers, then adds more thoughtfully, “But yeah, she did change. After, I mean.”
“Look, there it is.” I point up ahead. A classic pickup truck is parked in the dead grass outside a large aluminum shed in front of which is a hand-painted sign that reads GENERAL STORE.
We pull off and park near the pickup. The first thing I notice is how quiet it is. The three pairs of our shoes sound like draft horses clomping through the dry dirt. We walk in. There isn’t much “general” about the store. There’s one bookshelf and on it a few items from a first aid kit—gauze, scissors, medical tape. Near it, on the floor, is an ice chest. Somebody has written Please replace the scoop on the top.
Harrison greets the white-clad man who is sitting on a stool reading a book with no title on the cover. “Hi, we’re looking for Coyote Blue,” he says.
“Coyote Blue?” Ringo repeats too loudly, and I jab an elbow into his ribs to get him to shut up.
The man’s teeth are bright against his dark skin. He has beautiful almond-shaped eyes and tight curls of black hair springing from the top of his head. “Coyote?” He says this like he’s just waking up. “Coyote,” he repeats. “Yes, one moment. I’ll send a messenger. He’s expecting you?”
“Yes, he should be,” Harrison says. “We called yesterday.” He points to the lone cell phone sitting atop a counter, plugged into a generator.
The man slides from the stool soundlessly, bows slightly, and then disappears out a back door. The three of us are left to stare at one another.
“It used to be Darrell Vines,” says Harrison. “Commune members change their names as part of their rebirth.”
“And the best he could come up with was Coyote Blue?” I say.
“He’s changed too,” Harrison explains while I wander to the bookshelf and turn over the small pair of scissors and wonder what anyone would do out here if there were a real accident.
Shortly after, we see the long shadow of someone who is crossing behind us, without hearing the person who casts it. We turn to see a man in the uniform of the commune, again without shoes on, which must explain some of the members’ ability to move without making so much as a whisper of noise.
“Hello, Harrison.” Coyote’s tone is cool, but not unfriendly. The man is strikingly handsome—eyes as blue as glaciers, hair a blond spun from golden thread. It’s easy to see the resemblance between him and his nephew, but unlike Harrison, who feels bulky and grounded, Coyote seems to hold himself lightly on the earth, as if he’s not subject to the full force of gravity.
Harrison hesitates, like he’s not sure whether to hug him or bow or back away slowly.
I step forward, saving him. “Mr.…Blue. I’m Lake Devereaux and this is my friend Ringo.” Coyote’s eyes dash over Ringo’s countenance but don’t linger over the deep-red shading there. “Harrison arranged this for me.”
Coyote’s smile has that looking-down-from-heaven air to it that feels both condescending and comforting at once. “Yes, he provided a few of the details.” Though his eyes passed over Ringo, they are boring into me, scanning me over and over and not in a creepy-hitting-on-me way, more like he’s searching for something. He stops, smiles again. “Should I show you around?” he asks.
We traipse after him, a herd of noisy tourists.
“Get many visitors around here?” Ringo quips.
I notice that Coyote’s arms don’t swing at his sides when he walks. “Not usually,” he replies matter-of-factly.
Coyote leads us through a wide de facto boulevard between the rows of houses. “We make all of our food here on the compound.” He points to raised planters where green plants sprout in the dirt. Each residence appears to have at least one. “We parse out what each family will grow and we share the produce.”
“What about meat?” Ringo asks, trotting behind us after pausing to peer into a square planter that has baby pumpkins growing inside. “And dairy?”