Diana Racine 02 - Goddess of the Moon

kidnapper was caught ,” she said softly. “Oh, G od, please , what should I do? ”
    “If you believe in God, you’ll make the right decision. It’s not too late.”
    She sniffed, and Lucier thought perhaps he’d finally broken through. “ Are you familiar with two young women who call themselves Brigid and Nona Fulceri?”
    Dione Compton hung up.
    * * * * *
    M aia spent the afternoon in her quarters with her children. She was no psychologist, but she agreed with Anat. Her older son Phillip was abnormally withdrawn and remote. He’d suffered something traumatic, and he wouldn’t confide in her . In fact, he only spoke in one-word answers. Leo, the youngest, clung to her and didn't want to let go. She sensed that he, too, was on the way to having problems. Only the girl, Iris, acted like a girl her age should act ―if she were raised within the confines of the group.
    “What happened to Phillip?” she asked Seth later when they were alone .
    He looked at her quizzically. “What do you mean?”
    “ Something’s wrong . Haven’t you noticed?”
    “He’s a quiet kid.”
    “How much time do you spend with him?”
    “I see him every day,” Seth said. “I see all of them every day.”
    “Not see them. Spend time with them.”
    “What are you getting at, Maia?”
    “Do the boys stay with you at night?”
    “You know all the kids stay together.”
    “Who watches them?”
    “The leaders take turns. What’s this about?”
    How could she phrase this without proof? “I think Phillip has been sexually abused.”
    Seth started to laugh but stopped when he realized Maia was serious. “Don’t be ridiculous. The pleasuring here is strictly heterosexual, and a strict hands-off policy is in effect until the kids reach a certain age. You know that.”
    “What about Cal Easley? Does he spend time with the children ? Could he have been with Phillip alone?”
    “Cal? He spends time with all the children, teaches them math and science and art. Every subject imaginable. The kids love him. Cal ’s the most gentle person here. He’d never touch a kid. He may be gay, but I think he’s more, I don’t know, asexual . Sex with either gender doesn’t seem to interest him. He’s always been … different, an anomaly, ever since we were children. He does pretty much what he wants, and no one pays attention. Cal shouldn’t be here,” Seth admitted . “ I f he could find his way out, he ’d be gone . Cal is instrumental in the intellectual cultivation of the next generation , but a sexual predator? No. Not Cal. Not anyone.”
    Maia felt ashamed to suspect Cal because he was gay. Child predators we re a special strain of deviant. “I don’t believe this.” Maia paced the floor of her suite . “Don’t you care what happens to the children ? To your children? Your sons have all the characteristics of troubled psyches , and you choose not to notice.” She fell into a chair. “It’s as much my fault as yours . I’ve been a pawn in all this. Silas said go, I went. Silas said stay, I stayed. Silas said fuck, I fucked. My children have been raised by others when I should have raised them. But not here. Not in this place. I want both worlds and I can’t have either .”
    Seth knelt down before her. He gently brushed away a tear crawling down her cheek. “I’ll talk to Phillip. If something bad has happened, he’ll tell me. I’ll find out , Maia . Promise.”
    “I need to talk to the group, Seth.”
    “Not until you go through … counseling. Those are my instructions.”
    “You don’t mean counseling, you mean a dozen sessions of brainwashing. It won’t work. It didn’t work on Anat, and now it won’t work on me.”
    “Then you’ll never leave here. That’s the word from the counsel , w hich is okay with me. Nothing would make me happier.”
    Never leave? Even though she’d brought up the possibility herself, hearing the words from Seth turned her stomach into a tornado. Had she made another mistake ? Screwed up again ? Why didn’t she just keep her mouth shut and go along until they let her go? Then s he w ould have blown the whole thing wide open. Instead, she was ca ught in a web of her own doing.
    H er sons needed counseling, outside the compound. There was no time to lose. Anat’s plan, as difficult as it would be, was the only way.

Chapter Thirty- Eight
    T he Night of the Crescent Moon

    A fter the abruptly ended conversation with Dione Compton, Lucier finished up his work and headed