"What are you making?"
She fanned the stitches out along the needles to keep them from falling off and then held up what was obviously a sweater. "I started back in March." She came out of her chair, pressed it to his shoulders and nodded in satisfaction. "For you."
"For me?"
"She told me you would come and take over here."
"What do you mean, take over?"
"It's time for me to move on to another farm."
"Move on? I don't understand." His brain was like mud. "Were you-aware of my work?"
She shook her head. "She told me what I need to know. It has nothing to do with your previous work. That has come to an end; you must start over now. She told me you would help me complete my mission here. You and Emil."
Chester started to speak, then stopped.
"You feel very alone," said Bet. "I — yes, I do."
"The people who seem to want to listen, the people who care; me, Emil, the others — you think we're crazy."
"I don't know."
"Soon this will be over."
"How?"
"One way or another. You will join us and know you are whole, or you will be left alone to find the martyrdom you seek. The time of hesitation is nearly done."
"I don't seek martyrdom."
"No. You seek release."
Chester lowered his head into his hands, and wet his palms with tears.
Bet looked up, but her needles clacked on. "Emil is coming here tonight too. He needs to talk."
"I can leave."
"No. I want you to hear. But be out of sight." She nodded at the closet door. "Hurry."
He hesitated.
"Go." She waved the sweater at him. "Inside."
Amazed, Chester stumbled up and into Bet Wiley's closet. He closed the door to just a crack, and the closet light shut off automatically.
In the dark he wiped his teary cheek and leaned back against Bet's hanging clothes, and wondered how it had come to this. He might have been about to protest the indignity when there came the sound of Emil's voice.
"Sister Bet. I wonder if I might have a word with you."
"Sit down, Emil."
"I tried to find Brother Chester-"
"Better we talk alone," said Bet. "She would like us to further our
understanding together. Then we can approach the others."
"Yes, fine." Chester could hear Emil's sincere excitement. "But we should draw on our collective energy soon. The group here has the potential to function as a cell, a psychic battery."
"Yes." Bet's needles ticked away, and Chester imagined he could hear her
nodding.
"I imagine nothing less than that we would sequester together, barricade
ourselves against the staff, against the entire Carcopino reality, and together foment the end of the world!"
"Yes, that is very much like what She has in mind for us."
"Really? She has spoken of this?"
"She sent me here to make this happen. And it is close, it is much closer than you think."
"I am beside myself, Sister Bet."
"You are. And yet there is where your work lies. You must turn to yourself, be no longer beside. For that is where the world resides. The world that must end."
"I don't understand."
"How could you? You are beside yourself. We all are. I only know because She tells me."
"Tell me what She said about me." The certainty had gone out of Emil's voice now.
There followed a pause where even Bet's needles were silent. Chester wanted to widen the crack in the door and peek out, but he knew the closet light would flash on automatically, giving him away. Maybe if he loosened the bulb in its socket —
Bet Wiley began, bringing the words up like water from a deep, forgotten well. "The world you live in, the only world that exists for you, is the world of your reception in the souls of other people. You've lived there all your life.
"Now it has narrowed. A great forgiving, a great erasure has dwindled the world around you. Those who have taken Carcopino are deaf to your passion. In them, your world is dead. Your world is here, down to these last few who might still hear you."
"You mean the farm?" Sanger whispered.
"Join me in bringing these last sheep into the pasture, Emil. Then you'll have the end of your world. Then renewal can begin, God bless."
"My message," protested Sanger. "The All — "
"She says you lived and breathed your message into the fiber of the world. Now comes the forgiving, the forgetting. The treatment is making the world a clean slate, and the seeds you planted with your works will arise or they are not meant to. But first the job must be finished. Your world must end, just as you've always promised. You too must cross to the other side, where the C-K souls await you. There you will find your destiny. You must go to the life after your life, in the world after your world."
"Can it be?"
"You were sent to me to help me finish my work, Emil. She sent me back to gather the strays, and she sent you to help me. The others here need you."
"Incredible. And she says my works will flourish, in the future?"
"If the Carcopino world needs your message, it will find it. The same is true for Chester. The time for passionate embodiment of your works is over. Now you must move on to that bright new world yourself. But first help me bring this last tattered remnant of the old world home. You are not the only one who needs convincing, Emil. Use the power of your voice, your vision."
"But there are other farms. Other handfuls of refuseniks — "
"She has provided. Soon, you and Chester will lead this farm to the C-K
treatments, and take the treatments yourself. Then I will be moving on to
another facility, where my work may continue, Her will be done."
"You're like Moses," said Emil wonderingly. "You'll lead your people to the promised land, though you may not get there yourself."
"Don't worry about me. I've had the healing once."
"You're beautiful, Sister Bet. You have the radiance of the truth. May I — may I kiss your hand?"
"It is Her work that is beautiful. You might as well kiss the leaves in the greenhouse."
"Nonetheless — "
Chester heard him kneel and smack his lips.
"I'm going to find Chester," Emil announced, his brightness recovered. "He'll be my first convert. A hard nut to crack, but if it's Her will. "
"No," said Bet. "You mustn't speak to Chester as you have been. You must not harass him. He's not a stray for you to tend, like the others. The Virgin picked him out to do her work, sooner or later; he is another leader, like you, and he will join us in our work, or find his own way. But he is not to be bothered."
"What if he doesn't see?"
"If he refuses treatment, he and I will be transferred together. Leave him to Her gentle hand. Go to the others."
"Yes, sister."
And at that, Emil hurried away.
Chester emerged from the closet. Bet was knitting, and singing sound-lessly to herself. He stood before her.
Her eyes met his briefly, then fell. Clack, cIack.
He left without saying anything. 9.
He locked the door to his room, turned slowly to face the bookshelf. Plato stared back at him impassively. He realized he had been asking all the wrong questions. It was hopeless to try to resurrect the world before C-K. That world had ended; Bet was right. The only question Chester really needed to address was this: Did he want to go on in the new world? Otherwise he ought to bring himself to an end as well. He reread the inscription on its base. "No evil can happen to a good man, either in life or after death." He picked the bust up for the first time since his arrival; its weight tingled down his arm. With a strangled cry, he hurled the bronze at the wall. It rang hollowly and skittered across the floor. Gone, all gone: his precious plastique, his measure of ready death. The bust was as empty as his takeover plan. Like every other refusenik on the farm, Chester had been deluding himself.