Always Watching

another woman there, Joy, she’d also lost a son, and she told them about a retreat she’d gone to that helped.”
    Joy. I remembered her well. I wondered if her child really had died or if her story had just been a ruse to connect with new recruits.
    I said, “Does Aaron get many members from support groups?”
    “I guess so—a lot of them have lost family. We also get street kids and drug addicts. Aaron doesn’t charge them. He just picks a few each year to come live at the commune, people he says need our help the most.”
    Fear made my back stiffen in my chair. Would he find Lisa? I forced myself to relax. Lisa wouldn’t go near a spiritual center.
    Tammy was still talking. “He says most people’s problems come from a fear of death, that’s what causes anxiety, depression, drug addiction, and all that. He said that if everyone understood what a beautiful place they’d go to when they died, they’d live better lives down here.”
    Unless they had the bad luck to meet Aaron.
    I said, “The commune seems to have expanded into other countries.” I didn’t want to tell her how much I knew from my online research, preferring to hear it from her. “When did that happen?”
    “Aaron said that we needed to reach more people. More bad stuff was happening to the earth, and we needed to help. He picked members and sent them around the world to start new communes. He always knew who was the most committed to their practice, or if anyone said anything against the commune.”
    “Do you know how he might’ve been able to do that?” I had my suspicions, but I wanted to see what she thought.
    “There are cameras in every room—even the bathrooms.” I flashed to Heather’s reaction to the cameras at the hospital, now understanding. “He says it’s so we let go of our inhibitions. Some of the members knew spots on the grounds, or in buildings, where they could talk in private, but he still found out what they’d said. He said he could read their energies, but I think he just had spies.”
    He probably did. I remembered Aaron’s uncanny way of always knowing who was wavering or spreading doubt. That person would be singled out by Aaron in the next cleansing ceremony, forced to confess, then ignored for a few days. A couple of days later another member would be given special privileges.
    She said, “If someone was talking about leaving, he’d be really upset.”
    “Upset how?” My mind filled again with the image of Joseph kicking that man on the ground, the machete coming down while Mary struggled.
    “He’d take the member into his office, meditating with them and talking to them for hours and hours, until they’d agree to stay. He’d also have other members talk to them—sometimes people could be really mean. They used a lot of guilt, like saying that you wouldn’t get to see the people you love on the other side after you die. If a member ever did leave, they’d call them nonstop.”
    “What happens to members if they break a rule?”
    “Usually we just weren’t allowed to talk to people, even if they were standing right beside you. Or they had to get an adjustment.”
    “What’s an adjustment?”
    “Sometimes it was just talking with Aaron, but if he didn’t think you were getting the message, you had to go for a full adjustment. They had these electrical things that sent currents through your brain and cleared you out. They said it’s like you get cysts, where energy gets trapped in your cells, and it disrupts your health and your thinking, so you have to break it up, then release it.”
    It sounded like he was experimenting with some sort of biofeedback or brain-wave system.
    Tammy said, “That wasn’t so bad, but then it got worse.” She looked over at her son. “He started putting people underground.”
    At first I thought I’d heard wrong. “I’m sorry, did you say—”
    “He has isolation chambers built under the center. He doesn’t let you out until you’ve surrendered to your fears and let go of your past.”
    My body stiffened, horror at her words, and something else, an uncomfortable feeling that I wanted to escape from, but I didn’t know what was causing the unease. I took a breath, stayed in the present. “Doesn’t anyone refuse?” I knew how closed off cults could become, how over time members could, and did, tolerate numerous abuses at the hands of their leaders, but I was still surprised so many people went along with Aaron’s crazy ideas.
    “People